T-SQL Tuesday #184: Mentoring

This months invitation is from Deborah Melkin, she invites us to write about mentoring experiences and being a mentor.

How it all started

My first real mentoring experience was when I signed up for New stars of Data. If you don’t know this conference, you should. It’s aimed at new speakers who haven’t gone beyond in-company or user group sessions and want to take the next step towards being a conference presenter.

In my case, I had done some presentations for coworkers but that was it. Nothing public. When I found New stars of Data, I just went for it to get used to the process. How do I sign up as a speaker, what are the requirements and what does it look like when you get turned down. Imagine the surprise when I got selected and was paired with Jess Pomfret. She was, and in a way still is, my mentor for my first public speaking session.

I had seen her present at Data Grillen in Germany (another amazing conference you should try to attend), and we quickly found we could work together. She told me were going on an exploration together and find out along the way what works and what doesn’t. This still is something that runs in the back of my head. Don’t plan every step but work with what happens.

Next, she gave me numerous tips, suggestions on how to present. How to work with the flow of the session, how to time it and how to use the timings when actually presenting.

How it is going

After this first experience a lot happened. One of the things was me being awarded the MVP award. And within minutes of posting that, I got a message in my LinkedIn box. An MVP offered his advice on what (not) to do. Another way of mentoring and trying to prevent a newbie from drowning in this whole new world.

Besides being mentored, I took the plunge and offered my services to new presenters. The best way to do that was through the New stars of Data event. And I was selected three times to mentor new speakers, passing on the knowledge and experience.

If anything, it’s a very rewarding way of helping people. You can see them soak in the advice and make it their own. The goal being their growth, not cloning yourself! Of my three mentees, the first one seems to have moved away from data. The second and third one are still active in data but not very active as a speakers. This can look like failure, but mentoring is also about finding strength. About finding what you like to do and what gives you energy. If speaking, or whatever it is you’re being mentored on, isn’t something for you, it’s perfectly fine.

Being mentored is something else then being pressured into doing something. Finding out something isn’t for you is a perfectly valid outcome of mentoring. Sometimes people forget that and only look at the successes. Successes being a person making it to the events, becoming a popular blogger or whatever. Success is also finding out what doesn’t work for you.

The hardest part in my opinion is mentoring people at work. People look at me as a senior employee. If I’m offering mentorship or actively approach coworkers with the offer to help, it can easily feel as if I’m pushing them into a direction. And even more so, that failure isn’t an option because of my position in the organisation. This is a struggle I haven’t found a solution or work around for.

Finally

As I think mentoring is part of what makes up the DNA of an MVP, we as MVP’s should lead by example. I’ve learned a lot from my mentors and try to pass on that knowledge. As a human, I can’t know everything so I’ll still be the mentee in areas. In the end, it’s part of the life long learning we’re all into as humans working in IT.

Thank you Deborah for the invite and inspiration. Thank you #Sqlfamily for being an amazing mentor and leading by example.

If for any reason you’re looking for a mentor, reach out! We’re here to help you.