Page 16 – ART OF MENTORING

Reciprocal mentoring – key to diversity-focused culture change

GUEST BLOG

It has taken a long time but suddenly business leaders have started to listen to what HR has been telling them for decades – it’s time to get serious about diversity. Among the problems in taking this beyond rhetoric, however, is that traditional recipes, such as implicit bias training, don’t work. The reason they don’t work is that these are abstract, intellectual exercises, about generalised groups, rather than concrete engagements with real individuals. Hence the increasing interest in reciprocal mentoring.

Previously known as reverse mentoring, the principle of bringing together junior employees from diverse backgrounds with senior executives from the dominant culture in a co-learning relationship is now more commonly referred to as reciprocal mentoring. The more junior person acts as mentor to the more senior to help them grow in awareness of how privilege, bias and systemic barriers affect career opportunities and day-to-day experiences. In this learning partnership, the junior employee gains insights into their own self-limiting assumptions, as well as into the practical aspects of building a career in the organisation — including how to work within the corporate politics.

Increasing experience with reciprocal mentoring shows that it provides a safe space, where both parties can confront their own perceptions, beliefs and behaviours. The quality of the connection between the top and bottom of the organisation exposes institutional barriers and enables a greater level of collaboration in bringing about meaningful change – a dramatically different situation from the norm, where executives talk to and develop their world view mainly in conversation with their own peers; and where less privileged communities also talk mainly within their own circles and where their potential may be limited by lack of awareness of how other, more influential stakeholders perceive the world.

There is also greater clarity about what makes an effective reciprocal mentoring program. Among key lessons learned are:

The critical importance of educating both parties in creating a “power-free” environment and relationship. The junior partner has to be comfortable with speaking up and challenging; the executive has to be aware of how their own power can get in the way of authentic, open conversation – and actively work towards making sure that it doesn’t.
Both parties need guidance in learning how to become vulnerable towards each other. The anxieties each person has about the other are often subconscious, yet highly influential, so knowing how to bring these into the spoken conversation is vital to the co-learning process.
It’s important for top management, program participants and other stakeholders to have clarity about the program purpose – in particular, the intended outcomes and how these align with organisational values. Where minority networks have a visible hand in writing the terms of reference, this heightens credibility of the program and the energy that participants put into the learning relationships.
Both parties need training, even if they have previous experience of mentoring. This might typically involve initial workshops and follow up events a few months later to provide additional training input around issues that arise from participant feedback.
Both parties typically need ongoing support. The co-learning conversations require them to challenge both each other and themselves, so it’s common for one or both to undergo a crisis of confidence at some point. With appropriate support — such as having a forum where they can seek both expert guidance and peer acknowledgement — is where the deepest and most significant learning occurs.

Although we don’t as yet have any strong academic studies of the impact of reciprocal mentoring, the anecdotal evidence is compelling. Wherever a program has been well-designed and supported (two essential criteria), both sets of participants point to it as one of the most significant learning interventions of their careers. Current research should fill the data gap over the next 12 months, but it seems that these honest conversations do much more than change the perspectives of the individuals taking part. They provide a platform for challenging the prevailing culture and the systems that underpin it; and for replacing limiting opacity with liberating clarity.

Mentoring & Wellbeing

The benefits of mentoring for career-related outcomes are widely accepted. At Art of Mentoring, we know that mentees and mentors get much more from the relationship than they expect and that mentoring has positive impacts on wellbeing.

Whilst there are many descriptions on what wellbeing encompasses, in the most general sense wellbeing is focused on holistic life experience: Are you content, balanced, and positive? Do you find your life to be satisfying and rewarding? Are you thriving or do you feel like you are just surviving?

Expanding the concept of wellbeing, the National Wellness Institute promotes Six Dimensions of Wellness: emotional, occupational, physical, social, intellectual, and spiritual. Let’s consider the first two.

Mentoring is widely acknowledged to have a psychosocial aspect. Mentors provide emotional support, and help to normalise workplace struggles and concerns. The Wellbeing Lab 2020 Workplace Report found that that workers experience greater wellbeing and better performance when they feel psychologically safe to bring up problems and talk honestly about mistakes with each other. A trusting mentoring relationship can play an obvious role here, and this finding is widely supported in various studies.

The occupational dimension of wellness recognises getting personal fulfilment from your job or academic pursuits, and contributing to knowledge and skills, while maintaining a work-life balance, all of which are reported to be enriched through mentoring relationships.

