Building Stronger Relationships Through Mentoring with Lisa Fain | RR275

Janice Porter: 00:00:01

Lisa, Hello everyone, and welcome to

Janice Porter: 00:00:03

relationships rule. I have a special guest with me as always,

Janice Porter: 00:00:07

and I'm excited to introduce you to Lisa Fain. Lisa is coming to

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us from Washington, State of Washington area, and she is the

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center. She is the CEO of the Center for mentoring excellence

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and an expert in the intersection of cultural

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competency and mentoring. She has a passion for diversity and

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inclusion and work, which fuels her strong conviction that

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leveraging differences creates a better workplace and drives

Janice Porter: 00:00:37

better business results. Now I'm going to start like, first of

Janice Porter: 00:00:42

all, welcome to the show. Lisa,

Lisa Fain: 00:00:44

thank you, Janice. I'm delighted to be here. Thanks

Lisa Fain: 00:00:46

for having me My

Janice Porter: 00:00:47

pleasure. So I have, I have a lot of questions.

Janice Porter: 00:00:51

Some of them may seem pretty basic to you, but I'm not even

Janice Porter: 00:00:54

going to go there yet. Where I want to start is the whole

Janice Porter: 00:00:56

factor that, the whole fact that my podcast is all about

Janice Porter: 00:01:01

relationships. I found it fascinating and very, very warm,

Janice Porter: 00:01:06

actually, and very, very special that your center for mentally

Janice Porter: 00:01:12

mentoring excellence started with your mom. It was her

Janice Porter: 00:01:16

vision, right? And I would love to know about that and how you a

Janice Porter: 00:01:21

lawyer, a mediator, how you got into this? Because to me, it's

Janice Porter: 00:01:25

all about the relationships and and that was a special one, I

Janice Porter: 00:01:28

think.

Lisa Fain: 00:01:29

Yeah, so she was one of the very first people to be

Lisa Fain: 00:01:34

thinking about mentoring in the organizational context, as a

Lisa Fain: 00:01:39

practitioner instead of as an academic. And so in 1992 she

Lisa Fain: 00:01:43

started Leadership Development Services, which became center

Lisa Fain: 00:01:46

for mentoring excellence. And it's interesting, because that

Lisa Fain: 00:01:51

is the year after I graduated from high school, which means

Lisa Fain: 00:01:54

that it wasn't something that it was really in my in my

Lisa Fain: 00:01:59

consciousness as much because I was, I was in college doing my

Lisa Fain: 00:02:03

own thing as she was really developing center for mentoring

Lisa Fain: 00:02:07

excellence. So it wasn't until I was a full blown adult with a

Lisa Fain: 00:02:11

family of my own that I really became aware of the impact that

Lisa Fain: 00:02:15

she had had on the field of mentoring. And

Janice Porter: 00:02:18

we must say who she is, um Lois Zachary. Was her

Janice Porter: 00:02:22

name, right? Was she a doctorate or doctor? Lois

Lisa Fain: 00:02:25

Zachary, yeah, she had gone back to get her

Lisa Fain: 00:02:26

doctorate when I was in middle school, and then formed the

Lisa Fain: 00:02:30

center right after I graduated from high school, and I actually

Lisa Fain: 00:02:36

ended up calling her up, because after I had I called her up

Lisa Fain: 00:02:42

professionally. I called her up often to talk, yeah,

Lisa Fain: 00:02:45

professionally. After I practiced law, I went in house

Lisa Fain: 00:02:50

to a legal department, and then I ended up leading Diversity

Lisa Fain: 00:02:53

Equity and Inclusion for that organization. And as part of

Lisa Fain: 00:02:57

that work, our women's group wanted a mentoring program. So I

Lisa Fain: 00:03:01

called her up and said, Mom, what should I do? And she said,

Lisa Fain: 00:03:05

Well, why don't you, you know, bring me in and I'll train your

Lisa Fain: 00:03:07

mentors and mentees. She said she what she had said to me is,

Lisa Fain: 00:03:10

you know, Lisa, the key is really making sure that the

Lisa Fain: 00:03:13

mentors and the mentees have the competency to be effective. And

Lisa Fain: 00:03:16

I hadn't really thought about that. I'd always kind of thought

Lisa Fain: 00:03:18

of mentoring as something that you kind of wing, you know, you

Lisa Fain: 00:03:20

wing it, but yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:03:22

talk about that. So, yes, back to that. Okay. So

Janice Porter: 00:03:25

she said,

Lisa Fain: 00:03:25

why don't you bring me in and I'll train your

Lisa Fain: 00:03:27

mentors and your mentees? Well, at the time, I didn't think it

Lisa Fain: 00:03:30

was going to be possible, because I managed a budget, and

Lisa Fain: 00:03:32

I felt very funny about talking to my boss about bringing in my

Lisa Fain: 00:03:35

mother. But it happened anyway. The stars aligned, and she she

Lisa Fain: 00:03:40

was up front, in the front of the room, talking about the

Lisa Fain: 00:03:43

power of the transformational power of mentoring relationship.

Lisa Fain: 00:03:47

And meanwhile, leading Dei, I had really noticed the biggest

Lisa Fain: 00:03:51

change in people's behaviors was not when they went to a training

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or they went to a round table. Other those things are powerful

Lisa Fain: 00:03:58

educational tools. The key to action is when you have a

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relationship with somebody in the workplace who's different

Lisa Fain: 00:04:03

from you in some meaningful way. So I was just really connected

Lisa Fain: 00:04:07

the dots between what she was saying and what I had been

Lisa Fain: 00:04:10

feeling. And we dipped our she said, you know, as we had

Lisa Fain: 00:04:14

conversations about it after the fact, she said, Well, maybe you

Lisa Fain: 00:04:16

want to come think about, you know, working with me, and I was

Lisa Fain: 00:04:19

a little bit trepidatious about it, so I just dipped my toe in.

