Mentoring School Librarians Matters: Reflection on Mentoring Role-Play Conversation

I had the opportunity to collaborate with Jen Linck of Craftsbury Schools on the structured conversation project. We decided that it would be most effective if we role-played twice, each taking a turn to be a mentor/mentee. Our first conversation lasted about 30-35 minutes and is linked both below and in my e-portfolio. Our second conversation was interrupted by a loss of internet and never resumed, we were about 10 minutes into the conversation and were trending towards it lasting about the same amount of time. It is also linked below. As mentors we both worked from a version of the Lipton & Wellman Planning Template that I adapted to make more relevant to the wide variety of issues a librarian mentee could bring up in planning.

Use this link to access a recording of the conversation where I was the mentor and Jen was the mentee.

Use this link to access a recording of the conversation where Jen was the mentor and I was the mentee.

 My first observation is that I have no idea how the example conversation with Laura Lipton that we watched was only 17 minutes long! One possibility is that the scope of the planning challenges both Jen and I wanted to address were significantly larger, and so it was more challenging to narrow down the focus to some specific success indicators and action steps. The context of a pandemic and the resulting change in how we can provide library services creates a situation where, as we said in our conversation, everyone could use some mentoring. The context also made me more predisposed to take a consulting/collaborating stance than the coaching stance I aimed to take in the conversation---Jen's challenges are very similar to my own, and I too will be implementing some of the action steps we brainstormed during the course of our conversation. Reflecting on stances, I noticed that the conversation template leads you through several stances. The first section where you define the challenges, goals and indicators of success requires more of a calibrating stance, whereas choosing approaches and next steps is more open to the other three stances.

I was grateful that the beginning of our call, before we start the actual mentoring conversation, was also recorded, because I can see in that time that my tendency to jump in and interrupt in a conversation was more prevalent and I was less conscious of it than when we officially began the mentoring conversation. I think I was more effective at pausing and paraphrasing, which really go hand in hand because I need think time too, as the conversation went on. It's amazing how well paraphrasing works. Both as mentor and mentee, it spurs further and deeper thinking, ensuring that you don't move on or abandon a part of the conversation before you've really articulated the heart of the issues. It was also so empowering to be a part of a work conversation that was focused on planning and solutions and not on complaining! I will definitely be using some of these mentoring techniques in my planning conversations with my colleagues over the next year---especially paraphrasing. 

I found I was most triggered to be a non-productive listener when I had an idea about solving a problem. At around 23:00 in the conversation where I was a mentor, I redirected the conversation a bit because I had an idea about tracking circulation based on whether students were in-person or remote. I'm not entire sure how to feel about this---because I do think it was a great idea (creating a field for users in your catalog that tracks whether they are in-person, hybrid, or remote learners so that you can get a sense of what groups are driving circulation and thereby who you are missing in your outreach about library services), I also wonder if I shut down ideas that Jen might have with my enthusiasm for my own idea. This is my own tendency toward problem-solving that I reflected on during the listening survey, and as a mentor I don't want to be someone who just solves problems for my mentee, as that is not fulfilling the role of growth agent. I need to be very intentional about when I adopt that "consulting" stance and ensure that I am doing it at the right time, not just every time I have a good idea.

I'm so grateful to have had this opportunity to practice a structured conversation. The more I participate in these sorts of formalized, structured conversations in my work life, the more clear their power becomes. I look forward to continuing to use this and many other forms of structured conversation to make both mentoring and work conversations more productive in the future.