Level Two - Lesson 28
Mastering Mentorship
Also available are archives of live broadcasts, where the Program Director goes over the lesson, answers any questions that folks may have and sometimes goes on tangets about other elements of judging. You can find the playlist of broadcasts on youtube.
Click for Translation
While proper translation and localization are among our long-term goals, we are currently offering Google Translate on the page. Please keep in mind that the translation is automatic, which means that specific game terms, names of cards or mechanics, or technical language used to describe the game may not translate well. As with the documents for the game itself, the English page is the authoritative document in case of any confusion or discrepancy.Join the discussion in our Discord and talk with other judges about what you learned, and ask any questions you may have!
Hello there!
Welcome back to the level two lessons for the Star Wars™: Unlimited Judge Program!
As always, I’m your host Jonah, and this time we’re going to talk about one of the most important elements of judging for long term success in the judge program - mentorship. Even before I was managing judge programs, helping develop new judges, and taking experienced judges to the next step was a huge part of my passion in judging.
Mentorship is fundamental to the long-term health and success of the judge program, and consequently critical to the health and success of organized play. We can all learn from each other, even the most experienced of judges has something that they can learn from newer judges. There are new approaches, new techniques, new ways to explain rules and policy.
Passing along your knowledge to the judges working with you makes the experience of the players in the event that you’re working better, and in turn makes your day more enjoyable.
Some of this was covered in the level one lesson on giving and receiving critical feedback, but we’re going to be looking at things from a slightly different perspective today, as we’re going to be focused more on teaching than on specific feedback.
Mentorship is about building the other person up.
Caring for the Right Reasons
We talked a bit in the lesson on critical feedback that you need to treat the subject of your feedback with respect. Furthermore, we can generally agree that it’s important to care about the feedback that you’re delivering. If you don’t care, it can very easily fall flat.
However, you need to care for the right reasons. Years ago, I told a judge “I don’t think you’re a good fit for competitive judging.”
I had been talked down from “I don’t think you’re a good fit for judging.”
I did care deeply - I cared about the player experience, and the health and reputation of the judge program. I didn’t care deeply about this judge’s experience and their feelings, and unsurprisingly, my feedback not only went unheeded, but it soured our relationship, my reputation, and made this person enjoy judging less.
If you’re giving someone feedback or mentoring them for a reason other than you believe in them and want to see them grow and see more success, it’s not going to go well.
Mentorship Is More Than Feedback
Mentorship is more than feedback - it’s helping guide their journey. It can be working with them to help understand the lessons, or teaching them the rules and skipping over these lessons (videos and plain text just don’t work for everyone!).
A strong relationship with a mentor will stay with you throughout your judge career. They’re the person you call when you have your first Disqualification, or the one you ask questions about philosophy or logistics. It’s a long term relationship where you help someone grow as you also grow in the program.
Judges who travel to large events are often excellent mentors for their local community, as they’re able to get many different perspectives and insight from a variety of judges at larger events, and then come back with those lessons and help develop their community.
Your Teaching Style
If you want to be an effective mentor, a huge first step is figuring out your mentorship and teaching style. Do you do better with a prepared script, and specific talking points? Do you do better just playing a game and pointing out things that are interesting and going on tangents?
Do you prefer to work with on student at a time or with a group? Do you want to ask the students questions to get them thinking, or do you want them to ask you question so they can focus on what’s interesting to them?
The answer to these questions can be “all of the above”, but understanding what brings you satisfaction and what seems to be the most effective and expressing your lessons is critical.
Also, while i’m here - you might discover that there isn’t a mentorship style that clicks for you. Even if you care about the growth of the community, you might find that you just don’t enjoy teaching or struggle to be an effective teacher, and that’s entirely okay! You might be better at giving spot feedback, pointing out specific things that your subjects do well or have as areas of improvement. You might also be someone who teaches through example - simply by judging and having others observe you, they learn.
Their Learning Style
Of course, to be an effective mentor, it’s also important to understand how your student learns. Some folks learn better from experience, some through lecture, some through text, some through video.
Talk with them to figure out what works for them, and experiment in your teaching styles. Some folks do better slowly and methodically covering everything, while others prefer to get an info dump, and sift through to slowly piece things together.
Forging the Bond
As I mentioned before, it’s important to want to see the success of your mentee, and that mentorship is more than just feedback.
Really, good mentorship starts with a friendship - look at the relationships of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, or Obi-Wan and Anakin, or Anakin and Ahsoka... these are all long-term connections and bonds, where both members are deeply invested in the success and the partnership.
My best mentors were the ones that I went on roadtrips with to large events and shared hotel rooms with. We played games regularly, and talked constantly about rules and policy.
