In my last permanent job I line managed part of the IA/Experience planning team. The most rewarding part with that was to help and watch them grow, to be able to pass on some of the things that I’d learnt and been taught, but also to learn from them.
When I started out I didn’t initially have a mentor or someone who would guide and push me in the right direction. It was fine, for a while. I looked at what others had done and did something similar but I felt I was going at it with less direction, challenge and inspiration than what I ideally wanted. When I eventually got a mentor I started to develop my skills a lot quicker. To our sessions I would bring along some of the things I was working on and we would discuss it. The project, my thinking and rational, any problems I might have or proposed solutions I wanted to get a second opinion on. It was really helpful and a good forum to air and discuss concerns as well as learn from more experienced colleagues when it came to how best to handle tricky clients or team members. So much of what we do is dependent on those relationships and they aren’t always straight forward.
It wasn’t just me who shared in those sessions. My mentor would also bring along some of her work and tell me about it. I loved that part. To hear what her thinking was, how she’d approach it and later used it. How it was perceived by internal and external clients and not to least what it actually looked like. That was incredibly rewarding, to see what and how other people were doing things. Just as we search the web for inspiration, sharing work within a team is a great way to get new perspectives and ideas and in those mentoring session I learnt a lot from talking through our respective work. At the back of it I developed new ways of looking at a problem situation or deliverable and I experimented with different ways of communicating the message I was trying to get across. I learnt how even the most boring project can be made to be more creative to work on and how to adapt the visual presentation of your documents to the audience. But more than anything I developed a deep understanding of what worked and why. Not only when it came to presenting work but actually doing the work as well.
Tonight I taught my Designing for multiple devices class for the third time here in London and some of the conversations I had made me really miss line managing and mentoring. It was incredibly rewarding and one of the aspects I miss the most since having left a permanent job. I like to encourage people to find their own way. To think one step further and to challenge what they are “told”. And I love to see what other people are doing and hear them talk about it as well as the challenges they face. I wouldn’t be were I was today had it not been for my mentors and though time and commuting doesn’t allow for me to do as much of it as I would like, it’s lovely to be able to give a little back through teaching, and hopefully these posts. And soon I’ll be looking for a mentor of my own, but I’ll tell you about that some other day.
Tomorrow – Day 276 | Credit where credit is due
Image source: www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/4258211455
