Mentoring Culture for Organizational Success
A Guideline for Successful Mentoring Programs
Originally Published October 16, 2015, Queen's University Industrial Relations Centre "E-News"
Mentoring is a management practice that can
assist organizations in building a desired corporate culture, while enabling
the careers of those who are already motivated to pursue one. It is an
efficient and effective method of shortening the learning curve of new
executives and providing more knowledgeable employees with broader
perspectives. New executives with a mentor have a sounding board, as well as the
benefit of their mentor’s experience as they navigate through situations that
may be unfamiliar to them. Based upon a foundation of trust,
the relationship of mentees with experienced executives can offer a safe place
to try out ideas, skills, and roles with minimal risk, while focusing on their
individual development needs.
In this article, I will discuss the impact a
mentoring culture can make
in an organization, how mentoring differs from coaching, the value of a
structured approach to mentoring and the steps to set up a mentoring program.
Successful Mentorships
Mentoring is defined as a professional and confidential
relationship between two individuals that assists one of them in developing
“business strategies” and acquiring new “technical” knowledge and skills. One
mentee concluded, after a year-long mentoring relationship in a structured
program I designed for a large public sector organization,[1]that: “It is an
evolutionary process, where mentors become a resource for someone enabling an
exchange of ideas and experiences. Avoid matching of those who have known each
other a long time… the forging of the relationship is a valuable part of the
process.”
Table 1: Successful Mentorships Successful mentorships: Align with organization
objectives Enjoy organization-wide senior
support Meet specific developmental needs of mentees Recognize contributions of mentors Offer training, orientation and
networking opportunities Establish realistic and
time-bound milestones Launch with a written, signed
commitment Respect confidentiality of the
relationship Recognize successful outcomes |
According to Edward E. Lawler III, in his book Managing Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage:
“Human capital-centric
organizations excel only when they have outstanding talent. To have outstanding
talent, they need an outstanding talent management system—one that attracts the
right talent and helps them understand exactly what to expect from their work experience
with the company. The best talent management systems also provide employees
with the kind of developmental experiences that build the organization’s key
capabilities and core competencies. Last but not least, they retain the right
talent.”[2]
Clearly some
companies get it. They find the talent and they keep the talent. They recognize
the need to hang onto those employees who demonstrate best fit with
organizational culture, who share the passion for the vision, who have the
education and technical skills to succeed. As an organization, you would want
to invest in their futures knowing that theirs will become yours. As Lawler
states, they become “the keepers of the corporate identity and knowledge bases.”[3] So, if your work culture focuses on
becoming highly involved with your employees, you probably are already closing
the gap between your corporate talent and your financial success.
Creating a Mentoring Culture, Not a
Coaching Program
Coaching Vs. Mentoring Where coaching is task-oriented,
focused on specific skills for improvement, be they interpersonal or
operational skills, mentoring is relationship-based, where the interaction
and commitment of mentor and mentee will greatly influence the success of the
mentee’s career development process. It extends beyond the workplace to the
individual’s self-confidence and esteem. Both mentor and mentee benefit from
the relationship. |
According to Lawler, we know generally that the cost of turnover to the
organization is based on salary. “The larger the salary, the greater the
multiple should be. For example, in replacing relatively unskilled individuals,
often the cost is one or two times the monthly salary. However, in the case of
a senior executive, the cost is more likely to be ten or fifteen times monthly salary.”[4]
We
know that more often than not, the most expensive turnover occurs when it is
unplanned. Unplanned turnover as opposed to involuntary departures creates an
unexpected financial drain on the budget as well as incurring the hidden costs
of lost knowledge capital in the short term and a potential risk to your
competitive advantage.
So organizations
that wish to hire the best, keep the best, and all the while be at the top of
their game, will consider how to leverage the excellent talent they have
already attracted and want to keep, instead of relying on sourcing new
brainpower elsewhere. The assumption is of course that the recruitment process
was successful to begin with, where good fit went beyond technical skills and
knowledge.
In a Global Assessment
Trends Report (from CEB-SHL Talent Measurement)[5],
56% of HR professionals agreed that employee engagement is a top priority, but
only 19% reported having a formal process to engage employees, and while
leadership development ranked second in the list of HR priorities in 2014, only
30% had a formal process in place. In addition, best practices research into
career development identifies a need for structure, standardization,
consistency and executive support when introducing formal engagement and
leadership strategies.
Table 2: Structured Engagement
and Development Programs The organization benefits from:
The selected employee benefits from:
|
Companies with unstructured approaches offer limited-resourced programs where
there is no
expectation of long-term impact or link with strategy, leadership development
or succession planning. On the
other hand, these programs do offer individuals a networking opportunity, “nice
to have” connection with someone who can show them the ropes and perhaps
recommend a book and seminar or two.
Value of the Structured Approach
Since the late
1980s, global survey after global survey has suggested that the most critical
elements of leadership success in all sectors are fourfold:
1. Competence
2. Honesty
3. Inspirational
4. Forward
Thinking
Therefore,
instead of gambling on future leadership, an organization’s financial success
can be facilitated by creating a mentoring culture that is structured to
deliver specific results. The structure ensures that both mentee and mentor are
carefully identified and matched based on their past and current performance, their
interests and expertise and their desire to participate in co-creating a
successful future organization. Mentors are selected because they are known in the organization as:
· Something
of an authority in the field
· Influential
in decision-making
· Vested
in the professional growth and development of the mentee
· Willing
to commit necessary time and emotional energy
· Secure
enough not to be threatened by other people’s success
· Providing
wise counsel, coaching advice and support
· Excellent communicators with strong interpersonal skills
· Having an extensive network of resources, including other potential
mentors
· Team players
· Doing
the best to help the mentee understand the secrets learned the hard way about
the nuances of the corporate structure, special politics and its key players
· Practicingcompetence,
honesty, inspirational thought and forward-thinking
A structured approach does not imply a compulsory program for your high
potentials. Rather, a successful outcome of mentoring is directly related to
the commitment of both mentor and mentee to the relationship. Therefore,
participation is voluntary, both mentee and mentor are invested and the
mentee’s supervisor lends support but
is not directly involved in the process.
