Here’s a question about mentoring.
I don’t know anything about mentoring but I always seem to have an answer for everything.
I read your blog daily; thanks for the laughs and the insight. I work in HR and am tasked with a mentor program overhaul. I have some opinions on this topic, but would love to hear your thoughts. Do they work? Should HR be involved? If so, to what extent? Is it as Michael Scott-like as it sounds? Do mentors want to be mentors? And, do mentees want to be mentored? A lot of what I’m reading about mentor programs are professional and career relationships. What about mentor/mentee relationship that is just there to help an employee get acclimated into the organization? Thanks in advance for anything you’d like to share!
Formal mentor programs might work. I dunno. Lots of people who run them say they are successful — but what else would they say?
From my perspective, most formal mentor programs are lame. Why is that most companies assume that young people want to be mentored by older people? African Americans wanted to be mentored by other African Americans? Or that women should be mentored by other women? It’s ridiculous to artificially pair two people together based on age, race, or gender.
What’s worse is pairing these two people together and asking them to talk about work. Being a mentor is often as fun as watching a documentary on the history of the British monarchy. Being a mentee is often a pain-in-the-butt because you have to fake an interest in someone else’s opinions.
Before you implement a mentor program, ask yourself…
- What the heck are you trying to accomplish? A transfer of ideas? Educating a portion of your workforce on technical items? Teaching soft skills? Would a formal program of any kind really meet those needs?
- Can HR lead the way for better communication in your company by facilitating introductions between employees with common interests?
- Are there better ways to get a conversation started?
- Can employees communicate with one another on a regular basis? Do you have an instant messaging program in your office? What about common areas in your company where people can meet, have a cup of coffee, and establish relationships without ?
- Can you encourage employees to step outside of their comfort zone and seek advice and guidance from diverse constituencies?
- Is HR walking the talk and learning from other departments at your company?
And here’s another thing: if you count my part-time work in high school and college, I’ve worked for over 20 companies. I never needed a mentor to help me acclimate to a company because I’m a big girl with a brain. If I have a question, I ask it. If I have a problem, I try to solve it. If your company needs a formal program to acclimate its employees to your organization, you have bigger problems to address.
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I like the question!!!
I guess the question is define “mentor” I know as well as you and your readers that!
1. We all go to someone to talk to about an issue
2. We seek advice from people we respect
3.We blog and ask questions (to my point)
4. Teams all over the world have coaches!
I could go on. and I know we could get into a discussion on what is the difference between a mentor and a coach.
All I know is we all need someone and most organizations do not have that support system.
Non of us do it alone however good we are!
Shouldn’t our supervisors be our advocates and coaches?
I don’t do anything alone. That’s true. I try to be as independent as I can because I don’t want to burden someone else. That’s how I feel, anyway.
Dear Vanilla,
If i have a problem, yo I’ll solve it
Check out the hook while the DJ revolves it.
Given your last sentence, do you feel all orientation/on boarding programs a company offers are a big waste of time?
Stop, collaborate and listen/Laur is back with my brand new invention.
Now I have to write a blog post on orientation & on boarding programs. Thanks a lot.
Formal programs are awkward. If people click then maybe they can work but it is up to individuals not “programs”. The reality is, the corporate culture , talent development and succession programs are what make these things work and determine whether people stay or go- along with the first line manager and their leadership skills.
It is up to individuals to seek out go-to people that they respect for advice. It is up to individuals to step up and help others and lead and inspire others to do their best regardless of their role.
It is up to individuals to step up and help others and lead and inspire others to do their best regardless of their role. I can get behind that.
IMHO no onboarding program – no matter how snappy it is, should be implemented without buy-in from the current (as they say) “employee population”. If asked, I’d be the first one to step up to the plate to be a mentor to a new employee, but the guy down the hall might hate the idea. I also believe it’s good to have a structured onboarding program so new hires feel a part of the team from the beginning (we’ll hire all types with different personalities and not everyone feels comfortable asking those basic questions), HOWEVER the plan has to fit in with the company culture and be real. Please.