Lisa Fain: 00:04:23

I went part time at the company I was working for and part time

Lisa Fain: 00:04:26

with her, and meanwhile, I had also developed coaching

Lisa Fain: 00:04:28

practice. And it worked out well. She was so wonderful to

Lisa Fain: 00:04:33

work with, very respectful of my own expertise in this dei world,

Lisa Fain: 00:04:37

and it really dovetailed really well with what she was doing. So

Lisa Fain: 00:04:40

the rest from that point is history. Janice, as I said,

Lisa Fain: 00:04:43

well, it to

Janice Porter: 00:04:44

me, it was just like, wow, because that is so

Janice Porter: 00:04:49

special that doesn't happen very often, and especially with what

Janice Porter: 00:04:52

you've just explained that you went and did your own thing, and

Janice Porter: 00:04:56

it brought you around to basically. Working with your

Janice Porter: 00:05:00

mom, and she'd never pushed you to join in her work, or never

Janice Porter: 00:05:04

done anything to lure you in before that. Yeah,

Lisa Fain: 00:05:09

for sure. In fact, you know, we were quite

Lisa Fain: 00:05:10

different, and I never would have thought that I would have

Lisa Fain: 00:05:12

worked with her, not because she wasn't wonderful. She was very

Lisa Fain: 00:05:16

wonderful, but she was a big picture thinker, and I tend to

Lisa Fain: 00:05:21

be really logical and just have different interests. And, you

Lisa Fain: 00:05:26

know, you talk about relationships, it was so

Lisa Fain: 00:05:28

redefining to our relationship, to have this professional

Lisa Fain: 00:05:31

relationship, this professional mentoring relationship, which is

Lisa Fain: 00:05:35

simply what it was, and as well as kind of the personal, you

Lisa Fain: 00:05:38

know, mother daughter relationship as well, it was

Lisa Fain: 00:05:40

really redefining and really, really special.

Janice Porter: 00:05:42

So how much time did you have with her in that

Janice Porter: 00:05:46

capacity? Capacity?

Lisa Fain: 00:05:47

Well, I started working with her in 2015 part

Lisa Fain: 00:05:52

time, full time. In 2016 she retired in 2018 at the beginning

Lisa Fain: 00:05:57

of 2018 when I took over as CEO. But we wrote a couple books

Lisa Fain: 00:06:01

together. So she passed away in the fall of 2022 So all told

Lisa Fain: 00:06:06

about seven years working together.

Janice Porter: 00:06:08

Yeah, that's very special. I'm sure she was very

Janice Porter: 00:06:10

proud of you, too. Thank you. Yeah. Now, okay, I have to ask

Janice Porter: 00:06:15

one more question. So you have children? How old are they? 20

Janice Porter: 00:06:19

and

Lisa Fain: 00:06:19

18?

Janice Porter: 00:06:20

So did they question? Did they ask you? Did

Janice Porter: 00:06:23

that put any pressure on them? Ask me about what, whether they

Janice Porter: 00:06:28

the working with going to work with grandma and, you know, you

Janice Porter: 00:06:33

know?

Lisa Fain: 00:06:35

No, I don't think so. I'm curious to see. It's still

Lisa Fain: 00:06:38

early to know where they will end up. But no, they were always

Lisa Fain: 00:06:42

really curious and supportive about it, but never any

Lisa Fain: 00:06:45

question, never really questioning it. And you know, I

Lisa Fain: 00:06:49

it was important to me that they recognize the impact that she

Lisa Fain: 00:06:53

had on the world. Yes, absolutely, which isn't

Lisa Fain: 00:06:56

something that I fully recognize. Even when I was

Lisa Fain: 00:06:58

working with her, I certainly didn't recognize it before I was

Lisa Fain: 00:07:00

working with her, yeah, I started to recognize it when I

Lisa Fain: 00:07:02

was working with her, and even more so after she passed, like,

Lisa Fain: 00:07:06

so that's really important for me to have shared with them. And

Lisa Fain: 00:07:09

I was really conscious while we were working together, of like,

Lisa Fain: 00:07:14

sharing what a rock star she was in that world, so that they

Lisa Fain: 00:07:18

could really see the impact that they had she had.

Janice Porter: 00:07:20

Yeah, that's really good. Okay, so I want to

Janice Porter: 00:07:22

go back to something I said I'll come back to, which is, you know

Janice Porter: 00:07:25

what my definition and thought of mentoring was all about,

Janice Porter: 00:07:29

because I've been asked to mentor people over the years

Janice Porter: 00:07:33

through just the fact that I'm older than everybody else around

Janice Porter: 00:07:36

there, right? Whatever I was doing and and I love and I'm a

Janice Porter: 00:07:40

teacher by trade, so for me, it felt like teaching but, but I

Janice Porter: 00:07:46

think I thought that was about winging it and bringing out what

Janice Porter: 00:07:50

they what they needed me to help them with, and see if, if and if

Janice Porter: 00:07:54

I couldn't do it, I would try and find someone who could. But

Janice Porter: 00:07:58

your definition, what your mom built as the the business, there

Janice Porter: 00:08:03

is a lot more, and it's a lot more complex, and it seems to me

Janice Porter: 00:08:11

that, and I want you to talk about it, because it seems to me

Janice Porter: 00:08:14

that it's not just the mentor, the mentee has a role as well,

Janice Porter: 00:08:18

and in learning. Both of them have a role in learning. So can

Janice Porter: 00:08:22

you give me that sort of in a nutshell of of the definition

Janice Porter: 00:08:27

and the the way it works?

