Forem: Irene Mateo Herrero

Mentor tools VII - Set up goals

Irene Mateo Herrero — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 13:43:29 +0000

Is it time to help your mentee set up their goals for the year and you don't quite know how to do it?

Or maybe you need a guide to set up your own goals?

Setting goals may seem like a simple task, but how many times have you failed to achieve your goals? How many times has a mentee set a goal at the beginning of the year and by the end of the year it was half done or not even started?

To increase the chances of achieving your goals, it is essential to choose them and formulate them well. I usually hold a specific meeting (or even two) with my mentees for this purpose. I listen carefully to their ideas but, above all, I ask a lot of questions to help them clarify and make their own decisions.

Do you want to know how I approach the meeting in which my mentees set their goals? Read on!

Step 1: Ask, ask, ask

Choosing goals is a very personal decision. Maybe it has happened to you that someone has said "Hey, why don't you do this?" and you, even knowing that it was in some sense positive for you, have not found the motivation to do it or have not given it enough priority.

The reason this happens is that we each have our own abilities, limitations, motivations, priorities... so it is very difficult for someone else to propose something to you that connects and fits with all of this. But there is someone who can hit the nail on the head: YOU.

However, we sometimes do not have very clear ideas because we have not stopped enough to know ourselves and discover what moves us, what we like, what our priorities are... this can happen to our mentees and this is where our work as mentors comes in.

To help your mentee to define their goals, the best thing you can do is to ask questions.

These questions will make them reflect and, with the conclusions obtained, they will be able to choose and formulate goals for which it will be easier to find motivation.

This doesn't mean that you can't give your opinion or suggestions at some point in the conversation, specially if it is your mentee who asks you about them. But, in my experience, your questions and your active listening will be more valuable, at least in this initial phase of goal setting.

Furthermore, think about the goals that your previous mentees have accomplished and which ones have not. Have they been the ones they proposed themselves? Or the ones you proposed to them? Perhaps the ones with a mixture of their ideas and your contributions? I invite you to this reflection.

In any case, if you have always been more about proposing ideas than asking and listening, I challenge you to change the dynamic. Ask and listen more than you talk. At first it will be strange, you will feel that you are too quiet or that you contribute too little. But give yourself time, observe the results, and draw your own conclusions.

At this point you may be thinking, but what exactly do I ask my mentee?

Well, in this section I am going to give you a list of questions you can ask. But first, I will give you some advice.

The first one is that you don't have to ask all the questions and not in a specific order. You will be the one who, as the conversation flows, will select them with your magical intuition as a mentor and the practice you acquire.

The second is that before the meeting with your mentee, you practice reading the questions and answering them yourself to refine any of your goals. You will then be able to adapt the questions to the way you speak so that you feel more comfortable. Or you may want to change the order, add or delete some questions... I encourage you to make this questionnaire your own.

That said, let's get to the questions list:

Initial questions: Are you clear about what goals you want to set?
- Yes: listen to their ideas and go directly to Block 1. Go through all the following blocks of questions for each one. The idea is to refine them one by one.
- No: ask some of the following brainstorming questions before moving on to the next block:
  - How do you see yourself professionally in (1/2/5) years?
  - What will you have learned that you don't know now?
  - What hard/soft skills will you have that you don't have now?
  - What challenges will you have faced?
  - What responsibilities will you have?
  - What do you need to do to get there?
  - Where would you like to start?
  From these questions will come ideas for possible goals. Go now to Block 1 and talk about each goal independently to get them refined.
Block 1: Alignment with their motivations:
- What do you want to achieve this goal for?
- What will be the reward for you?
Block 2: alignment with the needs of the company:
- Will you be able to bring value to the company by doing this objective?
  - Yes: Great!
  - No:
    - Is there any way to reformulate it so that it brings (more) value?
    - Do you want to keep this goal even though it does not seem to bring (enough) value to the company?
  In case your mentee wants to keep a goal even though it does not bring (enough) value to the company (maybe it does bring value to themself and that is enough for them), I recommend you to warn them that, the more aligned their goals are with the company's needs, the more likely they will be compensated. You can read more about promotable goals here.
  
  In case they don’t want to keep that goal you will discard it and take another idea from their list of possible goals. Ideally, start the questions again from the beginning of Block 1 to refine the new goal. This can happen throughout the entire questionnaire and, in fact, it is not a bad thing to discard goals, as it will mean that you are refining them well.
Block 3: define SMART objective. A SMART goal has the following characteristics: it is SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, AMBITIOUS*, REALISTIC and TIME-BOUND.

Thanks to these characteristics the goal has more chances to be fulfilled. Therefore, we are going to ask some questions to "transform" it because, surely, the goal as you have set it up to now does not have these characteristics.
- Specific:
  - What exactly do you want to achieve (e.g. if your proposal is "improve my soft skills", it is about you reflecting on what exactly you want to improve until the objective is specific enough, e.g. "Learn to set boundaries and manage customer expectations assertively").
  - What is it for you to... (e.g. if they tell you they want to "write better code" you can ask "What is it for you to write better code?" so that they become more aware of what they want to work on specifically).
- Measurable:
  - How will you know that you are making progress on your goal?
  - How will you know that you have achieved it?
- Ambitious*:
  - Is it a challenge for you?
  - (If not) How could it become a challenge?
- Realistic:
  - To what extent is it up to you?
  - What options for success do you see from 0 to 10?
  - If the chances of success you see are low:
    - How could you redefine it to increase the chances of success?
    - Do you want to keep refining this goal despite the low chances of success?
  - What resources do you need to achieve it (e.g. time, help from others, training, budget...)?
  - How can you get the resources you lack?
  - What could prevent you from achieving it?
- Time-bound:
  - When do you want to start working on it?
  - When do you want to have it completed?
  - What intermediate stages might there be?
Block 4: check commitment
- What level of commitment do you have to this goal from 0 to 10?
- If your answer is less than 9:
  - Is there any way to adapt the goal so that your commitment reaches 9?
  - Do you want to choose this goal in spite of it?

And that’s all from the questioning phase.

At this point your mentee will have a good idea about the goals they want to choose. You will also have tested and refined them with questions to increase the chances of success.

You already have 90% of the work done! You can move on to the next step.

Step 2: Write down the goals

Now all that's left to do is to write down these goals. It is likely in your company you have a tool or space where these goals can be collected.

