to communicate wisdom and experience without creating de-
fensiveness and resistance in the performer.
There are many aspects to mentoring. One key is to give
advice in a manner that allows it to be heard, minimizes de-
fensiveness, and keeps accountability for improvement with
the performer. A useful approach to achieving such a tall order
is to first get the performer’s permission to give advice and then
provide the advice as an “I” statement (“If I were you, I would
. . .”). That’s less telling and judgmental than an authoritarian
“you should, you ought to, you had better” posture. Most per-
formers, especially those confident in their skills and accus-
tomed to succeeding, resent being told what to do.
Managers sometimes bristle at the suggestion ...