Lisa Fain: 00:08:30

Yeah, for sure. So it's interesting, because

Lisa Fain: 00:08:34

mentoring really is, you know, like, it's, like, the most

Lisa Fain: 00:08:36

promiscuously used word in leadership development. You

Lisa Fain: 00:08:39

know, he asked people like, who's your mentor? And they'll

Lisa Fain: 00:08:41

say things you know, like Oprah or Maya or Gandhi or what have

Lisa Fain: 00:08:46

you. And there were great role models, but unless you have

Lisa Fain: 00:08:50

actually a reciprocal relationship with them, it's not

Lisa Fain: 00:08:54

really mentoring, right? I'm

Janice Porter: 00:08:55

still glad you said that, because, yeah, I've

Janice Porter: 00:08:57

heard it for years, people saying that, and it doesn't make

Janice Porter: 00:09:00

sense to me. It's

Lisa Fain: 00:09:03

just, it's the misuse of the word. So what is

Lisa Fain: 00:09:05

mentoring? I like to say, I think the easiest way to think

Lisa Fain: 00:09:09

about what is mentoring and how it's different than other other

Lisa Fain: 00:09:13

things, like coaching, role model, teaching, what have you,

Lisa Fain: 00:09:16

is that there's three characteristics to mentoring.

Lisa Fain: 00:09:19

There's learning, there's reciprocity and there's co

Lisa Fain: 00:09:22

creation. So let's get go through each of these. Learning

Lisa Fain: 00:09:25

is the purpose, the process and the product of mentoring.

Lisa Fain: 00:09:29

Learning is the purpose, the process and the product of

Lisa Fain: 00:09:31

mentoring, meaning that if it's not a learning relationship, it

Lisa Fain: 00:09:35

may just be a great relationship, but it's not

Lisa Fain: 00:09:39

mentoring, it can might be excellent lunches, it might be

Lisa Fain: 00:09:43

scintillating conversations. It might be something, you know,

Lisa Fain: 00:09:47

that's that's a great way to spend time and build

Lisa Fain: 00:09:49

relationships. But it's not learning unless, excuse me, it's

Lisa Fain: 00:09:52

not mentoring unless there's a learning presence. So that's the

Lisa Fain: 00:09:55

first thing. The second is reciprocity, and this is why

Lisa Fain: 00:09:58

your relationship with Oprah. Or is not mentoring unless you

Lisa Fain: 00:10:02

really know her well, which is entirely possible. But is is

Lisa Fain: 00:10:06

this idea of reciprocity, mentors give and mentors get,

Lisa Fain: 00:10:11

mentees give and mentees get. And people often think about

Lisa Fain: 00:10:14

what mentees are gaining, but the truth is that mentors gain

Lisa Fain: 00:10:17

as much or more from the relationship as mentees do, and

Lisa Fain: 00:10:21

the data really supports that they become better leaders. They

Lisa Fain: 00:10:25

gain more cultural competency, they have more career

Lisa Fain: 00:10:28

satisfaction. And this goes on and on and on and on. And

Lisa Fain: 00:10:33

similarly, mentees give and mentees get, right. So there's

Lisa Fain: 00:10:38

there is that reciprocity, that's the second thing. And the

Lisa Fain: 00:10:40

third thing is co creation, which is that the mentor, let's

Lisa Fain: 00:10:44

assume for a second a one on one mentoring relationship with one

Lisa Fain: 00:10:47

mentor, one mentee. It's like it's the funny math of one plus

Lisa Fain: 00:10:51

one equals three. In in a mentoring relationship, there's

Lisa Fain: 00:10:53

the mentor, there's the mentee, and then there's the mentoring

Lisa Fain: 00:10:56

relationship that they co create together. So they're both diving

Lisa Fain: 00:11:00

in and determining the the parameters of that mentoring

Lisa Fain: 00:11:04

relationship. So that's really unique, right? Because there's

Lisa Fain: 00:11:07

not very many other relationships in the work, in

Lisa Fain: 00:11:10

your professional lives, even in your personal life, where you

Lisa Fain: 00:11:13

can have that kind of co creation

Janice Porter: 00:11:15

in the same Yeah. Okay, so that's really

Janice Porter: 00:11:21

developmental learning, reciprocity and CO creating. So

Janice Porter: 00:11:24

those are the three parts to mentoring. So would you say,

Janice Porter: 00:11:29

then that that's just so different from, say, teaching,

Janice Porter: 00:11:33

because teaching, it's more one way.

Lisa Fain: 00:11:36

Well, in teaching you, you as the teacher, are

Lisa Fain: 00:11:39

driving the learning, right, right? Not the student, yeah,

Lisa Fain: 00:11:43

and it's not that as a teacher, you don't get some sense of

Lisa Fain: 00:11:46

self, of satisfaction and teaching. I mean, great teachers

Lisa Fain: 00:11:50

gain a lot from it, but the purpose of that relationship is

Lisa Fain: 00:11:54

not for you as a teacher to be gaining. It's the purposes for

Lisa Fain: 00:11:57

the student to be learning, right? And you and in most

Lisa Fain: 00:12:01

teaching relationships, you know, particularly, you know,

Lisa Fain: 00:12:05

let's think about it. Student in school, they aren't co creating

Lisa Fain: 00:12:08

the terms of the relationship. They're showing up, yeah. And

Lisa Fain: 00:12:12

their behavior may dictate the way you teach, but you as a

Lisa Fain: 00:12:15

teacher, are setting the rules of the

Janice Porter: 00:12:16

classroom. So that's teaching, and then

Janice Porter: 00:12:19

there's coaching, yeah?