I recommend that you encourage your mentee to access this space and write them down themself. This way you will foster their autonomy and, besides, who better than them to explain what they want to do and how they are going to do it?

To ensure that the objectives are well written, I suggest you fill in this template for each of them:

Title of the objective

I want to... (general objective)
That will have an impact on... (describe personal & company impact)
For that I am going to... (milestones)
I am going to need...
I want to finish it by (deadline)

And that’s it!

I hope you find these tips useful and see you in the next article.

Note: In some sources, the A from SMART goals can also mean “attainable” or “achievable”.

Mentor tools VI: First 1:1

Irene Mateo Herrero — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 18:10:52 +0000

Is this your first time mentoring and you have your first one on one coming up?

Or maybe you've been a mentor before but are just starting to mentor a new partner?

In any of these cases, you may feel a bit of concern or uncertainty. This is normal, because the first contact with a new mentee is an important moment in the mentoring process:

We begin to build the relationship of trust and the safe space.
We start to know their motivations and expectations regarding their professional growth.
We begin to define what they will need from us and/or the company to achieve their goals.
We establish the basis of the mentoring relationship (responsibilities, frequency and duration of the sessions...).

Therefore, I want to give you some tips to face this first 1:1.

Before the 1:1

I recommend that before the first 1:1 you gather information from your new mentee:

their role and seniority
professional background (in your company but also previous)
outstanding skills and achievements
areas for improvement
relationship with colleagues and clients
project/area in which they work

All this you can extract from several sources, for example:

their manager, a co-worker, their previous mentor.
documentation about their performance (their latest Performance Review, Peer Feedback, Manager Assessment or any other document with updated information).

This information will be useful for you to gain context about your mentee. However, along with the objective data you get, such as their role or seniority, you will probably receive more subjective information, such as evaluations about their way of being or their relationships with other colleagues.

I advise you to be cautious with this information, especially if it is not positive information. It is important to keep in mind that each of us brings our own subjectivity to our view of others and, therefore, you may receive data affected by the biases of the people who gave it to you. So, I recommend that you gather information, but keep an open mind.

During the 1:1

The day of your first 1:1 has finally arrived!

I recommend that you mute all notifications and prepare yourself to give your full attention to what your new mentee is going to tell you.

Here are some tips on how to approach this first meeting:

Welcome them to this space.
Explain the objectives of the meeting.
- Get to know each other
- Establish the basis of the mentoring relationship
Introduce yourself. You will probably tell them about your professional background, but I also recommend that you share some personal and/or less formal information. This will help to generate a safe space or climate of trust in which your mentee will gradually feel more open to share.
Ask for them. Although it is important to make yourself known, the protagonist of the mentoring sessions is your mentee. Therefore, asking and listening is fundamental from day 1. Some professional questions especially relevant to our work as a mentor will be:
- What motivates you most about the work you do?
- What are the skills you would highlight about yourself?
- What are your areas of improvement?
- What are your expectations for your professional growth?
- Where would you like to move forward?
Establish the basis of the mentoring relationship. Now that you know each other a little better, it's time to talk about the mentoring sessions. At this point, I advise you to ask them if they have any mentoring experience, either being a mentor or being mentored and how it went. You can then explain how you understand the mentoring process and how you usually approach it. I usually explain the following:
- Role of mentoring: to accompany the mentee to grow professionally.
- Structure of the sessions: I normally cover two main topics:
  - Follow up of daily work (project, client, company...).
  - Follow up of goals
- Frequency and duration: in my case, I establish 1 session per month as a minimum in order to be able to follow up on a regular basis. However, I always leave the option to my mentee to choose if they want to have 1:1s more frequently (one session every two weeks, every three weeks...).
  
  Regarding the duration, you can also agree with your mentee. I usually reserve between 30 and 45 minutes depending on the frequency. Less frequent 1:1s tend to be longer.
- Other matters: I always remind my mentee to:
  - Feel free to ask or express whatever you want, this is a safe space.
  - Ping me if you need to talk before the next 1:1.
  - You can give me feedback on the sessions at any time. The purpose is that these sessions are useful to you and help you in your growth.
Finally, after explaining all this information to my mentee, I ask them:
- Do you find what I propose useful?
- Do you think you might need something I haven't told you?

Listen carefully to their views, discuss it if needed and you will have completed your first 1:1!

You can close the meeting by setting the date of your next meeting and thanking them for their time.

You can also advance the topic of the next session if it will be, for example, the meeting to define their goals. This way, they can ask you now if they have any questions.

That’s all, see you in the next one!

Mentor tools V: Performance Review

Irene Mateo Herrero — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 16:27:09 +0000

Are you in charge of a colleague's Performance Review? Is it your first time doing it?

If so, I can give you a hand with that. From my experience, I know that sometimes the Performance Review process is not easy, especially the first times you do it. You may feel lost, you may not know where to start, or you may even feel a little nervous about the process. Since I've been through that, I want to give you some tips that have helped me.

But first it would be good to understand what the purpose of the Performance Review process is, right? Let's get to it!

1. What is the Performance Review process?

The Performance Review process is nothing more than the evaluation of a person's performance at work.

If you are reading this now, you are probably in the final phase of this process, that is, preparing the document and the final meeting in which you are going to communicate to your mentee your evaluation of the whole year.

But really the Performance Review is an ongoing, year-long process with some milestones that are probably familiar to you:

Goal Setting meeting
Goals follow-up meetings
Gap analysis meeting

As you will see, you probably have actually been doing performance review throughout the year if you have been working with your mentee for some time and you’ve had several one on ones where you’ve been:

Giving continuous feedback to your mentee on their progress.
Managing their expectations
Periodically aligning their progress with the company's objectives.

If so, this last part of the process (i.e. filling out the annual Performance Review document and the communication meeting), will be a mere formality. So don't panic, you're doing fine!

If you haven't done all this exactly, I encourage you to reflect on your areas of improvement as a mentor in this process - we all have something to improve!

2. My Tips

Here you’ve got some tips to face this last part of the Performance Review process.

