Page 19 – ART OF MENTORING

Help develop a wider community of support

Helping the coachee/ mentee develop a wider community of support

One of the most common questions in coaching and mentoring is “Who can you get to support you in achieving this goal?” When people struggle to respond, as is often the case, or feel that they are on their own, it may indicate that they haven’t invested sufficiently in creating their community of support. Research in recent years into what makes people support each other (through projects such as the international Human Generosity Project) provide useful clues on how we build strong communities of support.

Knowing lots of people doesn’t create a support network. You can have thousands of friends on Facebook or connections on Linked In, but that doesn’t mean you have the kind of relationship with them that will cause them to respond to your request for help. It’s the quality of the relationships that count and the key to this appears to be your own generosity towards others.

It turns out that expecting reciprocity isn’t how the system works. In less modernised societies, members of communities support each other in case of need, without any expectation of payback. Having a positive reputation as someone who helps others in need increases the chances that others will be generous towards you, if you are in future need, but it may not be the people you helped, who will then help you. In an article examining current research in this area[1], Bob Holmes cites several examples of the generosity concept, including the Masai tradition of osotua (literally, umbilical cord) where anyone in need can ask for and automatically receive help from their network of friends and neighbours.

The limitation of these concepts in practice is that this kind of generosity is dependent on knowing the recipient as an individual. By contrast, in developed societies, where there is often less sense of community, people tend to be generous towards distant groups, such as victims of famine or earthquake, but less likely to give to beggars on the local streets.

So what are the implications of this for helping coachees or mentees build their own communities of support? A generosity-based strategy involves four steps:

Identifying the communities, which you are already a part of or would value being part of
Establishing what needs members of these communities have, which you can help with. These needs aren’t usually monetary; they are more commonly information, encouragement, moral support, connections or access to resources
Allocating time (planned or ad hoc) to be generous – giving of time is often seen as a particularly generous act
Being brave in admitting when you need help and asking for it

If people in these communities know you as someone who is appropriately generous, then at least some of them will respond positively.

Some useful coaching/ mentoring questions include:

How does knowing you affect other people’s willingness to support you?
What could you do to ensure that people, whose support you need, know and value you?
Who is there around those people, whose positive opinion of you would influence those people you want to be more supportive of you?
How can you build your reputation as someone generous with their time, knowledge etc?
How can you make others aware of your needs for support? (What’s stopping you from asking?)
How could you be more generous to yourself?

[1] Holmes, Bob (2016) Generous by nature, New Scientist 13 August pp26-28

Five modes of questioning

Asking questions is something we do all the time. It’s essential to how we learn, how we keep safe, how we collaborate with other people, how we make decisions, and so on… It’s a core skill of being human, yet few people stop to think about how they ask questions or whether they could be better at doing so.

One simple way to help people become more aware of how they use questions is to acquaint them with the five modes of questioning. These are:

Questioning to demonstrate superiority or undermine. For example: “You thought that would work, did you?” or “What else would you expect from someone like that?” With such questions, the answer – usually highly judgemental – is implied. Ego-driven, in this mode the questioner is neither expecting nor listening for an answer.
Questioning to elicit specific information. This is about plugging predictable, bounded gaps in what we already know. These questions tend to be precise and based on pre-existing assumptions about an issue. While less ego-focused than questions to demonstrate superiority, our motivation is our focused on our own knowledge and intentions, not those of the other person. Even when asking about the other person’s opinions or feelings, it is in service of our own goals.
Questioning for self-curiosity. Here we don’t have a fixed agenda for our enquiry. We are acting on the instinct that this might be interesting, useful or both – not just for ourselves, but for other people in the conversation. This is the territory of co-learning.
Questioning for other-curiosity. This is at the heart of good coaching and mentoring. Here we use questions to help the other person structure their reflection and creative thinking. We move from ego to “we-go” – the exploration together of ideas the learner has not previously considered deeply.
Seeking the right question. A useful coaching or mentoring question is “What’s the question you can ask yourself that might change the way you see this?” or some variation on the same theme. In each of the previous modes, we are able to draw on experience that gives context to the questions that come to mind. In this mode, however, the context itself is ill-defined. The “right” question will only emerge by questioning the assumptions behind the questions that have gone before. In this mode, no-one knows the answer and each question that does arise may simply be a stepping stone to a better question, with even greater insight-provoking potential. To achieve this, the coach-mentor and the client both have to let go of their egos, engaging with each other’s curiosity.

