{"id":13578,"date":"2014-07-15T05:00:19","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T11:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tested-neuron.flywheelsites.com\/?p=13578"},"modified":"2015-02-17T13:26:21","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T20:26:21","slug":"mentors-be-socratic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/mentors-be-socratic\/","title":{"rendered":"Mentors, Be Socratic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since yesterday was\u00a0the first day<\/strong> of the new Techstars Boulder program, I figured that it\u2019s time to get rolling\u00a0Deconstructing The Techstars Mentor Manifesto<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My goal with this series of posts is not to get the detail right, but to flesh things out and get your feedback. So please comment on anything and challenge everything to help me get it better.<\/p>\n

First up (of the 18 items) is \u201cBe Socratic.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you think \u201cbe socratic\u201d means \u201cask questions,” you are partially correct. When David Cohen was crafting the mentor manifesto, it was obvious to start with \u201cbe socratic,\u201d since such a key part of the Techstars mentor process is to ask questions. But it\u2019s not just the act of asking questions;\u00a0it\u2019s how you ask questions, what you try to accomplish with the questions, and what your responses to the answers are.<\/p>\n

The \u201chow\u201d is important. As a mentor, it\u2019s easy to establish a one-up \/ one-down relationship with the entrepreneurs you are talking to. In most cases, you start that way, especially with first-time entrepreneurs. However, your goal should be to create a peer relationship, where the mentee learns from the mentor and the mentor learns from the mentee. As a result, tone matters. A lot.<\/p>\n

If you, the mentor, don\u2019t understand something, ask. You don\u2019t have to show the mentee that you are smarter than her.<\/i> \u00a0Tweet This Quote<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The cliche \u201cthere are no stupid questions\u201d applies. Body language matters. If you\u2014as the mentor\u2014don\u2019t understand something, ask a question. You don\u2019t have to show the mentee that you are smarter than her. You don\u2019t have to establish your credibility\u2014you already have it.<\/p>\n

While one of your goals with these questions is to learn more about the company and the problem you are exploring, recognize that if your engagement with the mentee is a one-way Q&A session with no clear goal, your mentee will only be getting part of the value out of the experience. Use your questions to guide the discussion, presumably toward testing hypotheses you might be developing in real time. Be explicit about these hypotheses as you are testing them, and try to show your thought process through the questioning. This can be subtle, where you just guide things along, or it can be explicit, where you state your hypothesis and then start asking questions.<\/p>\n

Your goal should not be to come up with the answer and state it, but, rather, to help the mentee reach the answer or a set of new hypotheses she can test. This is a collaborative process, especially if you are trying to develop a peer relationship. It won\u2019t happen comfortably in your first interaction, but after a lot of time together you\u2019ll find you are learning from each other during the process and reaching a better set of answers, or at least new hypotheses to test.<\/p>\n

In the same way that how you ask the question matters, how you respond to the answers matters just as much. The corollary to \u201cthere are no stupid questions\u201d is \u201cthere are no stupid answers,\u201d and it\u2019s just as important to realize that. For most people, answering questions in real time, especially when you are getting them from lots of different directions (as in multiple mentors over a short period of time) can be intimidating. When a person hasn\u2019t thought deeply about the answer to a question, or hears a new question for the first time, the answer often doesn\u2019t really address the question.<\/p>\n

When this happens, just ask, \u201cWhy?\u201d If you\u2019ve never heard of\u00a05 Whys<\/a>,\u00a0it\u2019s one of the most brilliant things I ever learned about getting to the root cause of any issue. The example in Wikipedia is wonderful, since it reminds me of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance<\/em>.<\/p>\n