I’ll divide the tips in two steps:

Filling-in the Performance Review document
Communication of the Performance Review

Step 1: Fill in the Performance Review document

To fill out the Performance Review document I recommend that you follow these steps:

Collect information & documentation:
- Get feedback from all the people who can provide feedback on your mentee (peer feedback, client feedback, self assessment, etc.).
- Take the documents describing the skills you have to assess for my mentee according to their role and seniority (called Skills dictionaries at our company).
- Review their Performance Review document from last year.
- Take a look at the Job description, i.e. the document where it is specified which skills are attributed to their role and seniority.
- If you still don't have a 360º view of their performance, you can set up a meeting with whomever you need to get a better perspective of their performance, for more objectivity.
Fill-in the Performance Review document, keeping in mind that the idea is to:
- highlight achievements
- point out areas for improvement, justifying them with evidence and focusing on proposing solutions.

Throughout this process, try to be as objective as possible.

And if you need help with anything, don't hesitate to ping to a fellow mentor with more experience, who will surely give you a hand.

Step 2: Communication of the Performance Review

This is a particularly important moment.

Yes, it may only be a formality if there has been continuous feedback throughout the year, but it reminds me a bit of getting my end-of-year grades in high school. So, in some ways, it can be a difficult conversation to deal with.

However, I prefer to see it as a conversation where you can:

Strengthen the trusting relationship you already have with your mentee.
Celebrate achievements and identify what has made your mentee achieve those achievements in order to repeat it.
Detect areas of improvement and decide what can be done about it.
Continue to know better what are the expectations, motivations... of our mentee.
Align the mentee's ambitions with the company's objectives.

Having said that, the difference I see with my teacher giving grades at school is that this is a two-way conversation. The mentor provides an input, which is the Performance Review document and its evaluations, and from there, a dialogue is created with the mentee in which they can also contribute their point of view.

The value of the Performance Review lies not so much in the mentor's notes and comments, but above all in the dialogue that is generated from them.

To make this meeting as fruitful as possible, here are some tips:

Write to your mentee to arrange a date and time that suits you both and you have enough time to talk. This communication only happens once a year, so make it a priority!
Consider sending the Performance Review document in advance to your mentee so that they can look at it calmly and come to the meeting with questions, doubts...
Along with the Performance Review document, this year I have sent a message like this to convey my mindset regarding this meeting, and thus also generate safe space, as I think that sometimes this moment can be a bit imposing and I want my mentee to feel comfortable to give their point of view:

Hello [mentee’s name] ! Here is your PR. I hope, above all, that it will be useful to you. Read it calmly and if you have doubts, at the meeting ask me anything you need, feel free.

I have tried to write a feedback with what I have seen from you this year and with all the information I have received from colleagues, clients and your own self assessment. If you see something that doesn't fit you, feel free to discuss it. For me, the enriching part of the Performance Review meeting is not that I give you the numbers and comments and you read them, but that a fruitful conversation about your professional progress arises from what I have written with more or less success.

Take from the feedback what you can use to improve. In the end, feedback is opinions and there can always be a margin of subjectivity. See you at the meeting!

Block notifications during meeting time. This is the time to activate your active listening at 1000% (and yes, that extra zero is not a typo).
When the meeting starts, remind them that this is a safe space for them to discuss what they need to.
If you have sent them the Performance Review document in advance, ask them what they thought, if they have questions or if they have seen something they want to comment on or disagree with. That's where the discussion can begin. Then, you can ask them if they want to read the document with you again or if it is not necessary.
If you haven't sent the Performance Review before the meeting, ask if they prefer to read it aloud or quietly, or if they prefer you to read it. Also make sure that, if you read it, they feel comfortable interrupting you by saying explicitly, "Feel free to stop me if you want to comment something”.
THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT TIP: During the meeting, talk to your mentee as if they were someone you love and want to help, for example, your best friend or a younger sibling. Someone you want to care and also help make progress. This will prevent you from falling into criticism and settling into caring, which is crucial when giving feedback to avoid the other person becoming defensive (which is, after all, a normal human reaction to feedback). And when installed in this mood:
- Celebrate their accomplishments: "I'm very proud of your progress in..."
- Point out their areas of improvement with firmness and empathy: "I think you could improve in this area by…, as I have seen that… what do you think?". Remember to argue with evidence and put the focus on possible solutions.
Apply this caring mindset to everything you communicate. It will help you connect with them and strengthen your mentorship relationship.
Encourage them to express their point of view frequently by asking “what do you think about…?” or “How do you see it?”. This will fuel the discussion and, again, make the meeting a safe space from which great insights can emerge.
If there is a point on which your mentee disagrees, discuss it without fear. Keep an open mind, there may be something you have missed in their performance.
If at some point in the discussion the conversation gets complicated, in one of my next articles I will give you tips on how to manage difficult conversations. This is unlikely to happen if you have been giving regular feedback, but it is always a possibility.
Close the conversation by thanking your mentee for their work during the year and their openness in contributing ideas to this meeting.
You can also take the opportunity to ask for feedback on the meeting or even on the whole Performance Review process.
Finally, you can also let them know the next steps in the Performance Review process of your company.

And that's all the advice I can give you! I hope these personal tips will help you face these last steps in the Performance Review process. Good luck and see you in the next one!

Mentee tools: Make the Most of Being Mentored!

Irene Mateo Herrero — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 08:51:02 +0000

In this series of articles about mentorship, we’ve been talking a lot about mentor tips to bring their 1 on 1 to the next level.

But, what about you, mentee? Are you working side by side with a mentor and want to make the most of this mentorship? If so, this article is for you!

If you are a mentee, there is a lot you can do to speed up your growth during this shared journey with your mentor.

Mentorship is like two friends rowing in a boat: if both of you row coordinated in the same direction, you’ll get further and faster!

So, I’ll give you 6 tips to make the most of your trip. Let's start!

1. Know yourself

Take the time to think about:

what you like (or don’t like)
what motivates you the most (and what doesn’t)
what you are good at (and also not that good at).

With that information, you’ll be able to discuss with your mentor the growth opportunities that better match your interests and abilities within your company. And you’ll probably make more progress, as you’ll be putting your efforts into something that you like or shine at.

E.g., If you know that you are interested in mobile programming, you can set a year goal to join a React Native internal project or take a course on this technology. If you don’t take your time to think about your interests, maybe you’ll end up learning about AWS, which is a great topic and your mentor's favorite one, but you won’t do what you really want to or are more skilled for.