Deborah, your optimism is awesome but I don’t really believe that a company’s culture is as important as common sense processes. Mentor programs might be totally aligned with a company’s culture, but what if that culture sucks?
At SAP we have an opt-in for both mentors and mentees. It is essentially a market place. Those who want to be a mentor list themselves and their background and those who want to be a mentee choose a mentor from the list. If it doesn’t work both move on. I have had a great experience with the program as a mentor.
Awesome!
When I look back over my professional life, the mentors that had the biggest impact on me were not assigned. I’m not saying that it can’t work, but my personal experience is that I gravitated toward or sought out the people with whom I respected and connected with naturally and vice versa. The biggest lessons I have learned have been through reflection on personal experiences, watching others, and the powerful advice/counsel from these wonderful mentors. So to me the lesson there is taking some personal responsibility for your growth and learning and seek these things out for yourself.
As for onboarding – I think that is a separate issue. I don’t see that as mentorship. If as a part of the onboarding process you feel you need to assign someone to help in the acclimation process then maybe set up a “buddy” type program. I see mentoring as a much deeper, more personal relationship…
Chris, awesome. Agreed.
PS – I helped to set up a buddy program at a company and it was lame.
I’m interested to hear why/how the buddy program was lame.
I agree with Deborah – “I also believe it’s good to have a structured onboarding program so new hires feel a part of the team from the beginning (we’ll hire all types with different personalities and not everyone feels comfortable asking those basic questions), HOWEVER the plan has to fit in with the company culture and be real. Please.”
My company has a very informal, relaxed structure. We dont have a ton of policy – we keep things simple. And that can be challenging for people who come from very structured organizations. The (informal) on boarding program helps them adjust to the change and gives just a bit of structure to the 1st few months. We don’t use “mentors” per se…. employees find those people who they connect with and can help each other develop. But we do try to connect new employees with what we call a “GUIDE” (yes, i know, another lame acronym… Guide to Understanding our Innovative and Diverse Environment”) but it has been helpful for those first couple of weeks/months to have someone (on a peer level) to ask questions that you may not want to ask your supervisor.
OMG, everything in HR is an acronym.
I so agree with this. I’m convinced that truly effective mentor relationships spring up naturally; they’re not forced, but develop from natural chemistry. In fact, the people involved may never even use the word “mentor.”
When people ask me if I have a mentor, I answer, “Yes. Jesus.”
It ends the conversation.
L, we assign a sr exec (mentor?) to each of our high potentials to talk monthly about how to deal with politics, projects and issues. Its small – less then a dozen…it works. I don’t know if you would consider it a “program”.
Hard to agrue with things that work for your organization…would i suggest it to others…its always circumstanstial…but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water…do whats good for your people to help them (or do nothing) and call it what you want to…
M
I wouldn’t argue against anything that works. I wonder how you can expand or replicate it. Or maybe you can’t. The beauty might be in the size & simplicity. PS – I thought you were kindnapped in Tijuana. Let’s talk ASAP. xoxo
I had a sales mentor that never said anything. Ever. He would go on meetings with me and sit like a stone Buddha. He taught me to shut up most of the time and listen. So that was good. But it was a natural thing. He liked teaching me stuff and I didn’t know anything so it worked out well. As an adult, I’m not sure how I would respond to someone saying, “here’s your mentor, you’re going to learn a lot from this guy.” It sounds like spending time as a kid with your parents friends’ kids. You know you’re supposed to like them because your parents play cards together, but the play always devolved into arm-punching contests. At least for me.
Sadly I never had a buddha experience. Sounds good.
I think labeling it “mentoring” is another way of getting around spending money on real, honest to goodness, solid TRAINING!!! … and the “mentor” is saddled with the added work, and stress if he’s assigned an idiot with a cinder block for a brain. Call it what it is, yo-yo—-
Much of this is training. True.
My company is quite fond of mentorship. I had my training mentor for when I was new to my area and learning the fundamentals of my job, then the onboarding mentor to help me learn about the company and to be my mentor going forward after the training period was over. Plus I have my team mentor, which is a way of having someone to go to for advice and guidance who isn’t actually in the reporting chain. And this is in addition to anyone else we choose to form mentor/mentee relationships with.
