september 2009 issue
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Q&A
From One Mentor to the Next
‘The majority of what people know that is truly important, that gives them meaning in life and work, is not in operation manuals, technical pamphlets or textbooks. This knowledge is passed on from one person to another through informal and formal mentoring’
Rey Carr’s professional resumé proudly displays all those early jobs most of us cut off from the bottom, once our careers start rolling. His ranged from dishwasher to movie extra to theme park worker — Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and Main Street Shooting Gallery, if you must know.
And whatever you do, don’t call them low-level jobs. “What do you mean low-level?” Dr. Carr told The PEGG. “These early jobs paved the way for many important mentoring lessons.”
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Fulfillment through work, being responsible, being successful at what you do, showing initiative — these lessons and others come from newspaper routes and restaurant kitchens, says Dr. Carr, the chief knowledge officer for Peer Resources.
Peer Resources is an international training and publishing corporation with its main office in Victoria, B.C. And Dr. Carr is one of the world’s experts on peer assistance, mentoring and coaching.
He was the team leader and architect for the National Stay-in-School peer mentoring strategy initiated by the Canadian government, and between 1992 and 1995 brought together 100,000 young people with 30,000 adult mentors.
In addition, Dr. Carr’s pioneering work in helping students led to the establishment of peer programs in elementary schools, secondary schools and colleges and universities across Canada, and mentoring programs throughout the world. In the last few years, his work with corporations and public agencies to help them establish effective mentoring programs has led to the Peer Resources website being one of the top resources on the Internet for mentoring.
Dr. Carr is a keynote speaker at APEGGA’s fourth annual National Mentoring Conference, which takes place Sept. 24 and 25 in Calgary. The PEGG asked him a series of questions in advance of his presentation.
Q What message do you have for an audience made up largely of engineers and geoscientists that they haven’t heard before?
A Most of the people I work with involved with science and technical fields often believe that mentoring is about the transmission of specific technical knowledge. That’s why many people in these fields at first will shy away from volunteering as mentors. That is, they think they may not have the depth (or breadth) of knowledge to share with another person.
This would be a mistake, because often what they have to offer another person, what is needed or desired by the other person, are not specific facts and figures. What people really want is someone to talk to who will understand their viewpoint, challenge their thinking, help them be better at what they do, act as a cheerleader when dealing with tough problems, and share ideas that can help them advance their own career goals.
This type of learning relationship requires trust, rapport, commitment, and the ability to ask powerful questions and listen deeply to the answers or responses. These are typically relationship skills and they are common to all successful and effective mentoring. There will surely be times when the content of a mentoring discussion is about scientific or technical topics, but the quality of the relationship will be a boost or catalyst for deeper exploration, greater creativity, and more thorough understanding — all key elements for the progress of science.
Q What’s your personal connection to mentoring? How did your mentors influence you? Who were they?
A I’ve had dozens of formal and informal mentors, and I remember each of them. Some I had direct and continuous contact with for brief period or over a period of years. Some mentors I only knew from afar, but their words and work had an influential and lasting impact. I’ve also come to believe that there are spiritual mentors; sometimes these are events, circumstances, or surroundings that can have a mentoring impact; that is, they have helped me learn a lesson in a unique way and that lesson has a lasting power.
I cycled up the winding road to Emerald Lake, west of Lake Louise in Yoho National Park in October a few years ago. I was resting at a viewpoint by the edge of the lake and feeling in awe of the majestic snow-capped Rockies. A feeling came over me, not of exhaustion from the hill climb, but of intense joy at the beauty of what I was seeing.
I felt proud to be a Canadian, to know this was my home, that I had beauty and joy in my life. I raised my arms to the sky and did a victory jig. Then I turned around and saw a small group of camera-wearing Japanese tourists taking my picture. And instead of being embarrassed, I said, “Isn’t this beautiful!”
Although this was a lesson I had learned before and would no doubt learn again, I was mentored by that tableau to recognize that how connecting with what is truly important to you can give you feelings of ecstasy and help you deal with unknown or unexpected situations.
