Bad mentors want to turn you into a prodigy; good mentoring isn’t what you think it will be
Thomas Davies previously had a negative view of mentoring, because most mentors he’d come across were simply bad. But a few key conversations, and some time reflection, led him to realise that a good mentor can reset your expectations of what the process can, and should, look like.
Right now, isolation has given us all a lot of time to think. In the silence of our makeshift home offices, it’s easy to find yourself reflecting on the effects we have on each other.
Whether we’re introverts, extroverts or something in between, people need people. We’re a fundamentally social species, and there are a lot of thoughts, questions and challenges that simply aren’t meant to be processed by our own brains alone. That’s not pseudoscience – it’s the reason we developed language.
When you poll juniors in our industry about things they’d like more of in their jobs, mentor programs often rank on top. The nature of agency land means we’ve got a whole lot of young people working in high-pressure, deadline-oriented roles. By design, our day-to-day jobs are dynamic and ever changing.
