Throughout the mentor-mentee relationship, from Act I to Act IV, there are some very specific and useful techniques you should always keep in mind and utilize frequently.

Give Feedback

Be generous with your feedback. That's what you're there for. Positive feedback is preferred, but even negative feedback when it's justified is helpful. However, avoid any harsh criticism of your mentee, particularly early in your relationship. Reinforce all of the positives time and again. Take note of even the minutiae in your mentee's growth and development and be sure to tell him or her about it.

Ask Open-Ended Questions

Another important technique to employ in your mentor-mentee relationship is open-ended questioning. While you're cementing rapport and, of course, after you enter into a comfortable relationship, you want your conversations and get-togethers to be as productive as possible. A little small talk goes a long way. It's a good icebreaker, and in small doses — that's why it's called “small talk” — helps get the conversational ball rolling. But keep in mind that it's essential you make the best use of the finite time you have together.

With open-ended questioning, you encourage your mentee to reach deeper into him- or herself. You ask your mentee to think about important things like the consequences of decisions and actions. Peppering your men-tee with questions such as, “Do you think you are progressing in your new job?” and then accepting a “yes” answer and moving on is not the way to go. Remember, too, you're more interested in the exposition responses to questions than you are in the anticipated first responses.

You don't get much out of “yes” and “no” answers to questions. You've got to explore your relationship and know where you stand at all times. And the only way to really know where you stand is by getting real answers. “What things are you doing in your new job that you consider successes?” “Why do you feel better equipped on the job today than on your first day?” These types of questions allow mentees to expound their answers. You get the information you need and a true sense of the progress that you're making in the relationship. And what you gather about where you stand enables you to move forward from the true reality and not some perception of reality.

Forbid the Negative

Lastly, there's a firm rule in a mentoring relationship that you must decree. That is, you need to enforce a “no negative zone.” Guard it and don't permit your mentee to go near it.

Never permit your mentee to speak ill about members of his or her family, schoolmates, teachers, coworkers, and others. It's best that you always stress the positive whenever and wherever possible, and remove all of the negatives. You don't want a mentor-mentee relationship to deteriorate into a blame game, even if there is plenty of blame to go around.

Alas, even with the best of intentions, sometimes mentor-mentee relationships enter the negative zone. After all, you're working with people who need a helping hand. This often means there are persons in their lives who have not exactly done right by them. There's a lot of anger. And anger often creates a multiplier effect that lands mentees in the aforementioned negative zone.

When this happens, you've got to diffuse the anger by not permitting streams of negative references to other people. When you stamp out the negative talk early in the relationship, you set the proper tone for the long term. A tone that says, “Let's avoid playing the blame game and start looking to ourselves for answers to our own problems.”