The Value of Mentoring

“People who grew up in difficult circumstances and yet are successful have one thing in common; at a critical juncture in their adolescence, they had a positive relationship with a caring adult.”  Former US President Clinton said this.

If you’ve read Bill Clinton’s memoirs, you know about his difficult circumstances – the early death of his father, the turbulent relationship between his mother and abusive stepfather – and yet, because he was given proper instruction by the right mentor at the right time in his life, Bill Clinton went on to serve for two terms as President of the United States.

Can you remember a significant mentor in your life?  Someone who set you straight or helped you develop your potential?  I can.  I remember three.  One helped me understand the value of teamwork and mutual support, one motivated me to begin my career overseas, and one rearranged my paradigm for how I work to develop others.  My life, and probably yours as well, would have been much different had it not been for these caring, influential mentors.

The need for mentoring is not limited to adults working with adolescents.  There is also a need for mentoring as a manager within your organization.  In addition to managing your staff, your role is also to mentor and develop them as individuals for their benefit, for yours, and for your company’s.

Mentoring adds new dimensions to your role as a manager.  You also become a facilitator, a developer and an empowerer.  You work with individuals to bring out the best in them as you, in turn, become their role model.

Mentoring is a useful alternative to training for many reasons.  For one, it’s flexible and can be accomplished in many different ways requiring only time and two people.  Also, it’s an off-line activity, so it needn’t interfere with normal operations.  Unlike training, mentoring is individual and can meet individual needs as group development activities cannot.  It’s also all-encompassing in its focus, while training tends to be on specific technical or functional skill areas.

Finally, mentoring requires no outside resources or expenditures.  Your expertise and your willingness to devote your time to developing others is all you need.

The success of your organization depends, to a large extent, on continuity.  This means that you always have a large pool of talent within your organization to fill critical positions when necessary.  To help ensure this, a successful mentoring program may be just what you need.

Coming Up with Answers

Here’s a question for you.  Is it reasonable to expect that you should be able to answer every question that your audience asks at the end of your business presentations?

Well, no.  It’s not.  As much as you prepare, the questions your audience asks are unpredictable and, as a result, if you miss one or two, your audience will generally be forgiving.  They do expect, however, that one or two will be your limit and that when you do respond it will be more than just a simple shrug of your shoulders accompanied by a dopey, “I don’t know.”

So what do you do?  If you don’t know the answer to a particular question your audience asks, how do you answer?  Let me offer you five techniques for evasive action.

The first is Repetition.  Most of the questions that your audience asks will be for clarification, so if someone asks you a question and you’re not sure of the answer, treat it as a clarification question.  Go back to one of your slides that comes close to what your questioner has asked for and explain it a second time in a different way.  Very often this will be what they need and when you ask, “Does this clarify things for you?” they’ll often answer with a ‘yes’.

The second technique is Responsibility.  If you don’t know the answer, refer your questioner to someone in your office or on your team who does know.  You may be delivering a sales presentation, for example, and someone may ask you a technical question.  It would be nice if you could answer, but it will be understood if you explain that your company has expert technicians who can answer that question much better than you can.

The third technique for sidestepping a question is Delay.  You hear this one all the time expressed in five words: “I’ll get back to you.”  This answer, however, suggests that you do not know the answer, and you have to do additional research.  Delay can be more effective if you explain to your questioner that you can answer the question, but the information you need isn’t with you; it’s back in your office on your desk.  As soon as you get back, you’ll send whatever your questioner has asked for.

Throwback is a fourth useful technique.  If you don’t know the answer, find someone in the audience who does.  Turn the question into a discussion and get as much information from your audience as possible.  Then go back to your questioner and ask whether he or she needs more information.

Finally, a fifth technique you can use when you don’t know the answer is Reference.  You might not know the answer, but you do know where it can be found.  Refer the questioner to a book, a magazine article or a website that you’re familiar with. 

