How I became a mentor
Product Designer Mark Winter talks about his journey to becoming a mentor and what he’s learned along the way.
I’m Mark, I’ve been a Product Designer at BT for two years working in the Existing Customer Upgrade Broadband space.
One of my favourite things to bring into the job is up-skilling others who have a passion for learning.
It’s a genuine pleasure to spend my time with people with such positive energy; wanting to find new skills to better serve the user.
For a while now, I’ve wanted to get into mentorship.
The only thing stopping me has been the usual worries of ‘not being good enough’ etc. All those thousands of ‘imposter syndrome’ articles you’ve read/heard of rolled into the pit of my stomach.
So, this is the story of how I met my mentee.
The backstory
A few months back, I ran an ideation workshop. A tried and tested structure for when I run these.
- Agenda
- Participant introductions
- Context of workshop
- Competitor research
- Sketching: Warm up game
- Sketching: Crazy 8s
- Share/present
- Feedback
On this particular workshop was Anthony Ogbanufe, a colleague from a different squad that I’d spoken with previously, but had never previously worked with.
I thought nothing of it at the time, but would later find out the way I ran this workshop was really useful for him.
Lesson 1: Never discount the value of your skills; benefits can be found in unexpected places.
Anthony caught up with me about a month ago asking to go through a workshop he wanted to run.
We spoke through his desired outcomes and ways in which he was hoping I could help.
Together, we structured the workshop with rough timings and filled in the blanks to map to the formula I was more familiar with that I felt would help.
By now, we’d found ourselves talking through new processes and tools that Anthony wasn’t familiar with. He picked these concepts up and ran with them; really keen to put into practice. Our time came to an end and we agreed to have a debrief after his workshop.
Stop. Who is Anthony Ogbanufe?
Anthony has all the hallmarks of someone that embodies user centricity. He talks about being a junior with his aspirations for achieving the next level — a mid-weight role.
He’s working through BT’s apprenticeship scheme and is a human sponge of knowledge. Every conversation we have he frames in the form of ‘a desire to learn’ or a reflection of actions for a ‘growth mindset’. He is a joy to speak with.
Post-workshop chat
As agreed, we had our debrief.
The session went well for him and he’d even added his own creative twist on introducing the warm up game.
He’d added in a mix of different songs, hidden behind numbered cards for the group to choose from to be their backing music as they drew.
This guy had knocked it out of the park and I’m mega happy for him achieving this.
Here comes the (really) good part
I loved working with Anthony. I said he could call on my anytime he needed and where possible, I’d make the time. A few weeks past and he checked in asking if we could make these chats a regular thing in the form of mentorship.
Lesson 2: Sometimes the things you want to be doing… you’re already doing.
Anthony is a great person to be working with and he’s re-ignited something I’ve put off longer than I care to mention.
We now meet once a fortnight for an informal talk. He’s told me his strengths, his areas he wants to develop and how he’s hoping I can benefit him.
On the 22nd November, I officially became a mentor.
I don’t feel any more or less scared than I previously did. But I’m ready to jump into the unknown and pass on any information I can.
Big thanks, Anthony.
Since starting our mentoring programme, we’ve found it enhances communications across different skillsets, fine-tunes individual career paths and helps build rapport between colleagues.
Anthony says
“Mark’s willingness to help is unmatched. He is a real advocate for personal growth and development.” — @at_nonso
Some of the steps to build mentoring in BT Design:
Mentoring board — people in Design can engage with others looking to mentor or be a mentee by matching with each other.
Mentoring hub — an online space about all the ways people can get involved with mentoring and being a mentee across the business
Knowledge calls — calls to show people the many opportunities that are available for mentorship across the business.