Getting to know oneself is a lifelong journey, and maybe your motivations and interests can change as time goes by. But here are some things you can do to start working on it:

Make a list of what you enjoy working on/what you are good at before setting goals and making decisions.
Ask some teammates about what they think are your strong/weak points at work. Don’t treat this information as definitive, though. The most important thing is that you do what you feel. But having an external point of view can give you some valuable information.
Recall past experiences in your professional career to find out what motivated you the most.
Face new experiences. You can join a new team, change projects (if possible), or start a course on something new. Try new things to find out what you like/are good at.

2. Ask for help

During your career progression, you’ll find out that sometimes you need help.

Maybe you need some help to solve a bug or some support to handle your stress when public speaking. I know it is sometimes difficult to ask for help, it can make us feel vulnerable or too exposed. Or maybe we are afraid of not meeting our mentor’s expectations. But if you want your mentor to help you on the way, you should openly ask for help. So, I encourage you to do it when you need it!

One way to do this is to express how you feel before asking for help. Here is an example:

“I’m worried about not meeting your expectations, but I need your help with…”

Asking for help this way will help you build a stronger relationship with your mentor and foster open communication from now on. Give it a try!

3. Ask questions

This is very straightforward. If you’ve got any questions, just ask. Try not to remain with the uncertainty of an unanswered question.

“How do you think I’m doing with my goals?”

“Do you think I can get a promotion this year with the progress I’m making?”

Having these questions or others in your head will only distract you from your real purpose. Although I know it is sometimes hard, try to overcome the fear of asking. You probably won’t be judged or misunderstood. But if you are, you’ll have made all that it is in your hand not to keep blocked by any uncertainty.

If you are frightened of asking something, you can reuse the tip I gave you in the previous advice: you can express how you are feeling before asking. This way, probably your mentor will be extra comprehensive with your concerns. Here is an example:

“I’m concerned about being too direct with this question, but this is really worrying me.”

Hope this tip works for you as it works for me!

4. Be proactive

As a mentee, you’ll get help and guidance from your mentor, but it should be you who takes the lead in your career progression. It should be you the one to choose your goals, work on them, take a break when you need it during the journey and look for help if you need it. No one but you can do that, so start leading your way!

Here are a couple of practical ideas to be proactive in your mentorship:

Prepare your 1 on 1 with your mentor beforehand. Reflect on what you want to achieve during this meeting and what help or answers you need. This way you’ll make the most of this valuable session.
Offer to bring value without being asked. Maybe you are a leadership expert because of your background and feel like sharing your knowledge with others. You can offer to do a workshop on that. Don’t wait until your mentor or someone else makes you a proposal. Maybe they even don’t know you’ve got that value to bring!

5. Say no

We normally don’t hesitate to tell other people “yes” when they make a proposal or ask us to do something. In principle, there is no risk of disappointing someone else by doing that. But it is not the same when it comes to saying “no”. “What if I don’t meet my mentor’s expectations?” you could think. I understand your fear (and I still feel it sometimes) but saying “no” when you need it is veeeery important.

Maybe your mentor has thought about you leading a team and you still don’t feel prepared enough to assume this responsibility. In this case, it is really important to set boundaries and to be clear about what we can’t or don’t want to do. Setting boundaries carries a lot of advantages such as:

Protecting your mental and emotional health
Fostering healthy relationships by promoting mutual respect, trust, and understanding.
Avoiding burnout and overwhelm

I know this is also hard to do. But next time you don’t feel like doing what someone is asking for, try to set boundaries with respect and assertiveness. As much as you do it you’ll start feeling more comfortable with it.

Here you’ve got some sentences you can use to set boundaries in an assertive but firm way:

I value your proposal but I’m not comfortable doing that.

I’m grateful for getting this offer, but to be honest I’m not ready to take it.

I understand you need help, but I have other priorities at the moment.

I appreciate your offer but I’m having a really busy time.

As you see, it is useful to first express that you value or thank the proposal. Or to say you understand the other person’s needs. This way your “no” will be assertive but also empathic and warmer. It will be easier for you to set boundaries this way and also easier for the other person to hear your decline.

Also, maybe you are still not sure if you should accept or decline a proposal. In this case, you don’t have to make a decision right away. You can just say something like: “Thanks for your offer. I need to think about it. I’ll give you an answer as soon as possible”

6. Give feedback

I’m sure you’ll have your own opinions about a lot of things in your company. Some of them will be positive and some others not that much. In both cases, I hardly recommend being transparent and sharing them with your mentor if needed. It is the only way to go if you want your voice to be heard and things to be changed or maintained as they are.

I know from my experience as a mentee that this is sometimes not that easy. Maybe you don’t want to disappoint your mentor, or you are afraid to be judged or misunderstood about your feedback.

In that sense, it is also important what your mentor does in terms of creating a safe space for you to share. And probably feeling comfortable enough will take some time. In the end, your mentor is someone who has something to say about you in the company. But if you both have a trusting relationship, don’t hesitate to share thoughts and feelings with them.

Some examples of things you can give feedback about are:

what you think about the project you are working on, your client, your team, your manager or even any aspect of the company. If there is anything bothering you, probably your mentor can give a hand to solve it or at least give you support or advice.
the 1 on 1 or your mentor itself: e.g., you would like your one on ones to be less frequent. Or you feel your mentor is somehow pushing you to choose a goal you don’t want to work on. Although easier said than done, I really encourage you to be open and express your thoughts and feelings with empathy but also with all possible transparency. You can use the same sentences exposed in the previous tip to do it.

Finally, if you need some further ideas on how to give feedback, I’ll write about this topic in a future article, so keep tuned to this series!

And that’s all I can suggest getting the most out of your mentorship!

Just as a final thought, the success of your mentorship is not only in your hands. It will be really important how skilled your mentor is to lead it. It will also be their responsibility to create a safe space, actively listen, give and receive feedback… But hopefully, you have a great mentor at your side with whom to row towards your professional goals!

See you in the next one!

Mentor tools IV: Goals follow-up

Irene Mateo Herrero — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 09:02:04 +0000

Probably one of your purposes as a mentor is to make a follow-up of your mentees’ goals. Following-up goals is important because it allows your mentees to:

reflect on their success
learn from their failures
consider any problems they meet along the way

But not only that. It will also enable you to:

help them if they have any blockers or need any support
keep track of their progress

So, the final aim of these follow-ups is to speed up your mentees’ professional development.

