What is the Secret Ingredient to Create Great Mentorship?
Finding a mentor is a commonplace piece of career advice. And many of us have never given it a second thought. In the past, some scholars believed a mentorship has side-effects which include favoritism and “cloning” — where the mentor’s tendency is to push their protégé toward career paths that replicate their own.
A recent article from Kellogg Insight discusses new research from Brian Uzzi, Professor of Management and Organizations at Kellogg School. It proves mentorship is indeed beneficial. Especially when mentors pass down unwritten intuitive forms of knowledge.
This study analyzed the careers of 37,000+ scientist mentors and protégés. The research suggested that mentors who pass on tacit knowledge that was gained through their work experience, rather than modified skills, produced mentees who are significantly more likely to become successful in their fields. Further proven was that creating “mini-me’s” don’t thrive. Whereas protégés were proven to be more successful when they work on different topics than their mentors.
For many of us, this is a new way of thinking about mentorship.
“People almost always think of the mentor as the really active element. The mentee is the passive element, absorbing the mentor’s knowledge,” Uzzi says. “Some of that’s true, but it turns out it’s really not a one-way arrow. It’s incumbent upon the mentee to branch out, take their mentor’s tacit knowledge, and do something that breaks new ground. The mentee has a big responsibility for their own success.”
“When a student gets this ‘special sauce’ and they apply it to being a mini-me of their mentor, they still do well. But if they apply it to an original new topic of their own, they do even better,” Uzzi says. “You want the special sauce, but if you also apply it to something new, the special sauce is even more valuable to you.”
What is the “hidden skill” that sets good mentors apart? Current research does not suggest any recipe for success, but it does offer a few key pointers:
Firstly, the best mentors pass on something that goes beyond their subject-matter of expertise. But if this was solely the case, then so called “mini-me” mentees would be most likely to succeed, but they’re not.
Consequently, Uzzi and his co-authors believe that mentees aren’t just learning concrete skills from their mentors. Mentees are picking up how their mentors come up with research questions, how they brainstorm, how they interact with collaborators, and so on. Knowledge that is difficult to codify and often learned by doing. Therefore, what is being passed down to future prizewinners and protégés is tacit knowledge.
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