What mentees need, what mentors offer and the benefits derived by both

Art of Mentoring’s 2020 research project was a benchmarking exercise across our mentoring platform to reveal what mentees want, what mentors think they can and want to offer and what both parties actually get from their mentoring relationship.

We found that mentees came into mentoring looking for career advancement, expanded networks and skills development. Yet, the biggest program impacts on mentees were on personal learning and growth, self-awareness and confidence, more meaning and purpose. Wellbeing was ranked 10^th of 18 options.

It’s also a very developmental experience for mentors – they benefit from much more learning and growth than they would have expected. We found that mentors reported positive impacts on personal learning & growth, self-awareness, and meaning and purpose. Wellbeing was ranked 4^th. Positive psychology research suggests that people feel good about helping others, because such prosocial action leads to higher self-esteem (Snyder & Lopez, 2007).

Adaptation mentoring – the role of mentoring on wellbeing during a pandemic

Mentoring is a well-documented practice for supporting people through a transition, typically from study to work or from one career to another.

The COVID-19 crisis required more than just a transition response. The pandemic threw the world’s population into a sudden change on many levels – job loss, social distancing, working from home, forced isolation indoors, with overwhelming media coming at us. We needed to adapt, very quickly, to a very different reality. We believed that having a safe place in which to reflect and untangle thoughts and feelings, as well as plan for the adaptation, would be critical to how well and how quickly societies would adapt. We put forward the idea that mentors could supplement, not replace, mental health experts whose services would likely be overwhelmed in times of crisis. Feedback by the end of 2020 from mentoring program participants suggested that we were correct. Mentors were able to emotionally support their mentees during a very difficult period, and in fact, in many mentoring pairs, roles were reversed when mentors found themselves struggling even more than their mentees.

Art of Mentoring’s Melissa Richardson talked about Adaptation, Mentoring and Wellbeing with workplace wellbeing advisor, Thea O’Connor in the Adaption Mentoring podcast.

Donella Roberts, 2021

Sponsorship vs Mentoring

Overview
Some commentators claim that to advance the careers of women, mentoring does not work. Sponsorship is the answer. Yet study after study shows that mentoring women is highly effective. Is there a valid role for both and what part do they each play?

Here’s what you’ll learn in this webinar:

The difference between mentoring and sponsorship and the different roles they can play
Effectiveness of mentoring and sponsorship for women in particular
How to use mentoring and sponsorship to advance the careers of women

Presented by

Professor David Clutterbuck, Coaching and Mentoring International
Melissa Richardson, Managing Director, Art of Mentoring

Innovation and wellbeing – the key is human connection

Art of Mentoring recently partnered with the Australian HR Institute’s (AHRI) 2021 National Conference ‘Transform’. An impressive line-up of speakers from around the world presented data and findings on the current state of play. My main takeaway from the event was an affirmation and deeper understanding of what we’ve all been feeling – businesses need to innovate to remain competitive, the war on talent is more intense than ever and wellbeing is front and centre on the agenda.

Let’s take a deep exhalation after that last sentence. It’s a lot to handle amidst our everyday demands. Society is undergoing a major evolution and HR is at the epicentre for workplaces. Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic explained it succinctly in his presentation, “human brains are still wired to manage small amounts of information and today’s society is demanding us to do more, so we are turning to technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and external consultants to help us cope with the new demands.”

HR tech is undergoing a huge transformation and receiving investments beyond what we’ve ever seen. Microsoft, Go1, LinkedIn and more are hedging their bets that HR tech is one of the most lucrative industries for the future, and they’re not wrong. For the HR professional however, these transformations present the additional challenge of understanding new technology on top of your existing day-to-day role. Not to mention the pressures of responding to pandemic related needs of the business, attempting to do more with less money and being the wellbeing advocate for a potentially burnt-out workforce. Big breath in.

The upside? Technology helps us do two main things in the workplace; streamline repeatable tasks to increase output and satisfy our customers (both external clients and our own people). Dr Daniel Susskind, workforce futurist, unpacked the conversation around Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, discussing where it could help or hinder the profession. He concluded that these technologies are augmentations allowing us to expand creative capabilities, automate the mundane tasks and process more data. Does this mean AI will destroy millions of jobs? Susskind explained that despite the rise in these automated technologies, people will still be needed for creative work. Dr Ben Hamer from PWC added that by 2030 there will be more jobs than people, so those that can upskill and be flexible will be well placed to handle the disruption.

