AI for Mentoring

 

Like reflection, I find it hard to reach out for mentoring. 4 complaints quickly come to mind:

1.       Perhaps it is because I see so many activities that need to be done, I find it hard to take the time to get perspective from a mentor.

2.       Perhaps I find it challenging to make myself vulnerable in sharing my thought processes.

3.       Perhaps I believe that I see work processes so clearly, it is hard to feel like finding a mentor with the right experience will be worth the effort in obtaining it.

4.       Perhaps I have too much hubris in thinking what I see as the issue is in fact the root cause to be addressed.

The more I learn, the more I realize that my 4 complaints hold me back. Failing to discuss my situation with a coach or a mentor misses the many benefits building on others experiences. Bennett et al, deals with many of my issues in Chapter 13.

Extreme teaming and interdisciplinary work, consistently state that our individual experience is not the only truth. Different disciplines view problems through different lenses and solve with different frameworks. Additional perspectives and framing allow insight into an issue that a single perspective may leave obfuscated.

Beyond the text, there are many sources of mentorship guidance for my communities. Virginia Tech publishes a guide for developing a mentoring relationship with goal of developing as a member of a profession. The Navy offers programs in several commands in the local district. Each of them focus on a partnership built of trust, likely to allow for the psychological safety. Each calls for transparency of expectations, purposes, and respect, so as to ensure both parties can devote resources appropriately. Outside of my supervisors, I have found it hard to square my schedule with a regular meeting, even for coffee and discussion of our organization.

Interestingly, consulting an AI addresses my 4 complaints. Because AI is such a low threshold, I believe the technology will further supplant our relationships as sources for answers and mentoring. Why ask a friend when one can ask Google for a detail? Why setup a meeting when Claude, Cortana, and ChatGPT are ready to give advice without a search? In each case, the quality of the AI response remains unknown and changes without examination. The act of acquiring the mentor or coach, while taking time, develops because of confidence in their experience, decision-making, or coaching ability. While some would argue that the range of advice of available from multiple AI’s gives greater benefit than a mentor, the mentor relationship provides a connection and contribution beyond the answer.

Despite all of this, several of my coworkers have developed beneficial mentor relationships. I see time blocked in their schedules, usually in a junior / senior relationship, to build the awareness from the experience of others. Clearly, AI hasn’t supplanted this relationship yet. Knowing the value, NSF requires mentoring, but I wonder how much of it will be supplanted by AI.

Communication remains key

        From TraveLynn Family

Sometimes we ask ourselves if we are ready for a particular activity. Before I go on a trip, I consider what I will be doing, for how long, and how much room/time I have to pack. I consider with whom I will travel to help understand what unexpected matters I might face and need to resolve. When we setup a team for new activities, we should also be asking, what do we need to pack as resources for the team? 

Every team we build has successes and failures, but what do all teams have in common? They need to communicate with each other to achieve their goals. At the start of the development of a team, they need to pack all the items that will help them communicate. When a team agrees on ground rules that make that specific, then all people know what is packed for the team. As the saying goes, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. To that I will add, trips and teams are both easier when you pack the right things.

For any team, I would recommend we add specifics on the nature and style of communication. For each of these, I would want to answer, how should my team benefit? Some of my best thoughts arrive after my team meetings. When I don't understand a member of my team, should I ask in the meeting or after? When I disagree, how should I do it?

For decisions, several factors affect how hard it is to adapt to change, but our teams should be open to change. When an issue arrives in a meeting, we rarely need it to be resolved immediately. I might not be at my best when confronted with something outside my expectations (surprise! - UHF Clip) during my meeting. If we establish a rule allowing us to reflect and inquire further on most decisions in reasonable time, we prime the pump for the necessary adaptation of Senge The Fifth Discipline Chapter V, X.

For disagreement, lack of understanding, and misunderstanding, one of the root problems is ensuring that one’s mental model accurately understood the original statement. To respond, I recommend the Rapoport Rules (aka Dennett’s Rules) to avoids burning bridges: 1) restate clearly, 2) list agreements, 3) acknowledge what you learned, and then 4) express any significant difference in your opinion for the group. This helps the originator remain receptive to refining the idea. For research organizations, using disagreement to highlight assumptions through dialogue or discussion is key to aligning team members (Bennet et al Chapter 10).

