Last week I had the opportunity to attend an OASBO session where the main topic was succession planning.  The discussion started with considering communication processes in a simply way:  transmitters and receivers.

Now, move this idea to a mentor/coaching relationship between two people.  We were asked to divide ourselves into groups of three to tackle the task of listing attributes you would want to have in your mentor/coach.

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I decided to see what would happen if we crowd sourced answers to this question. I popped the question out onto twitter hoping that some of my PLN would spot the request and take a moment to respond. The plan worked great as I received a number of responses during the work time allotted.

By happenstance our group was chosen to report back first.  One of my colleagues reported back on our strategy.  I wished I had recorded the reaction in the room as our approach was described (gasp, shock, what?, we didn’t ‘do the work’, you can’t do that). The guest presenter went with the situation as he was quite interested in our approach.

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Here are the PLN responses to the question:  What makes a good mentor/coach?

• engagement
• vision
• empathy
• credibility
• respect for the people they lead
• active listener
• humility
• courage
• geniousness
• openness
• accessible
• transparent (honest, no hidden agendas)
• relationship builder

People were impressed with the quality of thoughtful responses of the  PLN generated answers.  Additional responses from the session members included knowledge, flexible, sympathy, empathy and show confidence in others.

The facilitator added

• being a sounding board (note importance of just listening … (you don’t always need an answer)
• an objective view: a fresh set of eyes and
• accountability in process

All in all a great list of important qualities for a mentor or coach to have.  Plus, it was a great impromptu demonstration of leveraging yourPLN.

Many thanks to PLN members   @EdDoadt,   @KentManning,  @ispgrew,  @alanacallan,   @mstayica,   @sheilashauf,  @fryed,  @jp_payeur,  @heidi_hobson and  @LAndriessen  for taking time to respond and contribute to a great learning experience.

~Mark