Phase 2: Establishing Agreements

This is one of the most overlooked phases of the mentoring cycle. Frequently, mentors and mentees are so eager and enthusiastic about jumping into mentoring that they don't take time at the beginning to establish agreements about how their relationship will proceed.

So let's focus now on the six areas you will need to address to engage in an effective mentoring relationship:

1. Well-defined goals
2. Criteria for success and how to measure it
3. Delineation of mutual responsibility
4. Ground rules
5. Mentoring agreement
6. Work plan

1. Well-defined Goals

In building a mentoring relationship, learning needs and "starter goals" often surface at the very beginning. Your work is to turn starter goals into well-defined, SMART goals. Smart goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely.

If goals aren't specific and tangible, it is difficult for you to know how to help your mentee and hard for both of you to see progress. Some questions to think about are:

• How do you know you are making progress?
• How will you measure success?

MicroMentor, an online platform designed to support entrepreneurs with mentoring, offers suggestions for how mentors and mentees can successfully set goals through the two articles below, one for mentors and one for mentees. Although these articles are directed towards adults, many of the concepts can be applied to a youth mentoring relationship as well. To learn more about MicroMentor, check out their website at https://www.micromentor.org/learn-more/about.

Achievable goals ensure that your mentee can, in fact, accomplish them given their skills, interest and time.

Goals that are well-defined need to be relevant to the work, direction and needs of the mentee.

• What can be accomplished during the timeframe of your relationship, especially considering the limited amount of time you will likely have to spend with him or her?
• Are there ways in which you time can maximize the time with your mentee through careful time management?

2. Managing Your Mentoring Time

Here are some tips to consider for managing your time with your mentee.

• Set an agenda for your meetings in advance. It will help you stay focused on productive conversation.
• Make time in your mentoring sessions for catching up with each other and building your relationship.
• Plan the specific topic you want to discuss or question to address.
• Encourage your mentee to reflect on the agenda topics beforehand; it will lead to richer and deeper conversation.
• Assign timelines to portions of your mentoring meetings, (e.g., assign 15 minutes to discuss a new idea or goal for your project). 
• Use a log, journal or diary to record ideas, issues and commitments. It will help with recall and review.
• Build in check-ins and feedback. It will ensure that problems get addressed as they arise.

3. Success Criteria and Measurement

Before jumping into the work of mentoring, make sure you and your mentee agree on the answers to the following questions: 

• What will success look like at the end for both of us?

• How will we know we are successful?

• What will tell us you are making progress?

4. Delineation of Mutual Accountability

Most mentoring partners wait too long to discuss accountability and address it only after an issue has surface.

Most children have not had a lot of experience with mentors and many mentors have not had this type of training.

Therefore, an early discussion about "who is going to do what" during the mentoring relationship will help you prevent problems and reduce false assumptions. 

Here are some questions you and your mentee could discuss during this phase:

• What commitments do we need to hold each other accountable for? (What can your mentor expect from you and what can you expect from your mentee?)

• In what ways will we hold each other accountable?

• How should we handle a problem if one of us fails to meet a commitment?

5. Ground Rules

Ground rules address the issue of mutual accountability, lay the foundation for a healthy mentoring relationship and provide benchmarks for keeping it on track. 

• Think about ground rules you set for students in the library or ask your mentee about the ground rules their teacher uses in the classroom. (Some of those may be appropriate for your mentoring relationship and some are not so decide which of them you would use to keep your mentoring relationship on track.) You may want to type one or two of them into the text box below.

At the start of your relationship, you might want to discuss the ground rules below with your mentee in order to make sure your time together is as effective and efficient as possible. These ground rules apply to both you and your mentee.

• Be on time. Promptness is so important when you have such limited time together.

• Come prepared. Your meetings may not be regular and may sometimes even be spontaneous but you want to use your time together effectively and efficiently. You may want to have some questions "in your back pocket" for these situations.

• Determine how often and how long you will meet each time. If you can schedule regular meetings with your mentee, that will provide some continuity to your time together. If there are times when you meet spontaneously, then it is good to let your mentee know at the beginning of the mentoring relationship, exactly how much time you have to meet.

• Stay on task; minimize distractions. Young innovators have lots of ideas so staying on task is different in this situation. Sometimes it is good for him or her to go off task in order to think out of the box or ask divergent questions. Don't confuse these with those things that inhibit creativity and innovative thinking that are truly distractions.

• Listen. It is as important for you to fully listen to your mentee during your time together as it is for him or her to listen to you. Perhaps find a quiet place to meet so that neither of you are distracted or interrupted.

• Show respect for others' views. Your mentee will have some great ideas and probably some that aren't so great but treat each idea with respect.

• Safeguard confidentiality. Your mentee may be creating something that is proprietary or patentable so the information revealed during a meeting must not be shared with anyone else.

• Agree to a Check-in Conversation. Mentors who schedule regular, brief times to check in with their mentee have more successful relationships, and face fewer issues that jeopardize success. Some "prime" times for check-ins might be before school, during study hall, or after school. 

Check-ins help to:

• Reduce surprises. For example, if you have set up a frequent and regular check-in time with your mentee; and

• Eliminate the likelihood that your relationship will "fizzle out," and provide opportunities to revitalize the relationship and to build or rebuild trust.

[NOTE: Check-ins don't always have to be in-person. You and your mentee could schedule regular check-ins via email, Skype, or other communications technology. This allows you to keep in touch even during non-school hours, when a lot of innovation activities occur.]

Hot Buttons and Boundaries

Everyone has hot buttons or things that irk or annoy them.

• What are your hot buttons?
• What are your mentee's hot buttons?
• How will you handle issues that arise?

It is important to articulate any limits to the relationship, boundaries that shouldn't be crossed.

• What are yours?
• What limits do you want to place on accessibility and availability?
• What can you do for your mentee and what is off limits?

6. The Mentoring Agreement

Have you ever used a learning contract with students to spell out the conditions for their learning? If so, you might choose to formalize your mentor-mentee relationship by preparing a written "mentoring agreement" jointly with your mentee. This mentoring agreement will clearly describe:

• Your meeting dates and times
• What confidentiality means in your relationship
• Role expectations and assumptions
• Your ground rules
• Strategies for how to manage time
• Project goals or topics
• How you will measure progress

7. Action Plan

Now that you have defined your mentoring goals and have thought through some of the other issues described, you are almost ready to begin mentoring. 

There is only one thing left to do: create your plan to go from where you are now to the finish line. It's something like designing a unit plan. Once you have defined your overall learning goals and assessments, you need to clearly describe what you will actually do to achieve them.

Transferring this to a mentoring experience, you will need to outline an action plan that identifies what you expect to accomplish in each of your sessions with your mentee. This will help you and your mentee prepare for each meeting.