The topic of Covid’s impact on Wellbeing was paramount during the conference. Aaron McEwan from Gartner, explored the importance of re-evaluating the Employee Value Proposition. He suggested shifting the focus from remuneration to wellbeing as a fundamental measure of value. This was supported by Dr Ben Hamer’s compelling data regarding the number of people (50%) considering resignation, with wellbeing, learning opportunities and a shared purpose listed as their key decision drivers. Furthermore, conference discussion panels comprised of several senior HR leaders who identified the urgent need to accelerate social events into the digital space to maintain wellbeing and connectedness of their people.

Human experiences like fatigue, burnout and safety were raised as reoccurring themes. The stigma remains around mental health and CEOs who have been less affected by Covid disruption are pushing for growth through this pandemic, meanwhile their people are crumbling under the pressure. These significant experiences cannot be remedied by a few simple courses or yoga sessions, there needs to be a cultural shift. Sarah McCann-Bartlett’s (CEO of AHRI), discussed HR as the conduit between the business (senior management) and the people of the business (employees). In the current pandemic, this couldn’t feel more relevant where dialogue and respect for both parties’ needs are crucial to achieving success for businesses and wellbeing for their people.

So, where to from here? Whilst technology is intended to help us reduce administrative, repeatable task through powerful interfaces and increase the speed of connectivity, it simply cannot be to the detriment of wellbeing. The answer to achieving both is human connection.

In the mentoring space we are seeing a ground swell around the need to create meaningful human connection. By this I mean something that takes us out of our daily tasks to enjoy deeper connection, reflection and inclusion. This is where creativity flourishes (that which AI won’t replace), where the person feels considered rather than a number. Seek recently released data showing 10 things that motivate employees as being Purpose, Flexibility, Wellbeing, Equality, Empowerment, Learning, Democracy, Choice, Challenge and Belonging. These are all strengthened by mentoring programs where mentees choose the focus of the relationship and develop strong connections that will support them in navigating their choices, ultimately affecting their wellbeing.

The AHRI conference was a welcomed opportunity to reconnect with people and move away from the project management tool for a few days. It inspired a renewed need to connect with others and explore what can be done better. If you have any thoughts or have anything to add then I would welcome you to reach out to me, I’d love to hear from you. Contact Us

Alex Richardson, 2021

©Art of Mentoring

Ethical Mentoring

Overview
Whilst training programs alone can help raise awareness and understanding of what constitutes ethical behaviour and the psychology of ethicality, dialogue that promotes both introspection – understanding our own core values and how we try to live them – and an understanding and appreciation of wider and different perspectives – is what really shifts the dial. Connecting with our own values reinforces our ability to self-police against unethical behaviour. Connecting with wider perspectives helps us question and break free from unethical assumptions we have absorbed from the shared narrative of our immediate working environment.

Ethical mentors are trained to help others, through dialogue, explore their own values, challenge the ethicality of their thinking and come to decisions that take broader perspectives into account.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this webinar:

- Why Ethical Mentoring is gaining momentum around the world
- How Ethical Mentoring works
- How organisations have implemented Ethical Mentoring

Presented by

Melissa Richardson, Managing Director Art of Mentoring
Professor David Clutterbuck, David Clutterbuck Partnership

The Power of Mentoring Case Study

A sneak peek under the hood of Beaumont People’s LEAD mentoring program.

Overview
Well-executed mentoring programs can make a profound impact for many. Join us as we unpack Beaumont People’s highly successful LEAD mentoring program, designed in partnership with Art of Mentoring. Now in it’s fourth year, the program focuses on propelling the leaders of tomorrow, building capability and fostering relationships across all sectors.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this webinar:

Mentoring and its positive impact on making work meaningful
The context of mentoring in 2021 and beyond
What makes the Beaumont People LEAD mentoring program powerful and the benefits of being involved
Hear about what participants gained from Beaumont People’s program

Presented by

Rebecca Rynehart: General Manager Consulting Division, Beaumont People
Nicole Glasgow: LEAD Mentoring Program Coordinator, Beaumont People
Alex Richardson: Director, Art of Mentoring

We hope you enjoy this webinar!

How to build a mentoring culture

Critical to business success is the creation of an environment where people want to join the organisation, perform and commit to stay. Yet, developing and sustaining a positive organisational culture is easier said than done.

In The Ripple Effect, Melissa Richardson pointed to a set of human needs that, when met, can create positive organisational culture. These include:

A sense of belonging
Having a voice and being heard
Communication
Opportunity
Someone to talk to—an outlet

Organisations cannot rely on traditional organisational structures and hierarchies to meet these needs. While these may aid efficiency they do not necessarily aid “real” human interaction. Rather, organisations should balance commitment to organisational goals with commitment to human needs.