Lisa Fain: 00:12:20

So that's what gets that's the, probably the most

Lisa Fain: 00:12:22

common question that I get is like, what's the difference

Lisa Fain: 00:12:24

between coaching and mentoring? And I have sort of two answers

Lisa Fain: 00:12:30

for that. So the first answer is, all great mentors or

Lisa Fain: 00:12:34

coaches. But not all great coaches are mentors. So coaching

Lisa Fain: 00:12:37

is a skill that great mentors use. You can be a great coach

Lisa Fain: 00:12:40

without using mentoring as a skill. That's that's number one.

Lisa Fain: 00:12:45

Number two is that the reciprocity isn't there in the

Lisa Fain: 00:12:49

same way. Again, it's not that coaches don't gain something

Lisa Fain: 00:12:51

from it, but it's not designed in the same way. Coaches also

Lisa Fain: 00:12:55

bring the tools mentors there. I've seen some amazing mentoring

Lisa Fain: 00:12:59

relationships where the mentor has zero familiarity with the

Lisa Fain: 00:13:02

context in which the mentee works, but really it's a

Lisa Fain: 00:13:05

successful mentoring relationship because they're

Lisa Fain: 00:13:08

learning together. They have a great level of curiosity, which

Lisa Fain: 00:13:11

will I know, we'll talk about it a little bit, and you know, they

Lisa Fain: 00:13:16

really can ask the right questions and help help the

Lisa Fain: 00:13:20

mentee define when they need more tools. So they're

Lisa Fain: 00:13:23

definitely interrelated. That's the answer number one. Answer

Lisa Fain: 00:13:26

number two is, we may get too hung up on what the difference

Lisa Fain: 00:13:31

between coaching is, because the skills are very similar, not

Lisa Fain: 00:13:36

identical, but the skills are very similar. So

Janice Porter: 00:13:40

I'm just trying to think, you know, if, if in

Janice Porter: 00:13:44

situations where I've been a quote mentor, whether I've

Janice Porter: 00:13:48

messed somebody up or not, you know, like I'm thinking, you

Janice Porter: 00:13:51

know, I mean, because you I know that I always learn from the the

Janice Porter: 00:13:55

people that I'm mentoring when I've done that, but hopefully

Janice Porter: 00:14:00

they do too, and and and more so. So I know that you look at

Janice Porter: 00:14:06

this holistically, and what does that mean to you? Because I know

Janice Porter: 00:14:11

it's, I think it's very important to the work that

Janice Porter: 00:14:13

you're doing, right?

Lisa Fain: 00:14:14

Yeah. I mean, look, I think you we need mentors at all

Lisa Fain: 00:14:17

stages of our lives. We need many mentors throughout our

Lisa Fain: 00:14:19

nightlife, not just this kind of one. Mentor myth is something

Lisa Fain: 00:14:22

that's really outdated so and mentoring is really context

Lisa Fain: 00:14:28

specific. So a lot of times, organizations will come to us

Lisa Fain: 00:14:31

and say, like, just tell me what it is we need to do in order to,

Lisa Fain: 00:14:35

you know, get a great mentoring program. And I say, I can't do

Lisa Fain: 00:14:38

that until I know more about what's the context in which

Lisa Fain: 00:14:40

you're operating. What are the outcomes that you're looking to

Lisa Fain: 00:14:43

achieve? What are some of the constraints that you're seeing

Lisa Fain: 00:14:45

as an organization and so forth? So mentoring, you know, you can

Lisa Fain: 00:14:50

have a mentor. You can have a personal mentor. You can have a

Lisa Fain: 00:14:53

professional mentor. You can have, you know, I'm a small

Lisa Fain: 00:14:56

business owner. I'm also, you know, a thought leader. Or

Lisa Fain: 00:15:00

whatever that means, you know, I have a mentor in that realm. I

Lisa Fain: 00:15:03

have a mentor in my business sense, I have a mentor, a

Lisa Fain: 00:15:08

personal mentor who is, you know, helps me think through

Lisa Fain: 00:15:12

parenting issues and all these things or did when my kids were

Lisa Fain: 00:15:16

younger, anyway. And so if you think about the all of the areas

Lisa Fain: 00:15:21

of your life, learning is critical in all of the different

Lisa Fain: 00:15:24

areas your life, and so it's really important to think about

Lisa Fain: 00:15:27

this holistically. It's so

Janice Porter: 00:15:29

interesting. You say I have a mentor for this and

Janice Porter: 00:15:31

a mentor for that. I always hear people say they have a coach for

Janice Porter: 00:15:33

this and a coach for that. So in your case, now do I mean this is

Janice Porter: 00:15:38

a business, I have a coach. Oh, okay, so you see them

Janice Porter: 00:15:44

differently, and mentors are they typically paid or typically

Janice Porter: 00:15:50

not paid? So you

Lisa Fain: 00:15:52

and I are operating in North America, right here in

Lisa Fain: 00:15:55

Canada, and I'm here in the US, and my answer is different here

Lisa Fain: 00:15:59

than it is in Europe. So in Europe, there is much more of a

Lisa Fain: 00:16:02

burgeoning industry of individual paid mentors. My

Lisa Fain: 00:16:06

mentors here are unpaid. They're, they come to me from

Lisa Fain: 00:16:12

very, you know, maybe met them at a networking event. Maybe

Lisa Fain: 00:16:14

they're a friend of the family. Maybe, you know, they're and

Lisa Fain: 00:16:17

they're, some of them are mentoring moments, you know, as

Lisa Fain: 00:16:20

opposed to kind of like retracted mentoring

Lisa Fain: 00:16:23

relationships. But so typically in the States and in Canada,

Lisa Fain: 00:16:27

what we're talking about when we talk about mentors are unpaid,

Lisa Fain: 00:16:31

although there are some people who you know are paid for their

Lisa Fain: 00:16:35

mentorship, I would argue, in those instances,

Janice Porter: 00:16:40

it changes the relationship, doesn't it changes

Lisa Fain: 00:16:42

the relationship. And it's not that it's a bad thing.

