In the latest December 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review, an article Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators (Cohn, Katzenbach and Vlak) are quoted .

“In the best organizations a mentor is assigned sot that the protégé can test new ideas and assumptions with a seasoned expert before introducing them to others in the company and can better understand the agendas of the senior executives who must be won over. The mentor .. can “test-drive and sharpen the protégé’s argument to build confidence.”

I am in agreement with the authors’ opinion on mentoring. Every organization should put in placing a system of mentoring, starting with the Leader/CEO. This system should be developed with the idea of staff retention and loyalty, accountability and even trouble-shooting. Of course, every organization will have different ideas of a suitable mentoring organizational culture.

A mentoring culture is where all employees have access to business advisors who are able to motivate them and give them some direction as they go their day-to-day work lives. In many occasions, I find that mentors are chosen outside the organization so that they are able to provide unbiased guidance.

Here are some tips that I will like to share which have been garnered from my formation of Mentors4Startups, which is a professional mentoring community.

Understand the Organizational Culture:

During my consultation, it never fails to surprise me when senior executives do not know about the organization’s mission and goals. This understanding has to be clear because mentoring will be more effective when the mentor is well-versed with the direction of the organization. Mentoring can be viewed as guiding an employee within the boundaries of the organizational culture.

An Opened-Book:

The CEO has to start the ball-rolling by declaring who is part of his internal circle and if he is also getting advice from a mentor who has no vested interest in the organization. This is a signal to the rest of the organization that their leader is open-minded and has a sense of flexibility that can weather any business dynamics. No employee likes to be in an organization that may go under because of the authoritarian leadership of the top management.

Accountability and Remuneration:

Business mentoring accountability and remuneration is an area of discussion that has not been fully developed in current business literature. I feel that this must change because ineffective mentors can chart the organization into rough waters rather than out! This is hardly surprising if mentoring is done in an ad-hoc manner because the choice of mentor is not structured and at the same time, the mentor is not motivated to give his best advice.

Mentoring Teams:

Every worker should be a member of a mentoring team. In the case of middle management, they should also help be mentors as well as be mentored, especially when the mentoring system has just been set in place.

Formation of the Board of Advisory:

Many organizations create a board of advisory that consists of various industry experts who also play the role of mentors. This is a good starting point but the organization must also ensure that there is no “kingdom-building” and regularly change the board of advisory to suit the dynamic economic environment.

Confidentiality:

The mentor-protégé relationship is not only based on trust and respect; there must be confidentiality. This has to be taken in the light of current wave of social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace) and blogs (LiveJournal, Blogger) where organizational secrets can be easily shared with a large online community.