Introducing a mentoring program

In general, mentoring means, that a more experienced individual helps in guiding less experienced individuals. Mentoring is different to coaching and consulting. The more experienced individual is called “mentor”. The less experienced individual is called “mentee”.

Mentoring can build multiple advantages for both the mentor as well as the mentee. Furthermore, if one is speaking of an organization, mentoring can build advantages for the organization, too.

1.2.1. Advantages for the Mentee

1.2.2. Advantages for the mentor

1.2.3. Advantages for the organisation

Though joining a mentoring initiative is not a full-time engagement, it still will take over some portion of the available time. A mentor will not necessarily have the time, to oversee a mentee. An organisation will not necessarily want to give up their shareholder value orientation.

Often the need for a mentoring programm is obvious. Nobody knows, where it should lead to, though. Setting goals is one of the most important tasks in any mid- to longterm initiative, because “if you don’t know, that you want to go to rome, you will end up in Gdansk” (Sorry Poland, you know i love you).

New initiatives often have the reputation of change. Change means disruption of established structures. Disruption means chaos and uncertainty. Uncertainty will often lead to a lack of acceptance and even avoidance of new initiatives. Mentoring programms, e.g. might be viewed as a speed-lane to success for the priveleged.

Though new initiatives might be accepted, not all employees might endorse the initiatives. The bigger and more diverse the company, the higher the probability, that new initiatives will need missionaries.

If some people are included, some might be exluded. A mentoring initiative, when introduced on a organizational level, might lead to jealousy and envy as well as to demotivation. If introduced properly, adressing all potential issues, risks might be lower.

Not every person has the internal need to pass over own wisdom to younger generations. People, who do not feel the need initially, might need external motivators, in order to get involved in such an initiative. They might need a visible incentive.

It is of highest importance to have transparency and visibility within the process of choosing mentor-mentee pairs. It might even be a good idea, to have both involved in the selection process, so that pairs will not be a result of randomized selection, but targeted selection.

When implementing such an comprehensive initiative, some basic steps should be followed. Following those steps will ensure, that the above discussed risks, will not have such a big impact. The steps are derived from both, practical experience as well as a theoretical grounding, e.g. Organizational Psychology: A Scientist-Practitioner Approach

Mentoring in itself is a very special initiative, as it does not only assume the acceptance and proactive promotion by the higher management. It does even assume the active participation of the higher management in the operative initiative itself. As with most initiatives or cultural changes, the change has to be triggered and lived by the highest management. If it is not, then change will become a vision and later on a legend.

In order to organize the process initially, in many cases a consulting or coaching company will be necessary. From one perspective, an external consultant will be able to guide through the process, as he or she knows all aspects of it (is an expert on guiding the process). On the other hand, a consultant or coach is a neutral instance. Neutrality is a very important aspect in change processes. Introducing new initiatives, the development and change which go hand in hand with new initiatives are very emotional, as they touch not only the organizational level, but the personal and often private level, too. If internal employees lead such initiatives, change and developmental processes, then there is a risk of being (perceived) as one-sided biased. Furthermore, education on the process itself for both, the organizers of the initiative as well as the participants, might be overtaken by an external consulting company.

There is, as described above, a general resistance to change. It occurs always and everywhere and in any kind of live and/or work situation. What can we do about the resistance. Two propositions.

* Be Transparent: when it comes to introducing the initiative, involve all patricipants. Make sure to create a platform for discussion of fears and suggestions. Have room for improvement, trial and error, if necessary. Make sure to involve all necessary participants.

Involvement is possible via participation in creating such an initiative. The selectiion process of mentor-mentee pairs might be a way to increase acceptance. If both, the mentor & the mentee, have a voting right in a formulated form, it should help.

* Accompany and put light on the process: Knowledge from group psychology therapy tells us, that one important aspect of the psychologists therapeutical work with groups is to accompany the process and put light on the progress of the process. This means, that the framework should be provided by the people, who introduce such an initiative. Framework is the general set rules and rights of all parties involved and/or uninvolved.

As a second step the progress should be discussed. As a manager of the process, put light on it. Participants not necessarily acknowledge and recognize their development, their mistakes, their good behaviors. As they do not recognize them, it is of highest importance to provide a stage for discussion and therefore a platform for increasing development.

It might be necessary, to provide a platform for supervision for both, the mentor as well as the mentee. The mentor might not know, how to guide the development of a less experienced individual. The mentee might be scared of his or her mentor or both might not have established an interpersonal connection, which might create the necessity to split up and form new coalitions.

Make sure to have a person or a department in charge of introducing, managing and evaluating the initiative. For such an initiative to work, it is most important, to have a pulling horse in place. Change and development, if not cared about, will dissapear somewhere in nirvana. Why?

Change and development, as they are aiming at longterm improvements, are longterm projects. Longterm projects do not provide daily gratifications. This means, that at some point, people might lose the initial sense of motivation, some kind of romantic move toward a brighter future. To overcome such phases, ownership is necessary. Ownership makes sure, that the process and progress is transparent and that people are reminded of the higher goal.

If you want to get to rome, italy, you will have to put a marker on a map. If you don’t do it, you might end up in Poland. Why? Psychological research has shown, that our bodies (physically and psychologically) tend to move towards our targets, sometimes by themselves, without us even noticing it. Goals are even one explanation for the functioning of something called “motivation”. If i would not want to meet my girlfriend today, i would not have the motivation to stop writing this article. Make sure, that every initiative will have a goal, in best case defined in a strict way (e.g. by using SMART).

Leaders in a given organization might lead in work related or group related topics, but might not always have the time and/or capacity to focus themselves on personal development of both, themselves and their employees.

Self development of leaders is an important aspect of managerial and leadership effectiveness and is often underrated. By having to guide younger, less experienced individuals, a leader might learn what his/her impact is and how this impact can be used in a better way.

Development of less experienced individuals is another important factor. Mentoring, out of definition, is a very intense and straight forward way, to create a framework, in which young professionals are proactively prepared for high quality leadership tasks. It is not, that without mentoring, young professionals would not achieve higher levels. Mentoring will help to increase the probability of achieving the next level, faster.

In general, if there are not enough ressources to build up a mentoring initiative from scratch, smaller companies might provide the framework for interested inidividuals (mentors, mentees) to participate in an unregulated initiative. This would mean, that one could provide a platform, as ebay was back in the days, to bring mentors and mentees together.  If necessary an employee will then have the possibility to ask for a mentorship or even have already discussed it with a potential mentor in order to formalize it.

Even among closest friends, people might have some, who are high achievers and some, who are leading a “normal” life (without a qualitative judgement). Sometimes people, who are high achievers, do have a lack of satisfaction from social relationships, do not have such big social ressources.

On the other hand, people who do have social ressources, might not be high achievers (though they want to be). Sometimes people have both, social ressources and are high achieving, but they do not know how to gain hapiness from both. Nonetheless, no human has stopped learning at any point in development. This sentence does mean, that there is always potentials for learning. Learning from people, who might have already thought the battles, we are fighting at the moment.

In private life, we might focus more on other people, from whom we can derive a good example, from whom we can learn. We can find such people in our families (my grandmother is such a person, though she has lived a complete different life, compared to mine), within our social interests groups or at work. Just be transparent about our needs, so that potential mentors will recognize, that they have wisdom, which might help somebody else. We have to make sure, that our needs are visible.