#SmartStart #MentorshipSeries (2): Robust Mentoring: Rules of Engagement

No football talk today Oh. Man United lost shamefully, Welbeck scored for big mouthed Arsenal, Liverpool reviled & rejoiced as they got a defeated mate in Man United while Lampard turned so Frank with his former side (Chelsea). So, no football talk today, until maybe when Man United wins again *smiles*. I came across a very interesting tweet on Twitter weeks ago and I thought I should share this with you especially for this week where there is the World’s biggest ever Climate march in New York… “Everyone talks about leaving a better planet for our kids, can we also put the same effort in leaving better kids for our planet”

Good day, my name is Haastrup Steven Adeshope.

No story today because Man United didn’t win (joking though), so straight to the issue “How do I make Mentorship work for me?” the answer lies simply is in the response “How do I engage my Mentor?” Engagement means RELATING and it takes two to relate successfully. A mentor to protégé relationship isn’t a friend or peer kind of relationship, so it takes wisdom and patience to relate with a mentor. Today, I would be sharing 7 rules for engagement with your mentor or future mentor.

1. Put their interest ahead of yours: It sounds stupid you may say but that’s how it works here, no mentor wants a parasite who always want his/her interest dominating their relationship. The truth is when you put their interest first, they respond with all support when yours pop up for help.

2. Be a Person of Integrity: Your mentor would directly or indirectly or should I say consciously or unconsciously through a test for your integrity, if you can be trusted and the result of this would determine the quality of the relationship. So don’t compromise at all.

3. Be sincere and ready to learn at whatever speed: Be sincere about what you know and what you don’t know, your mentor can’t teach you everything you might need to know so learn the skills essential to the need of your mentor so as to keep interest alive and growing

4. Become a Person of Value: This for me is becoming indispensable. When you become a person of value, your mentor would find it so hard to think through a day without thinking about you and how much you can contribute to his success and remember that when you become a person of value, they respond with all support when yours pop up for help.

5. Don’t ask for Money: I never asked for money until a very broke day that I genuinely asked because I was stuck and he gave me 10 times of what I would need and that was the only time I ever did. It made our relationship robust and made myself sincere about real mentorship.

6. Always seek advice whenever you stuck: Even though their interest is put ahead of yours but no good mentor wants a slave so they want you to be informed about your pursuit and they want to be involved in advising and networking for you whenever you get stuck so learn to genuinely ask for advice. I have won so many mentors over because of the honesty they saw in my person to learn and always ask.

7. Ask about their welfare: Your mentors would love to be cared about especially from someone they consider a protégé. It would be nice to ask for their welfare once in a while from them, ask about their family and kids when the opportunity arises and all these make for a robust engagement with your mentor.

The 7 tips that I mentioned to you today are practical for me and without a reference to any book, but note that the personality differences of our diverse mentors should make us wise in how we apply them.

The Holy Bible says in a verse and I quote… “The silence was deafening – they had been arguing with one another over who among them was GREATEST. He sat down and summoned the Twelve. “SO YOU WANT FIRST PLACE? THEN TAKE THE LAST PLACE. Be the servant of all.” (MSG Mark 9:34-35)

So it’s simple, pay the price of greatness today. Someone else will someday pay their price for greatness through you. Knowledge wouldn’t teach you in three years what the right mentorship can teach you one year.

I am your StartUp Management Consultant – Haastrup Steven Adeshope.

Got questions or comments? You can send me a mail via haastrupsteven@gmail.com

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If you missed the last series on Mentorship: The Guardian of Pursuit, search it out on this platform and read it. It is an awesome building block to getting the best off this Mentorship Series. Next week, I would be talking about “Mentorship Index: Assessing your Quality during Mentorship”. Don’t miss this for anything. Make it a date next Monday here exclusively on Omojuwa.com.

Tell your friends and partners, share it among your followers and mutual friends, it might be all they need to get up and stand tall.

Have a great week ahead.