“Refining Your Approach to Mentoring to Maximize Impact and Minimize Miscommunication” Rick McGee, PhD Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

A little bit about me…  Biochemist/neurobiologist/pharmacologist for first 20 years of career in medical school settings and NIH  Gradually more engaged with novel approaches to teaching and learning, and especially training of laboratory and clinical scientists – full time for last 20 years  Mentoring is the core element of all scientific training  Very different from systematic teaching or training in professions  When it works, it’s a thing of beauty – when it doesn’t, it can be disastrous especially for the trainee!  Became very interested in mentoring as a process and ways to help it work better for all involved, but…  Almost never taught as a skill to develop – mentoirng seen as informal process that somehow people figure out how to do

Getting Started  What are the elements of a good mentored student research project or project in general? When you sit down to define a project for a student, what are you thinking about?  Take 3-5 minutes to think about and jot down your answers to these questions.  In groups of 3 or 4, take 1-2 minutes to each first just read what you put down without discussing so you have a sense of the range of answers – THEN take 10 minutes to discuss especially your reasoning behind what you put down.  What did you discover? What were some of the key points you came away with?

Role Reversal  Now think of yourselves as students! From a student’s perspective, what constitutes a good mentored research project?  Take 3 minutes to think about and jot down your answers.  In groups of 3 or 4, take 1-2 minutes to read what you put down without discussing so you have a sense of the range of answers – THEN take 10 minutes to discuss especially the DIFFERENCES from when you did it from your perspective.  What are some of the biggest similarities and differences in looking at it through your eyes and theirs?  Was this hard or easy to do?  Have you ever thought before about these questions and how faculty and students might differ?

“Entering Mentoring”  MUCH written about mentoring – from opinions to philosophy to guide books  Most well known: “ADVISER, TEACHER, ROLE MODEL, FRIEND: ON BEING A MENTOR TO STUDENTS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING” by National Academy of Science  Most seem logical and laudable but seldom approach mentoring as sophisticated skill to teach and learn  In 2005, 4 U of Wisconsin faculty created “Entering Mentoring”, one of first and most enduring tools for teaching core skills needed for good mentoring  Focus on faculty/postdocs/grad students mentoring summer undergraduates – 8 X 1-hr workshops

Topics in “Entering Mentoring”  Getting Started  Learning to Communicate  Goals and Expectations  Identifying Challenges & Issues  Resolving Challenges & Issues  Evaluating Our Progress as Mentors  The Elements of Good Mentoring  Developing a Mentoring Philosophy What do you notice?

Second Generation “Entering Mentoring”  Maintaining Effective Communication  Aligning Expectations  Assessing Understanding  Addressing Diversity  Fostering Independence  Promoting Professional Development  Articulating Your Mentoring Philosophy and Plan Broad skills not narrow ones More focus on skills, less on tactics

Goals of Entering Mentoring  Entering Mentoring p. 9 – Goals  P – What to review with mentees – molecular biology lab  Take 5 minutes to jot notes on pp :  If you are in the sciences, how does this fit with what you might focus on for a new student?  If you are in another discipline, what might a similar list look like for you?  Take 10 minutes to compare notes with colleagues  What did you learn?  How would it feel to have such a list to go through with a potential mentee at the start?

Session 2 – Learning to Communicate  Go to p. 22 of Entering Mentoring and read the Case  Don’t worry about it being a laboratory case - you can substitute in any type of student project in your field  Break up into groups of 4 and discuss the case minutes  What are the key issues in the case?  Which of them are related to communication?  What might have been done differently at the start?  What would you do now?  What came out of your discussions of the case?  What kinds of communications challenges have you run into while mentoring? What strategies do you have to foster communication with mentees?  Look at p. 24 – establishing and sustaining mentoring relationships – something we usually leave to the unspoken

More on Communication  Take 3 minutes to jot down the most common or frustrating mis-communications you faces during mentoring  Break up into groups of 2-4 and discuss focusing on:  What are the key communication issues?  How well have you and the student established explicit, mutually agreed upon expectations?  What might you do differently in the future?  Read through p on the handout  Do any of you have anything like this for new students starting to work with you?  Do you think it could be valuable?

Session 3 – Goals and Expectations  Remember the first 3 sessions in the new “Entering Mentoring”  Maintaining Effective Communication  Aligning Expectations  Assessing Understanding  Most common problem is failing to have clear, explicit, aligned expectations  Requires genuine, active role of mentor to bring out in the open  give students permission to think about and tell their expectations  be flexible to adapt to students goals if possible or make clear if you can’t  Take a few minutes to jot down how you currently identify and establish expectations when you start a relationship with a new mentee

Critical Elements of Mentoring Relationships  Mutual understanding of goals and expectations  Trust  Responsibility - and ability to redefine responsibilities over time  Situation – You have a student who agreed to work on a project with you and initially seemed VERY excited and eager. You think it is a great project and one you find very interesting and important. As the semester has gone on, however, the student seems to have lost interest in the project and is not getting things done in the time you had agreed to. You have had pep talks with her and she seems to be re-energized afterwards but soon it dissipates.  Take minutes in groups of 4 to discuss:  What do you think is going on?  What should you do?  How do you motivate her to dedicate time to the project?

Going from implicit and oral to explicit and written…  The vast majority of mentoring relationships are guided by oral communication – often spontaneous and usually unplanned  Important and effective for maximizing individualization and flexibility  Effective over short periods of time  INEFFECTIVE over longer times and more complex issues  How many of you have ever used some form of written documentation or agreement?  Critical in some situations – e.g. co-mentoring  A walk through an example of moving from oral to written and establishing expectations…

Guiding conversations to establish a mentoring relationship… “Tell me a little bit about yourself. What are your goals or plans after you finish (college, program, etc.)?” “What got you interested in working on this project with me?” “What are you hoping I can provide to you?” “When you say you are looking for a mentor, what does that mean to you? It means different things to different people so I want to make sure we are on the same page.” “When I have mentored other students in the past, I have been able to provide….”

The next level of conversation “I view mentoring as a kind of teaching and learning. To learn actually requires as much or more effort on the part of the student as the teacher or mentor. What type of effort and time do you anticipate you will be able to put in to get the most out of us working together?”

A later conversation… “I think it is going to work out for us to work together. It would be very helpful for me, and I think you also, if we could get in writing what you hope to learn or how you hope to grow by working with me. Having it in writing will make it easier for us to keep track of where we have been and the progress we are making.” “Why don’t you start by taking some time to write down a short list of your goals you hope to achieve in the next 2-4 years (or whatever time frame). Once you have those then think about and right down a list of skills or knowledge you already have that are needed to reach these goals. Then make a list of things you need to learn or get better at to reach your goals.”

The next conversation… “Let’s look at your lists so we can figure out how I can help you get better at the things you feel you need to achieve to reach your goals. I might also have some other suggestions of things to consider.” “Now that we have the list of what you need to go from A (today) to B (the future) we can figure out how I can help you, what you are going to need to work on yourself, and possibly some things that other mentors might help you with better than I can.” At the PhD and postdoctoral fellow stage this process is becoming increasingly popular – often called the creation of an Individual Development Plan – IDP Totally adaptable to any field and stage of development

What else would you like to talk about when it comes to mentoring? Going through Entering Mentoring on your own or in groups can be very valuable Second generation guides now available from U of Wisconsin group

My contact information Rick McGee, PhD Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine