The immediate aftermath of a merger poses a number of major challenges. While many of these challenges relate to integration of systems and structures, the people challenges are often the most difficult and long lasting. In particular:
Ensuring that senior level talent does not leave. Headhunters target merger situations, because the uncertainty causes people to seek security by looking at other job possibilities “just in case”
Developing trust between executives in the formerly separate companies. The level of trust is especially diminished, when there is a real or perceived difference in power between the merging organizations. “Conqueror syndrome” is a commonly observed phenomenon that obstructs whole-hearted engagement of executives in creating the new organization
Cross-organizational communications. In a typical merger situation, communication quality and openness diminish, partly because of a lack of trust but also because it takes time to build new informal networks.
Survivor syndrome. If there have to be job losses, the survivors often feel guilty and relived at the same time. Their motivation and their ability to take the managed risks that the new business needs both decrease and it may take a year or more before they recover confidence.
Introducing a well-designed mentoring programme for top talent can make radical and positive difference to managing each of these challenges, for very little cost. In well-designed mentoring programmes, people engaged in mentoring are typically at least one third less likely to leave. (One classic case study shows a 1300% differential!) Because mentoring relationships work by building rapid rapport amongst people, who have different background or experience, they are arguably the fastest method of creating intra-organizational trust.
Mentors and mentees typically help each other build networks and in a merger situation, this activity comes it the fore. And, if survivor syndrome does become an issue, mentors (if they have been properly trained) provide the safe environment, where people can discuss their fears and concerns, and regain their resilience and refocus upon performance, both for themselves and for their teams.
There has been no empirical research around the impact of mentoring in merger situations, but a rough estimate, based on experience, is that it has the potential to contribute over the first year a minimum of 5% to productivity, profitability, share price, and retention of talent – not least by how it helps overcome the four key challenges above.
Five ways mentoring solves most engagement issues (and why it matters)
Organisations spend a great deal of money on turnover-related expenses each year. Many also invest heavily in engagement surveys, in an effort to predict where they’re vulnerable to low productivity and loss of key talent. Engagement has been found to contribute to a raft of benefits including: Higher productivity, achievement of work goals, reduced turnover and accidents, higher customer satisfaction and higher profitability.[1]
But what exactly is engagement, what is the result of high engagement, what drives it, and what role can mentoring play in that?
Is engagement the Holy Grail?
In published articles and research, I found many definitions for engagement, but no universally accepted definition (as with most HR concepts). It can be described as a performance concept, an attitude or a psychological state. A common theme seems to be that engagement is defined “to some degree by its outcomes and something given by the employee which can benefit the organisation”[2].
Vigour: Elevated levels of energy and mental flexibility while working.
Dedication: Being fully occupied by and motivated in one’s work.
Absorption: Being happily immersed in work.
The British Institute for Employment Studies (IES) distinguishes between engagement with the job and engagement with the organisation, as it’s possible to have one without the other.
In their model, job engagement is highly associated with enhanced:
Job satisfaction
Job performance
Low intention to resign
High organisational engagement is linked to “organisational citizenship behaviours” which are positively related to the success of the organisation.[4]
Another similar model of engagement was conceptualised by Aon Hewitt. This model focuses on the degree to which employees:
“Say”: Speak positively about the organisation.
“Stay”: Have a sense of belonging.
“Strive”: Motivated to expend effort in job and for the company[5].
Let’s move on to the link between mentoring and engagement. Mentored individuals have been found to have higher engagement than those who are not mentored,[6] but how does it work?
The complex drivers of engagement
IES offers a nice visual model of job engagement, organisational engagement, their drivers and outcomes.
Edwards, Megan (2018). Bridging the gap: an evidence-based approach to employee engagement. IES Member Paper, p. 7.
I’ll use this model to explain where and how mentoring can add value within five of these drivers and help deliver higher job and organisational engagement.
1. Job Characteristics
Most workplace mentoring is performed by people other than the line manager, who usually has the greatest influence over designing jobs to maximise engagement. However, we see time and time again in our mentoring programs, that an employee, with the help of a mentor, can be empowered to have fruitful conversations about how to enrich his/her own role. Mentoring is highly related to job/ role satisfaction for both mentors and mentees.
2. Leadership style
Transformational leadership has been demonstrated to play a role in employee engagement. This style of leadership guides followers through inspiration and motivation, by taking an interest in their needs, encouraging them and supporting them to try new approaches. This could just as well be describing good developmental mentoring! In fact, there is increasing evidence that leadership and mentoring are overlapping concepts. The microskills of good mentoring – active listening, asking questions, guiding, challenging – are the skills that good leaders need. Mentors learn these skills in training provided as part of well-managed mentoring programs and can then practise them with their mentees. So, participating as mentors in structured programs is in fact a leadership development activity.
Whilst never a replacement for having a competent manager, a great mentor can act as a role model for the kind of leadership that many employees desire to receive, but often don’t. By enrolling its best leaders as mentors in a mentoring program, an organisation can disseminate good leadership throughout the organisation.
3. Values Congruence
A team member whose personal values line up with those of the organisation, is more willing to be fully engaged.[7] But too often, employees aren’t aware of the values their employer wishes to embed because they’re not explicitly communicated and leaders don’t necessarily walk the talk. Organisations can use mentoring as a socialisation opportunity to communicate a consistent set of values in line with the organisation’s vision and mission, and appoint good role models as mentors.
4. Perceived organisational support
This means when employees believe that their contribution and wellbeing is important to their employer. In the mentoring programs we run, we include questions about the impact the mentoring experience has had on mentors and mentees, in a variety of ways, including on their feelings about the organisation. Highly positive impacts are routinely observed amongst both groups. People in mentoring relationships scored highly in a recent study, on company perception, development opportunities, and work environment — they felt their organisation is a better place to work and they were more positive about the senior leaders, than their non-mentored peers.[8]
Our own surveys show employees want their organisation to provide them with development opportunities. Mentoring helps people to identify their strengths and development needs[9] and pursue career goals.
5. Workplace relationships
People focus a lot on the employee-manager relationship. But broader workplace relationships also contribute to organisational engagement. In mentoring programs, a mentee develops a strong, trusting relationship with another person who is usually not their direct manager. Mentees also develop relationships with other members of the program cohort, with whom they share the experience. They often access their mentors’ networks to extend their contacts more broadly across the organisation. Mentors too, connect with other mentors and mentees in their program cohort.
If your organisation suffers from engagement issues, especially at lower levels (senior leaders are usually more highly engaged), then the introduction of a well-designed and managed mentoring program is a low cost, high impact intervention.
[1] Madan, Poornima and Srivastava, Shalini (2016). Investigating the role of mentoring in managerial effectiveness-employee engagement relationship: an empirical study of Indian private sector bank managers. European Journal of Cross-Cultural Competence and Management, Vol. 4, No. 2.
[2] Sange, Rbiya and Srivasatava, R.K. (2012) Employee Engagement and Mentoring: An Empirical Study of Sales Professionals, Synergy, Vol. X No. I, p. 38
[3] Schaufeli, W., Salanova, M., Gonzalez-Roma, V. and Bakker, A. (2002). ‘The measurement of
burnout and engagement: a confirmatory factor analytic approach’, Journal of Happiness
[7] Rich B L, Lepine J A, Crawford E R (2010), ‘Job Engagement: antecedents and effects on job performance’, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 53, No. 3
Coaching and Mentoring—Same, Similar or Different?
I always smile when I hear people trying to explain the difference between coaching and mentoring. Particularly when coaches try to describe mentoring and vice versa. Each tends to think their own discipline is somehow better than the other. Bob Garvey, one of Europe’s leading coaching and mentoring academic practitioners, compares the pursuit of truth for the two terms to the Pepsi–Coca Cola wars of the 1970s and 1980s.1
Is there a real thing? Can people really taste the difference?
As someone who’s been involved in coaching and mentoring for over 20 years, I think the differences are becoming more difficult to pin down. The reason is there’s a growing overlap, as each group learns from the other.
Inside coaching and mentoring conversations
When it comes to developmental coaching and developmental mentoring, there is far more in common than there are differences. Both have at their heart the intention of using the conversation to help the coachee or mentee to develop their own capacity—to find solutions, to see new perspectives, to move in new directions. Many people think mentors only give advice and coaches ask questions but never give advice. Having observed hundreds of coaches and mentors over two decades, my belief is, this simply isn‘t true. Great mentors do much more than hand out words of wisdom, and coaches actually do sometimes give advice—although the most skilled coaches would call this out and ask the coachee’s permission first.
Although many of the dialogue skills a mentor uses, are also coaching skills, the content and context of the conversations may be different. Mentoring is often about the person’s future professional and career development, whereas coaching may be more focused on the person’s performance in the role and ability to meet agreed targets right now. Mentoring is mentee–driven and the mentee ‘owns’ the agenda whereas the workplace coaching agenda is often driven by the coachee’s line manager.
