Explore practical strategies for building mentoring conversations that support trust, reflection and professional growth.

Duration: 12m18s

Hi everybody, I'm Kay Schlesinger from KG Educational Consulting and as part of AUSMAS's VET Resource Hub, this video looks at mentoring conversations and the kind of practices that create effective mentoring programs. Let's begin.
Together.

One of the 10 high impact teaching strategies known to improve learning and researched by Hattie and others is a learning intention. We are going to use this at the beginning and the end of our session today. So our learning intention:
we are learning strategies to improve mentoring conversations within the automotive and mining sectors.

Today we're going to investigate 3 areas, improved mentoring conversations, active listening and reflection questions.
So, let's head off into our first topic, which is improved mentoring conversations.
I love this quote by Peter Senge and I think it's at the base of all great communication in mentoring. ‘Collectively we can be more insightful, more intelligent than we can possibly be individually.’ And dialogue makes us all smarter. And I think that is really at the heart of improving our conversations in mentoring.

I recall being a new staff member in an organisation and I was due to meet the executive who was to be my mentor. And I thought to myself, this is positive. Wow, he's coming to meet me and he's going to mentor me in this new position.
However, the whole time he talked about himself, what he had done, where he had been. Eventually, I said, would you like to know something about me? And he looked at me in a whimsical way, as if I had just asked for his teeth. So this conversation made a really big impact on me and I had witnessed firsthand what to avoid in successful mentoring conversations.

I really like this quote too from Theodore Zeldin which shows the transformative aspect of conversations. ‘The kind of conversation I'm interested in’, says Zeldin, ‘is one in which you start to emerge a slightly different person’. So great mentoring conversations transform not only the mentee, but the mentor as well.

Improved conversations use a dialogue approach. I think Jim Knight expresses this really clearly when he says we talk with a person, we don't talk at a person.
So we express our ideas with confidence and in a succinct way. We don't just go on and on and on. So confident and to the point. 

We listen actively. Not hearing what we think they've said, but actually hearing what it is that they have said.

We avoid making assumptions when a mentee makes a point. So if they are saying something around managing behaviour in a diverse environment, we don't assume that they have no skills in this space. We ask questions to clarify. When something is unclear, we ask insightful questions to clarify what is the meaning. We have some documents as part of this resource hub that actually look at how you ask insightful questions. So be respectful always, there's no exception to that. And also as a mentor, reflect on the discussions that you've had and think about what you did well in the conversation and maybe one thing that you might like to improve the next time.

The second topic we're going to investigate today is active listening.
Intentional, thoughtful, effective conversations use active listening. It's really hard to listen actively because there's a lot happening in our heads. It simply goes beyond hearing the words that somebody speaks. It's about processing the message that you think they are intending to give you. It also means that you're fully present in the conversation: you're not looking away, you're not thinking of something else. It means that you are fully present and you are engaged because you have a better chance of actually understanding the message if that's the way that you're operating.

We're going to investigate today 7 active listening techniques that you can use with your mentors, with your mentees, and in fact in your organisation and in your life.
It's easy to get sidetracked in a mentoring conversation, but you need to be fully present in the conversation, not thinking about your date or your dinner, not looking at your phone, not glancing at your computer, and not having an internal dialogue inside your head around other things that aren't related to the mentoring meeting. So to be fully present is a skill. It is a technique that we all need to learn if we're going to be successful mentors.

We need to watch for non-verbal cues because those cues tell a real story. In fact, we're told 65% of the mentors' communication with mentees is unspoken. That's a lot of unspoken messages coming from our facial expressions and our body language. So, use open, non-threatening body language, smile while you're speaking, if that's possible, lean in rather than stretch back, nod as somebody's speaking, try not to fold your arms, because that has sometimes an aggressive
connotation and be aware of your facial expressions, trying to be positive rather than frowning as you're speaking to your mentee.

So, use eye contact, but avoid that really weird stare. We want enough eye contact that we make a connection with the mentee, but we don't want so much that it feels like our eyes are boring into the person in an uncomfortable way. So you're sort of looking at50% to 70% of looking at your mentee as you are speaking.

The 4th one is around asking some interesting open-ended questions. So if your mentee brings an idea up and you're not clear about it, you could ask some questions to expand that idea, so you both share an understanding. And of course, avoid those yes, no, closed questions, because they don't promote effective conversations at all. So a couple of examples there might be: what prompted your action or what sort of thinking was behind that when you did such and such? Or what do you think is the best path forward in the future?

Also reflect back what you are hearing. This is a good strategy to ensure you've both heard exactly the same things. So, what you're saying is, or what I'm hearing you say is this and this. And that gives the mentee a chance to say, yes, that's right, or well, it was actually more about such and such. So that's a really good strategy to use as well.

I think this is really important to be patient and avoid the toe tapping. Your mentor might take some time or your mentee might take some time to express the real message. So sometimes we've just got to be patient and listen to the conversation to get to the heart of it. Avoid filling in those periods of silence where people are thinking, with your stories or thoughts. Silence is okay for people to think, consider, consolidate. And don't get a reply ready in your head as the other person is speaking, because that means you're not fully listening and engaged with them as the speaker. And also, don't change the topic so abruptly that it feels out of place. If you want to segue into a new topic. Ensure that you've finished the first one.

Take  off the judge's wig. So you're going to try and remain unjudgmental. Even if you don't agree with your mentee, even if you find what they're saying is a little troubling, you're going to try and put yourselves in their shoes. You're going to recognise times when you might actually be popping your judge's hat on and you're going to try and get rid of it and not judge your mentee.

And that brings us to the third topic today, which is reflection questions.
So our first question, how can dialogue improve mentoring conversations? 
What positive skills have you observed in colleagues who employ active listening?
What were two active listening strategies that you could focus on with your mentee?
What was the key learning for you today?

We review our session together. Today we have looked at improved mentoring conversations, active listening and reflection questions.

And the bookcase end of our session today, the learning intention. We have been learning strategies to improve mentoring conversations within the automotive and mining industries.

And that brings us to the end of this video. If you would like to keep building your understanding of mentoring, you can watch the other videos in the series and explore more resources available in the AUSMASA Vet Resource Hub. 
Thanks for joining today..

END.