The Art of Becoming a Better Mentor and Mentee - Context and Data
Donna Dean and Cynthia Simpson
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10/17/2016
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Part of workshop on mentoring lead by Donna Dean, executive consultant for Association for Women in Science (AWIS) and retired senior federal executive for the National Institutes of Health, and Cynthia Simpson, the chief business development officer for AWIS. The workshop was tailored to a community of both women and men and faculty, staff and students.
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- [00:00:00.201]Jump into some of the actual mentoring toolkits.
- [00:00:04.132]I'd like to talk to you just a little bit
- [00:00:06.402]about some context and data.
- [00:00:09.925]Scientists and faculty always like to have some data.
- [00:00:14.704]One of the things we did a number of years ago
- [00:00:17.172]in the Association for Woman in Science,
- [00:00:18.933]is we were trying to get a handle on the issues
- [00:00:22.216]that we thought that women in science
- [00:00:25.822]and increasingly men in science were facing
- [00:00:30.127]and if part of that we did an extensive survey
- [00:00:34.891]working researchers all around the world
- [00:00:38.415]and had a statistically valid randomized sampling
- [00:00:42.893]and analyzed the results from these folks
- [00:00:45.923]from 115 countries.
- [00:00:48.376]70% of the respondents were men in that survey
- [00:00:53.044]and we actually reported it in our book
- [00:00:55.260]on Equitable Solutions for a STEM Workforce,
- [00:01:00.265]but I just wanted to highlight several things
- [00:01:02.946]that relate to it because they highlight
- [00:01:05.704]facets of mentoring that are elements
- [00:01:09.399]that become part of your mentoring experience,
- [00:01:12.041]either as a mentor or a mentee,
- [00:01:14.450]they relate to approaches to work/life issues,
- [00:01:17.366]career/life decisions, stress and work/life conflicts
- [00:01:20.446]and career mobility and security.
- [00:01:22.362]And under these we asked the questions.
- [00:01:25.807]One of the things we have, of course,
- [00:01:27.971]lots and lots of data
- [00:01:29.438]and we do have a few brochures that summarize the data
- [00:01:32.451]that we will leave with Mary and her colleagues,
- [00:01:35.379]the data tables from our book
- [00:01:37.755]if you're interested in looking at more of them.
- [00:01:41.283]I will tell you right up front
- [00:01:43.079]that across our people we surveyed,
- [00:01:46.469]male and female, they really were
- [00:01:48.754]very, very, very few gender differences
- [00:01:51.732]in terms of what people were perceiving.
- [00:01:54.769]One of the things that we found quite interesting
- [00:01:57.766]is that people felt conflicted between their work
- [00:02:01.339]and their away from work life.
- [00:02:05.110]A fifth of the people, 18% of the time,
- [00:02:08.301]almost a fifth of the time.
- [00:02:09.771]Another more than a third of people said
- [00:02:11.511]this happens to me two to three times a week.
- [00:02:14.610]I know I have that.
- [00:02:16.310]So more than half of the people surveyed around the world
- [00:02:19.429]have this experience.
- [00:02:20.720]I will tell you if you did the pie charts for U.S.,
- [00:02:26.034]for scientists in the U.S.,
- [00:02:28.720]you would see almost the same distribution,
- [00:02:31.301]plus or minus one percentage point thereabouts.
- [00:02:34.720]24% said they got it once a month
- [00:02:37.041]and some amazing 20% said rarely,
- [00:02:40.141]that they rarely experience.
- [00:02:41.766]Some incredible 2% said never.
- [00:02:44.783]Now these are people in science and engineering fields.
- [00:02:48.369]Yes.
- [00:02:49.420](mumbling)
- [00:02:52.479](laughs)
- [00:02:55.980]Well part of the demographics,
- [00:02:59.162]the people that have less stress,
- [00:03:01.128]skewed into the older age cohorts,
- [00:03:04.363]which you would understand if you're over 50,
- [00:03:06.831]which I definitely am.
- [00:03:09.113]You would hopefully have learned
- [00:03:12.606]how to deal with stress
- [00:03:14.484]and you would have put that in your, yes.
- [00:03:18.682]I have a chart that actually will answer that in a moment.
- [00:03:24.368]It was kind of hard to track it down,
- [00:03:26.763]but we were stunned by the fact that over half of people say
- [00:03:31.891]I'm feeling major conflict and of course
- [00:03:35.233]we were trying to get a handle on issues and things
- [00:03:38.908]that maybe we thought we needed to redirect
- [00:03:41.672]or sort of refocus our (mumbles) mentoring programs,
- [00:03:44.923]because by the time we started doing this,
- [00:03:47.992]we knew that most people were telling us
- [00:03:51.965]and certainly most of our members were telling us
- [00:03:54.815]that they felt in general pretty good,
- [00:03:57.275]that they were being mentored in their discipline,
- [00:04:00.542]what they needed to learn in undergraduate school
- [00:04:03.344]or graduate school and they felt pretty good
- [00:04:05.552]that in most cases they were learning their science.
