Those are great insights. I read some more in depth observations you have on these exact points at your blog. Anyone who happens upon this thread should check them out under her “mentoring” section.

I think it’s vital for young people to not be afraid of investing this very sort of effort in people they work with that they can learn from. In fact, young people don’t even have to seek mentoring from older workers. Often, successful peers have a lot of things to learn from as well. Peer-to-peer mentoring can be valuable, because they can often speak to you close to your level.

But regardless, seeking out mentoring relationships is critical for truly growing and advancing in your profession, whatever it is. Thanks for your passion for helping other people succeed and your insight into this discussion.

I think the reason that older people do not approach younger people as mentors is because typically, mentoring has been seen as time consuming and annoying, and older people don’t want more responsiblity at the office to deal with more things.

It is not widely known that mentoring someone can actually help the mentor.

So, with this in mind, one of the best ways to ropen in a mentor is to ask very specific questions that are within the area of that person’s expertise. If they give you a good answer, ask another very specific question in a week or so. These are the kinds of questions that feel low risk to answer, so they are likley to get an answer. The more questions like this someone answers, the more invested in you that person will feel.

Penelope