Photo by Ian Schneider

I always love my parents' job, I grew up in a family of two teachers, later my dad became a school principal. They were sharing every day their experiences, funny situations with students, and emotions. In addition to all this information about teaching, I retain one thing that I feel it

Teaching others is such a satisfying feeling, especially if you can observe their progression along the time

these concepts were carved in my subconscious mind since then. I remember in mid-high school I went to ask about a course in a private school, After introducing my self the principal proposed to me teaching Adobe Photoshop and web concepts, Without diving into the details of this journey, I do appreciate it.

Time passes and I find myself several times in the shoes of a teacher, the story I share in the next paragraph is quite different from teaching, but has many similarities I wanted to write down.

Mentoring someone, who decided?

In a company, this approach may be part of its culture, So the HR team once they hire a new joiner, they ask a senior who wants to play the role of mentor, certainly this is a voluntary decision and not a hierarchical one, as mentoring requires first of all the initiative and passion to do it. This is not a work task to complete, this is a mindset to share with love.

Regardless of having this culture or not, in many cases, a spontaneous relationship between a senior and a new team -member took place, mainly due to their personalities rapprochement. Then we begin to talk about mentoring as the senior introduces his new team-mate to other teams, lets him discover departments, work methods, and any knowledge that may help him be well integrated.

What should we have to succeed in a mentoring program?

In my opinion, we need to behave like coach and trainee, or like teacher and student. As a mentor, Having this passion for knowledge sharing, feeling so satisfied while seeing others growing up, Being generous when it comes to advising and guiding are all "must-have" values we believe in. Regarding skills, we need to be good in communication, the capacity of thought, and patience.

On the other side, the trainee needs some skills, or call them behaviors like being good listener, a hungry man who wants to enrich his knowledge by asking for details, but certainly without disturbing the mentor, Because this one is meanwhile an employee with tasks and missions to complete, So as a trainee we keep calm and patient when we don't have some information or answers immediately. For the trainee the mentoring should represent an opportunity to know more, have different points of view, but in any case should impact our analysis capabilities, and influence our decision-making, we have to protect our autonomous which is the most valuable goal we target.

Day 1

I've been delighted to welcome with my team our new colleague who has just graduated and he is today starting his first job as a software engineer. I took him for a short tour to discover the office, the facilities, and our beautiful kitchen corner where often we share coffee time. I think the first impression is very important the reason why my team and I gave it all our intention to make it at the same time funny and useful for our team-mate. We wanted to help him feel very comfortable. For today apart from receiving his laptop and tools no code or pull request.

Day 2

A short introduction to explain the project views, our work methods, and collaboration best practices we believe in within our entity. As a software engineer focusing on technical staff, I suggested putting our junior colleague in touch with our scrum master for the purpose to learn about agility, how we use SCRUM as a reference with all its rituals from daily stand up to sprint retrospective.

Now it's coffee time, a good moment to show him an important value within our company, generosity especially when it comes to knowledge, we believe that sharing is such a powerful value that helps all of up to grow up together and progress whatever our field of expertise. Although everyone has a clear and well-defined role within the team, being aware of what others are doing is crucial cope with any absence or unavailability.

Day 3

Our new colleague is very motivated and curious, his questions are dept and constructive, but unfortunately, I could not answer all of them immediately, I let him know that he can also email me and I'll answer him later once I finish a prioritized task. The lesson here is very simple, a question may be answered later but should never end up without any response. To avoid any confusion or lack of trust that may affect my relationship with my junior colleague.

Day 4

Collaboration over delegation is what happens when we have less time to explain or teach someone else how to complete a task or do a job, but this approach is too bad. As a mentor, I prefer to collaborate with trainees walking together side by side armed with passion and patience with one goal: helping him being autonomous instead of completing tasks for him quickly no matter how much time will take, training others is always a pleasure and a must-have for a mentor. A mentor should walk side by side with a trainee helping being autonomous instead of completing tasks for him quickly

A mentor should walk side by side with a trainee helping being autonomous instead of completing tasks for him quickly

Day 5

Are you a good listener? I was convinced as a mentor I need to listen a lot to my trainee, give him all the time to explain his point of view or vision even though I'm not okay with or I'm not sure he is not on the right way, keep calm and let him finish, I see many colleagues when a junior comes with a new idea, or an initiative, they quickly try to crop believing that is it a wast time, Unfortunately, this behavior may dramatically degrade a junior’s self-confidence and his motivation for future initiatives.

Next Day

The days go by one after the other and I’m getting so happy to see our team growing up and how our new junior colleague is taking over subjects and becoming autonomous, This trusted and honest relationship we built together is bringing what is expected to be. I do believe that mentoring someone else is nothing other than giving him the right and the necessary tools to dive alone with confidence into any subject. This friendly relationship helps us learn from each other, I do appreciate supporting my colleague during his first days within our team and in the company. His questions, exchanges, and remarks let me learn how to communicate and explain my ideas and point of view at a low level using simple and easy expressions to understand when talking to a debutant person or someone outside of my field of expertise.

It's been a constructive journey

Along the way, I learned a lot of things and values I would like to summarize below:

• Stay humble when you talk to junior or debutant people.
• There is always something to learn from others whatever their expertise level.
• Share and publish your knowledge to help serve and improve yourself and others.
• Gain respect and recognition

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