- [00:04:09.110]But there were a lot of other things that they felt
- [00:04:12.129]they needed help with and this was
- [00:04:14.172]to try to see if we could back up our
- [00:04:16.673]anecdotal data with that.
- [00:04:19.381]So this shows the distribution.
- [00:04:21.297]This was the whole cohort of people
- [00:04:23.586]that said things at least twice a week
- [00:04:26.873]I feel very conflicted with what's going on.
- [00:04:30.582]You'll see the averages at the top,
- [00:04:32.166]54, 54, 54 obviously,
- [00:04:34.953]but the age cohorts...
- [00:04:38.748]Can you all see this in the back?
- [00:04:40.094]If you can't, I'll (mumbles).
- [00:04:43.133]As you would expect, the 56 and over
- [00:04:45.428]had a little bit less of a pressure,
- [00:04:48.519]but 36 to 55, that kinda makes sense.
- [00:04:51.818]I would call that mid career.
- [00:04:53.855]You know, you're off and running in your career.
- [00:04:55.878]Felt a little bit more under 36.
- [00:04:58.081]Over half the people felt pressure.
- [00:05:00.747]Men and women not really a big percentage difference.
- [00:05:04.566]58% of the men and 52% of the women.
- [00:05:07.787]Again, the U.S. statistics,
- [00:05:09.948]52% men, 58% women.
- [00:05:13.255]Has dependent children and no dependent children.
- [00:05:15.941]You'll see, even there, it's a slight difference.
- [00:05:17.934]60% of the people who had young children felt stress,
- [00:05:21.596]but 47% who didn't have children still felt stress.
- [00:05:27.299]Single, married, partner, divorced, widowed.
- [00:05:31.555]Single was almost 50%.
- [00:05:33.897]I would have predicted, my hypothesis would have been
- [00:05:37.563]before we analyzed the data,
- [00:05:39.530]that single people wouldn't feel highly stressed.
- [00:05:42.158]People with no children wouldn't feel highly stressed.
- [00:05:44.778]People over 50 wouldn't feel highly stressed.
- [00:05:48.528]But the fact is across all of those
- [00:05:51.673]and again across, it happens to everybody.
- [00:05:56.294]If you look around the world,
- [00:06:00.486]in some places we didn't have enough specific individuals
- [00:06:03.571]to break it down into individual countries,
- [00:06:05.713]so that's why you'll see one block for Africa
- [00:06:08.409]and Asian Pacific islands,
- [00:06:11.010]but what is interesting is, once again,
- [00:06:12.919]North America, most of the U.S.,
- [00:06:15.914]but also Mexico and Canada, here we are,
- [00:06:17.971]we're number one.
- [00:06:19.287]We feel more stress than other people.
- [00:06:21.712]61% of us feel that.
- [00:06:24.226]And interestingly, across all fields,
- [00:06:27.720]they sort of hoover between 40 and 60%
- [00:06:30.516]depending on your field.
- [00:06:31.674]It was not field specific.
- [00:06:36.203]You can understand medicine and allied health
- [00:06:38.759]a few more people felt stress there
- [00:06:41.453]probably because of the need to be called into clinic
- [00:06:44.497]or a need for that,
- [00:06:46.385]but not really a lot of differences.
- [00:06:48.141]And of course, we as scientists
- [00:06:50.295]might have had the perspective that
- [00:06:52.867]well maybe our colleagues and the social sciences
- [00:06:54.965]and the humanities, they don't feel as stressed as we do
- [00:06:57.605]because after all, they don't have to do
- [00:06:59.219]the lab work and expense.
- [00:07:00.740]No, 56% of those people felt stress too.
- [00:07:05.594]So we used this actually to develop our work life program.
- [00:07:11.258]I don't need to tell you this,
- [00:07:14.226]that of all the countries in the world,
- [00:07:16.407]it's been in the media for lots of reasons lately,
- [00:07:20.628]no paid leave.
- [00:07:21.832]Of all the countries in the world that have no paid leave
- [00:07:25.100]for either child care or elder care,
- [00:07:30.568]the United States and Papua New Guinea,
- [00:07:33.392]the other country used to be French Guyana or Guyana.
- [00:07:37.570]They recently changed their rules and have some support.
- [00:07:42.856]I don't want to blabber the point,
- [00:07:45.138]but of course, as professionals,
- [00:07:48.976]it's an issue, but it's also an issue
- [00:07:53.013]for the young families.
- [00:07:54.914]I now live in rural West Virginia.
- [00:07:57.698]For the blue collared families
- [00:07:59.468]who are having to work three and four jobs
- [00:08:02.752]and have children, just to make a living way.
- [00:08:08.027]This also relates to a lot of issues
- [00:08:11.359]about our work/life issues that families face,
- [00:08:14.708]men and women, is that that can be an additional stressor
- [00:08:18.286]for those with children.