Not all of these techniques will work in every situation.  However, if you use them wisely, you can still wind up looking good even when you don’t have all the answers.

Running a Smooth Q&A Session

When you deliver a business presentation, you are in complete control of the content you include, the slides you design and the amount of preparation and practice you put in. The only section of the presentation you don’t control is the question and answer session. You can prepare all you want, but you can never fully anticipate exactly which questions you audience will ask. As a result, the Q&A session can be intimidating.

Even so, your audience still expects that you will handle your Q&A session professionally and it’s your job to meet those expectations. To help you maintain control and manage your Q&A session with confidence, here are five easy guidelines that you can follow.

#1. To help you and your audience relax, begin the Q&A session with a question of your own. This will break the ice, get your audience talking and create an atmosphere for discussion. Once you’ve created safe space, your audience will be more likely to ask questions of their own.

#2. Make questions and answers an interactive dialog. If someone in the audience asks you something clever, respond by saying “Good question” before you answer. When you’re through, go back to that person and ask, “Does that answer your question?” and then thank them for asking. Everyone (especially you) will feel more relaxed if Q&A is conversational.

#3. Clarify questions to ensure that you understand. Repeat them back to the person asking. This is useful not only for your understanding, but for everyone else in the room as well.

#4. Answer the questions you receive. Many speakers are skilled at talking back to questions in circles and moving on without providing an answer. This may be allowable in politics, but not in business. Your audience is asking questions to obtain information necessary for important decisions. They rely on your expertise and on your answers.

Finally, #5. If you don’t know an answer, don’t fake it. A non-answer may do more harm than good, and there may be someone in the audience who calls you on your bluff. Professional presenters know how to use techniques that help them to maintain credibility even when they don’t know the answer to a question.

Good presentations can be impressive, but the question and answer session is what’s going to make it or break it for you. Managing a good Q&A session professionally will convince your audience of your confidence and your credibility.

Standing Up to a Challenge

An engineer from Penang told me his story about an IT marketing presentation he was doing for his company in Europe. He had done the presentation several times before and knew his stuff in and out, so his audience of about 25 people listened politely and received him well. When he finished he opened the floor for questions, but before anyone had a chance to ask, someone from the back of the room, without standing or raising his hand, shouted out, “That’ll never work.”

Not knowing how to deal with this sudden challenge, the engineer lost his nerve. He mumbled a few words, and realizing that he needed to clear his head, he called for a quick break, leaving the audience somewhat puzzled.

He received a challenge that knocked him off of his feet, dissolved his confidence and left his professional credibility damaged. What could he have done better? How would you handle a challenge like this? Let’s examine a few options together.

You could ask the challenger to elaborate. Doing so will help you determine whether he has a legitimate point or not and will allow you some time to get your thoughts together. On the other hand, he may raise a point that takes your audience away from you. You’ve got 24 others on your side. Do you really want to jeopardize your hard work by allowing someone else to take over?

Alternatively, you could throw the question back to the audience. This will take the pressure off of you and turn the challenge into an open discussion. Be careful, however, to throw the question back to someone whom you know is on your side. Otherwise you might single out someone who has no opinion, or worse, someone who agrees with your challenger.

If you would like to discuss your challenger’s position but not in front of the audience, another option is to take the challenge offline. Acknowledge his position and invite him to chat during the break. After all, you tell him, several people in the audience have questions, and you’d like to allow your challenger as much time as he needs.

A final option, and probably your best, is to stand your ground, keep the floor and meet the challenge. He has told you that your idea won’t work. Smile back at him, acknowledge his point of view, and then go ahead and explain why it will work. Give examples of where it has worked before. When you’re through, go back to your challenger and ask him, “Does that clarify things for you?” In nine out of ten cases, he’ll say yes. If he comes back with another challenge, take it offline.

Remember, a challenge can be as easy to handle as any other question -- just as long as you’re prepared to meet it.