Mentoring in the Workplace

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by Captain Ahab Jr

Thanks for the replies, interesting to read what mentoring means to people

I've said, yes, I'm interested to a design/engineering mentoring role at a F1 team. It should be be a very rewarding role and a huge learning experience for both sides. I've done a bit of mentoring in the past but nothing that could be called a structured approach

Been asked to have a think about how I'd go about it. Have a few ideas, talked to few people from design, manufacturing and recent graduates within the team and there is a real need for it.

Opportunity is perfect timing as having just done my umpteenth new car design and build which felt a bit been there, done that and it doesn't excite me anymore. How ungrateful and spoiled does that make me sound

Within the last few weeks I've started to look around for motorsport opportunities outside of F1 which might benefit from my decades of F1 design/engineering and manufacturing knowledge eg Dakar, Moto GP, LMDh, WRC All new itches I need to scratch

Think a mentoring role might just be what I need to get me over the finish line of 500 F1 races

Please keep the stories, ideas and experiences coming, its very insightful reading

If you get a gig with MotoGP I'll be your gophe...er mentee!

[Superman]

For at least the last several years before my June 2022 retirement, I jumped on every opportunity to mentor.

*Be the listener in the meeting.

*Better to do something right than to do it fast.

*The folks who have the answers are the ones asking the questions.

That sort of thing. Hundreds of general wisdoms. Some listened, others did not. I also emphasized writing skills, which take a LONG time to truly develop. Overall, I seem to have made a difference in some peoples' lives and careers.

[id10t]

Coming into a 20+ year old tech stack spread across 3 or 4 languages and versions of the languages. Oh, and no/minimal documentation, badly named programs (SR1145S is "student demographics" - who knew!), bad table structure, etc.

While writing code is trivial for me (been programming since the early 80s) it took most of a year of frequent "hey, where's this and how is this supposed to work" conversations and picking stuff apart so I could write the documentation that was missing.

Also, as an instructor (linux admin, java, sql) I tend to bring teaching into all sorts of stuff, so when we get new devs with not a lot of experience I often get to spend a few hours per week with them for the first month or so...

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Captain Ahab Jr

Really interested to hear of people's experiences of this as a way to fast track interns and graduates pace of learning on the job

We have a summer intern program at both the companies I am affiliated with - the North Carolina facility for composites is associated with North Car State University, excellent engineering school, and we try and get an intern from every grade that lives in the Morganton area. We also bring on at least one High School person.

They are all really bright kids and a pleasure to work with. We start them off their first summer with us on the composite line doing lay up and the basics of composutes and composite tooling They also clean up at the end of the day.

Since 80% return every summer, we give them gradually more design and CAD work that they can then manufacture.

This has been the overwhelming response: "Working lay up made me a better designer...what looks like a million bucks in CAD may be a huge pain to build unless you get the loft right etc."

On the aero side, the small company in Yorktown, we do two a summer. Generally one looking at a business or finance degree (my intern) and an aero engineer.

The aero person starts out in flight test as a helper, updating test results and test plans, maintenance, etc. If they are good by the end of the first summer they will be piloting the UAS in some regimes.

They love it. Hard to get them off the flight line

They also do janitorial work at the end of the day.

My point being is that the mentor-ships start out gaining an apprciation for how their future designs will be built and by what type of craftsman...they also get a sense of manufacturing "time" and complexity of tooling, critical components of composite manufacturing.

Lastly, we also partner with other universities on really neat projects like solar powered cars, etc. We had a ton of Appalachian State students in three summers ago and built a car shell with them. Very cool stuff.



We also helped Duke U. with some slippery coatings:



I know the manual labor aspect of what we do with starter Interns may sound odd, but having working many years in production environments and helicopter/UAS design management, I think it is critical that young interns get away from the "CAD Machine" and learn the trade from the perspective of the builders and assemblers. We also school them on Kaize and principles and processes and add an additional requirement: "Don't fall in love with your design..."

__________________

[Seahawk]

One other thing, which I think is an imperative with young employees, especially engineers: We mentor them on how to build slides and present their ideas, the pitch deck as it were.

We then let them brief their work to the customer, not the entire brief, just their role in the presentation. I always brief the customer in advance on what we are doing to teach our young folks. 99% of the folks we deal with are completely on board.

We also let them watch significant management meetings as a back bencher in the conference room...flip slides, take detailed notes for Minutes, etc.

