In this third and final installment of what can be learned about mentoring programs from Sun Microsystems, it’s time to summarize nearly two decades of the company’s mentoring experience into a handy best-worst practices table.

This was created by Katy Dickinson, who headed up Sun’s SEED (Sun Engineering Enrichment & Development) mentoring program for many years. Her own blog notes that the material has been among the most-requested that she has ever produced (source).

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Here’s my own paraphrasing of the Sun Microsystems best and worst mentoring practices:

Best Practices

Develop Your Listening Skills

• There’s a reason we have TWO ears and only ONE mouth (think about it).
• Problems can often be way more complex than you might think, so patience is required to hear things out.
• Good listening means serving as sounding board, as opposed to being bored.
• If you’re communicating remotely, you have to make sure to acknowledge frequently, using such techniques as paraphrasing and clarifying questions to make sure you’re receiving everything accurately.

Advising and Making Things Happen

• Never give just one answer – it’s all about multiple options and analyzing them.
• Teach good problem-solving skills so that your mentees can help themselves.
• Always take time to fully discuss the potential impacts of different actions.

Maintaining Flexibility

• If you empower your mentee to make a choice, support it.
• When your mentee wants to change topics or goals, go with it.
• When life happens (sickness, time off, tight deadlines, etc.) as it inevitably does, go the extra mile to re-schedule rather than just disengaging.

Providing Support

• Regular feedback must be constructive and timely from your third-party objective perspective.
• Create a safe space where your mentee can really vent when needed. You should be viewed as a trusted confidant.
• Evaluate your mentee’s progress and suggest goal adjustments as needed.
• Get your mentees to go outside their normal comfort zones by rewarding them for taking intelligent risks as well as learning from any failures encountered.

Commit to Fully Sharing Yourself

• Meetings with your mentee have to be very regular; otherwise it’s not really mentoring.
• The preference should always be to meet face-to-face.
• Let your mentees know your door is always open – and keep it that way for them.
• Help your mentees make the connection between their own goals and those of the company.
• Networking is key. Be sure to let them into yours while you also engage in theirs.
• Sharing is caring.

Worst Practices

Not Making Time

• Canceling at the last minute because “something important came up” simply isn’t an option.
• Ditto for coming late and/or leaving your meetings early.
• Forgetting to attend is one of the more pathetic things that you can do.
• And yes, you have to actually schedule these meetings to make them happen.

Making it All About You

• If you’re thinking, “I’m the ME in MENTOR,” you probably shouldn’t be one.
• Just because something worked for you doesn’t mean it will or must work for your mentee.
• Your opinions are important, but so are those of your mentee.

Condescending to the Mentee

• What in the world were you thinking by doing that?
• Your inability to explain it results in my inability to do anything about it.
• Just keep quite and do what I tell you to do.

Explaining Nothing

• What, you don’t learn by osmosis?
• Didn’t you see the mass email on that?
• Resources? What resources? Oh, those Well, there they are.

Over-Sharing

• This mentoring thing is confidential?
• Well, I figured you wouldn’t mind my mentioning it to your supervisor…

Lack of Structure

• Goals, shmoals. Who needs ‘em?
• I really said I would that?
• Hey, I’m not responsible for your job satisfaction.

When you come across a company that has the kind of deep mentoring program experience of Sun Microsystems, and one that estimates a 1,000% ROI on its mentoring programs, it makes sense to learn everything you can to obtain similar results. Go and do likewise!

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