Some thoughts on the âSystematising mentorshipâ stuff:
My impression is that WANBAM and Effective Thesis have essentially done some things that are similar to some of the things proposed in this section of this post. I imagine other EA- or EA-aligned orgs/âpeople mightâve done so as well, in addition to presumably many non-EA orgs/âpeople. So there might be a lot that could be learned from their approaches, successes, failures, thinking, etc.
In a recent podcast interview, Rob Wiblin and Spencer Greenberg proposed a potentially easier way to capture part of the benefits that âSystematising mentorshipâ would also aim to capture: Just setting up weekly meetings with someone else whoâs at roughly the same level of seniority and who also wants more âmanagementâ/ââmentorshipâ
I summarised some of what they said about that here
This of course wouldnât capture all the benefits of getting mentorship from a person with more expertise in an area than the mentee has, but it might capture the benefits that basically just require any âline managerâ type person
âA paid mentorship program could harm other mentorship programs and organic mentoring in the community by setting up an expectation that people providing mentorship be paid.â That does seem to me plausible and worth noting.
But it also seems plausible that a paid mentorship could lead to people coming to see mentorship in general (even when provided for free) as more a more valuable, desired, âsubstantialâ way of being helpful and having impact. And that could perhaps lead to more mentorship being offered, it being offered by higher-calibre mentors, or mentors being more motivated (again, even when the mentorship is free.)
On the other hand, the existence of some paid mentorship could also lead to people implicitly assuming that free mentorship is lower quality or something like that, which could have bad effects (e.g., leading to less supply of and demand for free mentorship).
(Iâm therefore not sure what the net effect of this consideration would be.)
>Just setting up weekly meetings with someone else whoâs at roughly the same level of seniority and who also wants more âmanagementâ/ââmentorshipâ
I really like this idea. I had a set up like this when I had a hands off manager, with a friend who didnât have a manager. I found it really helpful. For others who are keen on this but donât have a particular friend theyâd like to do it with, thereâs a Facebook group for finding such accountability partners.
Thanks for this post.
Some thoughts on the âSystematising mentorshipâ stuff:
My impression is that WANBAM and Effective Thesis have essentially done some things that are similar to some of the things proposed in this section of this post. I imagine other EA- or EA-aligned orgs/âpeople mightâve done so as well, in addition to presumably many non-EA orgs/âpeople. So there might be a lot that could be learned from their approaches, successes, failures, thinking, etc.
In a recent podcast interview, Rob Wiblin and Spencer Greenberg proposed a potentially easier way to capture part of the benefits that âSystematising mentorshipâ would also aim to capture: Just setting up weekly meetings with someone else whoâs at roughly the same level of seniority and who also wants more âmanagementâ/ââmentorshipâ
I summarised some of what they said about that here
This of course wouldnât capture all the benefits of getting mentorship from a person with more expertise in an area than the mentee has, but it might capture the benefits that basically just require any âline managerâ type person
âA paid mentorship program could harm other mentorship programs and organic mentoring in the community by setting up an expectation that people providing mentorship be paid.â That does seem to me plausible and worth noting.
But it also seems plausible that a paid mentorship could lead to people coming to see mentorship in general (even when provided for free) as more a more valuable, desired, âsubstantialâ way of being helpful and having impact. And that could perhaps lead to more mentorship being offered, it being offered by higher-calibre mentors, or mentors being more motivated (again, even when the mentorship is free.)
On the other hand, the existence of some paid mentorship could also lead to people implicitly assuming that free mentorship is lower quality or something like that, which could have bad effects (e.g., leading to less supply of and demand for free mentorship).
(Iâm therefore not sure what the net effect of this consideration would be.)
>Just setting up weekly meetings with someone else whoâs at roughly the same level of seniority and who also wants more âmanagementâ/ââmentorshipâ
I really like this idea. I had a set up like this when I had a hands off manager, with a friend who didnât have a manager. I found it really helpful. For others who are keen on this but donât have a particular friend theyâd like to do it with, thereâs a Facebook group for finding such accountability partners.