Start with a friendship, or getting to know someone well, and that makes the mentoring easier.
Because mentorship is more than feedback - it’s more than teaching rules and policy, but diving into some of the harder elements. Mentorship is about talking to them after they got declined for the third event in a row, or helping them untangle how they feel about a complex investigation that didn’t result in a disqualification.
Mentorship is letting them know that they’re ready for a step into a larger role and celebrating their success after the event. Mentorship is watching them take a leadership role and boss you around.
And mentorship isn’t necessarily between a senior judge and a junior judge - you and your friends, and your peers can act as mentors for each other.
Just Start Teaching
The best way to get better at mentoring is to start doing it! Go to your local store and ask your players if anyone is interested in knowing the rules better, or understanding tournament policy, or is interested in becoming a judge.
Your first few lessons or interactions maybe be a bit awkward, and if you go on a tangent - well, there’s nothing I can say against that!
You’ll also quickly find that teaching is a great study tool. Your students will ask you questions that you don’t know the answer to, or questions you didn’t even know existed! It’ll force you to deepen your knowledge and understanding, which helps you better explain rules and infractions to players, as well as just makes you more confident in your knowledge.
Just be sure to always acknowledge when you don’t know something - while we’re experts, we don’t have perfected knowledge. Rather than trying to teach something you don’t know, or giving it your best guess, say “I don’t actually know the answer to that - let’s look it up” you can also supply your speculation and reasoning “I think it would work like... because of these rules...”
That sort of thought process thinking and critical evaluation helps both you and your candidate figure out how the game is put together, and draw connections between parts of the rules that don’t seem to make sense.
Keep Reaching Out
A huge part of successful mentorship is proactively reaching out, not just waiting for them to come to you with questions.
You can ask them if they’ve had any interesting calls at events recently, or share your interesting calls with them.
Drive by “here’s a weird rules question” and then put down your phone for a few hours while they think about it, also works (although interacting and engaging is generally better).
Check in to see if they have any progress with the mentoring that they’re doing!
Heck, you can check in about non-judging topics, or talk about program construction and what you think the judge program could be doing better.
If you leave the burden of engagement on them, most people will slowly start to reach out less, whereas being proactive helps empower them and strengthens your bond.
Focus on Growth
All of the advice on providing feedback still applies here - show a path forward by giving actionable feedback. Be aware of what kind of feedback you’re providing - whether it’s appreciation, coaching or evaluation.
Overall, with mentorship, you want to focus on long term goals - so evaluation compared to their own personal benchmarks and those goals, and coaching on how to hit those goals can be the most relevant.
Take the time to build them up and build good habits, because this is something that they’re going to be working with for a while.
Being Critical
However, having a stronger relationship also allows you to be more critical. If you have a history of giving feedback and advice that has helped them grow, there will be more tolerance for critical feedback.
By having a strong relationship as or with a mentor, you open a door to getting feedback that can be profoundly impactful. Having someone you trust and rely on point out your flaws can be painful, but knowing that they’re doing it to support you and for your long term benefit can help with that discomfort.
It also allows you to pass along personal feedback that someone who might not have as close of a relationship might be uncomfortable delivering. Someone may have seen your mentee screw up a judge call or respond undiplomatically to a player, but not feel comfortable approaching the judge, because they don’t really know them. However, they can talk to you, and as you’ve developed a relationship with your mentee, you understand how they learn, what causes them to not listen to feedback and whether or not they’ve heard this feedback before.
One of the most frustrating experiences to have is to make a mistake, realize it, and then have six separate people come by and say “Hey, I don’t know if anyone has pointed out your mistake yet, but I’m going to do that for you now!”
Mentoring judges is a deeply valuable part of being a judge - it helps grow the community, it helps grow your own skills as a judge, and it brings people into your life who can become deep friends.
I encourage you to go beyond just superficial feedback on rules and policy knowledge - but do so after developing that connection. If you start by being hyper critical, you’re going to end up with the same reaction I got when I told that judge that I didn’t think competitive events were for them - a frustrated judge who didn’t listen to the concerns raised and disappointment in myself, not only from me, but from my mentor.
Our next lesson continues on this trend of providing feedback in a discussion about reviews - or recorded feedback, and some best practices for that, and ways to get started. If you’re watching this on YouTube, and you want more level two lessons in your feed, go ahead and subscribe. Join us Tuesdays and Fridays on twitch.tv/swu_judges for live broadcasts covering the content of these lessons as they are released, and join the Star Wars: Unlimited Judge Program Discord to join the community in discussion of this and much, much more.
As always, good luck, and have fun.