WHAT GRANDPARENTS DO

My grandsons are 5 and 3; my great nieces are 6 and 2. I’ve learned more from them than from most of my colleagues at work. Mostly it’s to do with the speed at which they learn, their refusal to be patronised and their need to be amused.  But bad jokes don’t get asked back.

The job of mentor is not so different.

The task is unconditional support, help and the provision of sunshine when it all gets too much. CEOs have tears before bedtime too. So it was with interest I saw young David Cameron had appointed Lords Young and Heseltine both old Tory stalwarts (when I say old I mean both are approaching 80 – great grand-dad age) to do some work for him in revving up the economy.

I think he needs the comfort of two guys who’d done a lot but also made mistakes. A mentor’s biggest contribution can often be a laughing admission that in a similar dilemma to those currently encountered by their mentee they’d done ‘x’ which didn’t work…”wished I’d done ‘y’ instead…still no point in crying over spilt Petrus.”

The balance of youthful energy and excitement in young executives sprinkled with a wonderful sense of naivety – much like seeing my grandsons or great nieces crashing to earth by taking risks on a bicycle no one sane would take; then followed by the energy blended with judgement – sort of 40-50 year old senior executive but still untrained in skating on corporate black ice. Then we have the mentor who’s been there, seen plenty and is covered in scars but if he or she is any good has three qualities

Good at listening and better still hearing
Brilliant at empathising
Full of good humour and a sense of perspective

It’s when I see young Sarkozy getting so incredibly grumpy and I think that none of the current players are likely to be in power for much longer I feel impelled to say “take a longer view of things. Be strategic rather than fixated on the next quarter which when you think about it is a rather childish habit”.

Mentoring is rewarding because you get to see so much talent flowering and surviving winds of change. So I hope Lords Young and Heseltine persuade David Cameron to lighten up a little. With Sarkozy the other side of a table things can’t be that bad.