Pamela Ryckman,
author of Stiletto Network: Inside
the Women’s Power Circles That Are Changing the Face of Business, is quoted
in the May 17, 2013 issue of Forbes Magazine, saying that:
“A mentor must believe in her mentee, both personally and
professionally … Mentors help fill your knowledge gaps and seek opportunities
to help you grow and excel. A mentor is someone with whom you can let down your
guard, share your insecurities, and ask the ‘stupid’ questions we all have
sometimes.”[6]
Structure also
requires some sort of plan, with SMART goals (Specific, Measurable,
Action-Oriented, Realistic and Time-Bound), signed learning contracts, firm
meeting schedules, and check-in points with the organization to discuss
progress, debrief the mentees’ and mentors’ experiences and obtain constructive
feedback on the mentee’s development.
In particular,
when mentees and mentors attend an orientation session, to learn about each
other and together create a mentoring agreement and personal learning plan, the
relationship is most likely to succeed.
Table 3: Mentoring Roadmap Steps for creating a mentoring program:
|
As part of the
structured program I designed for a public sector organization,[7]follow ups with mentees at key milestones (3, 6 and 12 months) were required to
track their progress. After 6 months, I was able to confirm that:
“Those
participating in orientation held a stronger commitment to the mentoring
relationship than those who had less initial time together… directly attributed
to the time and opportunity those dyads had in developing a personal learning plan
and a mentoring agreement while on training… Setting SMART
objectives are critical in ensuring the success of the
mentoring program but providing the time for that activity is as significant.”
Mentoring agreements spelled out the terms of the
relationship between the mentor and mentee and what they were both committing
to. This agreement became their contract to work together, understanding their
respective expectations regarding availability, acceptable behaviours and
confidentiality. This last point, in fact, became a most critical point as the
relationship developed.
Table 4: Mentoring Agreements Key points in mentoring agreements include:
|
In this
organization, the orientation also provided them with an opportunity to meet
other pairs who were participating. This created a community for mentors who
could, going forward, support each other throughout the mentoring period. As
well, mentees were able to share their experiences which in some ways, also
provided a support network. Mentors in the same program agreed that:
“The more time working together to develop those agreements, the more
likely to be on track with completion of mentee learning goals. Little time
spent together developing goals resulted in more distance and less structure to
the relationship, and a lower likelihood of moving the mentoring objectives
forward… “
Steps for Successful Mentoring
1. It
goes without saying that successful mentoring will not happen without first
obtaining overall organizational support to create a mentoring culture. How to
do this is a subject for another article. However, once it has been confirmed,
certain structural steps to facilitate success should be considered.
2. Develop
written guidelines to detailing how to involve supervisors in the mentoring
process.
3. Call
for mentors and mentees and ask them to complete their profiles. These forms
enable participants to identify their skills, experience, goals and any other
essential criteria to assist in the matching process. Online systems are
available to assist in this process.
4. Review
the matches of mentors and mentees within a pre-determined timeframe. The matching process considers
all criteria in order to secure an appropriate match.
5. Officially
register mentors and mentees in the mentoring program when a match had been
made.
6. Distribute
written guidelines to mentees and mentors to assist them in initiating and
engaging in “exploratory” meetings to discuss their goals and objectives and
determine a personality fit.
7. Design
and deliver a mentoring orientation to launch the dyads (mentee and mentor
pairs). This workshop provides them the time to formalize their mentoring agreements,
create SMART developmental objectives, and determine their next steps.
8. Encourage
the dyads to sign the mentoring agreement that formally commits them to the
mentoring relationship. If there
is some hesitation at this point, determine the cause: availability, poor fit,
inability to identify the overall developmental objectives.
9. Monitor progress during periodic program audits, at three and six-month intervals and prepare written progress reports to track success.
10. Prepare an annual detailed evaluation report that enables the organization to validate mentoring as a cultural input to their overall success.
“What I’ve heard time and again from executive ‘elders’ is how much they gain in return when they mentor young people. They’re often surprised at how much they learn from their mentees. Mentoring really goes both ways; when different generations come together, their blend of skills can be highly complementary.”[8]
© 2015 Queen’s University IRC. This paper may not be copied, republished,distributed, transmitted or converted, in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
[1] Kubicek, A. (2007). The Mentoring Adventure, 2006-2007. Unpublished report for a public sector organization.
[2] Lawler III, E. E. (2008). Talent making people your competitive advantage. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] 2014 Global
Assessment Trends Report | CEB-SHL Talent Measurement. (2014). Retrieved
October 6, 2015, from
http://www.cebglobal.com/shl/images/uploads/GATR-Executive-Summary-2014-USeng.pdf
[6] Pamela Ryckman quoted in Smith, J. (2013, May 17). How to be a
great mentor. Retrieved October 6, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/05/17/how-to-become-a-great-mentor/
[7] Kubicek, A. (2007). The Mentoring Adventure, 2006-2007. Unpublished
report for a public sector organization.
[8] Smith, J. (2013, May 17). How to be a great mentor. Retrieved
October 6, 2015, from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/05/17/how-to-become-a-great-mentor/