The only way to get comfortable presenting complex ideas is to build, practice, rehearse and get some off-Broadway chops.

[herr_oberst]

Seahawk, that's pretty impressive. Gives me some hope that my 6 month old nephew has an opportunity in a world that's at opposite poles from some other bleak assessments that others espouse.

Thank you.

[jcommin]

Originally Posted by cstreit

Mentoring should be different than "training".

Training teaches you a job.

Mentoring should help you get your next job.

Spot on!

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

Seahawk, that's pretty impressive. Gives me some hope that my 6 month old nephew has an opportunity in a world that's at opposite poles from some other bleak assessments that others espouse.

I appreciate that, truly.

Here is a picture from five years ago in a project we were doing: A folding UAS that folds up and fits inside a wing store. All the folks in the picture are NCSU folks or in HS.



They had a huge role in the design and fabrication work as well as flight test.

Ducted fan work my partner led (I am not an engineer and CAD, to me, is someone who breaks up with his girlfriend on Valentines Day). We are working with the Army and Navy (USMC) on this design:



I was very lucky as a young Naval Officer getting the right mentoring, both frmal and informal. I think it is huge part of company (including the military) success.

[upsscott]

I’m more in the blue collar world but to be a good UPS driver whether it be delivery or long haul like myself, I believe mentoring by an experienced, proven driver is extremely necessary. Our supervisors are not day in day out tested drivers. They see everything on paper not real world. Unfortunately UPS is going away from this type of training and the service level shows.

[Gretch]

A good mentor is "candid" without being threatening.......

Reason being; pointing out when someone gets "something right" is very easy..........

Getting a protege to see what they did wrong and learn from that mistake is a lot more challenging.

The ongoing, subliminal, underlying lessons are always: ethics, high personal standards of honesty, the value of focus, hard work and delayed satisfaction, some self depreciation and of course real humility...........

So, in the final analysis, be careful who you choose to mentor, not all candidates are worthy students.......... in fact most ARE NOT.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Gretch

So, in the final analysis, be careful who you choose to mentor, not all candidates are worthy students...in fact most ARE NOT.

Great post - all of it, but especially the above. We get some clinkers but we are polite and respectful and let them ease out the door without drama.

We also do interview and it can be eye-opening. I had an interview with a young man I thought was going to be perfect for some detailed spreadsheet work we had last summer building a proposal: cost schedule, hours the whole deal. My goal was to get him up to speed and do course corrections with him. I build these things in my sleep. Easy day.

Great resume, grades, William and Mary business track, etc.

He shows up on time with his Mom. I introduce myself, and ask if I can get Mrs. X anything while her son and I talk.

"That won't be necessary...we'll both meet with you."

He is looking at his phone and Mrs. X looks like a long day at the Mall, but I can't help myself.

"Alright. We'll use the conference room."

Our full time young engineers are really something: We just unfortunately lost a PhD candidate in Aero to the Army. She is from a small ranch in Wyoming and right out of central "couldn't be a better young woman" central casting. We just couldn't compete with the GS perks the Army offered, oddly enough after she and I briefed the Army on the canister launched UAS that grew out of the earlier picture I posted. Oh, well.

Her design improvements after we flew the original design in some Navy Experiments was nothing short of fantastic. Amazing stuff. I have dinner with she and her husband once a month or so and she is flourishing, duh, and is happy.

She is one example of six high speed, low drag under 30 engineers working for us.

I write that because I had never really encountered a helicopter Mom until then.

What a performance.

Neither of them got the internship

[cstreit]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

He shows up on time with his Mom. I introduce myself, and ask if I can get Mrs. X anything while her son and I talk.

"That won't be necessary...we'll both meet with you."

This is where you say "Unless you're planning on working alongside him every day, you won't be present."

Hopefully the poor kid was mortified and realized that was a red flag.

[Arizona_928]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

Great post - all of it, but especially the above. We get some clinkers but we are polite and respectful and let them ease out the door without drama.

We also do interview and it can be eye-opening. I had an interview with a young man I thought was going to be perfect for some detailed spreadsheet work we had last summer building a proposal: cost schedule, hours the whole deal. My goal was to get him up to speed and do course corrections with him. I build these things in my sleep. Easy day.

Great resume, grades, William and Mary business track, etc.

He shows up on time with his Mom. I introduce myself, and ask if I can get Mrs. X anything while her son and I talk.

