Another fine post from GeekWire, again written by Brandon Koeller and this time about Yoda and his not great mentoring skills.  As opposed to Darth Vader’s project management endeavours  – “10 reasons why Darth Vader was an amazing project manager“.

Let’s start by defining what mentoring is…

Here’s what Yoda does wrong…

And the 10 reasons he wasn’t a great mentor are:

1. Too much micro-management.
2. Lack of transparency.
3. No clear goal setting.
4. Lack of clear and consistent communications.
5. Not providing authentic and real assignments.
6. Authority (and relationship) problems.
7. Not relating training to things you know and your existing experiences.
8. Forget about cult myths and hero worshipping.
9. Lack of accessibility.
10. Learning new things isn’t about magic – it’s about consistent hard work.

Yes I am a huge Star Wars fan – which means I like posts like this by default almost.  But what I really like about Brandon’s posts (and his writing style) is the ability to provide very useful info about topical subjects, that are relevant to most people and wrap them up with Star Wars – something that everyone loves – that makes them fun to read (and remember).

Mentoring is something that many organisations don’t do and so they miss out on the huge opportunities it can provide.  Someone in the organisation helping inspire and motivate others, can never be a bad thing!

Are you a mentor?  Does it work for you?  Do you enjoy it?