Thursday, January 22, 2015

If It Were Easy by Aaron "Rel" Metzger

Mentoring is hard.
Combining the roles of teacher, friend, guardian and guide is no easy task. Throwing a wrench into any of these roles can derail the entire mentoring process, making for a frustrating experience for both mentor and mentee. Mentoring never becomes easier and often just gets more difficult the longer it continues. So you can imagine my surprise when I was not only complimented on my mentoring ability (I'm the leader of Rua Thar Cinn), but also asked to write an article about mentoring from a distance (since I currently live in Pittsburgh). Having run Rua Thar Cinn for almost six years (with almost four years in Pittsburgh), I think I have picked up a trick or two which can help any mentor, but should prove especially useful to mentors who are in the same boat as me (far away/not active). Before looking at solutions, however, let's first identify some problems.

Why is Mentoring Hard?
So why is mentoring hard? Like any other multifaceted role, a hundred different small problems can occur, stack-up and become a problem larger than the sum of its parts. For mentoring, these problems seem to ultimately revolve around communication, closeness and continuity. So let's take a moment to look at each of these:


Communication
I could write this word a hundred times, make each one ten feet tall, with red blinking lights and I still do not think it would come close to conveying how important I think communication is. Communication serves as the foundation for all relationships (such as mentor/mentee), allowing interactions to be built on top. Good communication leads to a rock solid foundation, upon which any sort of interaction can be built and expected to last. Poor communication, on the other hand, makes it harder to build meaningful interactions, and those which are built will rarely last any significant amount of time. There is no special consideration a mentor needs to make for communication, but it's importance to the process cannot be stated enough.

Closeness
When talking about closeness, I do not mean physical proximity (although it can be helpful in mentoring), but rather how aware and involved a mentor is socially with their mentee. Being close in some capacity can help by providing context for a mentee's thoughts/actions, as well as strengthening the bond with the mentor. Problems exist, however, for mentors who take this to one extreme or the other. Being involved too much can lead to smothering/stifling, possibly causing the mentee to act as "expected", rather than as they would. Not being involved enough means the mentor may not have the context required to appropriately help their mentee, as well as giving more opportunities for the mentee to feel disconnected from the whole process. It's important for any mentorship to find a balance in closeness, although this can vary wildly depending on the mentor and mentee.

Continuity
In the Realms, we often talk about how continuity between events and plots can create a richer, more fulfilling experience. With each point added and line drawn, the Realms becomes less a simple game and more a living, breathing world. While mentorships are not likely to take on a life of their own, they can still greatly benefit from the structure and energy continuity can bring. By defining and connecting moments (be it lessons, quests, conversations or just a simple hello), a mentor can reinforce what’s happened in the past and create excitement for what might be coming in the future.  Without this continuity, moments can become disjointed and lack their intended impact.  In addition, dead space between moments can destroy any sort of momentum already created, making it hard for a mentorship to move forward at a reasonable pace.  This does not mean every moment has to be linked to another, or that these connections need to be made immediately, but continuity really has the power to change something ordinary into something extraordinary.


How Can We Make Mentoring Easier?
So far I have identified some big problems which can come up when mentoring...now what?  While I do not have all the answers, I do know what’s worked for me to avoid/mitigate these problems.  These ideas were designed to accommodate my long distance status, but they should work for anyone (likely with minimal, if any, alterations).

Setup a Chatroom
Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, the Realms now has more ways to stay connected than ever before.  A favorite of mine is Google Hangouts, specifically their Group Chat feature.  It is trivially easy to create a common space for people to talk in real time, or even post messages to be read later on.  The other great feature is the running history kept in the chatroom.  This makes it easy to remember what was being talked about, or catch up after being gone for a week.  These are great features, even for one-on-one communication. Hangouts is a great tool which addresses all the aforementioned problems in one fell swoop.  And for those who may not want to use Google, Skype also has all of these features.

Schedule Regular Meetings
This may seem like a no-brainer, but this is surprisingly difficult to do if it is not expressly thought of.  How “regular” is defined should be up to the individual mentorship (I would suggest at least once a month), but what is important is the meeting happens.  The meeting does not have to be long or even have a specific goal attached to it, but it should always happen.  Ideally this would be a time to discuss the mentorship (current goals and future plans), but if there is nothing new to discuss, then talk about anything (the last event, current projects, classes at school, etc).  These meetings provide obvious opportunities to improve communication, closeness and, of course, continuity.  If you are like me and cannot meet physically, then use one of the many video chat tools available online.  My favorites are Hangouts and Skype, but many options exist.

Plan Non-Mentoring Activities
While the primary focus of a mentorship should be the mentoring, it should not be the only focus.  Planning non-mentoring activities is a great chance to improve closeness, but it can also just be fun.  I’m a gamer at heart, so I regularly schedule game nights online (easy to organize from a distance), but this can be any activity (catching a movie, getting dinner, making weapons, etc).  It’s just a chance to unwind and relax, without having to worry about anything else.  As it’s said, “All work and no play makes for a dull life,” but it can also create a dull, lifeless mentorship.  Even if it is not regular, try to fit in whatever activities you can when time allows.  It will make any mentorship go much further, as well as providing an emotional de-stressor for both the mentor and mentee.

I think this wraps up my main thoughts.  There are, of course, other problems we could address and other solutions we could dive in to, but I think this serves as a great start to anyone looking to mentor or to anyone mentoring right now.  If nothing else, the most important takeaway I can give you is this:
No matter what happens, no matter where you are, no matter how active you are, you can still mentor as long as you try.  It’s hard and sometimes seemingly impossible, but it’s always worth it in the end.


Good luck!