A mentoring culture can assist to balance human needs and organisational goals and aid “real” human interaction. A mentoring culture is where an organisation:

Appreciates the strategic and personal value of mentoring, and
Supports access to mentoring opportunities for employees to:
- build deeper working relationships,
- focus on own development,
- exchange knowledge and experience,
- build networks and take risks and explore possibilities
There are well-managed formal mentoring programs and informal mentoring is encouraged and flourishes
Mentoring pervades development opportunities and agenda

A resilient mentoring culture is a product of a mutually beneficial experience. That is, where the mentor is also changed by the experience.

Commitment to a mentoring culture demonstrates to individuals they’re valued and respected. It also indicates the organisation appreciates diversity and supports personal needs. This results in greater professional happiness, sense of belonging and job satisfaction.

Personal happiness and satisfaction derived from a mentoring culture flows to organisational culture:

Enhanced relationships and collaboration
Extended inclusion
Happier workplace.

What’s more, there are employer brand-enhancing benefits of mentoring initiatives. The Art of Mentoring 2020 research project indicates mentees and mentors are grateful to their organisation for the opportunity.

So, what are the steps to building a flourishing mentoring culture?

Focus mentoring on clearly defined business needs
Ensure that top management provides strong, positive role models (get them involved as mentors, not just as sponsors)
Provide mentoring training and continued development
Recognise and reward managers who demonstrate good mentoring behaviour and commitment, and encourage being mentored across the organisation and at all levels.

Donella Roberts, 2021

©Art of Mentoring

Shifting Culture With Mentoring

Overview
Mentoring can shift gears of culture in an organisation through powerful connections. The ripple effect of a well run mentoring program is that it becomes ingrained in the culture to both mentor others and to seek mentorship for oneself.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this webinar:

Cultural impacts achievable through mentoring and examples of culture changing programs
The impact of mentoring on the mentors (perhaps even the leadership team)
How to tailor a program to an organisation’s culture

Presented by

Alex Richardson, Director, Art of Mentoring
Gina Meibusch, Client Service Delivery Manager, Art of Mentoring

Why embark on STRATEGIC mentoring?

Anyone who has attended our webinars or read our blogs would know that for the program designers at Art of Mentoring, everything starts with organisational goals. Our fundamental philosophy is around “strategic mentoring” or a “strategic approach to mentoring”. It just makes sense to us that mentoring initiatives must be closely linked to what the organisation is trying to achieve overall. Our client conversations always begin with the question “why do you want to start a mentoring program?” Which is so often met with, “I’m not sure”. If you’re not sure of the WHY, then how will you know when you achieve success, and if the investment has been worthwhile?

Strategic mentoring, for us, takes a purpose-led approach to design and implementation of organisational mentoring initiatives. Organisations that follow this approach often have several mentoring programs on offer, with a blend of formal and informal offerings. We know that where formal mentoring programs have been implemented, informal mentoring flourishes, because there is a pool of trained mentors who reach out to others for potential mentorship. Many recipients of mentoring go on to become mentors in formal programs and mentor informally as well. Formal, cohort-based programs play an important role in training and preparing people for effective mentoring relationships that can emerge organically without any administrative effort.

There are five process steps involved in strategic mentoring:

Planning. Setting goals for the organisation’s mentoring strategy, in much the same way that planning would be done for any business strategy. For example, good marketing needs a well-planned marketing strategy before implementation of marketing plans and tactics.
Analysis. Gathering data on what employees might expect or want from mentoring. What do other similar organisations or competitors offer? Sometimes a well-regarded mentoring program contributes strongly to the value of the employer brand. What form of mentoring would work best for this organisation?
Development. Design of one or more mentoring programs that together will deliver on the goals.
Implementation. Execution of pilot mentoring initiatives to test the design.
Evaluation. Measurement of outcomes and particularly return-on-investment. We have written extensively on this topic

The process is of course circular, not linear. Evaluation data should feed back into the next round of planning.

Sadly, we do not see many organisations take a strategic approach to mentoring. The most common approach we see is one of two:

Offer one self-serve, anyone-can-join-anytime mentoring program, hosted on some kind of technology platform. Outcomes are hard to measure, and it can be hard to get mentors to sign up in the first place without a compelling WHY.
Offer one formal mentoring program targeted at ‘high potential talent’. Whilst there are good reasons to offer developmental programs to retain good people, this can cause resentment amongst other employees who are excluded from yet another program.