In this article I’ll give you some tips to lead your follow-ups and make the most of them. Keep reading!

First of all, I recommend agreeing on the periodicity of these sessions with your mentee. I normally do goal follow-ups once a month, but sometimes your mentees may need more or less frequency (although I would recommend having at least a monthly follow-up). Just ask them to find out their needs!

You can bring this topic in your first meeting to set a default periodicity and keep on asking at the end of every session to check if the needs have changed. And I always tell my mentees they can ping me if they need me before the next agreed date. I want to make sure they always can count on my support!

Once in your follow-up meeting, I firstly suggest checking if it is the right time to talk about goals progress. In my opinion, it is not always a good moment to talk about this topic.

Imagine that your mentee starts your conversation by telling you that they are facing a personal problem or a peak workload that is preventing them from working on their goals. At that point, my conversation will be firstly focused on helping my mentee to overcome this blocker or giving any kind of support if needed.

I will probably postpone our goal conversation to another moment. Or, if I’m not sure if my mentee wants to talk about it, I will ask: “Do you feel like talking about goals or do you prefer bringing up this topic in another meeting?”

So, in case it is the right time to bring up this topic, I normally follow these steps:

Ask my mentee to open the tool where we track goals. If you don’t have one, you can open a shared doc with your mentee and collect in it all the information about goals. This will be your reference document from now on.
Talk about each of the goals.
The idea is to get an insight on:
- How they feel about the progress on each of the goals
- Detect blockers
- Help to find possible solutions to blockers
- Check if motivation and commitment are still there (even having blockers)
- Decide if to continue working on each of the goals or to change any of them.
To get all this information you can ask some of these questions:
- Have you made progress on this goal?
- How do you feel about your progress?
  - OK/proud:
    - Great, congrats!
    - What has helped you get this result?
  - Not OK/Not proud:
    - Why do you feel like that?
    - What has prevented you from making (more) progress? [The answer to this question is the blocker]
    - How can you…
      - … overcome [the blocker]?
      - … make progress despite [the blocker]?
    - Have you thought about…? (If you want to give an idea)
    - Do you need some help from me to unblock?
    - Are you still motivated and committed to this goal (although you have that blocker)?
    - Do you want to keep it or change it?
Change any goal if necessary. Sometimes there are blockers that can’t be overcome, so the sooner the blocked goal is changed, the earlier our mentee can start working on something else. E.g. Your mentee’s goal was to take part in an internal project, but it is permanently blocked now. It seems necessary to move on to another goal. At this point, you can check some tips on how to set promotable goals in my previous article.
Encourage your mentee to write down the conclusions of the conversations about the goals in your shared doc or in your company application. The idea is to write down if there was any progress on each of the goals, what was that progress, if there was any blocker and what solution was found or is still to be found. Maybe you think you could do that for your mentee but allowing them to do it will help them think calmly while writing, get their own conclusions and become more autonomous in their goal handling. I think this is a great opportunity to allow your mentees to develop their proactiveness and self-leadership!
Set partial goals until the next meeting. This can be done by asking these questions:
- What can you make progress on until our next meeting?
- What could prevent you from making progress on that?
- If you can’t make progress on that, what else can you work on?
- Will you need any help from my side?
After getting some action points, you can also encourage your mentee to write them down. It could be the starting point of the next follow-up session.
Remember together the deadline for goal achievement. That will help them handle expectations about their own progress. For this purpose, you can ask: “How do you feel about the deadline of your goals?”

So now you know some tips on how you can keep track of your mentees' goals and progress. As a disclaimer, I must say that putting into practice these tips does not guarantee the success of your mentees achieving their goals, as there are factors that you can't control (e.g., some of your mentees' blockers or a lack of motivation on their side). Anyway, just by doing your best you’ll make a great difference!

Finally, if you have any other ideas for your goals follow-ups, you can leave them in comments!

See you in the next one!

Mentor tools III: Promotable goals

Irene Mateo Herrero — Wed, 17 May 2023 15:47:34 +0000

As mentors, one of our purposes is to come along with our mentees in their career progression. For that, it is important that we help them set their goals, keep track of their progress and handle expectations.

How can we face these challenges? Let’s dive into some ideas that I’ve explored during my time being a mentor. In this article, I’ll cover some tips on setting goals. I’ll talk about keeping track of progress and handling expectations in the next one. So, keep tuned!

Setting goals

Goal setting looks like an easy task. Many of us have thought: “This year I want to improve my physical health. I’ll join a yoga group”. But how many times do we all fail in achieving a goal? Answer it yourself 🙂

Luckily, nowadays there are a lot of techniques to avoid failing in fulfilling goals. For example, there is the SMART goals process, which helps define goals in order to make them more achievable.

I won’t dive into this kind of technique in this article; I’ll consider that you already have a background on this. Instead, I’ll talk about another important concept that can speed up your mentee’s growth in your company: Promotable goals.

Promotable goals

Promotable goals are those that can foster promotion within a company. At first sight, it can be considered that all goals will contribute to getting compensation, e.g., a salary raise or a promotion, as its fulfilment involves making an effort. But this doesn't work exactly like that.

Think about this situation: you’ve carefully followed the SMART goals process and you’ve fulfilled all your goals. You think you deserve compensation but, after a performance review, you don’t get it, or you get a lower one than expected. What could be one of the causes for this unexpected result? Maybe you’ve been working on achieving non-promotable goals.

Therefore, knowing what promotable goals are is really important to helping your mentees achieve their professional objectives. So, according to my experience, these are the main attributes of promotable goals:

1. Valuable to the company

Imagine that, as a developer, you set taking a Chinese language course as a goal. You are really good at learning languages, and you also enjoy it. That is a great goal, fully aligned with your interests and abilities but… will it carry a compensation in your company? It depends. E.g. if your company has Chinese clients and your knowledge will improve communication with them, it probably will. But if your company has nothing to do with the Chinese market, probably not.

So, a promotable goal should take into account what is valued in your own company. If it doesn’t bring value to the company, you’ll be making efforts towards your own growth, or maybe your growth within another company or the market, but not towards your growth inside the company you are working in right now (and, consequently, not towards a compensation there).

At this point, you as a mentor will probably have more knowledge on what will bring value to your company, so you can give good guidance to your mentees at this point. And, if you are not sure about it, you’ll probably know who to ask to get this information. Don’t hesitate in asking the people who know. Maybe they can give some ideas on goals that can bring value to the company and match your mentee’s motivation!

