How to run a successful session with your mentee

You got your cup of tea ready to go. You’ve checked the link and all your tech is up and working. You are waiting for your mentee to login, unsure of where the conversation will take you this time. Your mentee shows up and you begin to catch up on TV shows you’ve been watching, sharing interesting podcasts or books you recently read and before you know it the hour is almost up. They ask you a question on how to handle a specific email reply. You work on it together before you both have to run to your next appointments.

You log off with an unsatisfactory feeling that it was a nice chat but nothing was accomplished. Unsure if they got any value or if they are on track to meet the goals they defined at the start of this journey. So you shrug it off and then the whole cycle repeats.

Now imagine you have a clear structure for how the session will go. Your mentee knows it and comes to rely on it. So you get ready, you have your tea and tech ready to go and when you complete the call you feel whole and complete. Certain that your mentee got value. Recognized the progress they have made so far and worked towards their goals. When you receive the feedback you aren’t surprised that working with you is the highlight of their month. This becomes so consistent you aren’t even surprised by the feedback anymore.

And better yet it’s a super simple structure.

Step 1: Celebrate

Step 2: Put out the fire

Step 3: Set up the Future

So let’s break this down.

Sounds too good to be true?

When was the last time you took a moment to celebrate yourself? Having read this far puts you in the rare 25% of readers that make it past the 1,600th pixel of the page. Well done for sticking it out this far. That is worth celebrating. Celebrate with your mentee their wins on their journey towards their goals with you.

Now we are full of motivation and momentum to deal with the next phase of the session. Putting out the fires. We all have our big goals and long term plans and then there is life and the surprises that it throws our way everyday. You sat down to plan to read this article all the way through. But your phone beeped, and you are already copying the link to share this article on Twitter or Facebook. Caving to distractions might be your burning issue.

There is always something your mentee is dealing with. An email they don’t quite know how to answer. Or a presentation they need to prepare that they have been waiting to talk with you to navigate it. It is time to share from your experience. Suggest any books,, articles or tools. Or just listen and work together to create a solution to the urgent matters.

Once the fires are put out it is time to set up the future. At the start of the journey you both defined clear S.M.A.R.T goals that you are working towards. How would you rate your progress on the goal of reading this article in full? 

In setting up the future it’s the time to check in on the mentee’s goals. Are they all still relevant? How much progress do they feel they’ve made towards achieving their goals? Is there a specific area they would like to focus on that isn’t working as well as they’d like it to?

Those are the types of questions to tackle to ensure that the goals aren’t put on the back burner. They signed up to work with you so that 6 months into the future those goals are a reality and they are ready tackle the next level of their career.

You got your cup of tea ready to go. You’ve checked the link and all of your tech is up and working. You are waiting for your mentee to login. And you know exactly how the conversation is going to go. You know that you will celebrate, creating momentum and motivation. You will tackle any fires your mentee is facing this week. You will make sure that no matter the burning issues you will make progress towards achieving your mentee’s goals.

1: Celebrate

2: Put out the fire

3: Set up the Future

You log off and take a moment to celebrate a successful session and you got to the end of this article. How do you structure your session? If you used this structure in your sessions, please share how it went.