Oh, and the mentors themselves have mentors, so that they can learn how to be good mentors.
I do appreciate the intent behind it, and I’ve learned some good things from my mentors, but it can be a bit much. I agree with the others who said that some of this should be considered training, rather than mentorship, and that it doesn’t need to be so formalized.
All that mentoring would leave me in need of therapy. It’s too much. I’d crack from the pressure.
Programs…? I thought mentor relationships just sort of…happened. That’s the way it worked with me and my old boss. She saw something in me in my interview, and decided not only to hire me, but to take me under her wing.
Interesting fact: She was only a year older than me.
Nice!
As a formal trainer, I have avoided “mentor” programs because everyone that I have seen seems to be nothing more than a PR stunt.
That being said, I have found myself to be a “mentor” several times over the course of my professional career. As Alison says above, I have never used the term mentor to apply to myself (this comment being an exception of course).
I don’t mind the term, but I want to see smart execution of a program!
I’ve only worked for one company that offered formal mentoring (Andersen Consulting, now Accenture) and it was great because it meant regular access to an executive who was formally mandated to take an interest in me. It worked really well and also makes people think about mentoring, which I think most folks don’t consider on any given day. Which means you REALLY have to fake an interest in other people’s opinions to get yourself a mentor.
I hate faking an interest.
I have been involved in formal mentor program. Both of us had been with the company for awhile. Neither of us had ever been in a formal mentor program. It was as awkward & productive as the average blind date…
Another person in our department participated in the same program. He was able to use his mentors to set-up some information interviews. However, he had to “fire” his first assigned mentor before he found a couple of them that he could work with.
Wow, I’d like to fire some people who thought they were my mentors…
I do agree with Cris, i think “mentor” should reflect on the people you connect with and admire professionally in your career for it work but not “planted”,otherwise it will not work it will seem like a “to-do list” which you didn’t initiated yourself. it should focus on giving advice and counseling for grow, one must put effort to learn and drive it, willingness and hunger for grow!
Thanks!
It’s fun to laugh at all the anecdotal stuff of people who have had bad experiences, isn’t it?
When we’re getting serious though, it’s also interesting to look at the research and see if maybe there IS something to be gained from mentoring.
And guess what — there is.
In fact it’s almost startling how beneficial mentoring programs have shown to be for both mentors and mentees and the organizations that utilize them.
Some of the most researched outcomes for mentors and mentees:
sharpen skills
increase confidence
expand understanding of the organization
create useful networking opportunities
solve specific problems or challenges
and my favorite:
increase commitment to the organization
There are many, many documented cases of employee turnover dropping significantly for those employees involved in a mentoring program. (I have the research if anyone wants.) One healthcare organization decreased turnover of new nurse assistants from 64% to 4%. I kid you not.
And then we get to the research on diversity mentoring programs – (which, Laurie, are anything but lame!) — I highly recommend you read the paper by Harvard researcher Frank Dobbin. He studied all the different standard diversity initiatives companies employ to see if any of them have any positive affect on diversity. Turns out Mentoring was one of the only diversity initiatives that actually makes an impact.
I know you like to piss on any kind of formal HR programs but Mentoring is one that definitely has proven to be a winner.
(No doubt I’m biased but we wouldn’t have created Mentor Scout if we didn’t see it as a great opportunity for organizations.)
I think mentor programs are an outmoded way of addressing a symptom and not the disease.
- Half of American jobs are now created by small businesses — not by large, monolithic companies that existed in the 90s and 00s.
- Small businesses operate in a way that affords a level of intimacy between leaders and employees. When you don’t have sixteen levels of bureaucracy between the average worker and the C-suite, an employee may have an opportunity to learn and grow in a way that didn’t exist five or ten years ago.
- IBM, Amex, Xerox, Coke, AT&T, and big pharma companies have mentoring programs & diversity initiatives (in part) because they have flawed hiring processes, broken leadership models, and broken communication methodologies.
I’d rather fix the problems within a company, including problems around diversity & inclusion, than implement a mentoring program. I don’t see mentors as a solution — more like a resource to be used at an employee’s discretion at certain points in her career.