How to Be a Better Mentor

With members in 154 cities in 34 countries, Fast Company's readers' network is a natural place to turn to for support and advice from like-minded people. For the past few years, members of the Company of Friends (CoF) in cities like San Diego, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC have been organizing peer-to-peer mentoring circles in which members help each other build skills, make decisions, and solve problems.

Fast Company recently gathered several coordinators heading those efforts to examine mentoring within the CoF and to ask what works -- and what doesn't -- in mentoring relationships. The group tackled the following questions:

• What is the relationship between mentors?
• How are people paired?
• How does each CoF group -- aka cell -- support mentoring activity?
• Does cell-level mentoring have attributes that could be rolled out across the entire Company of Friends?

The conversation was fun and productive. I couldn't help but feel we started building something that could have a powerful impact on members and cells around the world.

The Participants

• Larry Brown: Washington, DC
• Jody Lentz: Nashville, Tennessee
• Dan Limbach: Chicago
• Eloy Maes: San Diego
• Valeria Maltoni: Philadelphia
• Heath Row: Boston (Fast Company Headquarters)
• Serge le Scouarnec: Montclair, New Jersey
• Craig Wiggins: Philadelphia

Note: CoF profiles are accessible to CoF members only.

Mentoring Models

The group discussed the various formats they've tried and the advantages and hazards of each.

Traditional mentoring: In this model, people seeking mentoring assistance are paired with people who agree to mentor them. Jody Lentz asked his cell members two straightforward questions: Who wants to be a mentor? Who needs a mentor? The DC cell reports that it now has more than 70 people involved in its traditional mentoring project. Chicago cell coordinator Dan Limbach, however, worries that it may become difficult to find enough mentors to meet demand; he suggests examining other models.

Reciprocal mentoring: In this Pay It Forward model, people seeking mentors agree to mentor other participants. This isn't the same as direct peer-to-peer mentoring because participants have two simultaneous mentoring relationships at any given time: their mentor and the person they're mentoring. This model furthers the concepts of six degrees of separation and overlapping networks.

Peer-to-peer mentoring: San Diego, the first cell to launch a mentoring project, follows this model. People are paired with mentors, but the relationship works both ways. This model is similar in some ways to cocounseling. Eloy Maes says that this process works best when both people have something to offer each other -- sometimes something as simple as friendship. Beginning in May, the San Diego cell will recast this project as "Friend to Friend," pairing cell members in a less formal way.

Group mentoring: Dan Limbach is involved in a group outside of the CoF that focuses on "Power-of-Ten" circles in which 10 people gather regularly to discuss what they're working on and to help each other make connections in their professional and personal lives. (To learn more about the Power-of-Ten Breakfast Salons, visit NetWorlding.) The Philadelphia group recently helped a team member solve some problems inside and outside his company. Valeria Maltoni says that the group normally ends meetings with an open call for group support and mentoring opportunities. She hopes that the group will try the small-group roundtable idea for introductions and support in the future. That might be a good way to increase the potential benefits of mentoring -- 10 heads are better than 2 -- and it might be a productive way to foster subgroups and social capital within a cell.

What Does It Mean to Mentor?

The Company of Friends has spent quite a bit of time addressing what it takes to be a good mentor, what makes a solid mentoring relationship, and what value proposition mentors face. Here are some of the ideas that we discussed:

• We agree that a successful mentoring relationship needs to benefit both parties -- not just the person being mentored. Craig Wiggins says that he's learned a great deal from his mentors -- even in situations where he's been the "expert." And Valeria Maltoni says that she was able to connect her mentor, who is her former manager, with several organizations that have since become clients.
• The value proposition for potential mentors needs to be clear. Eloy Maes notes that several of San Diego's most qualified mentors bailed out of the project because of other time commitments. He also says that the best mentors are often coaches or teachers.
• Dan Limbach suggests that mentoring needs to move beyond simple conversation. "I can find people for ongoing discussions," he says. "What I would want is a mentor who could teach me specific things about running my business."