Mentors: Light Guiding Us Into the New Year
(Image Credit: Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash)
Mentors can help you grow. They can teach you new things and provide the guidance needed to reach your goals. Mentors are often light guiding us. After the year we’ve had in 2020, now more than ever we need some support heading into the new year.
Many people don’t realize that mentorship comes in many forms and this is an important consideration for a mentee prior to choosing a mentor. If you want the best results and in order to build and maintain a healthy mentor-mentee relationship, there is some planning and thinking required.
Finding the right mentor is the key to a successful relationship and the mentee needs to research before jumping in. Some of our recent mentor videos focus on reverse mentoring programs, creating a mentor culture, the difference between a Mentor, Coach, or Sponsor, and also reciprocal mentorship. We share some information on reverse mentoring programs and creating a mentor culture below. We will be coming back to the other two topics in future posts.
If you want to learn more, a new Monday Mentor Moments video is posted to Instagram live on a new perspective on mentoring. Along with this, I also challenge the viewers to create goals, provide feedback while encouraging them to join the conversation.
To catch up on our Monday Mentor Moments series, head on over to our Instagram page or sift through the Monday Mentor Moments blogs on our website.
For a recap of some of the recent content from our Monday Mentor Moments videos, keep on reading!
As we head into the end of the 2020 year, not only do we have time to reflect on everything that we accomplished this year, we are also given the opportunity to look forward to what we want to accomplish in the new year as well. Take some time to relax, grab some hot chocolate and watch the videos or read the Monday Mentor Moments blog posts!
Start thinking about how you may want to bring mentoring into your life and career.
Happy Holidays!
Reverse Mentoring
[Last week] it was Thanksgiving here in Canada, and we took the day off to relax with family and enjoy a great meal. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans - typical dinner and it was delicious!! Good thing we had long walks and bike rides to exercise it off.
I also tried a new recipe, pumpkin muffins with chocolate chips and made some beautiful flower arrangements with the empty pumpkins. It really is a beautiful time of year with leaves changing colours, and sunshine.
Last time we spoke about organic and formal mentorship as well as various categories of mentorship. We talked about traditional and peer-to-peer mentoring which are two of the most common types. One other type of mentorship is reverse mentoring. This approach was first implemented by General Electric’s CEO Jack Welch in the 1990s, to teach senior executives about the internet and technology. Reverse mentoring pairs younger employees with executive team members to mentor them on various topics of strategic and cultural relevance. But modern reverse mentoring extends far beyond just sharing knowledge about technology; today’s programs focus on how senior executives think about strategic issues, leadership, and the mindset with which they approach their work. Many companies are implementing reverse mentoring to attract and retain millennial employees.
One modern-day example is Estee Lauder where the CEO felt the company needed to change. Their reverse mentoring program educated senior executives on the importance of social media influencers for the overall shopping experience, and the Millennial mentors developed Dreamspace, a knowledge-sharing portal to exchange ideas. Estée Lauder distributed bi-monthly alerts to employees, including the executive leadership team, on the leading topics discussed on Dreamspace.
Reverse mentoring programs can also enhance diversity in organizations and PWC launched its program in 2014 as part of its drive for diversity and inclusion, and the program has grown to 100s of millennials mentoring partners and directors worldwide. Now more than ever these programs are important and can create amazing cultures of growth and development for everyone involved.
Another reverse mentoring program was at The Hartford and the Sloan Center on Aging & Work conducted an in-depth report and review of the program and how it was successful. Some of the key tools used were talent profile forms, session schedules, a SharePoint site for the project, guidelines for participants. There was strong executive support for the program and commitment and flexibility. We’ll share more information about this program on our website at lifeworkswell.ca. Reach out for more information.
Reverse mentor programs are not the same as shadow boards so don’t confuse them or use the same employees for both.
I’m curious about whether your organization has mentor programs and what types. Comment below and share your mentor experiences with us.
Before I leave you today here are a few reminders of how to make reverse mentoring work:
Connection - make sure the pairing is the right match.
Build Trust and address any fears that either party has - since the executives are the mentees they may have fear about how little they know (if for example, it’s about the use of social media); there has to be confidentiality.
Commitment - since the executive is the mentee they often cancel or think they have to prioritize other work; it will fizzle out if there isn’t commitment.