Lisa Fain: 00:16:45

It's just that the way it's done is not really traditional

Lisa Fain: 00:16:49

mentoring, and the way that I tend to think about mentoring,

Janice Porter: 00:16:52

yeah, right. So yeah, it changes the

Janice Porter: 00:16:55

relationship, and tends to be more of that coaching, I would

Janice Porter: 00:16:59

think relationship instead, yeah,

Lisa Fain: 00:17:01

it often veers in that and that's, you know,

Lisa Fain: 00:17:03

that's where it's like, okay, is it a distinction without a

Lisa Fain: 00:17:05

difference? I'm not sure, but I do know that it changes the

Lisa Fain: 00:17:08

dynamic a little bit, yeah.

Janice Porter: 00:17:10

So you and your mom wrote a couple of books,

Janice Porter: 00:17:14

bridging difference for better mentoring, bridging difference

Janice Porter: 00:17:17

for better mentoring, and a new version, you have a new edition

Janice Porter: 00:17:21

of the mentor's guide. Can you tell me about the bridging

Janice Porter: 00:17:27

difference for better mentoring? Is that to do with the DEI

Janice Porter: 00:17:30

piece?

Lisa Fain: 00:17:31

Yeah. I mean, it's really, you know, we wrote

Lisa Fain: 00:17:33

bridging differences for better mentoring, because one of the

Lisa Fain: 00:17:37

things that we were finding is, you know, we keep talking about

Lisa Fain: 00:17:41

the importance of inclusive of mentoring as a tool for

Lisa Fain: 00:17:43

inclusion, and the importance of having inclusive conversations.

Lisa Fain: 00:17:46

But people were really curious about, how, how do you, how do

Lisa Fain: 00:17:49

you, how do you create authentic conversations? How do you hold

Lisa Fain: 00:17:54

space for authentic sharing? And it really is designed to help

Lisa Fain: 00:17:59

mentors and mentees create that space. It's built on the same

Lisa Fain: 00:18:04

basic learning centered model of mentoring, which is a four stage

Lisa Fain: 00:18:09

model of mentoring that we talk about in the mentors guide, but

Lisa Fain: 00:18:13

it's really focused on differences. One of the things I

Lisa Fain: 00:18:15

love about that book is we came up with three composite case

Lisa Fain: 00:18:20

studies based on the people that we'd work with. And they, first

Lisa Fain: 00:18:24

of all, they were great fun to put together, but they have

Lisa Fain: 00:18:28

really helped kind of relate the principles that we talk about in

Lisa Fain: 00:18:31

the book to particular situations and and it's really

Lisa Fain: 00:18:36

designed to be to be applied. And then the mentors guide, you

Lisa Fain: 00:18:41

know, I only had the privilege of doing the third edition.

Lisa Fain: 00:18:44

First and Second were written by my mom, Lois Zachary, and they

Lisa Fain: 00:18:48

it. It really is one of the best selling mentoring books of all

Lisa Fain: 00:18:53

time. It's out there all over the world. It's been translated

Lisa Fain: 00:18:56

into several different languages, and we hear over and

Lisa Fain: 00:18:58

over again that it's like a Bible for people who are

Lisa Fain: 00:19:02

mentors, there's lots of great tools in there. They can take

Lisa Fain: 00:19:06

some of the worksheets and use them in their mentoring

Lisa Fain: 00:19:08

relationship. So our version added dei component. It talked

Lisa Fain: 00:19:13

about hybrid and remote work relationships, which wasn't

Lisa Fain: 00:19:18

really contemplated when the second edition was written

Lisa Fain: 00:19:21

incorporates the global code of ethics for mentoring and a few

Lisa Fain: 00:19:25

other topics that weren't in the second edition, but we're really

Lisa Fain: 00:19:30

proud of that book.

Janice Porter: 00:19:32

That's great. Sounds okay, so now you work

Janice Porter: 00:19:36

with people all over the world. Are you setting up programs for

Janice Porter: 00:19:42

them in their organizations to mentor people within their

Janice Porter: 00:19:47

company? Do you also do like one? Do you? Are you teaching

Janice Porter: 00:19:51

like entrepreneurs to be mentors and things like that? Like, is

Janice Porter: 00:19:54

it or is it mostly corporate?

Lisa Fain: 00:19:56

Um, it's corporates associations, NGOs. Those

Lisa Fain: 00:20:00

government organizations, universities, but it happens in

Lisa Fain: 00:20:03

most of what we do is in the organizational context. We're

Lisa Fain: 00:20:07

actually, we get requests all the time to do kind of public

Lisa Fain: 00:20:09

train, the trainers, and we're actually working on that

Lisa Fain: 00:20:11

offering now, but yeah, or we are hired mostly by

Lisa Fain: 00:20:15

organizations who are looking to, you know, create mentoring

Lisa Fain: 00:20:20

initiatives so we help them kind of soup to nuts.

