Developing as a UX leader: Navigating career mentorship
In late 2020, I signed up for IxDA Singapore’s mentorship programme, with the intention of sharing some of my experiences with the UX community.
Mentoring outside of work is new to me. I wondered if I would be able to make a direct impact to my mentee’s growth when we are not working in the same company.
Below are some takeaways from five months of career growth mentoring.
The mentor-mentee relationship
Your mentee’s attitude will determine if the mentorship will work out
My mentees were very driven people.
They took accountability seriously, and would do their “homework” before our sessions. It would be learning via articles or books, or experimenting with new knowledge in their workplace. During our sessions, they would then reflect on how that knowledge has worked, or hasn’t worked for them, and might offer some suggestions to further improve their experiments.
Their drive made this journey rewarding, because I could clearly see that through their work, they have widen their personal knowledge on what they deem is “possible” in their careers, and are working towards being tech leaders themselves. They have also grown their techniques in influencing and handling stakeholders.
I imagine that if a mentee doesn’t drive their own growth, that time spent together would feel purposeless, and the relationship might taper off after awhile.
Establish a structure and mentorship culture (if that’s needed)
It was crucial to me that I co-design the mentorship culture and needs in my mentorships. Ultimately what I wanted was for my mentees to be able to arrive or surpass their goals, and drive their own growth.
Prior to our first meeting, I set up some MIRO boards (we were doing online mentoring at that time). One was for the mentees to really think about their goals in the next six months, a year, and beyond. They also had to think about their strengths and weakness, and how and where they needed support.
This helped structure our conversations in the next 4–5 months: once some of the short term questions were addressed, we then moved to address larger goals that might need two or more sessions to cover.
At the end of every session, the mentee would decide if we can move on to the next topic, or move the same topic along to the next session.
My mentees and I also co-created the principles we wanted or did not want at all in our mentorship relationship. For instance, one of the principles I put in was “no ghosting”: if any side felt like the relationship needs to end, we should at least have the courtesy to tell the other party. With these principles, both sides knew what to expect out of this relationship.
It’s a long term relationship
Outside of the prescribed time of “mentorship”, what I have built with my mentees is in fact an ongoing relationship. I find it rewarding to still keep tabs on how my mentees are doing, get updates on their (very exciting!) career moves and listen to their pay negotiation attempts.
Developing as a mentor
Understand your personal reason of being
I was attending a facilitation course that was ran for only the alumni of Hyper Island. On the last day, each team had to design and facilitate workshops, and a fellow course mate designed one on ikigai, or a person’s reason of being. I was able to distil my personal ikigai to that of tech advocacy. To me, this meant that I would use my voice to support those who might not be able to advocate for themselves or did not have the voice to, mainly women in tech, or junior tech-makers.
Apart from this personal ikigai, I chose my mentees based on how I wanted my career to grow. I believed that I had the capacity to move towards a manager route, and a part of being a manager includes being a career coach to your team. Would I be able to coach juniors in my current company? The answer was “no”, at least not now and on the career growth part. My design team was so small, it wasn’t going to get another manager.
Understanding your personal reasons for mentoring, apart from the usual “I want to give back to the industry” will allow you to clearly define the mentees you will choose to spend a few months with. It’s your free time, so spend it wisely!
Clarify your personal mentoring / coaching philosophy
I’m a huge believer in reflection and vulnerability in leadership, even more so after attending Hyper Island. I felt that some of the self-leadership skills I’ve learnt in school could be applied to mentoring. In retrospect, this was a good match with my mentees, as both of them are self-aware individuals who are big on self-leadership and reflection.
Understanding your personal mentoring philosophy also helps you choose the kind of mentees you will work with.
Get mentorship from other mentors
When I started on this journey, I was meeting my mentees on a bi-weekly basis. I didn’t realize it at that time, but this was an unsustainable cadence for me personally. With two mentees and with each session running at 1.5 hours, this meant I was spending six hours each month mentoring outside of office hours. I love design and I love people, but sometimes I need time for myself outside of work 🤣
I also felt that a two-week cadence didn’t allow my mentees to actually work on their short term targets or projects before meeting up again.
I didn’t realize if I was on the right track, so I reached out to the alumni group from Hyper Island, and happily, Managing Director of the school, Melanie Cook, who has extensive mentoring experience gave me some of her time.
Here are some of her excellent advice with regards to mentoring and coaching:
Take care of your mentees
Mentees should know what their desired outcomes are. Work on them accordingly. Help them find their career anchors.
If things can be Googled, and your mentoring relationship is at the point where you only send links and resources over, then it’s done. Move on to something or someone else, because this person has “graduated”!
Saying that “you should look into your portfolio now” is already enough guidance for them. Do not do their work for them!
Take care of yourself
Your time is precious! Let the mentee come to you. If they don’t actively seek you out, they don’t need your time
Say “I’m here if you need me. Just reach out if you do”. You can give the mentee a chance, fix a date and see if they come on that day. If it doesn’t happen, you can let that person go.
Listen closely to mentees, have a hypothesis that you want to discuss and try to weave it in your discussions and reflections
That part about not doing work for mentees resonated, because I have been guilty of that. Sometimes it just feels easier to be more explicit in what I’m asking for. But that doesn’t help my mentees one bit. Asking questions and many, many “why’s” would get your mentees to drive their personal growth.
And lastly, the most important takeaway for me? Your personal time is precious. Gift it to the person who really wants that time!
Would I mentor outside of work again? Absolutely! I asked for feedback from my mentees, and intend to use those feedback to improve my next mentorship opportunity. I would also experiment with a longer period between sessions (i.e. a month), or shorter mentoring sessions.
Another interesting option is to host a 4–8 person mentorship circle, so mentees would have a group they can count on after the prescribed mentorship length. The possibilities to grow younger designers are endless.
Thanks for reading!
