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How great is that! I read the latest edition of the Leader-Post newspaper and there is another article on mentoring. The article referenced Denise Morrison, the CEO of Campbell Soup Company and how mentoring contributed to her success as a business person. Some interesting observations and comments come from this article and I would like to share them with you.
Mentoring is Two-way – in a good mentoring relations, one that is a trusted relationship the personal and professional growth is two way. Both the mentor and mentee learn from each other and that is what makes mentoring so powerful in any organization.
One-on-one Mentoring Works – a recent study done by Insala stated that one-on-one mentoring was named the second most effective career development program. What I have seen from the work that I am doing with various individuals is that this statement is so very true. In a number of cases we have seen a person grow personally and professionally through various mentoring techniques resulting in them growing as a person and growing professionally as well. Remember, if the person is not solid (personal growth) then growth on the professional side will not happen – hence the “power of mentoring!”
Only one in five companies offer formal mentoring programs – this data came from a poll done by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). SHRM has a membership base of over 250,000 members world-wide. This is actually a disappointing piece of data as mentoring can do a lot for an organization and a lot for the people that are part of that organization. But is it too much work for organizations to implement a mentoring program? Mentor programs fail because of a lack of corporate support, lack of training, or lack of structure and I am going to add one more key element a culture that will not support a mentor program. In the work that we are doing we are seeing more and more organizations that do not have a culture that would support a mentoring program. In fact, I recommend that we implement a mentoring culture which has a combination of informal and formal mentoring. Where we have done that, I am amazed at the impact that this has had on the growth of the organization and the people.
Finding the right mentor – this is always a challenge. When I am asked to work with someone, we have an introductory meeting where I outline that sharing the passion and the chemistry is important. I always recommend that we go home and sleep on whether or not we want to begin the journey of creating a trusted relationship. If we are going to work together this is so important. Finding mentors that have had some training is even more of a challenge. You do need to check around and see what is out there as you are the one that will benefit from the “power of mentoring!” In some situations I have recommended that a mentee have more than one mentor – each with a specific skill set. With the mentoring program that I am part of for the Human Resources Association I have recommended to some young professionals and Human Resource students that they have a couple of mentors and leverage the experience of both.
Mentoring in leadership development programs – I have added this comment as it was not addressed specifically in the article. When you read the newspaper article you can definitely see that mentoring played a role in leadership development for Denise Morrison. What we want to address though is that mentoring needs to be built into any leadership development program that you are going to implement in your organization. When your leadership candidates return from any form of training do you have any follow up mechanism in place to ensure that what was learnt is implemented in the work place? Do you have a follow up mechanism that allows the leadership candidate to discuss what has taken place over the past week and how the application of what was learnt has gone in the work place? Typically I see this shortfall in most leadership development programs – there is no follow through on the training and little if any development of the leader in waiting. Are we not setting them up to fail?
The message is becoming clearer! Mentoring does work as is evident in this newspaper article. Hats off to Chelsea Emery for writing this article – a top notch job! We are seeing that mentoring is becoming a more popular term and that a lot of organizations are beginning to explore the business value of mentoring. Take the time to do the right thing – make sure your culture supports mentoring. You don’t want to join the ranks of many failed mentoring programs – failure that could have been avoided. My last piece of advice today is this – if you are exploring the establishment of a mentoring program or better yet a mentoring culture, make sure that you select a business partner that is a good fit for your organization to work with you. This decision is as important as a mentee selecting a mentor.
Mentoring does work – experience the “power of mentoring” today!
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