When Odysseus, King of Ithaca, went to fight in the Trojan War, he entrusted his friend, Mentor, with the education of his son, Telemachus. Mentor’s task was to educate, train, and develop the youngster to fulfill his birthright and become king.

While organizations may not be preparing employees to become “king” (or “queen”), they clearly understand the importance of preparing future leaders and being recognized as learning organizations. A learning organization values its workforce as its NUMBER 1 resource and refuses to be compromised by the competition.

 What is mentoring?
 What is a mentor?
 Why is mentoring important?
 Who benefits?
 What do mentors and protégés DO?
 How do I get started?

These questions and, more importantly, their answers are making an impact on the way organizations are doing business. Global competition and a rapidly changing workplace are causing organizations to rethink how they develop, retain and utilize their employees. Organizations are discovering that the workplace is changing at such a rapid pace, that they must be ready with the technology and the talent to meet these changes or they will be left in the dust by their competition.

WHAT IS MENTORING?

Mentoring is a deliberate pairing of a more skilled or experienced person with someone with less experience and designed to unleash the full potential of an individual. It is a series of processes designed to help and guide less experienced employees by someone with more knowledge (a Mentor). Mentoring is an active and sincere effort designed to unleash the full potential of an individual through the development of Knowledge, Skills and Organizational Insight. A mentor can also be called a coach and the terms are often used interchangeably depending on the situation.

Types of mentoring usually experienced by others are:

 Supervisory
 Informal or Passive
 Spontaneous
 Role Model
 Group Mentoring
 Formal or Facilitated

Supervisory mentoring is the natural personnel development based on needs observed and addressed by the supervisor. Because of other work demands, supervisors often do not have the time to devote to addressing the specific career and performance needs of each of their direct reports.

Informal or Passive mentoring is when one individual helps another with a specific skill or knowledge area and is infrequent or a one-time event. They are in and out of your life quickly but leave an indelible impression on you. As a result of their guidance, interaction, or wisdom, the way in which you perceive yourself, others, the organization or a specific task is changed forever.

Spontaneous mentoring is teachable (or learnable) moment when a new set of information is gained without pre-planning on the part of the teacher or the learner. It does however have significant and lasting impact on the way the learner moves forward with the knowledge.

Role model mentoring is related more to the professionalism, communications and personnel interaction that are observed by another. The observed characteristics are integrated into one’s own attitudes and behaviors about the workplace, co-workers and performance.

Group mentoring is designed to have a group of individuals work on special assignments or projects as a method of knowledge and skill building. This type of mentoring assumes that the performance improvement outcomes for each member will be similar.

Formal or Facilitated mentoring moves the mentoring relationship from the informal to the formal. It takes the key elements of solid relationship building and combines them with a strategically planned professional development design aimed at empowering an employee.

WHAT IS A MENTOR?

Simply put, a mentor is someone who offers you the wisdom of his/her experience. A mentor helps someone else (the protégé) learn something the learner would otherwise have learned less well, more slowly, or not at all. A mentor provides that safe environment where a person can ask questions and make mistakes while learning without fear of being perceives as incompetent. A mentor serves as:

 A COACH, to provide career strategy advice.
 A TEACHER to transfer knowledge to the protégé.
 A GUIDE for understanding the organizational culture.
 A CHALLENGER for enhancing the learner’s performance.
 A ROLE MODEL for the protégé to follow.

WHY IS MENTORING IMPORTANT?

There is no mystery in organizations today that changes will continue to be a part of the corporate culture. One of the most critical issues effecting the modern day work environment is the impact of the changing workforce. Competition for qualified workers has intensified in recent years due to the changing composition of the workforce and the increasing demands of internal and external customers. Attracting and retaining talented employees is a significant challenge facing most organizations. Providing career planning, professional development and mentoring programs can make a significant contribution to maintaining a competitive edge in the employment marketplace.

Reorganization, right sizing and reinvention are words that run rampant as mergers, business partnering and changing priorities occur. For most employees this translates into “Will my job or workload be affected?”, “Are we going to survive these changes?” or “Am I losing my job?” Management faces the never-ending challenge of responding to changes while maintaining employee morale, commitment and productivity.

Employees face the challenge of fulfilling the same business requirements, but often with less people and resources. Budgets, specifically money for training and development, are impacted. Even if budgets are intact, the additional challenge is presented when an employee wants to attend developmental training and there is no one to “cover” their functional responsibilities while they are away.

