How And Why To Mentor

How And Why To Mentor

Is mentoring for everyone? Can anyone be a mentor? The answer to both is definitely no. If the question is “Should my company have a mentoring program?” then the answer is definitely yes whether you have two or twenty thousand employees. Think of the teachers you’ve had in your life. Some were amazing, inspiring and memorable to this day, others were boring, off-putting or otherwise painful to learn from. The same is true for mentors but beyond that it also applies to anyone who has to train another employee. Some people are great at it, some woeful but there is a fundamental difference between training and mentoring. Both are vital but not interchangeable.

By common definition mentoring is a process of having one with experience and wisdom share that with one who has less and thus provide guidance, feedback, opinions giving professional and/or personal development. So the who should receive mentoring is anyone who is believed to have a promising company future but lacks experience or perhaps insight. More significant for a mentoring program beyond how it is administered is who should do the mentoring. It is not only experience and wisdom that count because not everyone can effectively convert their experience into a positive guidance for others.

Mentoring has benefits that are larger than the giving guidance. The benefits to an organization start with the fact that it often helps bridge generation and seniority gaps and promotes mutual understanding and perspective. Especially with the Boomers-Millenials identities, much of that common consciousness is generalized scorn. Boomers (and X-ers), of course, don’t realize they are responsible for Millenial attitudes because it’s their children that they wanted to have things different from the way their parents did things!

Beyond understanding the Mentor, if good, will often learn as much or gain as much insight as the Mentee. The Mentor value comes from two primary skills: 1) The ability to ask insightful questions and 2) the ability to listen (and not feel urgency to give “the answer”). It is sadly not common for senior staff, and executive leadership, to excel in both those areas.

Too often Mentors see themselves as responsible for giving advice so they talk too much or make it too much about themselves. While sharing personal experience can be a helpful example to demonstrate consequences, pro or con, often the more valuable approach is to help a person develop a process for evaluating or making decisions for themselves. Great mentoring questions include: “What do you think your options are…and what are the possible results?” “What is the worse case result?” and, “how would you handle it if that happened…?”

I remember being told early in life that going to college was not about what you learn compared to learning how to learn and how to think for yourself. Likewise in mentoring it is far more meaningful to teach your fishermen to fish for themselves than to tell them how you landed your big fish, or got no nibbles, as their experiences are rarely exactly yours.

Mentoring also promotes the self-image and self-value an employee can have. Telling a good, young, performer that they have been selected to be part of a mentoring program contributes to retention, morale and their sense of worth. Any program should start with a trusted core and can expand but their must also be a champion in senior management. Mentors should regularly meet, even if it’s but twice a year, to give program feedback and learn from each other on process or advice that went well and not so well. Mentees should receive a regular questionnaire to get their feedback on the process and the results to see who should be a mentor and maybe who should not. It’s also fine for the program to have a term of how often, how long to meet and when that might conclude to make way for the next person.

There are no better traits for any employee to have than experience and wisdom. There is no better, and more cost effective, way to broaden that in an organization than with a well designed, well executed and well managed mentoring program. Much of what you hope your whole staff can be is already within your organization, Mentoring is a method to proliferate that with mutual benefits to the participants and the organization’s culture as well.

How And Why To Mentor

Is mentoring for everyone? Can anyone be a mentor? The answer to both is definitely no. If the question is “Should my company have a mentoring program?” then the answer is definitely yes whether you have two or twenty thousand employees. Think of the teachers you’ve had in your life. Some were amazing, inspiring and memorable to this day, others were boring, off-putting or otherwise painful to learn from. The same is true for mentors but beyond that it also applies to anyone who has to train another employee. Some people are great at it, some woeful but there is a fundamental difference between training and mentoring. Both are vital but not interchangeable.

By common definition mentoring is a process of having one with experience and wisdom share that with one who has less and thus provide guidance, feedback, opinions giving professional and/or personal development. So the who should receive mentoring is anyone who is believed to have a promising company future but lacks experience or perhaps insight. More significant for a mentoring program beyond how it is administered is who should do the mentoring. It is not only experience and wisdom that count because not everyone can effectively convert their experience into a positive guidance for others.

Mentoring has benefits that are larger than the giving guidance. The benefits to an organization start with the fact that it often helps bridge generation and seniority gaps and promotes mutual understanding and perspective. Especially with the Boomers-Millenials identities, much of that common consciousness is generalized scorn. Boomers (and X-ers), of course, don’t realize they are responsible for Millenial attitudes because it’s their children that they wanted to have things different from the way their parents did things!

Beyond understanding the Mentor, if good, will often learn as much or gain as much insight as the Mentee. The Mentor value comes from two primary skills: 1) The ability to ask insightful questions and 2) the ability to listen (and not feel urgency to give “the answer”). It is sadly not common for senior staff, and executive leadership, to excel in both those areas.

Too often Mentors see themselves as responsible for giving advice so they talk too much or make it too much about themselves. While sharing personal experience can be a helpful example to demonstrate consequences, pro or con, often the more valuable approach is to help a person develop a process for evaluating or making decisions for themselves. Great mentoring questions include: “What do you think your options are…and what are the possible results?” “What is the worse case result?” and, “how would you handle it if that happened…?”

I remember being told early in life that going to college was not about what you learn compared to learning how to learn and how to think for yourself. Likewise in mentoring it is far more meaningful to teach your fishermen to fish for themselves than to tell them how you landed your big fish, or got no nibbles, as their experiences are rarely exactly yours.

Mentoring also promotes the self-image and self-value an employee can have. Telling a good, young, performer that they have been selected to be part of a mentoring program contributes to retention, morale and their sense of worth. Any program should start with a trusted core and can expand but their must also be a champion in senior management. Mentors should regularly meet, even if it’s but twice a year, to give program feedback and learn from each other on process or advice that went well and not so well. Mentees should receive a regular questionnaire to get their feedback on the process and the results to see who should be a mentor and maybe who should not. It’s also fine for the program to have a term of how often, how long to meet and when that might conclude to make way for the next person.

There are no better traits for any employee to have than experience and wisdom. There is no better, and more cost effective, way to broaden that in an organization than with a well designed, well executed and well managed mentoring program. Much of what you hope your whole staff can be is already within your organization, Mentoring is a method to proliferate that with mutual benefits to the participants and the organization’s culture as well.

©2019 MyEureka Solutions LLC. For help starting a MENTOR PROGRAM or other BUSINESS THERAPY insights contact or follow Tom @TomFoxTrainer, or at www.myeurekasolutions.com/thoughts. His recent book: Business Therapy: Ideas and Inspirations To Help Build Sales, Leadership, Management, and Personal Performance is available on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1728837294/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

https://www.myeurekasolutions.com/thoughts

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