I have personal stories about many of the mentors I’ve had, but one which I believe contributed the most to my own connection to mentoring was a person I met during the summer of 1956 after I graduated from junior high school. He was a high school senior at a very innovative school and he had been assigned to “look after me” when I was entering that high school. I’ll talk more about this relationship during the keynote.
I’ve also had the fortune to be mentored by many people who have achieved considerable fame within their fields. One of them, a famous psychologist, helped me recover from one of the worst days of my life and was responsible for helping me to decide on changing my major from pre-med to psychology. I’ll talk more about this connection during the keynote.
I’ve also had the privilege to call both Walt Disney and John F. Kennedy informal mentors. Both men I only met once, but I worked for both of them, and their words and work have had a life-long influence on me.
Q What is it that’s particularly important about mentoring in today’s socio-economic climate?
A It is more important than ever to focus on learning, the transmission of knowledge, and the management of knowledge in a way that can be quick, inexpensive and robust. The majority of what people know that is truly important, that gives them meaning in life and work, is not in operation manuals, technical pamphlets or textbooks. This knowledge is passed on from one person to another through informal mentoring, and more recently through formal mentoring.
In a way, mentoring is no more important today than it was hundreds of years ago. However, today more and more people are recognizing that in the biographies or histories of most successful individuals they point to the acceleration power that a mentor had on them for their career or psycho-social development.
Q Your education is in the arts and philosophy area. How does that educational background connect with people of a more scientific bent?
A I’ve always seen myself as a scientist working in those areas. I’ve designed and conducted hundreds of research studies, for example, many of which were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. I have a brother and a brother-in-law who were both engineers.
I used to say to my brother that there was no problem that an engineer can’t make more complicated. His response was to tell me I saw every solution as something “touchy-feely.” But we both had great respect for both rigorous scientific investigation as well as using a scientist’s best friends: intuition, accident and guesswork.
I think I relate to people in science on a level that is deeper than just our discipline differences. I relate to the need to know, the need for fulfillment, the need for meaning, and, of course, the need for love, belonging and accomplishment.
Q You have kept some of the early, low-level jobs on your resumé. Why is it important that people know you worked at a theme park and delivered newspapers?
A What do you mean low-level? These early jobs paved the way for many important mentoring lessons. Fulfillment through work; being responsible, being successful at what you do, showing initiative, and such. They also help me remember those employers who gave me opportunities and how I turned those opportunities into building blocks that helped me make choices about who I wanted to be.
I learned attitudes towards work during those jobs that have lasted me a lifetime. I realized how important my attitude toward my work was; it was up to me to determine whether it was a good job or bad job. There was nothing in the job that made it “good” or “bad.” Instead, I used every job to learn what I could, learn how I could make it better, learn how I could maximize what I gained from the job.
Q You started out in California and now you’re in Victoria. Can you tell us about that transition, what led you to Canada and how you’re finding life here so far?
A My parents were from Moose Jaw and moved to Los Angeles before me or any of my older siblings were born. When I was in high school, some friends and I decided to hitchhike to British Columbia and go fishing for salmon at Cape Scott on Vancouver Island. I thought this would be a good opportunity to find out if Canada was in fact just a dust bowl of failed farms like my parents talked about when they recalled their years of growing up on the Prairies during the Depression.
I also wanted to test out (my scientific mind working here) whether it was, as my parents said, uphill in any direction you walked to school in Canada. We never made it to our destination, and instead settled for fishing the Fraser River.
During the 1960s a friend and I decided to try again for Vancouver Island, this time in a VW bus. We made it to the island and camped in parks all along the east coast of the island from Victoria to Campbell River. It was love at first sight (not with the friend, however; but with the island).
Later when I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, I was searching for a way to reconnect with Canada. I had been reading about the Prime Minister and I admired his ability to stand up to U.S. policies and protect many of my contemporaries who sought refuge in Canada. My own job working for the White House ended when Nixon became president, and my former university adviser told me about a job at the university on Vancouver Island. I applied, interviewed and got the job.
I can now say that despite my criticism of Nixon and his war policies, his election helped me gain the best job, life and relationships I could have ever imagined.