November 2023
You’re excited to attend the 1-hour “Orientation” event for a new role you volunteered to step into. It kicks off with an ice breaker: Introduce yourself and share your perfect weekend morning. Fast forward 30 minutes. About ten people, including you, have introduced themselves, and while hearing about eggs benedict the first time was okay, you find yourself tuning out. After another round of intros, the event wraps up. As people leave the meeting, you overhear someone mutter, “well there’s an hour of my life wasted.” Although you enjoyed getting to know your colleagues, you reluctantly nod in agreement. You feel completely unprepared for your next steps, and if this is a preview of how your time will be spent, you aren’t sure you want to stick with it.
Despite good intentions, the impact of unstructured interactions can be that participants conclude their time investment was not worthwhile. When trying to spark meaningful mentoring moments, try to avoid this common pitfall:
Programs lose steam from shallow interactions.
Research shows that, particularly when volunteering, folks use initial engagements as a basis for forecasting what's to come. And, since mentoring programs often leave on-the-ground interactions open-ended, participants may ask themselves: “Is this program worthwhile? Is it making the difference I hoped for?” Maybe you've been there, matched on a single dimension of your identity, only to find yourself facing an hour stuck with lukewarm coffee and awkward small talk. “Hey, so you're a woman too… Cool.”
Anchoring connections among mentors and mentees in ways that align with the program’s high-level goals can provide stability to the entire initiative. A semi-structured activity or conversation starter can tether interactions, helping to ignite deeper connections that result in participants walking away feeling their time is well-spent. Even for informal coffee, anchor activities can help, whether framed around feedback on a resume, improving public speaking, or strategies to explore a possible job change. Intentional “anchor” activities can facilitate meaningful mentoring connections.
When we developed our academic peer mentorship for college students learning computer science, advanced peers serving as mentors performed a code review of their mentee’s programming assignment. The code review served as an anchor for their 10-minute weekly meeting. This provided the opportunity to give specific guidance around the technical content (one of our program’s goals) and allowed the pair to get comfortable with each other as the weeks went on. After a month or so, we observed many pairs conversing about other topics related to starting a computer science journey, from how frustrating it can be to learn the technical content to sharing internship-finding tips and strategies.
This is not to say we should dim the light on socializing. Indeed, cognitive activities can open the door to social conversation. As program developers, we take lessons from the research on workplace meetings. For example, since participants experience a tension between the amount of time spent “socializing” vs. time spent on a “core activity,” we might build in buffer time for pre-session “small talk.” And while an agenda can clarify the micro-purpose of a gathering, people can find it frustrating when meetings don’t follow the agenda. Incorporating semi-structured anchor activities can prevent meetings from drifting completely off course or even getting swept away by a rogue “storm.”
Selected strategies: stay on course
💡 Strike a balance.
Leave room for connections to form by using anchor activities that encourage meaningful engagement. For example, a case study or puzzle can spark insights into how the other person thinks. Or build in some buffer time for informal conversation around structured activities. A shared experience can reduce the pressure to contrive small talk.
💡 Choose a relevant activity.
Icebreakers serve a very specific purpose to quickly open a space, while anchor activities provide weight to ground the interaction. Step back to consider your mentoring goals and use those high-level outcomes to identify a specific skill to practice. Maybe you want participants to expand their networks – then an anchor activity could involve drafting an invitation for coffee. If you hope mentees will improve their presentation skills, then anchor around a mock presentation with feedback.
Stuck for an activity? Take a look at our
conversation starter around feedback.
💡 Chart a path forward.
Many programs start off with strong momentum, but lose steam as time goes on and engagement wanes. Scaffold a higher-level trajectory with regular touchpoints that anchor the development of mentoring connections.
Structure
can be created through regular meetings that keep participants engaged, a map and timeline of their upcoming mentoring activities, or even a point person, who can energize participants as the program unfolds.
💡 Strike a balance.
Leave room for connections to form by using anchor activities that encourage meaningful engagement. For example, a case study or puzzle can spark insights into how the other person thinks. Or build in some buffer time for informal conversation around structured activities. A shared experience can reduce the pressure to contrive small talk.
💡 Choose a relevant activity.
Icebreakers serve a very specific purpose to quickly open a space, while anchor activities provide weight to ground the interaction. Step back to consider your mentoring goals and use those high-level outcomes to identify a specific skill to practice. Maybe you want participants to expand their networks – then an anchor activity could involve drafting an invitation for coffee. If you hope mentees will improve their presentation skills, then anchor around a mock presentation with feedback.
Stuck for an activity? Take a look at our
conversation starter around feedback.
💡 Chart a path forward.
Many programs start off with strong momentum, but lose steam as time goes on and engagement wanes. Scaffold a higher-level trajectory with regular touchpoints that anchor the development of mentoring connections. Structure can be created through regular meetings that keep participants engaged, a map and timeline of their upcoming mentoring activities, or even a point person, who can energize participants as the program unfolds.
About this mentor thread
This is the third blog post in our thread about intention vs. impact. The series will prompt you to pause and reflect on your mentoring program to help bring your mentoring impact in closer alignment with your intent. Maybe you’ve just started one, or you’re thinking of starting one, or maybe you’re part of one already. Whatever your situation, our guess is that you’ve faced at least one of the pitfalls that we’ll be unpacking. Each post highlights research upon which we have built our own mentoring programs and will leave you with selected strategies to optimize your program’s value.
Last time… Words matter: share stories that empower
Why “encouraging” words can unintentionally deflate.
Up next… Think through the box: design for impact
Use perspective-taking to build a program that aligns with your goals.
References
Neely, A. R., Lengnick-Hall, M.L. & Evans, M. D. (2022). A process model of volunteer motivation. Human Resource Management Review, 32(4), 100879. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2021.100879.
While individuals sign up for volunteering opportunities for prosocial reasons (e.g., wanting to help others), they often face multiple options through which they can fulfill that goal. They use initial interactions to forecast the future of their involvement. When folks do not feel the activity will meet their expectations, they are likely to seek other ways to spend their time.
Bergmann, R., Rintel, S., Baym, N., Sarkar, A., Borowiec, D., Wong, P., & Sellen, A. (2023). Meeting (the) pandemic: Videoconferencing fatigue and evolving tensions of sociality in enterprise video meetings during COVID-19. Computer Supported Cooperative Work: An International Journal, 32(2), 347–383. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-022-09451-6
Focuses on the tension of how workplace meetings serve both social connection and work-related task functions. In the context of videoconferencing, where fatigue is a particular challenge and folks have different coping approaches, proposes strategies for meeting the social goals some participants have, while recognizing that it can also be helpful to transition to a program-related task.
Allen, J. A., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., & Landowski, N. (2014). Linking pre-meeting communication to meeting effectiveness. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 29(8), 1064–1081. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-09-2012-0265
Highlights how flexibility within the structure of a meeting session can be beneficial. Specifically, this study focuses on time for “small talk” or “shop talk” before a meeting impacting extraverted participants. Given the variability in personalities and goals among meeting participants, it’s important to be intentional about balancing flexibility and structure in meetings.
Griffith, A. N., Melton, T. N., & Deutsch, N. L. (2021). How group experiences influence mentor–mentee relational development in a combined group and one-on-one mentoring program for early adolescent girls. Applied Developmental Science, 25(2), 150–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2018.1555042
Provides evidence that, when groups of mentoring dyads engage in activities together, structure can provide stability and contribute to a feeling of being part of a collective experience.