Surrendering
Accepting
Gifting
Extending

PART 2

SURRENDERING—LEVELING THE LEARNING FIELD

If the impulse to daring and bravery is too fierce and violent, stay it with guidance and instruction.

Xun Zi

“Siamese twins!” whispered the silver-headed, elegantly dressed woman to her friend seated beside her. “They dance like two people who are one.” Her colleague nodded with enthusiastic agreement as they watched the two dancers merge, spin, disengage, reemerge in a human blend as harmonious as light with shadow. “They are magic in motion,” the friend whispered back.

Mentoring at its best is a partnership, like two dancers perfectly in sync. Partnership learning positions both parties—mentor and protégé—on a collective journey of discovery. As the mentor embraces a curious, egalitarian stance, the protégé instinctively senses safety and joins in the journey. The more the mentor seeks to learn (rather than just teach), the more the protégé feels affirmed and less alone. Mentoring is a dance of sorts to reach the heights of a pure partnership. And it all begins with surrendering to the process of learning instead of pursuing the program of teaching. We will first explore the essence of partnership as the preferred path for mentoring.

Partnerships are journeys in becoming. They are always divine relationships in the making. They are hopeful pursuits of magic, not efforts valued only at completion. Some otherwise successful partnerships are susceptible to what we will label the “perfection trap.” And focus on flawlessness is a dead-end duality path. The by-product of this right-wrong/good-bad thinking is the seed of win-lose paradigms which fuel competitive relationships.

Partnerships impeccably performed look like “magic in motion.” The relationship is a living demonstration of wild-river efficiency mixed with barnyard harmony. To spectators on the outside, the flow seems magical. To the participants in the midst of the collaborative current that same flow feels like a spiritual surprise.

The workings of partnerships, however, are far from magical. Like magicians, partnerships present an orchestrated demonstration of proficiencies and disposition. Both skill and attitude must work in harmony for a winning performance. A technically accurate magician with no showmanship or flair would be no more successful as a true magician than a bumbling sleight-of-hand act with personality plus.

How does this high-octane learning occur? What action does the mentor need to take to encourage this synergistic moment with a protégé? In a word, surrender. The magical first step is to surrender to the process.

Surrendering means completely relinquishing any effort to control or manipulate the outcome. Surrendering means putting all effort into being completely authentic, real, and mask-free. Surrendering means being devoted to learning, not dedicated to convincing. As management consultant Bruce Fritch says, “Surrendering is the most difficult and most courageous interpersonal act a leader can take with a subordinate. It is also the most powerful!”

Mentors surrender in several ways. One of these could be called “mask removal”—the willingness to be open and vulnerable. We all wear masks, in part to protect ourselves against rejection. When a mentor removes this mask in front of the protégé, it changes the nature of the relationship from cautious to unguarded. Energy normally devoted to cover and protection becomes available for insight and discovery.

An associate of ours, a gifted consulting psychologist, taught a series of executive workshops on performance coaching. The final advice he gave attendees was to practice their newfound skills on a couple of subordinates within the coming week: “Start your practice by telling your associates something like the following: ‘I have just attended a workshop on performance coaching and learned some new skills I want to use in our relationship. I will be very awkward at first and make a lot of mistakes, but with some practice and your patience, I will get better. And we will both benefit.’”

The advice was a valuable relationship builder. Attendees at follow-up sessions reported enormous success. The authenticity caused subordinates to see their leaders in a new light. Many reported that their sessions with subordinates turned out to be the single most powerful and productive conversation they had ever had. The typical executive report went something like this: “When I gave up trying to force it to work, it seemed to take on a life of its own and steered the relationship where it needed to go. It was amazing. I have never felt anything like it. It was like magic.” This like-magic quality of mentoring begins to happen with surrendering.

Surrendering is fundamentally about being assertively honest and candid, with the intention of helping, not hurting, the other person. There is a cleanness and frankness about relationships in which authenticity is valued. Great mentors care enough to be honest and forthright; they are also curious and learning-oriented enough to invite and accept candor from the protégé.