What To Do if It Isn’t Working Out

The mentoring relationship is an unusually close relationship, the type usually reserved for your close friends.

It can sometimes be difficult to work closely with someone who knows so much about you while not genuinely knowing you. We hope that every mentoring relationship is successful. But we’re only human! Sometimes it’s just not going to work out.

If you feel your mentoring relationship isn’t working out, you should contact us. But before you do, please be prepared to discuss these questions:

Is it you?

• Have you been completely honest and open?
• Have you committed the time and energy you promised to?
• Have you been open to criticism, suggestions, and thoughts—even when it was uncomfortable?
• How could you have been a better mentee?

Is it the mentor?

• How has your mentor failed you?
• Has he/she followed through on their commitments to you?
• Did your mentor spend the appropriate amount of time with you, either by phone or face-to-face?

Is it both of you?

• Are there personality issues between you that simply don’t blend?
• Has geography worked against your mentoring relationship?
• Have personal/professional backgrounds, ethnicity, religion, or otherwise come between you?

We will not assign blame or take one side over another in the case where a mentoring relationship doesn’t work out. However, please plan to think through these questions. Following your discussion with us, we will decide together if a new mentor should be assigned or if another approach would be more appropriate.

The bottom line is, there is no point to a mentoring program if the mentoring relationship isn’t working. That said, we will work closely with you to make sure your experience is a positive one.