How about we draw the line in the sand now. Below are some of the similarities and differences I see between mentoring and coaching in the workplace:
Similarities and differences between Coaching and Mentoring
A closer look at the roles of mentor and coach
Mentors generally take on broader roles for their mentees, than coaches for their coachees. Whilst coaches do their work primarily through dialogue, mentors extend beyond conversation. They’re role models. They often open their personal and professional networks to their mentees. They may allow mentees to shadow and observe them at work. Some mentors like to do things with their mentees; for example, attend a conference together. A mentor in a program I managed shared one example I’ll never forget. The mentee was struggling with handling difficult, aggressive people. The mentor suggested a trip to the local parliament to observe and then discuss how politicians behaved during question time. I’m sure that was very educational!
What is mentoring, then?
This is one of my favourite definitions of mentoring:
Helping someone with the quality of their thinking about issues important to them. (Clutterbuck & Megginson)
Good mentoring provides a space for reflection in which mentees are ‘learners’ who are encouraged and given different perspectives. The aim is to allow them to come to their own conclusions and develop their own solutions. Great mentors help mentees see their own talents and potential. (I’m sure coaches reading this will exclaim—“but that’s what coaches do!” —and yes, they’re probably right).
Does it really matter how we define coaching and mentoring as long as they’re happening inside organisations?
Possibly not. But that’s not very helpful if you’ve been tasked with ‘building a coaching and mentoring culture’, as so many organisations today are doing today.
If we take a bird’s eye view from the strategic level at what the organisation is trying to achieve, it’s actually easier to see the differences and how mentoring can be applied in a very different way than coaching.
A strategic approach to mentoring
Mentoring has grown in popularity in recent years because it is a cost-effective, programmatic way, to achieve particular organisational goals. Put in place inside an organisation or membership body, with managers or experienced members as mentors, mentoring programs can involve relatively large numbers, especially nowadays with the help of technology. Mentors are typically not paid, therefore cost per mentee is very low, compared to, say, the cost of engaging external coaches. You can expect to pay between $500 and $1500 per mentoring pair for a well-managed, effective mentoring program run over six to twelve months. This is cheaper than one individual coaching session with many executive coaches!
Because mentoring can impact more people, structured mentoring programs can be aimed at solving key organisational problems. Think mentoring when you want to:
9 Benefits of Strategic Mentoring
Unless your organisation has a large team of internal coaches, it’s very unlikely you can tackle these systemic issues with coaching. Usually, coaching is used at an individual level for senior managers or emerging top talent, as an investment in that person for the future. The goals of each coaching engagement are idiosyncratic—whatever the particular individual needs to work on—and agreed with his/her manager.
When we starting with a new client, we encourage them to think strategically about what problem or issue they want to tackle with mentoring, rather than just making it available to everyone. Because executive coaching is usually reserved for the senior elite or a few key people, mentoring is a great way to engage and develop the often–forgotten middle layers of the organisation.
We’d love to hear from you about how your organisation uses coaching and mentoring. If you have stories to share, we have an engaged community who would be interested to hear them!
After #MeToo exploded on the world stage, we took the opportunity to survey over 600 people to understand the flow-on effect on interpersonal workplace relationships, how this has impacted cross-gender mentoring, and more specifically the mentoring of women.
Access our Spotlight Report to discover in detail the fears and barriers men and women face, and learn practical tips on how to foster effective mentoring between the genders, particularly from a woman’s perspective.
Brad Johnson PhD, author of Athena Rising, joins Art of Mentoring’s Melissa Richardson to discuss why women need “doors opened”, our research findings on how men have reacted to the impacts of #MeToo and what that means for women and mentoring.
Dr John Tracey, Deputy Director at NSW Department of Primary Industries, shares with Melissa Richardson his views on modern government issues and how mentoring has contributed to the department’s people agenda.
RESEARCH REPORT Before They Leave…. Intergenerational Mentoring Research 2019 More than two million Australian workers are Baby Boomers and strikingly all of them could retire within the next ten years. Are you prepared for their mass departure?
Governments and employers are becoming increasingly aware this substantial departure of wisdom, experience and knowledge will have a major impact on the future of Australian organisations as well as the development of future leaders.
This research explores the existing dynamics between the generations in the workplace, along with the expected changes that will occur with this mass exit.
How well organisations manage this significant transition will shape their future success.
Through six focus groups and surveys of more than 300 people across three generations in the workplace, we explore how governments and employers can prepare. We also share our Five Top Tips for success.