"That won't be necessary...we'll both meet with you."

He is looking at his phone and Mrs. X looks like a long day at the Mall, but I can't help myself.

"Alright. We'll use the conference room."

Our full time young engineers are really something: We just unfortunately lost a PhD candidate in Aero to the Army. She is from a small ranch in Wyoming and right out of central "couldn't be a better young woman" central casting. We just couldn't compete with the GS perks the Army offered, oddly enough after she and I briefed the Army on the canister launched UAS that grew out of the earlier picture I posted. Oh, well.

Her design improvements after we flew the original design in some Navy Experiments was nothing short of fantastic. Amazing stuff. I have dinner with she and her husband once a month or so and she is flourishing, duh, and is happy.

She is one example of six high speed, low drag under 30 engineers working for us.

I write that because I had never really encountered a helicopter Mom until then.

What a performance.

Neither of them got the internship

Sooooo, kid and mom had a bse or higher? How old was the kid?

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

....

"That won't be necessary...we'll both meet with you." ...

Me: "No you won't."

Next!

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Arizona_928

Sooooo, kid and mom had a bse or higher? How old was the kid?

I was kidding about the Mom.

The same thing happened a few years before at the place in North Carolina. I was not there. My partner did the, "not going to happen" and a fur ball ensued with an upset Mom.

We decided to humor the parents and not hire the kid(s) should it happen again; just not worth it the potential bravo sierra for a five minute "how-do-you-do and have a nice day...we'll call" meeting

Sorry for the hi-jack Capt...good luck!

[Captain Ahab Jr]

So if I take on the mentoring role I should bring my mom with me

Paul inspiring stuff, wouldn't have expected anything less from you

Someone mentioned sitting in management meetings, I'd thought of that so good to see I'm not the only one thinking that way

[Seahawk]

One more: The young man on the left, running the safety tether, was an intern. He is now full time. He works remote two days a week.

The other guy is my partner. We are testing a tethered version of what we call Watchman...all data and power go up the tether so it can fly as long as the customer wants and be launched and recovered via the tether system.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Thanks again for taking time to post your comments

I've a meeting tomorrow to discuss my approach on how best to go about mentoring

Rightly or wrongly I've not prepared any spreadsheets, PowerPoint, Venn diagrams etc

Just going to let my passion for nurturing young engineers and my willingness to share my knowledge/experience do the talking.

A longtime friend and 35yr F1 design veteran and myself both agree on the same approach. It's a bit old school but from our experiences works well

Give mentored engineers design work that is beyond their ability. Allow them to make mistakes drown a little chose the wrong approach but always be there to point them back to the right path

At the same time introduce them to the right people to talk to so they create company wide healthy working relationships that help all parties.

Also give them 1st hand experience of seeing their hard work being manufactured, built and tested while fully understanding how their good work/mistakes impacts the rest of the team's

Hoping if I find the right approach I should help nurture the next generation of young engineers that never give up, push time, materials, manufacturing processes, to the limits with a never satisfied its good enough attitude while thoroughly enjoying what they do for most of the time

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Thought I'd post a long over due update

Disappointingly the above meeting led to nothing despite my best efforts, the intent was there but when it came to the crunch there just wasn't the support required to do it properly

Not all is lost though as this week I've agreed to join another F1 team who approached me out of the blue about building up, training and mentoring a newly created small group of design engineers in preparation of being fully race ready for the new 2nd generation hybrid power unit era starting in 2026

As this time it has the full backing and support from the head honcho and down I'm feeling very optimistic the team is serious about the importance of a well structured mentoring programme

Really fired up, can't wait to start, excited but scared in equal measure.

I'm my happiest, pushing motorsport design/engineering to the limit and often beyond my comfort zone

Only this time I'll have a few frightened, newbies strapped in riding shotgun with me, should be a fun and exciting ride

[3rd_gear_Ted]

Mentoring a rookie HV Electrician while working their 1st time on a hot 12 or 66Kv circuit up a pole in a bucket is always fun when you ask them if they feel all their arm hair standing on end through their HV gloves.
Think twice, move as trained and trust your safety gear.
I heard it from my mentor @ my 1st time and I automatically repeated the same exact words like it was yesterday. Made me smile.
Lineman B will some day do the same some day as a Lineman A and that's how the baton gets passed along IBEW style. Only God and Electricians can make light.