Why I was a bad mentor

COMMENT The future of work is not linked to roles but to tasks that are innately human. In order to be successful, we may need to be better people. I am the founder of a company that makes digital employees for the real estate industry. Every day I observe the increments where machine learning makes more of our human tasks irrelevant and at the same time, I struggle with what our own work means. Are we evil? Building robots and automating jobs. Or are we creators? Building a new way of working and bringing freedom from the mundane. In an annual study focused on AI at Oracle, 64% of people said that they trust a robot more than their manager. The survey identified that employees prefer AI solutions for giving unbiased information, maintaining their work schedules, and managing budgets. However, they did seek out their managers when they needed coaching, needed empathy, or created a work culture. It is very telling that these qualities are not related to deep expertise but to personal development. The next generation of leaders won’t need to project quarterly performance. They will need to develop people performance. And they will also have to do it remotely. The coaching mentality I recently decided that I needed to learn to coach. This realisation came from a very bad experience of being an adviser to a peer. I was a bad adviser, and it was because I was ‘telling’ and not helping them ‘discover’ themselves. Most of us at a certain stage in our career are asked to be mentors to someone less experienced in the industry. We give advice and we hope to mirror our wisdom to someone with similar goals. But how many of us are truly ready for the responsibility of coaching? Most mentors or managers give advice, tell you what to do, and use the words “in my experience”. I did the same. And I was a bad mentor. Coaching is not about having a chat or ‘catch-up’ lunch. That’s just being friendly. Coaching is truly about helping someone find self-awareness and their strengths. It requires time and effort. It also needs preparation. A good coach or effective manager must remove all emotions from the relationship. You can’t be swayed in your interactions by likeability or common ground. You ask questions to drive self-realisation and confirm shared goals. And sometimes you collectively realise that those shared goals don’t exist. Strengths, not weaknesses To build a high-performing team, we need to trust and guide someone to arrive at their own conclusion. We may get our annual feedback or performance reviews, but the truth is often disguised in suggestions or improvement plans. The only way to get true feedback is to be completely honest; with ourselves and with those we are interacting with. For example, when a good coach or manager asks you – ‘Do you think anything restricts you from solving this problem?’, it is crucial to be honest and understand the limitations that may hold you back. This self-awareness is a strength. It allows you to find the gaps and then fill them. The best performers take away actionable goals. It could be taking a course or training for better communication. The worst response, however, is to display dishonesty or false confidence to mask insecurity. Success in a knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves. It also comes to those who maximise their strengths to be exceptional as opposed to improving on every weakness to be mediocre. If skills are no longer relevant, the only thing that we can truly improve on is self-awareness and core motivation. Tripty Arya is founder and chief executive of Travtus