Mentoring Specially Gifted People: The art of Paving

 

Michelangelo was once asked about his most famous sculpture, The David, which exalts the oft-visited Academia Gallery in Florence, how he made it so perfectly. Michelangelo said, “I removed from the stones whatever was not David in it”.

This is the art of Paving, making way for the sublime.

You cannot make a perfect output unless you remove the last vestige of imperfection from the remains.

Think of the most gifted people of earth and you will see so much of weaknesses and shortfall in them, all of which have to be worked upon and developed for the better, so that the remains are full of the best qualities that would make the gifted person excel. The first creations in most artists, musicians or in the area of scientific invention, or take for that matter any individual creative work, is not the best. The best is reserved for the last as it is paved by the tides of wisdom, which comes from mentors or from other worldly experiences.

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony came at the last of all that too he took eleven years to complete.

Some mentors have worked just to do that for their most gifted mentees. Think of Beethoven, the most gifted musician of all times; he would have at best been the court’s best organist had not Neefe, the celebrated musician and thought leader, exposed Beethoven to the music of Mannheim, Bach or had not taken him through the accomplishments in German literature and philosophy.

Or think of the influence of Haydn in Beethoven’s life; if he had not understood that there was nothing much that Bonn could offer Beethoven and that it was Vienna where all further explorations in music could only make him excel, Beethoven would have remained as one of the great German composers who wrote the String Quartet, but none of the nine symphonies would have seen the light of day.

Examples galore as I take some pages out of Van Gogh’s life, from his numerous letters to his brother Theo, Paul Gaugin and Van Rappard, one his early mentors. When Van Rappard disliked his ‘Potato Eaters’, which was the dark series of painting depicting the life of Dutch peasants and miners, he was undeterred and moved South thereafter to the more brighter series of paintings. Van Gogh was perhaps those rare examples where he was also his mentor and biggest critic.

He was constantly pursuing a dream and perfecting his style which came from deep observation and introspection. His best series of paintings came out when he was at Arles, under the “Sulphur sun and a cobalt sky”, when he was experimenting with the brightness of colors.

If Rappard had not guided Van Gogh to the brighter things in life, who knows the world would have missed the Sunflowers, or the Yellow House at Arles.

Talmey, Polish ophthalmologist, is considered as one of the early mentors of Einstein. He first met him when Einstein was little more than ten years old and he quickly understood how gifted Einstein was. He was the first man to expose Einstein to the best books in Science, like the Popular Book on Natural Science by Aaron Bernstein or Force and Matter by Ludwig Buchner. But soon Talmey saw that Einstein had surpassed him in Mathematics and Physics within a short span, he moved him to the realms of Philosophy; by giving Einstein the copy of Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, Talmey may have been a turning point in Einstein’s life.

Some great people are good at some things, but these skills need further augmentation. The mentor is the one who understands the need for augmentation of these other associated skills and knowledge that would pave the way of mastery.

Paving is an art of not perfecting the already acquired skills, but to reach out to new areas of development for mastering the craft. Mastery needs a variety of knowledge, not just the supreme artistry of one single trait. It makes allowance for adaptation to unknown conditions in an ever changing environment. It opens up new horizons, as old horizons become bane.

Every transformational journey must have this urge for paving the way for new wisdom or moving to new unchartered territory. Mentors do well to create this constant thirst, or the urge to experiment with this unknown.

In the world of business, this has wide challenges as well. Taking a mentee through different challenges in business is the way to pave his progression for higher roles and responsibilities. If the mentor does not make allowance for transfers, putting into unchartered territories where new challenges would have to be encountered, the mentee would develop only limited skill sets, not the wide range of expertise needed to excel.

This could be one of the reasons in businesses, bosses act as good mentors, but up to a point. Releasing the most gifted subordinate for roles outside of his area of responsibilities rarely becomes a reality. Organizations therefore have a way of solving this puzzle through collective conscience of leadership principles.

It is never very easy to constantly develop mentees who would be leaving for higher roles and a new batch of people would have to be developed again. Surely for businesses it is not a very desirable situation given that stringent results have to be achieved and deadlines are waiting to be fulfilled.

Sometimes the work of a mentor is like the school teacher, where paving is for the short term but what impressions are carried during that term could well change the lives of some gifted pupils.

Every teacher has the ability to spot the gifted from the ordinary and make the process of deep engagement unconditional.

Perhaps that is where the world of business differs; finding un-conditionality in mentoring is still difficult.