Reverse Mentorship: How Wisdom Can Flow Both Ways
Wisdom isn’t exclusive to those who have lived longer; younger people have a lot to offer, and are filled with their own kind of wisdom. It’s most beneficial when we seek knowledge and perspective from those different from us, which means, we reach out to those younger than us and older than us to gain a new point of view.
Reverse Mentors are Viable
Reverse Mentors are younger workers who provide perspective and advice that will likely be different from that of our peers. If you’ve been a reverse mentor or you’ve had one, please email me what made the relationship productive and what you had to guard against. Include your title, company and location. WorkWise covers emerging trends in careers, recruitment and job-hunting (workwise.net).
I am the CEO of a 10 million dollar consulting company with 30 employees. I am rated one of the top 10 sales experts in the world, and I only share this as proof that many of us need younger mentors.
Learning from a mentor has nothing to do with age. It has to do with knowledge and wisdom that can be imparted to help someone else succeed. I have been mentored for 2 years by a 31-year-old Millennial, who has brought my knowledge of her generation way up, and at the same time, shared with me her understanding of the digital world, which gets past many people like me, who are over 60.
I believe a mentor should be someone that you like, trust, respect and admire, who you can learn from because of their unusual wisdom in a certain area. It didn’t take me long to see that Lindsey (my Millennial Mentor) was a person I had better learn from. I have suggested to others who I mentor that they need a younger mentor. If 40 percent of today’s workforce are Millennials and by 2025 will be 75 percent, then proactively learning about them seems important. I wrote a best selling book, “Stop Acting Like a Seller, Start Thinking Like a Buyer,” and if that is your philosophy, then learning about Millennials is important. There is no better way to find out how they think and what they know than to find one to mentor you.