A well thought out mentoring strategy would result in the organisation having a number of small, formal, cohort-based programs aimed at particular groups in order to achieve specific people goals. For example, to increase diversity, increase engagement in middle layers, develop a stronger leadership bench. There may also be a less formal organisation-wide program that caters for people who are not covered in the cohort programs.

An attendee of our webinar earlier this month on shifting culture with mentoring, said “I’ve newly inherited the re-design of our organisation’s mentoring program and loved the ideas, approaches, strategies, design, and planned objectives of a mentoring program that is embedded and ALIGNED TO strategy. Too many models are too ‘choose your own adventure’ and too ‘self serve’ and consequently lack buy in from leadership, motivation from mentees, and MEASURABILITY for all parties! #Mindblown!”

Given how cost-effective mentoring programs are, and the results they deliver, large organisations really have no reason not to consider the role mentoring could play in their overall people strategy. The good news is, we are starting to see a more strategic mentoring approach being taken by government agencies who clearly value mentoring as an important contributor to developing and supporting their people. Professional and trade associations, too, are beginning to offer multiple mentoring programs to members at different career lifecycle stages. NSW Law Society has well-established mentoring programs for graduates, early career lawyers and for women. Each one tackles a particular developmental goal for their members and is part of a bigger membership strategy.

If you’re not taking a strategic approach to mentoring, we can assure you, the organisations that are, are already attracting, developing and retaining the talent you want for your future success. Time to catch up?

Helpful resources: Mentoring Program Business Plan Template; The Ripple Effect

Melissa Richardson 2021

Becomingness: a critical element of coaching and mentoring

GUEST BLOG

One of the many myths of coaching and mentoring is that personal growth is primarily a planned activity – so coaches and mentors should concentrate on helping people to set and pursue goals. The reality is somewhat different. Human beings are growing and changing constantly and most of this evolution is unplanned, uncontrolled, unaware and emergent. Goals and plans lead us to focus on doing and to marginalise the equally important, if not far more important, process of becoming. There is a wide gulf between the questions What do you want to achieve? and Who do you want to become?

While goal management may be a key focus for beginner coaches, more mature coaches tend to attend to becomingness, although they may not use that term to describe what they do. Becomingness is about what is happening in the present on your journey to a different place or state. Becomingness is closely aligned with liminality — the state of being in between one definable state and another. The difference is that in becomingness you are aware — to a greater or lesser extent — of the transition and able to reflect upon it as it happens rather than in hindsight. The awareness in becomingness is typically emergent, increasing in intensity with the frequency and duration of the liminal experience.

Becomingness is also associated with wisdom, because wisdom involves an enhanced awareness of both the inner world of oneself and how we interface with the outer world of others. Wisdom, in turn, is associated with recognising and being able to work with increasing levels of complexity.

Among the many aspects of becomingness are:

Doubt: The sense that assumptions we hold may be only partially true or not true at all.

Self-doubt: A sense of instability or uncertainty in our identity, the value of our contribution or accomplishments.

Discomfort: The intuitive sense that all is not well or as it should be.

Dislocation: The sense that we have lost closeness to colleagues, loved ones, a previously passionate interest or things that gave us meaning in life.

Relocation: The sense that we are on a journey.

Emotional dissonance: The sense that values are conflicting in ways that have not happened for you before.

Anticipation: A sense of curiosity about the future and the direction of change.

Acceptance: Learning to let go of “old clothes” that no longer fit.

When coaches and mentors help clients become more aware of these changes, they help the client replace the anxiety of not knowing where they are headed with an appreciation of the scenery on the journey. The client can make small, purposeful adjustments as they go. Like a sailor, they see both the horizon and the patterns of the waves immediately surrounding them.

As always, we can support these reflections with well-timed, insight-provoking questions. For example:

How might addressing a doubt liberate you from the constraints of current assumptions?
How can you use self-doubt as a stimulus to learn and grow?
Where is the discomfort? Can you describe the conflict (of values, emotions etc) that is giving rise to it?
What’s the nature of the dislocation that is happening for you? What is changing in the winds around you?
What metaphor works for you in describing the journey you are on?
What values do you need to reconsider and re-evaluate? Where did those values come from? What’s the connection between them? What new values are emerging for you?
Looking through the mist at your future journey, what excites you? What possibilities are opening up for you?
When will you be ready to clear out your mental wardrobe of things you no longer need? How will you do that?
How will you find the time, the space and the motivation to become more aware of how you are evolving as a person?
How can you celebrate the person you are becoming?

And, of course, these are all questions coaches and mentors can ask themselves regularly. The more practised we are at self-aware becomingness, the more patient and present we can be with our coachees and mentees.