Janice Porter: 00:20:24

Awesome. Okay, so you alluded to the curiosity

Janice Porter: 00:20:29

question, so I'm going to throw it in right now, because if

Janice Porter: 00:20:32

you've read that that I it's my favorite word, and I'm always

Janice Porter: 00:20:38

curious to know what other people think so. Do you think

Janice Porter: 00:20:42

that curiosity is innate or learned? And part two would be,

Janice Porter: 00:20:47

what are you most curious about today?

Lisa Fain: 00:20:50

I love that question. I do think we have an innate

Lisa Fain: 00:20:53

curiosity. I mean, you think about children who are always

Lisa Fain: 00:20:56

asking questions. I think we're all born with a curiosity, and I

Lisa Fain: 00:21:00

think we are taught, probably implicitly, to stifle that

Lisa Fain: 00:21:05

curiosity, not be nosy. Curiosity killed the cat, right?

Lisa Fain: 00:21:10

All those expressions. And I also think curiosity can be

Lisa Fain: 00:21:14

learned. So I think I The answer is Option C, is it a and eight?

Lisa Fain: 00:21:19

Is it B, learned C, both of the above. You know, I think you can

Lisa Fain: 00:21:24

stoke your curiosity. I think you can practice asking

Lisa Fain: 00:21:29

questions. I think you can practice finding something you

Lisa Fain: 00:21:33

want to learn about more and more, and I think it's an

Lisa Fain: 00:21:38

essential skill. I mean, you probably just because I know how

Lisa Fain: 00:21:41

much you care about curiosity. You've, you know, probably seen

Lisa Fain: 00:21:44

the research that says it's like the biggest predictor of

Lisa Fain: 00:21:46

excellence in leadership is curiosity. It's just, it's

Lisa Fain: 00:21:50

really, really fascinating.

Janice Porter: 00:21:52

Well, you know what you just said? I think

Janice Porter: 00:21:55

that, yes, you can practice asking questions, and you can

Janice Porter: 00:22:00

try, if that's such a thing, to be more curious. But I think the

Janice Porter: 00:22:06

key that you just said, also, and I've seen it in in somebody

Janice Porter: 00:22:09

I know, is that they have to have some kind of passion for

Janice Porter: 00:22:14

it, or they're never they don't care. And that's what I see. If

Janice Porter: 00:22:17

someone is naturally curious, they know that it's easy for

Janice Porter: 00:22:21

them to ask questions about anything but the person who

Janice Porter: 00:22:24

isn't naturally curious, but gets to use your word stoked by

Janice Porter: 00:22:30

something that that lights them up, that that's a different

Janice Porter: 00:22:34

being, different animal, totally. And you know what

Lisa Fain: 00:22:37

strikes me as you're talking Janice is like, I know

Lisa Fain: 00:22:39

you talk a lot about relationships, right? Like the

Lisa Fain: 00:22:42

more you establish relationships in connection with somebody, the

Lisa Fain: 00:22:45

more curious you're going to be, because you care and you want to

Lisa Fain: 00:22:48

know, right? And it's about kind of creating the safe space like

Lisa Fain: 00:22:52

this. The more psychologically safe you feel, the more curious

Lisa Fain: 00:22:57

you can become, and the more open to somebody else's

Lisa Fain: 00:22:59

curiosity and receptive their curiosity you're going to be. So

Lisa Fain: 00:23:03

there's really this nice interplay with how important

Lisa Fain: 00:23:05

relationships and connections are, well, and

Janice Porter: 00:23:07

it was just interesting. When I was

Janice Porter: 00:23:09

preparing for our interview, I was I was reading the material

Janice Porter: 00:23:13

that I had, and I was looking at your website, and I was

Janice Porter: 00:23:15

listening to you on podcast, but what kept coming to me first was

Janice Porter: 00:23:20

the relationship with your mom, because that's just, that's my

Janice Porter: 00:23:22

curiosity, and that's where I had to start. It's just, I don't

Janice Porter: 00:23:26

care if it's not about your business, but that to me, I

Janice Porter: 00:23:29

mean, it was in your case, but that's just where I go, because

Janice Porter: 00:23:32

I can't help myself. So okay, so what are you most curious about

Janice Porter: 00:23:37

today? Um,

Lisa Fain: 00:23:39

oh my gosh, I have so many things that I'm curious

Lisa Fain: 00:23:41

about is I am, in about a month and a half, I'm going to be an

Lisa Fain: 00:23:46

empty nester, and so I'm curious about all sorts of new hobbies,

Lisa Fain: 00:23:52

like I What's it going to be for me? I'm not, I'm still just, I'm

Lisa Fain: 00:23:56

still curious about that, but maybe I'll join a master's

Lisa Fain: 00:23:59

rowing team. Maybe Maybe I'll brush up on my Spanish. You

Lisa Fain: 00:24:04

know, curious

Janice Porter: 00:24:05

to that is, do you really is your is your child

Janice Porter: 00:24:10

that's going away to school, I'm assuming, going away, away

Lisa Fain: 00:24:14

away, 3000 miles away.

Janice Porter: 00:24:16

Oh, where are they going?

Lisa Fain: 00:24:17

Actually, 2000 miles away to University of Wisconsin

Lisa Fain: 00:24:20

at Madison, Seattle, Washington. So,

Janice Porter: 00:24:23

okay, so, so you will have more time.

Lisa Fain: 00:24:26

I will have more time. Yeah, and, right, you

Janice Porter: 00:24:29

still have one at home. She's my youngest.

Lisa Fain: 00:24:31

I have an older one who's already in Washington, DC.