- [00:08:20.837]This I find very upsetting and illuminating.
- [00:08:25.925]61% of people say I've just learned to cope with the stress.
- [00:08:29.940]I can't do anything about it.
- [00:08:31.037]I've just learned to cope with it.
- [00:08:32.813]15% say I'm invigorated by the challenges.
- [00:08:36.076]I think part of being in our disciplines,
- [00:08:38.695]is you are invigorated by some of the challenges of work.
- [00:08:43.277]A remarkable 9% avoid stress.
- [00:08:46.275]They obviously somehow avoid it.
- [00:08:49.179]Some people were unsure whether or not they had stress
- [00:08:51.571]and again, an amazing 5% don't experience stress at work.
- [00:08:56.258]But the important point is, 3/4 of people
- [00:08:59.221]do have stress.
- [00:09:01.314]It does break down that people at earlier stages
- [00:09:04.571]of their career do feel more stress.
- [00:09:07.065]People in the older age groups, again,
- [00:09:09.124]feel a little bit less stress.
- [00:09:11.142]The over 50 group, again,
- [00:09:13.072]many of those people in the verbal responses,
- [00:09:16.645]'cause we also in this survey,
- [00:09:18.799]people had plenty of space where they could just provide
- [00:09:21.847]their own verbal response and reaction to the question.
- [00:09:26.017]A number of people that were in the demographic
- [00:09:28.504]of older than 50 years all have said
- [00:09:32.612]well I've learned how to cope.
- [00:09:35.055]I've developed my own strategies for dealing with it.
- [00:09:38.173]I don't have any less stress than I had 20 years ago,
- [00:09:41.143]but I figured out how to handle it.
- [00:09:43.821]A number of people do new jobs
- [00:09:46.554]because they just can't make it work.
- [00:09:49.264]So as we think about mentoring with people,
- [00:09:53.054]yes we do think about it in the career context
- [00:09:56.552]of mentoring, but anytime we're mentoring someone,
- [00:10:00.253]we're mentoring someone who, you know,
- [00:10:02.411]there's a mix of things going on in their lives
- [00:10:06.526]that not only relates to their career concerns.
- [00:10:09.194]There are things that are happening in their personal life
- [00:10:11.087]that relate to their home
- [00:10:13.066]and then there are things that relate
- [00:10:14.395]to the community they're in.
- [00:10:16.054]It's not just about living in Lincoln.
- [00:10:18.395]It may be things about their preferred religious community,
- [00:10:22.831]their family of origin,
- [00:10:24.844]their cultural values.
- [00:10:27.040]And we will talk a little bit more on
- [00:10:30.612]some of the issues may come out about
- [00:10:32.524]how do you mentor in circumstances
- [00:10:35.122]that aren't just mentoring for career?
- [00:10:38.104]What are some of the things
- [00:10:40.178]when you're in a situation where you feel like
- [00:10:42.236]some of these other issues are a concern to your mentee.
- [00:10:47.485]But we know from all the cultures
- [00:10:49.203]that these were all the issues of the people.
- [00:10:52.254]They needed to find time for life outside of their work.
- [00:10:56.247]Obviously, they had to have time to focus on work.
- [00:10:59.496]I always felt tensions.
- [00:11:01.009]It wasn't really just about having children
- [00:11:02.436]or elderly parents.
- [00:11:04.053]It wasn't just about women and it varies over time.
- [00:11:07.019]There was only one slight percentage difference
- [00:11:10.607]that was significant between men and women
- [00:11:14.029]and it had to do with that 12% of people
- [00:11:19.730]that we surveyed.
- [00:11:22.663]12% of people said I have changed jobs
- [00:11:25.766]because of stress.
- [00:11:27.545]And of that 12% that changed jobs because of stress
- [00:11:31.569]and conflict between their personal
- [00:11:34.069]and their professional life,
- [00:11:37.036]a slightly higher percentage of women
- [00:11:40.286]reported that they moved with their spouse
- [00:11:45.765]as an accompanying spouse to a new job
- [00:11:48.438]as opposed to a slightly lower percentage of men said
- [00:11:52.729]I moved because of my spouse.
- [00:11:56.969]But again, it wasn't a major difference.
- [00:11:59.474]It was like 6.3% of the women versus,
- [00:12:05.183]do the subtraction, 5.7% of the men.
- [00:12:09.194]So I think that told us
- [00:12:11.022]that by in large it appeared,
- [00:12:14.125]and at least if you looked at the U.S. data,
- [00:12:16.222]it looked like in most cases,
- [00:12:18.338]couples were sort of making choices
- [00:12:20.758]that weren't definitely always down gender lines.
- [00:12:25.677]That you could infer that they were making maybe
- [00:12:29.775]the best decision they could make at the time.
- [00:12:32.757]Some of the more traditional countries and cultures
- [00:12:35.928]around the world of that small subset,
- [00:12:40.440]most of the time, the woman was following the man,
- [00:12:43.012]but not in the U.S.
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