2. Adjusted to role

Apart from setting a goal that is not related to your company's needs, another example of a non-promotable goal could be one that has little to do with your role or what is expected from your position. Moreover, if this can be done by many other people in the organization.

For example, think about tech interviews with junior candidates to join your company. If this task can be accomplished by experienced junior developers, this can probably be a promotable goal for them, as they will get experience in this kind of task. But if you are a high mid/senior developer and you set this as a goal, you could be spending your time and effort accomplishing a non-promotable goal, as this task can be done by someone less experienced and is probably not expected from your role.

As a mentor you’ll probably know what is expected from your mentee’s role. You are likely to be a more experienced colleague that has gone through your mentee’s path before, so you will be a capable person to give good advice on this. Anyway, if you are not sure about what is expected or not from your mentee’s role, you can go and ask the people in charge of handling career paths in your company.

3. Visible (out of sight, out of mind)

Another worthwhile attribute of a promotable goal is being visible.

Imagine that you have really good soft skills, and you know you contribute in some way to make people around you happier at work and, therefore, more productive and committed. You feel this contribution deserves some kind of compensation but maybe this is not perceived by people who don’t work around you. What can you do to make this visible to people in charge of taking decisions on compensation within your company? Well, maybe you can give a talk to share some tips. Or maybe you can write an article. This way, you will not only be sharing your valuable knowledge with others but also your skills and experience will become visible.

Another way to make your goal visible is to accomplish it within a team. Especially if your company collects peer feedback, taking part in different initiatives where you can work closely with other people can make your contributions to the company more visible. You can lead that initiative or join as a team member, that depends on your seniority and motivation. But don’t hesitate in joining any group in your company to achieve a goal if you feel like doing it. If you do a good job, it will definitely give you visibility.

Finally, you can propose a new initiative that you think could bring value to your company to make yourself visible. You can lead a conversation group on, for example, software architecture. Or you can even write a newsletter on a monthly basis about news in tech. Think about what is expected from your role and could bring value to your company and start working on that!

4. Measurable

Last but not least, promotable goals should be measurable.

Imagine this conversation between the person that has been doing a follow-up of your goals during the year and the one to take the decision for your compensation:

I think my mentee should be promoted/get a salary raise because she has been studying a lot and has improved her tech skills…

Now, imagine this other conversation:

I think my mentee should be promoted because she has obtained an AWS certification and written an article about…

How do you think it is easier for the person taking the decision of your compensation to understand the value of your work? Probably explaining measurable results.

So, to sum up, help your mentees to set promotable goals to make the most of their time and efforts in terms of compensation.

Obviously, don’t forget about helping align these goals with your mentee’s interests and skills. Without their motivation and skill alignment, goals are less likely to be achieved. And your mentees will probably get better results if they can bring out and develop their own natural skills. But my advice is to take into account these four attributes of promotable goals if the purpose of your mentee’s goals is getting compensation in the company you are working for.

Final thoughts

Now that you’ve got some theoretical knowledge on promotable goals, I’ll leave some questions you can ask your mentees before setting a goal to test if it is promotable:

What (direct/indirect) value will bring this goal to the company?
Is it expected from your role to have this goal?
Can someone with another role or less experience do it?
Will people deciding your compensation notice you are working on this?
(If not) What can you do to make it visible?
Will it be easily measured?
(If not) How can you make it measurable?

Once these questions have been answered, you’ll probably have helped your mentees choose great goals for their career growth, congrats!

Anyway, setting promotable goals doesn’t 100% assure compensation. There are some circumstances that can’t be controlled by mentors or mentees that can come along the way. But I’ll talk about this in my next article.

See you in the next one!

Mentor tools II: Active Listening

Irene Mateo Herrero — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 14:46:02 +0000

Have you ever talked to someone and felt that this person was not really listening?

Or maybe you’ve felt uncomfortable by this person interrupting you repeatedly?

At that point, you probably felt discouraged to keep sharing your thoughts or feelings.

Did you like this feeling?

Well, maybe you were having a conversation with a person with a lack of active listening skills.

As I already pointed out in my previous two articles about mentorship (Mentor First Aid Kit and Mentor tools I: Safe Space) I think the main purpose of a mentor is to support mentees to achieve their goals and help them grow. For that it is important, in the first place, to be aware of our mentee's needs, concerns and motivations. How would you do that without careful listening?

So, let’s dive into the active listening concept. Let’s start with a famous quote by Zeno, a Greek philosopher:

“We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”

In ancient Greece, philosophers would already notice the importance of listening. But what exactly is active listening? Well, it is the ability to:

help the other person express
focus on what the other person says and doesn’t say (tone, rhythm, volume, pauses, energy, emotions, gestures…).
understand the meaning of all this information in its context.

At this point, it is important to understand there is a difference between hear and listen.

When you hear, you do it by default, with no conscious effort. Listening implies something else: putting your attention and disposition to receive the information from the other person (input), process it in your brain and give back an answer (output). If everything went well, your answer will be based on the input received.

This seems similar to how computers handle information. Let’s see this in a graphical way:

This is an example of how computers handle information. First, you can type on a keyboard (so give the computer an input). This information will be processed by the computer processor. Finally, it will be shown on a screen as output.

Does this flow have something to do with how humans communicate?

So, it is clear that there are some similarities between a computer's information flow and human communication. With this in mind… what happens if you are not actively listening in your one-on-ones?

Voilà, you are not correctly receiving the input, so the output will not be as useful as it could be to your purpose: help your mentee. Imagine a computer not properly receiving information from its keyboard. How could it show the typed text on its screen?

So now that you know the crucial importance of active listening, let’s focus on how you can actively listen in your one-on-one. I will specifically focus on the tips I try to apply in mine. And at this point, I put the focus on the word try: I still have a lot to improve on active listening, but I’ve proved that only trying makes a difference.