Lisa Fain: 00:24:34

Oh, got it. And then my youngest is going away to University of

Lisa Fain: 00:24:39

Wisconsin really so we'll have a lot of, you know, yeah, thank

Lisa Fain: 00:24:46

you. And you know, I, I'm also really curious about what you

Lisa Fain: 00:24:53

know, it's something we've been spending a lot of time thinking

Lisa Fain: 00:24:55

about at Center for mentoring excellence is, you know, what is

Lisa Fain: 00:24:59

i. First of all, what's AI going to mean in terms of mentoring?

Lisa Fain: 00:25:02

Really curious about the impact of artificial intelligence, and

Lisa Fain: 00:25:05

I'm also really curious about, how are organizations going to

Lisa Fain: 00:25:10

accept this reality that we're in a hybrid workforce, and use

Lisa Fain: 00:25:13

mentoring as a tool for that, like right now, you know,

Lisa Fain: 00:25:18

there's all sorts of return to Office mandates and things like

Lisa Fain: 00:25:21

that, and I think that they're going to be relatively short

Lisa Fain: 00:25:23

lived. So how are organizations going to change their leadership

Lisa Fain: 00:25:27

behavior to embrace this hybrid workforce? And are they open to

Lisa Fain: 00:25:32

using mentoring as a tool to do that? I don't know. Yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:25:35

that's interesting. Like, first of all,

Janice Porter: 00:25:38

are they open to it would make me think it depends on the

Janice Porter: 00:25:43

actual organization, whether they're forward thinking with

Janice Porter: 00:25:46

everything else or not, right? And and also the that probably

Janice Porter: 00:25:53

feeds into the age level of the management, you

Lisa Fain: 00:25:57

know? Yeah, sure, for sure, it's, you know, I honestly

Lisa Fain: 00:26:01

think that the requirement to come back to work of certain

Lisa Fain: 00:26:04

amount of time is a shortcut to, you know, our tradition, the way

Lisa Fain: 00:26:11

that we, we at the who we, who are, who we, who are, of the age

Lisa Fain: 00:26:14

of leaders, of leadership and organizations, learned how to

Lisa Fain: 00:26:17

lead in person. And I think you can learn to lead in a hybrid

Lisa Fain: 00:26:23

work environment, but it requires new skills. It requires

Lisa Fain: 00:26:26

learning how to embrace communication. It requires

Lisa Fain: 00:26:29

learning how to engage people authentically. It requires

Lisa Fain: 00:26:31

learning how to create space in a virtual world and all the

Lisa Fain: 00:26:35

things. And so that's an up leveling of skills that has to

Lisa Fain: 00:26:39

happen. And I don't know necessarily that we have to be,

Lisa Fain: 00:26:43

look, I love being in person. I love getting energy from people

Lisa Fain: 00:26:45

in the same room and not suggesting that you we replace

Lisa Fain: 00:26:48

that. But do we have to mandate that? I don't know.

Janice Porter: 00:26:52

Well, that's that makes me think of those. I'm

Janice Porter: 00:26:57

thinking of my daughters. I have two daughters. They both work

Janice Porter: 00:27:00

from home, corporations. One can handle it because she is out.

Janice Porter: 00:27:06

She's in sales, and she's out and about with people part of

Janice Porter: 00:27:10

the time, the and she's out, going to boot. The other one is

Janice Porter: 00:27:13

the introvert, and feel, I think it's, I don't think it's, it's

Janice Porter: 00:27:20

helping her move ahead and learn in because she's alone all the

Janice Porter: 00:27:25

time, and I just, I don't see it like she probably needs a mentor

Janice Porter: 00:27:33

outside of the boss that she's not real happy with, so to

Janice Porter: 00:27:37

speak, who's somewhere far away, But they're always on, you know,

Janice Porter: 00:27:42

team calls or whatever, but I think it's so different. They're

Janice Porter: 00:27:46

very isol. She's very isolated and and though she likes that,

Janice Porter: 00:27:51

in one sense, she can sort of manage her own time, I think

Janice Porter: 00:27:56

it's a detriment to her work.

Lisa Fain: 00:27:59

Yeah, yeah, experience, yeah.

Janice Porter: 00:28:02

So I don't know. I think, like for me, I it. I'm

Janice Porter: 00:28:09

not in a situation where I need to ever worry about that

Janice Porter: 00:28:12

anymore. I'm not, I'm I'm past it. I think there was so much to

Janice Porter: 00:28:15

be said for being in the group environment and watching other

Janice Porter: 00:28:21

people's play, and, you know how, how the different levels

Janice Porter: 00:28:27

worked in the company, the hierarchy, all of that stuff.