Consigning the “demonstrating superiority” mode of questioning to our behavioural trash can, while achieving more of a balance between the other four modes has substantial benefits, not just for the quality of coaching and mentoring, but also for workplace conversations more generally. Having the self-awareness and flexibility to move into the other-curiosity and seeking the right question modes can enhance engagement, teamwork and collective creativity – all of which are related to higher productivity and team performance.

Youth Mentoring

Art of Mentoring was delighted when the NSW government announced the 2016 commencement of Youth Frontiers, a mentoring program including 1200 year 8 and 9 students from across NSW.

While we have not been involved with the program, we are delighted to see the potential of mentoring acknowledged with such a high profile and far reaching program.

Most importantly, we are thrilled that 1200 young people will benefit from the personal growth that mentoring allows.

How does it work?

Currently in the recruitment and matching stage, Youth Frontiers targets students having difficulty engaging with the education system. Once paired with an adult mentor, students are asked to develop a community project idea.

They then engage in both group and one to one sessions over 6 months, before finally showcasing their projects to sponsors such as the Black Dog Institute, Cricket NSW, Sydney Legacy and others.

A recent US study of 73 independent youth mentoring programs found that mentoring impacts social, emotional, behavioural and academic outcomes for young people.

Student mentoring has been demonstrated to improve attendance and engagement with school, as well as building confidence and skills, which ultimately results in improved grades.

The NSW program has only just begun, but research and experience suggest the following outcomes could be expected:

The opportunity to work on a project of significance to the community will increase students’ sense of self-worth and confidence;
One to one interaction with an adult who is not a parent will provide opportunities to explore career options and learn new skills;
Young people are likely to come away from the program with higher personal goals.

As with corporate mentoring, programs for youth can be developed in many forms. The NSW program follows the most common type, volunteer adult-to-student. We would recommend that program developers in the youth arena also consider other formats.

Peer-to-peer programs could be used to foster greater understanding for and integration of minority student groups. A reverse mentoring program, allowing students to mentor adults in the community on language or technical skills, would not only provide a community service but bolster students’ sense of confidence and belonging.

Mentoring is a wonderful gift to young people, with the potential to make a positive and lasting difference to their lives. Ultimately, of course, youth mentoring is a gift to society, encouraging a more cohesive and accomplished community.

Professor David Clutterbuck: Mentoring Emerging Themes

Helping your coachee or mentee pitch an original idea

Helping your coachee or mentee pitch an original idea

A common misconception in organisations is that it’s easy to sell a good idea. The reality, as detailed in the book Originals, by Adam Grant, is quite the opposite. Among the misconceptions his and other research identify are that:

Good new ideas are generally welcomed. The evidence says the opposite. In one study across manufacturing, service, retail, and non-profit setting, the more frequently employees voiced concerns and ideas upward, the less likely they were to receive raises and promotions over a two-year period.

You should look for people, who are friendly and agreeable. In practice, it is disagreeable people, who provide better feedback on original ideas. (Agreeable people have a tendency not to want to upset the status quo. Disagreeable people are more likely to take the idea on board, once they have worked it through and found any flaws.)

You should look for support from middle management. In reality, it is people at the top and bottom of organisations, who are more likely to listen to new ideas with an open mind, because they have less to lose. Middle managers most often default to the status quo

So when a coachee or mentee complains that their ideas are not being listened to, here are some ways you can help:

TAKE IT TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE

Explore with them how they could put their idea to its most rigorous test, by taking it to people, who are most likely to oppose it and by asking them what’s needed to make it feasible and/or beneficial. Making the conversation with these stakeholders a process of enquiry (comparable to market research) makes it more likely people will listen to and engage with the concept, than if they feel they are being sold to. Help them prepare for these conversations firstly by taking the role of critic themselves and secondly by practising how they will respond positively to criticism, by separating criticism of the idea from criticism of themselves. The ideal accolade from this kind of conversation is that it was “thought-provoking”.