Let’s go with those tips:

Ask your mentee what they need to talk about before starting with your agenda. You’ll make sure nothing important will be missing and your mentee will feel you listen and take their needs into account.
Keep your mind empty of your own thoughts. Focus on what your mentee is saying.
Keep all your senses open. You can get valuable information from all your senses. E.g. You see that your mentee is moving a lot. Is there something that makes them feel nervous?
Describe what you perceive if it attracts your attention. E.g. “I see you are moving a lot. Are you nervous?”
Show you are listening. Keep looking at your mentee while is talking, take notes, nod, say things like: “ok”, “I see” ...
Don’t think about an answer or advice before your mentee has finished speaking and you’ve got all the information needed to give proper advice.
Keep an open mind and don’t judge. Each of us has different feelings and thoughts depending on different factors (personality, life experience, etc.). Just listen to your mentee and try to understand their point of view.
Don’t interrupt. Sometimes you’ll feel pushed to share your experience or an anecdote of yourself, but don’t. Take a deep breath, keep listening to your mentee and wait for your turn while you listen.
Take notes if you need them. Instead of interrupting, take notes and bring your ideas when your mentee finishes speaking.
Listen to silence. Sometimes you’ll feel the hurry to speak when your mentee has paused speaking. Analyce that silence and try to understand what it means.
ASK. Asking is an art in itself. Here are some questions that can help you in your one-on-ones:
- Start a discussion:
  - What would you like to talk about?
- Deepen in a topic:
  - Do you want to tell me something else?
  - Anything else to add?
- Clarify:
  - Can you explain a bit more about that?
  - Can you give me an example?
- Offer help:
  - How can I help you?
  - What do you need from me?
  - Is there something I can do for you?
Reformulate, repeat or summarize. This helps to make sure you are correctly understanding your mentee’s message. Something like: “Ok, so If I’ve correctly understood…”
Validate feelings, needs and concerns. Validation is expressing acceptance of another person’s experience. Not sure what this means? Let’s go with an example!

Today you are feeling nervous. It is the first time you are going to [put here any task that puts you out of your comfort zone]. Then, you decide to share that worry with someone. And as a result, this person tells you: “Don’t feel nervous! It is not that difficult!”

Is that message helpful? Do you feel less nervous now? Or do you feel somehow bad or misunderstood, or even worthless?

Well, that’s normal. And probably next time you’ll think twice about sharing your concern with this colleague because your feelings haven’t been validated.

To avoid this, you can replace sentences like “Don’t feel…”, “You should take things easier.” or “Don’t give it that much importance” with "It is OK that you feel like that." or "That must be hard for you. Do you want to talk about it?". Give it a try!

And that's all!

But… maybe now you are thinking that there are too many things to learn or that it is too difficult for you to follow these tips.

If you think that, I can tell you active listening is a skill everyone can develop with will and practice, step by step.

Try one of the strategies and continue with another one.

Try and fail.

Try again.

It will need practice and patience from you… as learning coding does. But anytime is OK to start improving on it and, as you improve, you’ll notice that not only your one-on-ones improve, but so will your relationships inside and outside work.

So… what are you waiting for to start improving your active listening skills?

Mentor tools I: Safe Space

Irene Mateo Herrero — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 14:38:53 +0000

Have you ever talked to someone and felt it was not the right place to share your real thoughts or feelings?

What if this person thought you were not good enough?

Or that your ideas or feelings were wrong?

If you’ve ever felt like that at any time, continue reading.

In this kind of interaction, we feel that we could somehow be judged or misunderstood. And the consequence is that we could partially or totally hide what we want to express.

For you, as a mentor, this lack of information is a blocker to helping your mentees. In the worst case, if these feelings or ideas not communicated are shared by more people, getting to know them or not can mean the success or failure of any project or goal at company level.

From my experience as a mentor, my suggestion to avoid this situation is to foster the best environment for mentees to speak clearly. And that’s where the safe space concept arises.

A safe space is one where “people show up feeling welcome and encouraged to interact among the team, even if they are different (or have different opinions or ideas) from other members of the workforce.”

In my opinion, that is exactly the environment you need to create for your one-on-ones. As a result, you will:

Build trust: mentorship is like a couple: no trust, failure ensured. Your mentees won’t share with you their needs or concerns without trust, so you won’t be able to help them grow.
Promote engagement to the team/company: safe spaces promote a positive and inclusive work environment where employees can feel valued and respected. Wouldn’t you stay in a place like this?
Foster mental health: Because of everything pointed out before, safe spaces lead to better mental health. Did you know that people who work at high-trust companies experience 74% less stress?
Raise job satisfaction, boost productivity, and decrease turnover rates.

So, without being an expert but based on my current knowledge and experience, I will give you some tips that have worked for me to create a safe space in my one on ones.

1. Lead by example

My first tip is related to this feeling I have when I start mentoring someone. I then notice that my mentee is not fully transparent when talking to me. Have you had this intuition too in any one-on-one? Probably, yes.

This is absolutely normal. I’ve also felt like that as a mentee. When I started talking to a new mentor I didn't really know if I would be understood.

So, to solve this blocker as soon as possible, I used to tell my mentees something like: “Feel free to tell me anything you think”. This seemed a good message to open the door to transparency.

But… Did it really work? Maybe sometimes it did but, to be honest… sometimes it didn’t.

What I learned from this experience is that it is more useful to lead by example.

If you want your mentee to tell you “I’m struggling with…”, talk about your struggles sometimes. Lead the way. Be a model of behavior.

I think that is the best way to go. Not 100% effective but really helpful.

Following this idea of leading by example, here are two things I do in my one on ones to create a safe space:

Share things that make you “human” and not a superhero(ine)

We are all imperfect humans. We don’t always do things well and we sometimes need help. How can you encourage your mentee to share their own struggles with you? Let’s see a couple of examples:

You perceive yourself as a good professional. You have knowledge and experience in your field. But you still struggle when giving feedback. What can you do about that? Apart from working on it, if you are a mentor, you can share your blocker with your mentee.

“Well, don’t feel bad about… You need to improve on that, but I have some difficulties in… We all have our strong and weak points”.

This behavior will teach your mentee that sharing your weaknesses or blockers is OK.

Yesterday you got stuck with a pipeline. What a nightmare. You finally asked a teammate for help. What can this simple anecdote be useful for in a one-on-one with your mentee? Let’s see:

“Bufffff, I was stuck with… and I’ve asked (sb.) for help. Thank God we’ve got to solve it together!”

Yes, you can share these kinds of episodes with your mentee. This behavior will teach that no one knows everything and will promote the idea that asking for help is OK.