Janice Porter: 00:28:30

You could see it in action. You can't now, yeah,

Lisa Fain: 00:28:32

yeah, it's really, it's, it's really, really,

Lisa Fain: 00:28:35

really, really fascinating. We're just talking with a

Lisa Fain: 00:28:37

colleague this morning about, you know, the Surgeon General of

Lisa Fain: 00:28:40

the US had a report on this epidemic of loneliness, right

Lisa Fain: 00:28:45

that there? You know, I think it came out at the beginning of

Lisa Fain: 00:28:48

last year. So we're in 2024 as we'll record this in 2023 maybe

Lisa Fain: 00:28:53

it was 2022 a report on the epidemic of loneliness and how,

Lisa Fain: 00:28:56

you know, mentoring is really extra important in this epidemic

Lisa Fain: 00:29:00

of loneliness and and that the epidemic of loneliness is only

Lisa Fain: 00:29:05

heightened by virtual Yes. So how do we create that

Lisa Fain: 00:29:10

connection? I think mentoring is a great way to do that. I think

Lisa Fain: 00:29:15

up leveling leadership skills for this hybrid world. Also like

Lisa Fain: 00:29:19

the term hybrid really means mix, right? So, how can you

Lisa Fain: 00:29:22

create without mandating two days a week in the office? How

Lisa Fain: 00:29:25

can you create these hybrid experiences? Maybe the team gets

Lisa Fain: 00:29:28

together every quarter. Maybe you have open office hours where

Lisa Fain: 00:29:32

you can't talk about business, but you have to talk about, you

Lisa Fain: 00:29:35

know, what? You have a question that you put down. You know,

Janice Porter: 00:29:39

I saw when, when covid was rampant. I saw a

Janice Porter: 00:29:44

situation where one of my girls was a different job. She had a

Janice Porter: 00:29:50

different company, different type of flavor altogether. But

Janice Porter: 00:29:54

it was everyone worked from home, and they were global, all

Janice Porter: 00:29:57

around the world, and it was like a 24/7 operation. Depending

Janice Porter: 00:30:00

is like customer support all around the world, and they had,

Janice Porter: 00:30:07

I don't know if it was weekly or bi weekly, activity sessions on

Janice Porter: 00:30:13

Zoom. And it was not work related, it was fun related, and

Janice Porter: 00:30:18

it helped build a culture that I hadn't seen in that kind of, you

Janice Porter: 00:30:22

know, because everybody's separate, nobody's goes to an

Janice Porter: 00:30:24

office together. And it was really good. They would send

Janice Porter: 00:30:28

things to the house, like to my daughter's house, that to have,

Janice Porter: 00:30:33

like it might have been felt, pens and a book to create

Janice Porter: 00:30:36

something for the event. Or, you know, whatever they, they they

Janice Porter: 00:30:40

did. They went all out and they, I think somebody probably

Janice Porter: 00:30:42

created this business right for this time in the world when it

Janice Porter: 00:30:46

was like that. But I think those kinds of things are so important

Janice Porter: 00:30:51

to build that camaraderie, to build the the team, and so

Janice Porter: 00:30:56

different from the company my daughter's in now. It's like

Janice Porter: 00:30:58

night and day. There's none of that. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.

Janice Porter: 00:31:02

Again, I

Lisa Fain: 00:31:02

mean, it's a skill, right? And you have to have the

Lisa Fain: 00:31:05

intentionality to

Janice Porter: 00:31:06

create that. Yeah? You totally do. So I think

Janice Porter: 00:31:11

mentoring is such a a hopeful word, like, I love that. You

Janice Porter: 00:31:20

know, you can help somebody by mentoring them. You can learn

Janice Porter: 00:31:23

from them when you're mentoring them. I love that. And I think

Janice Porter: 00:31:28

whether you're mentoring or coaching or teaching, though

Janice Porter: 00:31:31

they all have the same satisfaction that can come if

Janice Porter: 00:31:34

you do it well, because people appreciate it. So it is

Janice Porter: 00:31:38

excellence in that sense, right? Yeah, for sure. Okay, this has

Janice Porter: 00:31:42

been really fun, so I I want to give you the opportunity to

Janice Porter: 00:31:48

perhaps give my audience, sort of your best or most favorite

Janice Porter: 00:31:57

piece of business advice based on from your perspective. Oh,

Lisa Fain: 00:32:05

I know. It's great. It's a great question. So, you

Lisa Fain: 00:32:07

know, I think this is the same answer to the question of that I

Lisa Fain: 00:32:13

thought about it just in thinking about this

Lisa Fain: 00:32:15

conversation, which is, you know, what's your favorite

Lisa Fain: 00:32:18

quote, right? So, you know, I My favorite quote is a quote that

Lisa Fain: 00:32:24

my sister in law said the night before my wedding, at the

Lisa Fain: 00:32:28

rehearsal dinner. And it's great advice for marriage, and it's

Lisa Fain: 00:32:31

great advice for business. And the advice is that the main

Lisa Fain: 00:32:35

thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, you know. And

Lisa Fain: 00:32:39

you know, obviously in marriage, it means one thing in business,

Lisa Fain: 00:32:42

like, why are you doing what you're doing? What is the

Lisa Fain: 00:32:45

purpose? What is what drives you each day? What's the impact that

Lisa Fain: 00:32:49

you want to make? Keeping that focus and having intentionality

Lisa Fain: 00:32:53

around it will make such a difference, and it's really

Lisa Fain: 00:32:56

quite related to mentoring, right? What is it that you want

Lisa Fain: 00:32:59

to be learning? How is it that you want to be developing what

Lisa Fain: 00:33:02

is it that you want to be giving of yourself to others and really

Lisa Fain: 00:33:07

keeping that front and center is is the best piece of advice? I

Lisa Fain: 00:33:12

think that I ever got

Janice Porter: 00:33:13

nicely done. That's great. That's great. So

Janice Porter: 00:33:17

thank you for being here. Thank you for your wisdom. And the the

Janice Porter: 00:33:23

great explanations about mentoring and mentoring

Janice Porter: 00:33:26

excellence. I I feel like that's clarified it more for me as

Janice Porter: 00:33:30

well, because I was curious about that. I i hope that my

Janice Porter: 00:33:37

audience, I hope that speaking now to my audience, I hope that

Janice Porter: 00:33:40

you appreciate as well. And if you are interested in finding

Janice Porter: 00:33:45

out more about mentoring, I will put the link on the website to

Janice Porter: 00:33:50

the Center for mentoring excellence. There's some good

Janice Porter: 00:33:53

information on there from Lisa and her team, and remember to

Janice Porter: 00:33:57

stay connected and be remembered. You.