MULTIPLE SOURCES

Help them list who else might share their frustration, with a view to building a movement – a loose network of other people, who can provide moral support and engage with their bosses and stakeholders not as lone voices, but as a common interest group. When the same message comes from multiple sources, individuals are less likely to be labelled as troublemakers. Once a decision-maker has heard the same idea a dozen times from different directions, they are much more likely to consider it seriously. Many times, they will find that the idea is not as original as they thought – other people have the same thoughts and are equally frustrated at not being able to gain traction with it.

PERSONAL OWNERSHIP

Discuss with them how to let go of the need to retain personal ownership of the idea, seeing it instead as a gift to the organisation and to colleagues. Ask: “Is it more important to you that this idea gets used, or that you have the kudos?”

Some useful questions include:

Who ultimately has the authority to make this decision? What would make them want to break with the status quo?
How could you gain permission to demonstrate your idea on a small scale, ideally within your own area of responsibility?
Who else cares about this issue and why? What is preventing them from using their voice?
How can you turn your idea from a proposed solution to a captivating question? For example: “Why can’t we routinely see every patient within 15 minutes of their appointment time?” “How much waste is really inevitable?” “What would it look like, if we halved the time from order to delivery?” This helps to open up the dialogue to even better solutions. It also protects the idea-holder from being dismissed as obsessive – it’s a lot easier to gain agreement that there is room for improvement than to promote a specific, first-thought solution.
What can you and your network do to create a sense of urgency about this issue? A study of hundreds of managers and employees promoting green agendas in their organisations found that the critical factor for success was not whether the issue was seen as a threat or opportunity, but the urgency, with which it needed to be addressed.

The Problem with Today’s Entrepreneur Mentoring

The Problem with Today’s Entrepreneur Mentoring

Developmental mentoring: One person, usually more senior and experienced; takes time to develop the career, professional and/or personal development of another.

It’s pretty easy to see how a developmental mentoring relationship would benefit a young entrepreneur embarking on his or her first enterprise. Starting a company can be a lonely and daunting affair. The shared wisdom and support of someone who has been there before can help guide a young entrepreneur through uncharted waters, and build the self-confidence and resilience needed to meet the challenges ahead.

It is unsurprising therefore that many incubator and accelerator programs offer “mentoring” as part of their package. As mentoring professionals we applaud the intention, but we are troubled by the approach often employed.

True developmental mentoring involves a mentor who does not have a conflict of interest. And this is where some incubator mentoring programs start to unravel – when their “mentoring” programs match young entrepreneurs with either a potential or current investor.

We have no doubt that wearing their “mentor hats”; many of these individuals possess the experience, wisdom and listening skills needed to provide valuable guidance and support. The problem comes when they slip on their “investor hat”, and their attention inexorably shifts to financial opportunity, downsides and business risks.

One cannot blame a potential investor for focusing on optimizing their return. But how does that play out when a trusting young entrepreneur confides their fears and management weaknesses? Given this knowledge, an “investor” may feel it prudent to replace the entrepreneur with a professional manager. Yet, acting on this impulse could be interpreted as a complete betrayal by the “mentor”. Insidious positions like this one are part and parcel of the conflict of interest inherent in the dual role of investor and mentor.

On the mentee side of the relationship, one questions how honest a mentee is going to be with a current or potential investor, despite the added title of “mentor”. It will be difficult to come out from behind the façade all entrepreneurs must employ to sell themselves and their ideas. The person across the table is, after all, a potential financial benefactor and a vehicle to get their business off the ground. Does the mentee really risk letting them see the chinks in your armor?

Without letting a “mentor” behind the façade, the potential for personal and professional growth is stunted. Yet if a mentee does let down their guard, they are extremely vulnerable to a “mentor” with a clear conflict of interest.