The number one reason that reverse-mentoring programs fail is that the executives don’t prioritize the relationship; after a couple of cancelled sessions, the momentum quickly dwindles. But it’s the Millennial mentors who should drive the program through sharing best practices, helping to select new cohorts and training mentors.
Focus - keep the purpose/goals of the mentorship clear; don’t mix other performance management, shadow boards, or other work strategies.
Research shows that without training, only one-third of mentor-mentee relationships succeed, which increases to two-thirds with training. Training includes preparing new mentors for how to structure successful sessions with their mentees and to share challenges faced in the relationships.
Here is a great quote from Janet Kestin and Nancy Vonk’s book Darling You Can’t Do Both.
“As young women, we wait for mentors to come our way. As experienced ones, we wait for the big promotions, and for sponsors to find us. Mentoring has a pivotal role to play in building confidence, developing understanding, and learning to problem-solve.”
Don’t forget we will be here every Monday at 10 a.m. EST to share tips and stories about mentoring. Next week we will look at mentor circles and other mentor programs, and then start looking at other resources and tools that can help mentoring be successful.
Join the 71% and Create a Mentor Culture
Did you know that 71% of Fortune 500 companies look to mentor programs to grow and engage their people? Mentor relationships have a positive impact on productivity, engagement and retention. We are almost at the end of October and heading into the last couple of months of 2020 and wow has 2020 been a year to remember. Many people have been able to get through a year like this with the support of a mentor and a supportive community.
We have been sharing some mentor tips and stories here and will keep doing so until the end of the year. I’m Helen Patterson Founder of Life Works Well and my belief is that everyone should have a mentor so they can learn and grow and then in turn give back to others. Everyone deserves to be lifted up, not only the chosen few. I’m curious - what is your best mentorship experience? Drop a comment at any time to share that memory with us.
Over the last several weeks, we’ve been discussing various types of mentor relationships, how to find a good connection and some of the other things that will help your mentorship succeed.
Today I want to focus on some of the tools and resources that will help with making it the best possible experience for both participants. This applies mainly to formal mentor programs, not the organic relationships that often pop up, but can easily apply there too.
I’m starting here with the assumption that the matching or pairing has already occurred and you’re ready to start! We’ll cover matching and mentor technology in a future session as that is generally used in larger organizations.
You’ve had your first couple of get-to-know each other meetings and are now ready to roll. I mentioned in an earlier session the need for goal-setting, timelines and frequency of meetings. If you are responsible for creating a mentor program, create a guide for all the participants, determine how you are going to measure the program and outcomes. Decide where you can find the documents (do you have an internal portal, or shared common drives or sharepoint sites where this can be stored).
Also I recommend creating a simple one-pager for the Mentor and Mentee to explain and outline the roles each has. The ice-breakers and get to know you questions can be included in the Mentor tool, and the setting of meetings, goal-setting and managing the flow should be included in the Mentee’s one-pager.
One of the key documents that you can create for the participants is the Mentorship Agreement. This doesn’t need to be a long legal document like an employment contract. I recommend a simple one page document that will set the stage for commitment to the process.
When I volunteered to become a Mentor for Futurpreneur, I had to complete an application outlining my skills. My Mentee had completed a form with her needs. I was matched with two different entrepreneurs because I had a background in human resources and some other business experience that would help them each grow their businesses. The first thing we had to sign was an agreement that set out the following items:
Length of mentor commitment (2 years in this case)
Challenges and opportunities
Goals to be achieved (what mentee wanted to work on)
Communication - email, phone, snapchat, direct message, whatever works, etc.
Frequency of meetings - minimum monthly
Roles and Responsibilities (Entrepreneur, Mentor, Shared)
Privacy and Confidentiality
While we also had many other meetings and connections, we committed to monthly meetings and then each meet-up we’d focus on what the needs were at the time. Have an agenda or topic for each meeting to guide the conversation. It’s like other business meetings go in with focus and an agenda and you’ll be efficient and have real outcomes.
If you’d like a sample of an agreement you can use, reach out to me here. You can also check out other resources on our website at lifeworkswell.ca and join our mailing list.
Mentoring is one of the most rewarding experiences so once again I challenge you to become a Mentor or encourage your leaders to create a mentor culture with programs to enhance and develop your people. If you’re interested in sharing your mentor experiences with me, and be featured on a future IG live, reach out!