What do I do when a mentoring session drifts off topic?
Drift is normal. Half an hour is short enough that noticing early is the whole skill.
- Read time
- 3 minutes
- Module
- Harder conversations
- Session length
- 30 minutes
What good looks like.
Check the clock at ten and twenty minutes. If you cannot say what question you are answering, you have drifted.
Steer with a question rather than a correction: "Can I bring us back to the thing you wrote about?"
Sometimes the drift is the real subject. Decide deliberately whether to follow it rather than sliding into it.
A sequence you can follow.
- 01
Set the topic at the start
One line you can both point back to.
- 02
Check twice
At ten and twenty minutes, silently.
- 03
Name the choice
"We can stay here or go back to X, which is more useful?"
- 04
Protect the ending
Five minutes for the action, whatever happened before.
What to avoid.
Letting a war story run for ten minutes
Correcting the mentee sharply for going off topic
Realising in the final minute that nothing was answered
Extra tips
Small things that make the half hour better.
Check at ten and twenty
Drift caught early costs nothing.
Steer with a question
"Shall we go back to what you wrote about?"
Decide, do not slide
If the tangent is the real subject, choose it deliberately.
Ring-fence the last five
The action gets its time whatever happened before.
Take this guide with you.
Download a printable version of this guide: the short answer, the steps, the extra tips, the mistakes to avoid and the questions mentors ask, to read before your next session.
The things people ask first.
What if they only want to vent?
Give it five minutes, then ask what they want to change.
Next: Writing good session notes.
Three lines, written straight away, with nothing sensitive in them.