Hear how mentoring younger women through MentorMe benefited Li Fang in surprising ways.

Lai Li Fang, Business Head, Global Commercial Banking has been with OCBC Bank for 16 years. As a business head in Enterprise Banking Industries, she oversees the transport and logistics sectors.

Helping the next generation succeed

I’ve journeyed through many cycles of ups and downs with our customers throughout my banking career spanning over 16 years. I’ve made mistakes and learned many valuable lessons. All of us will make mistakes along the way. Through mentoring, I wanted to share the pitfalls I had faced and suggest possible ways to avoid or navigate around them. The younger generation will face new challenges I haven’t, so why not help them avoid the ones I had encountered? Their success is my responsibility, so I wished to help them achieve success through mentoring.

I signed up to be a mentor through the MentorMe programme in 2019, as I wanted to share my experiences, particularly with younger women. MentorMe was perfect as it is an initiative that was started to empower early to mid-career women by helping them build relationships with experienced mentors.

Mentoring is a two-way process

MentorMe challenges both the mentee and the mentor to reflect and grow. To grow, we need to intentionally step out of our comfort zone in our professional career and personal life. Joining MentorMe was a step out of my comfort zone since I wouldn’t know who I would mentor or whether I would really be able to help the mentee. I was enthusiastic but slightly nervous.

However, each time I’ve been a mentor, it’s been a pleasant experience. I’ve mentored younger colleagues from different parts of the Bank. Cheering them on as they grow and develop in their career and even personal lives has been an amazing experience for me.

Listening is key

Dishing out advice is not the first task of a mentor, as tempting as it may be. The first task is to really listen—actively and empathetically. Through the process of mentoring, I learned to be a far better listener than I thought I was. And this made me a better manager.

Learning to collaborate

Mentoring broadened my outlook as the mentees were not from my team. Through MentorMe, I was exposed to the larger Bank community. As a result, I learned to network better and seek opportunities to collaborate with others inside and outside the Bank. In today’s fast changing world, collaboration is crucial for success.

Becoming a songwriter

I’ll give you one amazing example of learning to collaborate. Pardon me, but it’s not banking related. Through a mentee, I was pushed into an area that I never would have imagined but was always a personal dream.

I wrote an original Christmas song in 2020! I even participated in an online musical production featuring the song I wrote! It was a dream come true as I didn’t have any formal music training. These amazing experiences enriched my personal life and made me believe that nothing is impossible.

In case you miss the significance—I was the mentor, and I was inspired! Mentoring is really a two-way process.

Keep learning and teaching

Learning is a lifelong journey. It is how we learn, what we learn, unlearn and relearn that make a difference in our lives. I find fulfilment in helping the next generation of executives learn and grow. Conversely, I often find fresh inspiration from my mentees. I try to bring what I’ve learned back to my teams to inspire them to scale their own new heights.

Each MentorMe experience has been tremendously satisfying. The journey has been fun as it gives me great satisfaction to see the younger generation of women grow professionally and personally. I strongly encourage managers to volunteer as mentors. As managers, coaching our teams to achieve departmental goals and objectives is our job. The MentorMe programme takes it a step further—the focus is not entirely task-oriented but on learning from each other and overcoming obstacles together.

The mentees grow and so do we. And who doesn’t like a win-win outcome?