BRING OUT THEIR BEST: TRAINING COURSE FOR RESEARCH & CAREER MENTORS

This intensive mentoring workshop equips participants with effective, immediately applicable techniques for empowering their mentees and colleagues to become more centered, self-reliant, and successful.

This workshop is open to colleagues from non-profits, corporations, academic institutions, and leadership development organizations.

By learning a series of mentoring techniques, participants will enhance their repertoire of skills for helping colleagues, coworkers, and mentees to make key decisions in building and carrying out a new project.

Drawing on the exercises in Thomas S. Mullaney and Christopher Rea’s book Where Research Begins, which has already translated into 5 languages and adopted by over 100 institutions worldwide, the workshop will focus on scenarios such as helping mentees who:

• have difficulty choosing a focus for their project
• unsure how to proceed with a project prompt or assignment
• feel intimidated by or unqualified to develop and carry out a project
• worry that they are asking the wrong questions about their project topic
• want to become better collaborators
• want to learn new ways to think about how to build and execute projects

Target outcomes include:

• Helping mentees realize their individual potential
• Fostering inclusion and teamwork in research, arts, and business communities
• Reducing disengagement and burnout
• Strengthening professional networks for sharing mentoring best practices
  

AGENDA

PART 1: WHY IS MENTORSHIP SO COMPLICATED?

Don’t Lie to Your Eye Doctor: The Difference Between Mentorship and Training

Trapped in Topicland: The First and Most Common Obstacle to Mentorship

What’s Your Problem?: A Brief Portrait of Successful Mentorship

PART 2: THE FUNDAMENTALS OF MENTORING

Your Focus is Your Home: How to Give Your Mentee Permission (to Give Themselves Permission)

What’s Their ‘MQ’?: How to Benchmark Your Mentee Using “Meaningless Questions”

The Cereal Box Challenge: Expanding Your Mentee’s “Range of Motion”

PART 3: DEEP WORK

Change One Variable: How to Make “Deep Work” Non-Confrontational

Mentors, One and All: Moving from 1-on-1 to Co-Mentorship

Mentoring in the Mirror: Equipping Mentees to Mentor Themselves

PART 4: BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

Elevator Poison: The Superpower of Knowing One’s Problem

When Mentorship Fails: Mentees Who Foil Your Plans (and What to Do About It)

Discussion + Q&A

MEET THE INSTRUCTORS

Tom Mullaney is Professor of Chinese History at Stanford University, a Guggenheim Fellow, and the recipient of Stanford’s highest award for excellence in teaching, the Gores Award. He is the co-author of Where Research Begins (University of Chicago Press, 2022, with Christopher Rea), The Chinese Typewriter: A History (MIT Press 2017), and Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China (UC Press, 2010), among other works. His writings have appeared in Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, Quartz, the South China Morning Post, TechCrunch, the Journal of Asian Studies, Technology & Culture, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy. His work has been featured in RadioLab, The Atlantic, the BBC, and in invited lectures at Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and more. He earned his BA and MA from the Johns Hopkins University, and his PhD from Columbia University.

Christopher Rea is Professor of Asian Studies and former Director of the Centre for Chinese Research at the University of British Columbia. A native of Berkeley, California, he earned a BA from Dartmouth College and a PhD from Columbia University, and has been a visiting fellow at Harvard University and at universities in Taiwan and Australia. His books include Where Research Begins (University of Chicago Press, 2022, with Tom Mullaney), Chinese Film Classics, 1922-1949 (2021), The Book of Swindles: Selections from a Late Ming Collection (2017, with Bruce Rusk), and The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China (2015). He was awarded UBC’s Killam Research Prize in 2023, and the Dean of Arts Mentorship Award in 2024.

FEE

Course fee: $275.

Includes the 3-hour live training, one e-book copy of Where Research Begins, access to the Meaningless Question flashcard websites and tutorial videos, Try This Now worksheets, the Meaningless Questions poster, and other digital training materials. Participants with domestic U.S. mailing addresses may request physical copies of the book, flashcards, and poster at no additional charge. International participants will receive all curricular materials in digital format.

GROUP DISCOUNT

Groups of 3 or more, registering simultaneously, receive a 20% discount. For purchase order payment, email trainings@whereresearchbegins.com

ACADEMIC DISCOUNT

The fee for teachers, students, university faculty/staff, and postdoctoral fellows is $225. To register for the academic discount, include in your online registration your institutional email with a link to an institutional web page showing your position.

REGISTRATION

Early registration is strongly encouraged, as space is limited and the course fills up quickly. You may also register by emailing your information to trainings@whereresearchbegins.com or by mailing the form to:

Where Research Begins LLC

548 Market Street

Suite 35999

San Francisco, CA 94104-5401

CONFIRMATION

All registrants will receive a confirmation invoice via email, followed later by the workshop Zoom link.

CANCELLATIONS

Payment is required in advance but is refundable, less a $40 processing fee, provided that your cancellation is received 30 days prior to the event. No refunds will be issued for cancellations after that date. Substitute attendees are welcome.

BOOK DISCOUNTS

Workshop registrants may purchase additional e-book copies of Where Research Begins at a 30% discount from the list price. U.S.-based participants may also purchase additional paperback copies of Where Research Begins at a 30% discount from the list price, plus sales tax and shipping. All attendees will be able to participate fully in the workshop regardless of the arrival time of curricular materials.

Additional Meaningless Question flashcard decks are also available for purchase for $12 each, plus sales tax and shipping. Volume discounts are available.

For book and curricular material orders, email trainings@whereresearchbegins.com

QUESTIONS

If the course is full, or if you have any questions, please email trainings@whereresearchbegins.com

This independent course is not affiliated with Stanford University or the University of British Columbia.

© Where Research Begins LLC