To avoid sounding the gloom and doom bugle, cutting edge organizations have found that formal or facilitated mentoring is a mechanism for rejuvenating itself from within and preparing the workforce for the challenges of tomorrow. Matching people skills with on-the-job requirements and moving people from one level of responsibility to another creates a focused management style. No longer will people happen into jobs. Advancement by seniority or obligation is replaced with advancement by skill, knowledge, organizational savvy and focused succession planning.

WHO BENEFITS?.........EVERYONE!!

For the PROTÉGÉ:

 Improved performance
 Career guidance assistance
 More realistic career goals, strategies and options
 Special leadership training
 Networking opportunities
 Increased visibility
 Greater understanding of the organization, its culture and values
 Access to a role model
 Opportunities to participate in challenging developmental assignments
 Encouraged growth beyond usual expectations

For the MENTOR:

 New perspectives
 Sharpened leadership and interpersonal skills
 Expanded business contacts
 Greater appreciation of workforce perspectives
 Personal satisfaction helping protégé
 “Docemur Doscendo”: he who teaches, learns

For the ORGANIZATION:

 Highly skilled and professional workforce
 Enhanced leadership potential
 Retention of “corporate memory”
 Improved transfer of knowledge and skills
 Tool for recruitment and succession planning
 Improved flow or organizational information and sharing

WHAT DO MENTORS AND PROTÉGÉS DO?

Mentors:

 Share knowledge and experiences
 Offer guidance, encouragement and support
 Serve as a teacher, coach, counselor, confidant and challenger
 Participate in training and business forum meetings.
 Assist protégés with goal setting
 Share the “unwritten” rules for success

Protégés:

 Take responsibility for own career; seek out mentor
 Seek guidance, listen actively and accept development assignments.
 Participate in training and business forum meetings
 Set goals; prepare development plans
 Implement development plans

HOW DO I GET STARTED?

The first requirement of a successful mentoring program is that senior management must embrace the philosophy of a “Learning Organization”. They must support with visible actions the belief that employees are a valuable resource and that investing in them creates a win-win situation. The second requirement is the “Corporate Culture” must include information sharing at all levels within the organization from top management to entry-level employees.

Employees may see mentoring as “just another fad” unless both mentors and protégés are given the freedom and on-going senior management support to initiate and fulfill a career development plan designed specifically for the protégé.

Let me stress that a formalized or facilitated mentoring program is not a training event but rather a long-term process that focuses on:

1. Up-leveling the knowledge, skills and expertise of all employees.
2. Succession planning as a tool for keeping a competitive edge in the marketplace.
3. Recruiting and placing personnel based on targeted strategic initiatives.
4. Short and long-term return on investment for those in the mentoring program.

A design team headed by a program coordinator/director establishes program objectives, core competencies needed by the employees, time line of events and activities for providing developmental opportunities, budget requirements and guidelines, evaluation and tracking procedures and the vehicle for recognizing successes. The design team and the program coordinator match mentors and protégés based on the needs of the protégés and the knowledge, skills, and expertise of the mentors to ensure a quality experience for both.

Program participants may self-select or may be nominated by others depending on the program design. Many organizations have found that there may be hesitation on the part of the protégés to volunteer for participation and that is why others (supervisors and senior managers) are often asked to identify high potential employees.

On-going evaluation and feedback in the form of written surveys and group (mentor, protégé and supervisor) discussions and recommendations provides necessary information to match program progress with program objectives. Any correction or adaptations can occur in a timely manner keeping the program on track. Feedback session usually occur informally on a quarterly basis with formal feedback provided at mid-point. A year-end evaluation will give the organization the opportunity to identify and recognize individual and group successes. Additionally, the information can be used to determine the future of the program. In other words, has the investment matched the immediate or anticipated return on that investment?

Formally recognizing the efforts and successes of the protégé and the mentor is a critical part of integrating a mentor program into the corporate culture. Recognition may occur through internal written publications and communications, internal employee ceremonies, public recognition ceremonies (which includes friends, family and others who have contributed to the protégés development), local news media or any combination of the above.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Facilitated mentoring is not a training event, but a way of doing business. It offers a cost effective approach to growing and grooming a seasoned workforce. As organizations are being tasked to do more with less, the need to clone corporate knowledge becomes a strategic issue. Mentoring employees is no longer just a “nice thing” to do but is key to building a solid foundation for change, transitions, growth and innovation.