Unfortunately, what I have learned is that it is quite challenging to switch from habits to agreed upon terms. Therefore, it becomes easier if the terms are commonly reused, making them part of the organization's routine (noted by Edmonson & Harvey). I recommend every organization provide a standard team charter, which an individual team can augment or vary. Often organizations do this for legal agreements, offering default positions, standard alternatives, and disallowed fallbacks, making negotiating much easier. Per many, available services, easier negotiation is desirable.

 

 

How do you build a useful team?

 While I was in India, I met many people, both at work and outside of it. Aides, mentors, grad students, and researchers from elsewhere in India or Europe. Although it has been many years, I barely integrated any into my research process. Why was that? I believe I failed to see how to engage them with my research (water rights for farmers) beyond whether it was tangential to what they were working on. Although I faced challenges, I rarely discussed my project for them to mitigate my problems from their experience.   

Now, I am in a much more senior position. I need to assign and form teams that don't fall prey to the many problems I had. In my department, teams are sized by importance and resources, not necessarily the extent of tasks. Many teams are built from people volunteered from their office, to serve the greater good, but also because these workers have bandwidth to support. This kind of team building doesn't use the strict business function representation criteria of many product teams (Trott, Chapter 15) or (Cooper, Chapter 3), representing knowledge on delivering a product. To make my teams more effective, I can address deficits found in both my old and current process with best practices from teaming research.

One deficit I had and still see was a lack of regular feedback, even self-examination. In Agile, the retrospective is core to development. In Stage-Gate, rapid spiral development helps build that feedback users need.  As the PI on my grant, I didn't work with my team in India to get that feedback, with a collaborative mindset (Garrett, Chapter 6). In government, the team leads rarely have formal process to give frequent feedback when leading assigned teams; this is oft undocumented and informal. This should be made explicit in charging the team with their task. Furthermore, the teams should ensure they have set aside time to review their teaming and not just produce.

A second deficit was determining the membership of my team. Although I have some knowledge of the skills of people on a team, my initial interviews with my research team in India did not provide that understanding. My cultural divisions, faultlines, were so large, I failed to recognize the diversity and utilize it (Garrett, Ibid). On the teams of volunteered people, we typically only know the role they are in and whatever team roles they may volunteer to fill. Research teams, like product teams, must understand their membership to address knowledge gaps related to tasks assigned. As I assign teams, I will ask them to both draft out the activities they expect or may need to take, list who has experience with each. I could encourage that they further share resumes or CVs help spread that awareness of unknown skillsets and experience.

In short, because of lack of process competency, I failed to utilize my team. Because of lack of experience, I failed to recognize the skills available to me on my team. I want future team to examine what they do and the diversity they have. The best way to do so, is to have the team draft out what they expect, who can assist, and to return to it regularly to inform their path forward. 

Improving project delivery through feedback and aligning expectations

Much of this blog reflects on my time overseas, particularly my work on water distribution and governance. Rivers naturally move water efficiently, but they also carry contaminants. While working on clean water initiatives in India, I saw firsthand how access to water challenged both farmers and industry. At the time, many areas relied on subsistence farming. Some Gram Panchayats (similar to county governments) tried to strengthen local farms by providing shared equipment or organizing cooperative programs.

 One major challenge for the government—though sometimes a political advantage—was information asymmetry. Information about policies, resource availability, and community needs did not flow efficiently. As a result, programs were often implemented from the top down, with limited input from those affected. This gap created space for patronage networks and political favoritism, which weakened overall government effectiveness despite program team efforts. In my own experience, I was encouraged to work with politically connected businesses and officials rather than subject-matter experts suited to my research needs. I don't know if this was the proximate cause for not meeting my research goals, but I believe it contributed.

 Government support for local farming involves many actors working toward the broad goal of increasing regional output and revenue. However, performance is often measured primarily by political voter support. This is a weak metric. It rarely aligns with stated development goals and can undermine good governance by shifting focus away from long-term outcomes and toward short-term political gain. Consequently, team members work with competing priorities, dividing effort and reducing commitment to the development goal, my case clear explanation of government problems for water distribution to farmers.

