Module 3 - Mentor Roles Definitions

Whole You Mentor

A Whole YOU mentor is a trusted advisor with whom you’ll have a highly personal relationship. A Whole YOU mentor is someone who is committed to coaching and supporting you for an extended period. This commitment normally involves meeting about once a month for coaching. 

A mentor’s relationship bridges both personal and professional themes, allowing them to provide objective and balanced advice. It’s important that your mentor shares similar values and goals to you as their advice is based on their experiences and values. This person is often a role model in that they may have a similar background and have overcome obstacles to achieve their goals. They are one of the few people that get you and understand the difficult decisions you’ll face. 

Candidates: This is the most significant decision you’ll make in the creation of your design team. It’s a big decision for both you and your Whole YOU mentor. This person likely already has an extended relationship with you both personally and professionally. For example, he or she may be a work colleague or a family friend you hit it off with. It would be someone who wouldn’t be surprised by this request as they are likely acting as an ad hoc mentor already. However, it’s important that you choose someone whose advice and guidance you feel comfortable accepting as part of making your own decision. For this reason, family or people who may be too close to you personally may not be an ideal fit for this role.

Professional You Mentor

This is your professional sponsor and someone with broad professional experience who’ll open doors and provide you opportunities. It’s not essential that they be from your field of interest, rather, they should have an existing relationship with you and be personally vested in you. 

Their sole focus is your professional advancement. It’s essential that they believe in your professional potential, as they’ll be vouching for you in order to advance your professional goals. 

The main difference between your Professional YOU and Whole YOU mentors is your interaction with your professional mentor is far less frequent, potentially only a few times a year, and their only concern is your professional advancement. They offer you their professional network and reputation along with their expertise in a field or industry.

Candidates: Family friend, work manager, teacher, or professor. 

Personal Advisor

A personal advisor is typically a close family member or a friend. They’re in your comfort zone and understand where you’ve come from and where you want to go. They’re your personal and emotional sounding board and they’re around through the inevitable ups and downs of designing you. Your personal advisor is your emotional rock. Just remember they’re not your professional mentor; it’s unlikely they’ll possess the required expertise in your field.

Candidates: Family and friends. 

Real-World Experts

Real-world experts are short-term members of your design team and are essential to exploring what’s out there for you. 

Real-world expertise comes from people who have lived through an experience that you want to have, and they’ve already got the failures and successes to prove it. If, for example, a product designer wanted to expand their product into the Chinese market, he or she would need some very specific expertise for a short period of time to offer insight on how to launch in China. 

For designing you, real-world expertise is about engaging a broad and diverse range of people for a discussion on their area of expertise. These interviews may be related to better understanding the specific dynamics of an industry (e.g., fashion); or it may be related to better understanding a specific job (e.g., journalist); or it may be related to exploring the dynamics of company size and scope (e.g., what’s the difference between working for a big global company compared to local start-up). 

Candidates: Extended network, people outside of your own personal and professional network.