How To Deliver Maximum Value As A Mentor
Mentors play a unique role in the startup-building ecosystem. As individuals who have been down the path before, you possess critical insights that can help new founders navigate choppy waters, avoid obvious (to you) pitfalls, and help accelerate their businesses.
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Women in Entrepreneurship: The Role of Female Mentors (FEMtors)
The underrepresentation of women in entrepreneurship is striking, with just 23% of businesses in Canada being women-owned. However, their increased participation could potentially boost the Canadian economy by up to 150 billion dollars. This framework explores the crucial role of mentorship in bridging these disparities, mainly through the support of FEMtors, accomplished women supporting emerging talents. Despite its potential, 63% of women have never had a formal mentor.
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How to Ask Good Questions: Questions Frameworks Every Mentor Should Know
Questions are a powerful tool in a mentor’s repertoire and though it sounds easy to do, there’s an art to asking them effectively. To start, do some research on different questioning techniques and frameworks and find one that aligns with your approach. Come to a mentor meeting with a couple of questions in mind and allow the mentee to guide the conversation (interjecting with your questions as required).
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Mentorship: Getting Started
Globally, top entrepreneurs and founders credit mentorship relationships with some of the most insightful learnings they received while developing and managing their ventures. Research tells us that entrepreneurs who engage in mentorship increase their skills in opportunity recognition, coachability, and resilience – even reporting the development of more profitable ventures than those without mentors*.
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How to Mentor with Empathy
Empathy is one of the five key components of emotional intelligence, and leading research indicates that empathy is a vital leadership competency and key performance indicator for leader and mentor effectiveness. Applying empathy to your mentorship practice will enhance the relationship and the results you and your mentee are able to attain during your work together. The best part? Empathy is a cognitive skill that continues to develop with practice.
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Active Listening for Mentors
As a mentor, you want to ensure you are clearly understanding your mentee so you can help them accomplish their goals. Much of the relationship is spent in conversation – offering insights, seeking information, and brainstorming solutions for them to move forward. To effectively support your mentee, it is crucial to engage in active listening and make an intentional effort to give your undivided attention. Active listening is not just hearing the words that are said but understanding the complete message behind them.
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How to Make the Most of 20-Minute Mentorship Meetings as a Mentor
Speed mentoring is becoming a common part of the high-growth company-building ecosystem. It connects founders with potential mentors in a quick and efficient way, allowing people to find the best matches possible. Similar to speed dating, founders are paired with mentors for 20-minute meetings. But the short duration and quantity of meetings requires a lot of preparation—during speed mentoring events such as Techstars, for example, founders or mentees can meet with up to 120 mentors during mentor madness.
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Opening and Closing a Mentorship
Mentorship, like any relationship or team building, occurs in stages. Approaching the opening and closing of the mentorship with care ensures you and your mentee will share expectations, goals, and be able to debrief the experience with each other to continue to improve.
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Mentor Competency Checklist
What makes a good mentor? Talk to a few different people and you will quickly find that everyone has varying definitions of what makes someone ‘effective.’ At MindFrame Connect, we’ve done extensive research on this – speaking to over 150 mentors and mentees, and it became clear that there is a recipe for success.
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Inclusive Mentorship
The entrepreneurial ecosystem in Canada has work to do to ensure that founders from all backgrounds feel included, supported, and celebrated. At MindFrame Connect, we believe mentorship can be a key pillar in supporting that mission. Mentors not only provide practical advice and guidance to their mentees but welcome founders into networks and spaces they were unable to access before.
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The Next Level: Sponsor, Ally, Champion
Mentors provide knowledge, guidance, and offer their lived experience in the industry to their mentees. Beyond mentorship, there are other support roles you can offer to your mentee or an entrepreneur you believe in.
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The Power of Storytelling
Since the beginning of time, storytelling has been used as a mechanism for teaching and influencing others. Generation after generation has passed down stories and experiences – both good and bad – in the hopes that those who come after them begin with a better foundation based on this shared knowledge.
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Effectiveness and the Art of Mentorship
Christopher Fong is the Founder of Xoogler, a group of Google alumni and current Googlers who have come together to help each other advance their ambitions in the start-up ecosystem. With years of experience as both an entrepreneur and mentor, Fong sat down with Globalive Capital Founder, Anthony Lacavera to discuss effectiveness and the art of mentorship.
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The Journey of Mentorship with Arlene Dickinson
As a prominent figure in venture capital, three-time best-selling author, and champion within the startup ecosystem in Canada, Arlene Dickinson has earned many accolades throughout her journey in entrepreneurship.
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The Importance of Representation and Mentorship
“Wow Mom – they look like me”. Those words were etched on a thank you letter sent by a Mom, as she described the impact of her daughter seeing indigenous models on a Cheekbone Beauty postcard. The daughter brought that postcard to bed with her that night, demonstrating the true importance of kids seeing themselves in pictures and positions of success.
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Mentorship and Parental Leave
Welcoming a new child into your home comes with lots of excitement, joy, and nervousness. Whether you are a corporate worker, start-up founder, or a senior executive, family building is part of many people’s journeys. Read More
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Best Practices for Mentors
Sulemaan Ahmed is the Co-founder and Principal at Servo Annex, an organization that educates and provides hands-on coaching to senior executives on how to use all digital platforms, social media, and mobile tools. On the topic of mentorship, Sulemaan shares that he’s been fortunate to have had many mentors over the years, and identifies several key takeaways from both sides of the mentor-mentee relationship, which include:
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The Origin of MindFrame Connect
MindFrame Connect began in 2020, as an exploration of what it means to be a mentor in Canada. Co-founder, Brice Scheschuk identified a pain point as he was embarking on his own mentorship journey. Many organizations offer mentorship programs, but ongoing support and training is needed on a regular basis to improve and refine performance.
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Key Mentorship Takeaways
CarbonCure Technologies is a cleantech company with a bold ambition of removing 500 million metric tons of CO2 from the earth’s atmosphere by 2030. This is made possible by their innovative technology that sees the mineralizing of carbon dioxide – turning recycled CO2 into fresh concrete to reduce its carbon footprint without compromising performance. This technology has caught the eye of major companies and investors such as Mitsubishi, Amazon, and the Bill Gates Foundation.
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