 Community feedback is essential for improving these programs. Since I left India in 2007, rural use of cellular service has expanded dramatically. This increased connectivity has improved awareness and created new channels for feedback. Panchayats can now track more meaningful, forward-looking metrics instead of relying on post-program political approval. This shift enables a more iterative, agile approach to planning and delivery, rather than a rigid, top-down “waterfall” model that depends heavily on political patronage. Ideally, stronger engagement with public stakeholders will lead to a clearer shared vision and more decentralized, locally responsive implementation.

 While some writers advocate for subsuming contributor individual desires to improve team delivery, most recognize the balance and strive for alignment. Similarly, a program team cannot ignore the needs of the sponsor panchayat or state, delivering to goals to their detriment. Consequently, in areas of existing patronage networks panchayats interested in wider polities need to message transition improve voters expectations for nondiscriminatory delivery. This would align with continuing calls from civil society to both highlight the misuse of power and detail the expected path to resolution. Ultimately, such panchayat programs would benefit from aligning charters and collaboration agreements that provide clear expectations.

 In the past, I have advocated for clearly defined roles and guidelines to help teams establish new programs. However, such structures only work when sponsors and stakeholders actively provide feedback and hold teams accountable. Patronage politics weakened that accountability and undermined the government’s ability to execute its stated vision effectively. Consultation networks from power sharing better support teaming and should be sought. However, the reality of economic fortunes tend to link the party in power more than their efficient delivery of planned programs. After all, why hold anyone accountable if one is winning? Because one won't always be winning, and I want to be winning.

Chi-town (August 08)

With my Nulwala guide (meaning plumber), I traipse about downtown Chicago. His sister lives a few blocks from Soldier Field, where I had wondered from my hotel. I had a goal of making it to the lakeshore before meeting my buddy. Conveniently, traffic incoming from Naperville sucked enough that I made it to the planetarium before Naeem caught up with me. It was good to have a native guide, but better yet to have someone who could city-hike. We didn't waste our time with public transit, other than the free tourist trolley. Naeem pointed out the significant buildings, including such great towers as those built to spite Trump's view of the lake. Other spots were significant due to their inclusion in the batman movies.

My favorite story was of the flooding of all the buildings on the Chicago River. Apparently, these buildings had tunnels to carry coal from the barges directly to the base of the buildings for heat. Eventually, the burners were no longer in use, and the tunnels were sealed. Unfortunately, the seals were not particularly strong. When construction workers broke through an outer tunnel, and the Chicago River flooded in, the walls sealing each building from the tunnels caved. Instant city disaster.

From downtown we haul ourselves past shopping crowds to Oak Street Beach. We chilled, ogled, and met another L&C'er Wendy Packard. Wendy walked with us down to the pier, and across to Millennium Park. The skygate or giant metal bean was particularly entertaining for me. Naeem was almost part of a fountain, the "faces of chicago", but his address was Naperville and ineligible.

We hitup happy hour in the financial district nearby. I love it when a buffet is the price of two drinks or free if you buy the two drinks. This buffet was designed to lock your stomach and let the alcohol hit you later: very greasy/oily/fatty. I loved it.

Between sleep, tour, beach, park, and happy hour, my 20 hours in Chicago were nearly up. I hustled but to make my train, which only left 30 minutes late. Next time I'm in Chicago, I'm bringing a bike.

Trains East

It is always a rush to get out of a house. I never think I am a procrastinator. This time I put most of my stuff into storage two weeks prior. I packed my bags two days before. Yet, I didn't pack everything into my carry-on backpack. More importantly, I expected to sell my bike beforehand. This time, it wasn't a rush to get out of the house. It was a rush to get my bike, bike to the train station, and get it packed without causing a problem. Conveniently, I got to chase my roommate carrying my luggage half-way across town on my bike. Then, as is usual with travel by public transit, I got to wait an hour until they put us on the train.

The Empire Builder is an interesting line. From the name, one would believe that this train is used to create the inland empire. To that end, the train drains the Northwest into the commodity city of Chicago. The reason I find this interesting, is the method Amtrak moves the Northwest. One train, by far the larger, leaves Seattle. A smaller train leaves Portland. A line between the two cities ferries passengers from in between. The Portland line, my line, follows the Columbia, only to curve off and head for Spokane. There it waits to meet the Seattle train. In the middle of the night, both separate parts of the Empire Builder join together before passing through Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and so forth to Chicago.

My Empire Builder was different. Certainly, we leisured up the Columbia. We joined in Spokane. We chugged the night through Idaho.

