So you want to be a mentor
Mentorship has become a big part of my growth and career as a designer. Though I have books on User Experience and Design, I’ve always found it hard to absorb any information I have from just plain reading. Majority of my learning was through conversations with friends and elders in the community.
Mentorships are an important part of career growth. While we’ve spoken before on how to get a mentor there’s also important things to remember when you want to mentor.
1. Have the time
Mentorship takes a lot of commitment. Young designers are counting on you for advice and help. This is something that isn’t as easy as getting a goldfish. Becoming a mentor is closer to adopting children almost as it becomes a full-time job in itself.
What I find useful is saving an hour or so every week for every mentee so we can take time to see their progress and discuss what they’re having trouble with. I’ve found that setting free consultation time as well useful, even if you’re not meeting face to face (Calend.ly can be very useful for this).
It’s not just about giving a set time however, it’s also about being available whenever your mentees need help and giving them time. Are you ok giving them some sort of contact detail? Is this something you’re actually willing to give time to? Again it’s a lot more like adopting children, except they’re probably a bit more like teenagers.
2. Know how to give feedback
Majority of your time as a mentor will be giving feedback and opinions on your mentee’s problems, tasks, and output. Feedback is a word we often hear in our world of UX. Everyone likes to talk about being open to feedback and asking for feedback, but it’s a topic I rarely hear people talk about.
Giving feedback, the way you give it, and making sure it’s constructive is just as important as the feedback itself. That means figuring out if your way of giving feedback works for your mentees.
I’ve made it an important part of onboarding my team, to introduce the “I like, I feel, I wish” format.
A. I like, I feel, I wish
“I like that we’re making sure people are notified about this, I feel though the notification format as we do it currently disturbs the flow and experience and I wish we could make it less annoying”
B. Just plain blurted out
“Do we really want to be reminding them every time they open the page?”
The second one makes people feel stupid and remember, you can’t evangelize when you antagonize.
3. Know what you can teach
It’s very important to understand where you are in your career and what you can offer before taking on a mentorship role. Young designers are relying on you to teach them something they feel you understand more than they do. While it’s true that most of us go by the mantra of fake it till you make-it, you can’t really fake something you’re about teach.
Make sure you’re confident about your knowledge in a particular area and that it’s something you can teach, regardless of what area that is. Being self-aware as well as the habits you do and you can teach will not only help your mentees but help you improve your craft yourself.
4. Humble yourself, learn from your mentees
Ego and hubris are two things that truly have no place in design, whether you’re fresh out of college or leading a design team. The one advice I give to everyone is to humble up.
You may be in the position to teach someone from seniority but this doesn’t mean you stop learning or that you can’t learn anything from the people you teach. Design and technology are ever changing fields and it’s always good to have an open mind and have your ideas be challenged even by the people that you’re supposed to be mentoring.
In summary
Mentorship is no easy task but making sure you’re ready for it even before you take up the task is very rewarding. Not only do you help create a new generation of designers but you also expand your own horizons and help build your career.
