9/11/2020. Updated: 12/21. Updated 12/24
My take on mentorship, discipleship, and putting someone in play -
Looking back at 17 year old me, I see a few happenings that were some of the bigger catalysts for my growth as a person. In each instance, I felt like I was put in play by someone, when no one should have rationally taken the chance on me. Not that I didn’t deserve it, or wasn’t the best candidate, etc. But there was considerable risk in their choosing me, and even in the best case scenarios, it was clearly a giving moment (net negative from a time or resources perspective, which obviously isn’t the only perspective here).
- Mum by setting up LXG and roping Brandon in.
- Peres Center by taking their youngest intern ever.
- Peter by having me lead a 5-min Bible study, letting me ride off the land.
- Cliff by letting me co-lead with him, even though I was younger than the people we were teaching.
- Stephan for giving us a huge project and letting us just go with it.
- And, of course, Alex for doing it all-in (twice).
Those are the experiences where others were the most helpful to me. And I am incredibly grateful to all those people (and the countless others I didn’t mention).
The point of mentorship is to move people along the journey from point A to point B. Like Newtonian physics, an object at rest will remain at rest. But once it’s moving, applying acceleration will allow it to reach the next point faster.
A mentee is either in phase 1 or 2.
Phase 1 is characterized by immaturity, which acts as a kind of friction. While there is friction, acceleration will never lead to exponential growth. Usually, movement in this phase will be quasi-linear until the friction is reduced. This typically looks like the mentee not knowing what they need to learn yet.
Phase 2 speeds up considerably, and entails a lot more self-direction from the mentee. Phase 2 is much more focused, and the mentee has started accelerated growth. Mentors are incredibly helpful in this phase because they can help focus the learning beam, letting mentees avoid mistakes and continually optimize their performance.
The three components of mentorship:
- Time/showing up. The church phrase for this is ‘doing life with someone.’ Consistent time helps, even if it’s not very frequent. Meeting someone quarterly, over several years, will yield a much deeper relationship that the equivalent number of hours spent consecutively, because the data points are richer.
- Good conversations: content can’t always be forced, but it does determine the type of relationship that develops. Like many other things, the more mature the people, the more compounding benefits come from deep conversation. But in the case of maturity imbalance, forced deep conversation is better than the purely superficial, because people remember things, even years later. Help formats include deep questions and debate, personal sharing and healing, and bouncing or collaborative thinking. Deep conversations make the relationship deeper, because it is concerned with deeper things. Second, they allow for the wisdom of the mentor to truly show and be passed on.
- Putting them in play: internal change is real, but slow, irregular, and inefficient. And, as in Newtonion physics, people often do not change in the absence of some stimulus. A mentor can provide this stimulus in one of two ways: raising expectations, often just by communicating to their mentee that they are capable of more than they know. Or, the mentor can throw the mentee into the circumstances that push them beyond their limits. In my opinion, this is the most helpful thing that a mentor can offer, minute by minute. This could be a professional setting (hiring someone for a few months, making crucial intros, etc.) or more social in mature (pushing someone to become a small group leader in some capacity). Either way, the key point is that it requires taking a chance on them, and giving them circumstances that they probably haven’t ‘earned’ yet.
Note, for someone to be ready to enter a high-growth season, they don’t need to be fully mature. They simply need to have a decent chance at surviving the act of being put in play. There inherently needs to be an element of risk. It is up to the mentor to judge the probability of success, then engineer the circumstances to test that judgement.
Mentees will forever be grateful for that chance to be put in play – to enter the arena, when by all outward appearances they were not ready. And mentors may regret moving too early – but even an early move can prove an incredible learning experience, though they should always try to increase the odds of success of their mentee.
It also means that, for a mentor to put someone in play, they need some sort of infrastructure to facilitate the process. For example, running a business lets you hire folks, being well-networked lets you spend social capital, being rich lets you invest in someone’s first failed venture.
A mentor who cannot put their mentee in play can still serve a helpful role, but will never reach the full potential of the mentor-mentee relationship.
Wondering if this applies to you?
Recent graduates to college students – share life through sustained snapshots (even one call every 4 months, over 3 years, builds quite the relationship). Make that one call a really long one (2 hours+) so you can cover a lot of ground. Put them in play by intro-ing them to co-workers, professional relationships, and recommending them for internships and possible short-term projects.
Working adult to high-school student (or middle school, if especially motivated) – share life by talking to them at group events, taking calls, or using any other casual interface (I don’t think this one can be structured really). At this point, the mentor is leading all conversations by asking good questions, and going on long rambles. Put them in play by giving them legitimate work experience, either doing small but interesting things for you, or by recommending them for internships and other experiences that are far out of their comfort zone, and further than the comfort barrier of their peers.