Have you ever heard of Libby, Montana? I have heard of Libby, Montana. The town shares a free newspaper (10 pages!) with Troy, Montana. It takes a few minutes to walk the main strip of Libby. One can make it a whole 15 minute walk by turning at the center of town and heading toward the grocery stores on either edge of town. I walked the main strip three times. I went to the grocery. Some other passengers got t-shirts. They read " I got derailed in Libby, Montana".

Just east of Libby at 4something in the morning, a freight train derailed. At 5 in the morning, we stopped in Libby. We waited for them to clear the derailed train, only to find the track had been ripped up. One trainride later, here I am in Shelby, sitting across from some Amish.

One has noticed I was writing and has brought out pen and paper for notes. I will do my best to give a play-by-play of the Amish interaction. They like the free gatorade Amtrak provided. Their "Dutch/Deutsch/German" sounds funny. That is all. The Amish don't make for exciting play-by-play.

The coffee and hot water machine broke. I also found out that the train is backward, which is not too uncommon, with the long haul carriage at the front. The former does not make for a happy train. The latter makes it slightly harder to load and unload extra cars.

Personages of note on this trip - S - the son of two anthropologists who smuggled desks into a town in Equador in exchange for Guinea Pigs and David, a Russian Jew from Texas in attending schul NY interested in the Military. S said that growing up in a variety of cultures where he couldn't communicate has made him more self-sufficient. He is playing the Piano.

The star of my new trip has been my iPhone, feeding my internet addiction on the go. Even still, I have not been able to access a volunteer group's voicemail with either it or my regular phone. I blame AT&T.

A group of 4 well dressed 30-50 something ladies got on in Minnesota. They have a Christian conference in Indiana, near Michigan. Apparently, Amtrak works well to get them to a shuttlebus in Chicago. They would have taken the train all the way there, but we are seven hours late. I talk to them about religion, but they seem a bit too creationist to have an open discussion. I fail to mention I'm Jewish. I give the girls sitting next to them my origami to play with.

Originally I planned on having 4 hours in Chicago. Courtesy of a late train, I get a free hotel and 20 hours in Chicago. I call my recent roommate Naeem.

Planes, Trains, and Automobles - India 25

I seem to have missed a major method of transportation here in India: animal. At no point did I ride a palanquin atop an elephant, an arabian horse, or a donkey pulled cart. That being said, below is my analysis of the transportation system.

I rode every class of train at least overnight. For those who are unfamiliar, the trains come in 1st Class, 2nd class, 3rd class, and sleeper. In addition there are two classes for daytrips chair car and AC coach?. The numbered overnight classes all have AC but the sleeper does not. In first class, one has a private room, upholstered seats, and a servant on call 24-hours a day. This is comfortable, but like staying in one's hotel, this drasticly limits interaction. The price of first class is about the same as airfare for the same distance. 2nd class is the best place to expect interaction with Indians in English. While the AC is turned up full blast, each compartment's 6 beds are over 6'6" long and are separated from the hallway with a curtain. 3rd class increases the bunks to 8, drops the AC a bit, and reduces the width of the main bunks to slightly wider than a couch. The aisle bunks are reduced in length to below 6'. 3rd class does have one significant advantage over sleeper, the general public is excluded from the cabins. In sleeper, while the dimensions are the same as 3AC, during the day all sorts of people come in and out of the vehicle. Except unlike 2nd and 3rd, very few venders come in the train. The best part of sleeper is that even with the low price (a 24 hour trip costs about 100Rs) there are still some English speakers for conversation. The day trip AC cars are somewhat like a home theatre with the AC at full blast. Also in these day AC cars, there seems to be the largest variety of food vendors. I had some of the best friend plaintain then. For me, traveling by train would be a toss-up between 2AC and sleeper.

I took six flights within, to and from India, and I have to say that I enjoy the American/International plane luggage rules because I have trouble carrying more than my allowance. Within India flights drop the allowance from 25-35kg to 15kg. Nonetheless, being able to walk up to a counter and by a ticket for the plane departing in an hour for a price 500RS above a 2nd class train ticket is quite nice. I have nothing to complain about on all of my flights, and the international flights had some beautiful waiting rooms with open bars, free massages, or even massage chairs. The only drawback is that for most of these flights, one is going to sit down for several hours, so I prefer to walk the whole time. Also, one notes the price of food increases significantly each time one passes through a security checkpoint. Eventually, it becomes almost economical to eat in a waiting lounge, rather than from one of the venders.