These are only two examples. You can apply the same principle of “Lead by example” if you want your mentee to give you feedback (about yourself, the project, the company…) or openly ask questions. Start by doing so!

Share your ideas and feelings

I think that not everything can be shared and also you may not want to share personal information, which is absolutely reasonable. But I’ve proved that by sharing things about yourself it is more likely that your mentee also shares. Here is one example:

Today you are feeling sad and tired. You haven’t slept well, and you’ve got a personal concern. You have your one-on-one session, and you know you won’t give your 100%. Then you can start by saying:

“Sorry, I’m not feeling well today. I’m feeling a bit tired and sad (optional: because…). I’ll do my best anyway”.

Those simple sentences will open the door for your mentee to share next time. And you won’t get (as much as you would) the feeling that “something is happening to my mentee, but I don’t know what”. You are teaching that sharing your feelings is OK.

This is one example of how sharing feelings can open the door to more transparent communication. Anyway, you can apply this tip also to personal opinions or ideas: share your point of view first. Probably your mentee will feel more open to giving an opinion after that!

2. Active listening

Apart from the “Lead by example” tip, “Active listening” is another important concept to point out when talking about creating safe spaces. This skill helps build trust and understand other people's thoughts and feelings. I’ll cover this topic in the next article, so keep tuned!

3. Don’t judge

This is another important tip. If your mentee shares any ideas or feelings with you and then feels judged, all your previous efforts will have little or no result. More on this also in my next article. But, for now, keep your mind open in your one-on-ones.

At this point, I must say that not everything is in your hands when talking about creating a safe environment. It is also important that the culture of the company you are working in also fosters a healthy environment where people feel safe enough to express themselves. So, although this is not within the scope of this article, I’ll summarize some measures a company can also put into practice to foster this healthy environment:

Establish clear policies and procedures against discrimination and harassment.
Foster diversity and inclusion in the company culture
Encourage open communication
Address incidents promptly

Finally, you’ll need your mentee to be open to sharing. That’s also something that is not in your hand, but if you’ve put into practice these tips and the ones on my previous article “Mentor First Aid Kit”, you’ll have done a great job. Feel proud!

And that's all! I hope these tips help you get your mentorships to the next level. See you in the next one!

Mentor First Aid Kit

Irene Mateo Herrero — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 14:35:02 +0000

Last year I became a mentor. My manager suggested assuming this responsibility and I said a great YES. I have always felt a motivation to encourage and support others in their growth. So that was my opportunity to do it!

But now what?

In a few days I had my first one-on-one. What a responsibility! It had been a long time since I had my last meeting with a student (before being a developer I was a language teacher). That was the most comparable situation to a one-on-one I had faced, and I thought this would be similar. Maybe you also have some personal or professional background that gives you tools to face your first one-on-ones. Think about it.

After this consideration, I started thinking how I could help and guide my mentees to become the professionals they wanted to be. And here was my first thought about this:

“To achieve my purpose, I firstly need these one-on-ones to be a place where my mentees can openly share their motivations, needs and concerns.”

Following this premise, I wanted them to come and say: “Irene, I have no idea what goal I can choose” or “Irene, I’m finding some struggle with ….” I even wanted to keep track of how they felt not only about their goals or tasks but also about their client, project, team or even the company. I’m convinced that all these factors have an impact on someone's performance. So, I wanted them to feel confident to say “Irene, I have a lot of workload, I’m exhausted” or “I’m bored with my project, I need a change”. That was the only way to know what help I could bring.

First step, to get all this information I needed, I decided to write a script . This way I could make sure I would not forget about any of the important topics I wanted to keep track of. So, this was what I came with (and what I still use in my one-on-ones):

Personal questions:

How are you?
What about (something personal your mentee told you during your last meeting, e.g. holidays, parenting…)?

Follow up questions:

What about (any topic pointed out in the last meeting that is worth a follow up)?

Project questions:

How are you feeling about your project?
What about the workload?
What about the team? Do you feel ok with your mates?
What about the client?
Are you motivated? What are you lacking or needing to feel more motivated?

Company:

How do you feel within the company?

Goals:

How are you doing with your goals?
Do you have any blockers? Do you need any help?
Do you think your goals are still meaningful?

Reminders:

I am always available, ping me if you need me before our next meeting.
I will do (whatever is agreed) and I will come back to you as soon as possible.

Next meeting agreements:

When will the next meeting be? Agree date and time.
Did you find this meeting useful? Any feedback?

You may think: “What a big number of questions!” Obviously, as the conversation goes by during your one-on-ones, there is no need to explicitly ask each of these questions. Many of them are answered along the way.

Anyhow, having a script was only a tool to help. From the beginning I had this premise in my mind:

“I’ll give importance to what is important for my mentee.”

This means that, if my mentee has any important concern about anything, that is the main and first topic for discussion. After that, we continue with our chat, but first comes first. Only very urgent communications from my side would break this rule. So that is why at some point during the beginning of the meeting I ask: “Is there something that you want to talk about before anything else?”

Another thing I thought about before starting my one-on-ones was that it was useless to have a script and the motivation to help if my mentees did not feel comfortable and safe enough to talk about their deepest needs or concerns.

Have you faced this situation when you have a concern, but you feel ashamed or fearful to communicate it because of the consequences or the other person's reaction? That is what I always want to avoid because it would block any opportunity to help. Because of this, I try to avoid those feelings in my mentees as much as I can.

So, while looking for some information about how to prevent these feelings from rising, I found the “safe space” and “active listening” concepts. There’s too much to say about them, so I encourage you to google them if you are interested. Or you can wait for my next posts where I will cover both topics 😀!

Finally, I decided that after each meeting I would write down the important points covered in the meeting. My memory is not the best, so I need these notes to keep track of the topics discussed from one meeting to another. Before each one-on-one I read them and raise any topic again if I need to make a follow up.

But not only do I want to write down some notes to remember things from meeting to meeting, I also want to have those notes available even months later. For example, during the Performance Review process. Can you imagine recalling those first meetings one year ago? Not an option.

Lastly, it is important to do what you commit to during your meetings as soon as possible. For instance, if your mentee asks a question that you cannot answer and you commit to ask someone else and come back with an answer, do not forget about it. If you do, the trust that your mentee has in you (and that was hard to build) can easily vanish.

And that is all! I hope my experience on one-on-ones can give you some ideas to face yours.

See you in the next one!