Inclusion Mentoring

At work, I've enrolled for a programme called Inclusion Mentoring. After an hour of an explainer, I was paired with a colleague who was different enough from me so we could both learn new perspectives. Different backgrounds, different teams and different identities.

Session one was about finding out about each others background and agreeing a charter that makes sense to both of us. We agreed that there's no hierarchy, we will swap from mentee to mentor numerous times in a conversation and we everything that's said will remain confidential. I spoke about coming from a broken home, my teenage years, summarised my 20s and 30s, and where I'm at right now in my mid 40s. I also highlighted my privileges: race: white; gender: cis male; physical ability: able-bodied; class: wealthy (relatively but grew up working class); nationality: western; orientation: hetero. Plus two other bits of my identity: religion: nothing organised, maybe spiritual; mental ability: neurodiverse (self diagnosis).

We got into some excellent topics and I learnt a bunch of new perspectives. I shan't go into them here otherwise I'll betray confidence if someone reads from work.

If you get the chance to do this, go for it. You'll learn a lot from a deep, focused conversation.