Perhaps my favorite form of transportation were the compact auto, bike, and man-powered rickshaws. These were scaled to the size of the population and are truly stripped down to the bare minimum. I have heard that trafficked areas have deadly accidents when accidents occur, but these professional drivers seem quite adept at avoiding complications and traversing the distance quickly. In addition, many of the authorickshaws have switched over to liquefied/pressurized natural gas. The resulting reduced emissions in addition to their significant fuel efficiency is something any country could do well to emulate. I would love to import an autorickshaw to the US, but the lack of spare parts would be maddening.

Several times in Hyderabad and in Mumbai I rode in taxis. The Indian cabs are the same as in any other part of the world. I have little opinion other than they take more gas than is necessary for most trips, but they are safer than the autorickshaws. My favorites are the mini-taxis which combine a taxi front end with a rearfacing bench seat before the rearmost seat. 12 in such a vehicle is not uncommon.

Aside from traveling on mountain highways, the standard for safety in India must be the bus. While the standard Asian/African/South American/Eastern Europe rule of the largest vehicle controls the road applies, in the cities, more so than everything else, these vehicles slow to a crawl. While I wouldnt recommend riding the outside, decapatations from power lines or being smashed into nearby traffic are two possibilities, a crammed bus is occasionally so crammed that one need not worry about ones balance and could sleep standing up. Unless one has a multihour trip without a seat, I would recommend the buses. As with any crowd, watch your belongings.

Mathura - India 24

From Agra I decided to visit nearby Mathura, the birthplace of Lord Krishna. I crossed 3-8 miles of town to the bus station in under 10 Rs to get there. It was an interesting jog because at times I kept up with the sparse rickshaws while carrying my pack. Here the roads were as wide as an American Highway, yet they were used by very little traffic. These are the new outlets for traffic that get bogged down in the main road, however they lack all the shops and housing that draws people to the main round. Consequently, the main road is still a traffic jam.

My bus traveled right through the center of this jam. City Agra was significantly more modern and looked similar to other Indian cities as compared to the tourist section of Agra. For some time I road the highway from Agra to Mathura. This highway seemed Western in standards: clean with marked lanes drivers followed. As we turned off for Mathura, I noticed a white temple at least as long as a townhouse/rowhouse block, which I thought could be to Krishna.

I got off my bus a bit and found this white temple was to Guru Deo, no relation to Ronnie James. This templ Two things about this surprised me, the temple was white polished stone filled with rope lights of all different colors, and the donations were only accepted from those who had not eaten meat in the last month.

When I finally reached Mathura, I found a big washing pit in the center of town. Six or seven stories from the top of the square was a pond. The water was full of reeds, but was also discolored a shade of red from runoff. I saw women washing their laundry there.

Outside Krishna's dwelling were throngs of pilgrims dressed in orange. Everyone was there for his birthday. I was ashamed to think that a temple as small as the one for Guru Deo could possibly be the dwelling of Lord Krishna. The place was immense. Conveniently outside was an airconditioned enclosed sweets shop that had expensive dainties at American prices. Between the outdoor washing and the indoor food, I am always reminded of the juxtaposition of economics in Indian society.

Before my return to Agra I followed a path down the train tracks to the bus station. I met a begger and offered him my water, which he greatfully drank without touching his mouth to the bottle or spilling a drop. The Indians have perfected this art. At the bus station I have four large vegetable samosas with hot pepper sauce for 20 Rs. Made by hand and fried by the vendor on the pan infront of me, these were delicious.

Back in Agra, my cheap hotel had a laundry service. I payed when I received my laundry but one piece remained dirty and only appeared pressed. When I discovered this and asked for my 3Rs in return, the guy at the front desk hemmed and hawed. The problem with losing small amounts of money is that over the course of a trip they build up. For me, it is the principal of the idea that I should never pay for work I didn't receive. As my time wasn't that crucial (how can it be with train timings up to a day off?) we had a nice 5 minute conversation in order for me to get any change. I recognize that the money ment more to him than it did to me, but charity is to be freely given, not used to excuse shoddy labor.