Learning from the path traveled by other people, known as mentoring, is an advantage in the business world and in the professional field. He is known to mentor Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and Pixar among others, with the founder of Facebook. His relationship began in the early years of Facebook, where Steve, based on his experience, advised Mark Zuckerberg to grow his business.
The relationship was so close that when Steve Jobs passed away, Zuckerberg dedicated the following words to him: “Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thank you for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you”
The best mentors often offer their time and wisdom to positively influence the careers of their disciples. Mentoring goes far beyond the business world, it is used in sports, art, academics, etc. Empower people through experience and knowledge.
What is mentoring?
He mentoring (or mentoring in Spanish) is the practice that is oriented to develop the maximum potential of people. It is the process of sharing knowledge, skills, and life/work experiences to guide others to reach their full potential.
A mentor is a highly specialized person, focused on business and preferably with knowledge of agile methodologies. The mentor’s knowledge of different industries helps broaden the vision of the businessman or entrepreneur. The focus of a mentoring is always to have extraordinary results, results that the mentee could not have achieved alone.
What is a mentor?
The mentor is a professional with more experience than the mentee in certain areas. Using her, he passes on his knowledge and expertise through advice and teachings. One of the objectives is that the mentee can prosper personally and professionally and open new doors. The mentor not only accompanies during the process, but builds together with the apprentice.
A good mentor not only teaches you to ride a bike, but also accompanies you, pedals next to you. In case you have a puncture, he helps you repair it, but the most important thing is that he teaches you how to fix it. That way, the next fixes will guide you so that you can repair it later. And so on until you can repair it yourself, and they will keep pedaling until they find new challenges to solve.
How to choose a good mentor?
The relationship of trust between the mentee and the mentor is the basis of the process. It is essential when choosing a mentor to look for compatibility, that they share values and that you admire them professionally.
The mentor must be an active person who provides you with tools and experience to solve problems or take advantage of opportunities.
It is essential that during the process it is very clear what are the objectives to be achieved, the design of the strategy, a clear action plan and knowing how to measure the results. A good feedback during the process the probability of success increases.
A mentor must be focused on small improvements, for example, if we improve our sales performance by 1% every day of the year, we will be 37 times better than at the beginning. Mentors must work on exponential improvements, thinking long term and building habits. A good mentor values small improvements to achieve big results.
Julian Matias Gonzalez With more than 15 years of experience working with clients in Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia and Mexico, he has developed extensive knowledge in digital marketing, growth marketing and business development. He teaches at renowned universities such as UNLP, UNQ, UCALP and UFLO in Argentina, where he coordinates the Postgraduate Executive Program on sales and customer experience.