Denver Seminary

MENTORING E MORE THAN WE CAN SAY By Nathan H. Scherrer ENGAGE 15 akinbostanci/iStock Kritchanut/iStock 1 Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. 2 Yifang Ma, Satyam Mukherjee, and Brian Uzzi, "Mentorship and Protégé Success in STEM Fields," in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 25 (June 2020): 14077–83. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1915516117. Every time I meet with Seminary students and their mentors, I ask the same two questions. I'll first ask the mentors what it is they feel they most often offer their mentees. Of the students, I ask what it is they feel they most often gain from their time with their mentors. I find it fascinating that their answers rarely align. It seems whatever mentors feel they are putting out there is not always the most influential element that the student walks away with. Although this may sound like a cruel trick meant to incite conflict, I actually believe it highlights the most influential element in mentored formation: we know much more than we can tell. 1 In a recent study aimed at the connection between mentors and protégée success in the scientific disciplines, Brian Uzzi discovers, "it's the unwritten knowledge we intuitively convey through our interactions and demonstrations with students that makes a real difference for mentees." 2 That is, that the most significant elements for mentees are the tacit, intuitional, and embodied knowledge a mentor has to share. This is why a mentor might answer my question by pointing to what they do in their relationship with a mentee—saying they most offer encouragement, a listening ear, or even guidance based on their own experiences. Yet their own mentees grasp a greater quality: who the mentor truly is. Students often speak to a safe space in the relationship to explore trial and error or even mention being moved by their mentor's very character. As mentees address their formative needs in the context of relational learning, they pick up on the mentor's embodied and wordless "how" far more often than the propositions and anecdotes we often associate with an effective mentor. When the mentor shares their tacit knowledge, they actually participate in the mutuality of learning with their students by bringing themselves to bear on the process. I hope this is both a challenge and a balm to us nervous mentors out there. It means that what we offer most to our mentees is more than our experiences and our knowledge. We offer how those things have transformed us. We offer ourselves. Mentors arrive to the relationship ready to be seen, knowing what we will naturally offer is our embodied experience of life. Knowing this also relieves some of the felt pressure in doing mentorship "right." If mentors know more than they can say, the very helpful reality isn't necessarily found in our answers as much as it is in the relationship. Nathan Scherrer, MA, Assistant Professor of Training and Mentoring Nathan Scherrer has served students in the Training and Mentoring Curriculum since 2017. He has earned degrees from Colorado Christian University (BA) and Denver Seminary (MA) as well as certifications from the National Outdoor Leadership Institute and Jerusalem University College. His professional experience includes over 12 years in multi-national leadership development programs. A teacher at heart, he specializes in experiential education as applied in challenge-based andragogy to enhance the spiritual development of his students.

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