The Value of Mentoring
When someone is step ahead of you they have so much to offer you. They can see the path you’re on, the steps you’re taking, the pitfalls and the opportunities that you might miss.
Over the past 10 years we have been learning about the value of mentoring through observing the experiential journey of our participants, ourselves and in organisation as a whole. We’ve developed a mentoring approach as a tool for participant progression within Music Leading, peer learning and group feedback, but what has been rewarding is supporting the journey of Music Mentors: 18-25 yr olds who have been through the programme, engaged in training and go on to help other young people along their path. It is often these alumni that align with our core visions and understand how invaluable these spaces are.
It is just so much easier for a young person to pick up a guitar for the first time when they have watched someone else do it before them. Similar to passing on the batten. It helps a great deal when that person actively encourages them and gives them a little step to take next… then later on checks whether they have made that step and offers feedback.
We found ukmusic.org’s DIY Guide to Mentoring in Music sums it up nicely: “...mentoring is a two-way relationship involving help, support, role-modeling, specialist advice and guidance, usually on the part of the mentor, in order to facilitate the achievement of the mentees’ goals and help them to grow professionally.”
We see ‘help’ and ‘support’ coming naturally to our team when they are working with young people; it’s in their nature. It’s why they choose to work with young people in the first place, and this isn’t something we offer training in. But perhaps it could be interesting to see the diversity of ‘help’ and ‘support’ approaches across the team: something we could include in our Team Wellbeing sessions as some peer mentoring.
Role-modeling is so important. The subtle moves of a pianist’s fingers, the way someone stands when playing bass, the language a mentor uses to describe themselves and their own performance at their last gig. Eyes widen in the activation of the imagination. Along the line, a seed sparks ‘that could be me’. It’s so much more than that too, it’s a feeling that the goal has already been reached, simply because someone else is modeling it. This may encourage us as mentors to show up more, whether that is just to be more open, more honest, more expressive, or just less apologetic for all the times we are less than perfect in what we do.
Once trust and rapport is established within a relationship of mentoring, progression becomes more notable. ‘Specialist advice’ is imparted more easily and can be taken on board and integrated as new knowledge or tools for the mentee.
We have been receiving mentoring with The Music Works (https://themusicworks.org.uk) who have achieved so much in the past 5 years. We knew that it would be invaluable for us to have some time to pick their brains and level up our work across the board, incl. safeguarding, monitoring, HR, strategy, fundraising, etc. etc. actually the list is endless but they have helped us to get clearer on our priorities and to make plans. It has been incredibly valuable to have such specialist advice from those who have walked the path we’re on, who recognise the pitfalls we may stumble upon and the opportunities we might choose to take now that they are more visible.
Again, this has all been possible thanks to Youth Music’s Recharge grant which came at a time when we as an organisation could not benefit any more from receiving some mentoring.