Reverse Mentoring:The Need of the Hour

 The new millennium began with mentorship as a big ticket idea. Not that it was not thought of. Indeed the concept has always been afloat. It was just that it gained a centrality since the first decade of the new millennium. 

Very many paradigms along this concept emerged. The idea was backed up by quoting examples from the antiquity, et al. The American variety of mentoring would be different from the Japanese, and yet both could feed off each other. In other words, the mentoring concept flourished. 

In a way, it was more experience and wisdom oriented. Come Covid, and a radical paradigm shift inevitably emerged. To begin with, skill sets became more important than wisdom. Such skill sets inevitably had their own tool kits. Millennials to Gen X, Y, Z, or whatever have you were excellent at such computer and communication technology oriented skill sets and tool kits. The 'oldies' in a company or an institution were initially technology shy.

Reverse Mentoring helped in such a scenario. As a lecturer, for example, initially online teaching took time to get used to. Very soon such skills were acquired. In the meantime, emerging out of emergency, the younger generation accepted the reversed role, and taught their seniors how to be technology savvy.

Sure the upside down, topsy turvy paradigm is good in multiple ways. It proves that learning has no age. It proves, moreover, that a true commitment to one's profession and one's own career constantly requires acquiring new skills. It ingrains humility, makes the workplace more equitable and inclusive, and thus more sensitised which is a great run as far any professional field goes. 

In the Indian mythology, there is  the Shri Datta concept. He makes hundreds of guru's of all sorts, animals to the divine. He learns from each and every one.  That is the real modern spirit that all of us need to survive gracefully and creatively!

Pratima@ When we were young, our elders taught us so much. It is now the turn of the new generation to provide the technical know how and its relevance to the efficiency at every level. Thus would emerge the ideal work-life balance,  too, I suppose.