Mentors are free of charge

from mitoujr-mentoring-tips Mentors are free of charge I know this is a matter of opinion, but it’s important, so I’ll verbalize it.

• Fact: Mentoring for unexplored juniors is free of charge.
• Related Fact: Directors of unexplored associations are also free of charge.
• discussion
  • There’s an argument that goes something like, “You should be paid for your labor.”
  • It is not impossible to pay some, but it is impossible to pay an amount equivalent to what the person would get if he/she worked in a for-profit company.
  • Many people are not motivated by financial rewards in the first place.
    • Some people don’t do it if they’re going to get paid.
    • I’m in the “you can offer a reward, but I won’t accept it” camp.
    • It can be counterproductive.

      • The undermining effect refers to the reduction of motivation by providing extrinsic motivation, such as a reward, for an intrinsically motivated action. [Undermining effect - Wikipedia https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9E%E3%82%A4%E3%83%8B%E3%83%B3%E3%82 %B0%E5%8A%B9%E6%9E%9C]

  • Those who perceive mentoring as labor for compensation are likely not appropriate mentors in the first place.
    • People who try to do work for less than market labor compensation for the purpose of monetary compensation are likely not performing in the marketplace.
    • A: Low performers have time but no money due to lack of work
    • B: Medium performance people have money because they have jobs, but not time
    • C: High performers no longer need to work full time to earn the money they need and have the money and time to do so.
    • I want to mentor this C person.
      • Trying to motivate people with money in this case is not effective because they have the financial means to do so, and on the contrary, it attracts people A
    • Don’t use A’s as mentors.
      • Be especially careful as a mentor to young people.
      • This type of person does not have a desire for approval or lust for power, so they try to satisfy it by inappropriate behavior toward young people.
    • People who can’t afford their own finances should work for themselves first, without thinking about working for the public good.
  • It is not beneficial to offer some compensation.
    • Paying out rewards incurs significant administrative costs.
    • It’s ridiculous and we don’t reward them for it.
  • But there is, however, an opposing view.
    • This is just because the unexplored group happened to be able to attract enough high quality mentors without having to pay them, which is generally not possible.
    • It would be better to offer rewards, especially for the younger generation of unexplored graduates.
      • It would be more helpful to actively increase the number of “slightly older brother/sister” mentors to create an intergenerational network.
    • It is not easy to realize this point easily, so rather than changing the current unexplored juniors, it is better to have a trial and error process when new ones are created, and the ones that worked well will remain and the ones that did not will be eliminated

relevance

• Cybozu-style: “Even if I got zero compensation, I was doing double work” - Why NISHIO Hirokazu didn’t quit Cybozu Labs and started working as a technical advisor for machine learning HuffPost Feature

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