Potential and current investors can, and do, provide excellent advice and guidance to young entrepreneurs. But we question their ability to act as unbiased mentors, focused solely on the development of their mentee.

The unacceptably high rate of depression and suicide among young entrepreneurs is evidence that developmental mentoring is badly needed. Entrepreneurialism is a risky and scary business, more likely to shine a light on all your personal flaws and weaknesses than to make you a billionaire. The young men and women with the guts and determination to take this risk deserve a mentor with an undivided focus on helping them to succeed.

We encourage all providers of entrepreneurial mentoring to examine their programs carefully and seek to match young, often vulnerable, entrepreneurs with mentors outside their investor pool.

A growing stream of young entrepreneurs is the foundation for a wave of new incubators and accelerators. If these businesses offer mentoring to entice entrepreneurs to their service, they have a duty of care to ensure that the mentoring relationships they create are not marred by conflict of interest and are genuinely focused on developing young entrepreneurs.

Responsibility for Success in a Mentoring Relationship

responsible success mentoring relationship

Who is Responsible for the Success of a Mentoring Relationship?

Ultimately the success or failure of any mentoring relationship comes down to just one person, and it may not be the person you are expecting.

It is easy to argue that with a mentoring relationship, like any other relationship, “it takes two to tango”. The success of the relationship is reliant on the contribution of both the mentor and mentee.

One could also posit that since the mentor is usually the person with greater experience and maturity, he or she must take responsibility for establishing fertile ground for a relationship.

One could even argue that in a structured mentoring program the program manager has a part to play in the success of the mentoring relationships. The training and structure provided by the program manager is necessary to kick start a successful relationship.

All of these arguments have elements of truth. There is no doubt that mentees, mentors and program managers all have a role to play in creating a strong mentoring relationship.

However, the one person responsible for ensuring the “success” of that relationship is the mentee.

From the outset, mentoring relationships are more one sided than the “two way street” of a friendship or family relationship. Mentoring programs are invariably structured to benefit the mentee, whether the mentee is a junior staffer preparing to step into a more senior role, or an executive being reverse mentored to better understand technology.

The “success” of the mentoring relationship, for both the individuals and the organisation, is reliant on the mentee moving forward in some way.

In the end responsibility must rest with the mentee to derive benefit from the relationship. This responsibility includes:

Clarifying what they hope to gain from the relationship;

Making sure meetings happen;
Arriving at meetings with an agenda, or at very least a clear idea of what they want to discuss;
Following up after meetings to summarise any actions agreed.

Mentors, who are usually volunteering their time and expertise, are a resource the mentee has been privileged to access. They should not have to chase or corral their mentee to “force” them into gaining value from the relationship.

Mentors and program managers should be on the lookout for the danger signs that a mentee is failing to take responsibility for their own success. These signs include:

The mentee “disappears” for lengthy periods of time, failing to organise meetings or follow up on promised actions;
The mentee sits and waits for pearls of wisdom, rather than arriving with a clear agenda;
The mentor is diligently writing notes at meetings, while the mentee is not;
The mentor is sending follow up and confirmation emails rather than the mentee;

Pre-screening of mentees and good training should help to ensure that mentees are sufficiently committed and aware of their responsibilities that these behaviours will not arise. But if they do, it would be wise to swiftly call the mentee to account. Make them aware that not only will this behaviour limit the benefit they will derive from the mentoring relationship, it is also disrespectful to the mentor who has volunteered their time to help and shirks their responsibility to an organisation that has invested in their development.

Linear vs systemic perspectives on talent and succession

This is a guest blog by Professor David Clutterbuck

In our continued work with organisations on systemic talent management strategy, we frequently find that – consciously or unconsciously – it is the mindset of the leaders and the HR team that determines what is possible and over what period. Some of the blockers relate to the process of change itself – for example, the implicit assumption that attitudinal and behavioural change is something that needs to happen at operational levels, rather than in the leadership team itself. (HR is not immune to this kind of thinking, either!)

The table below illustrates some of the differences we have observed between a traditional, linear mindset about talent and succession and a systemic mindset. You can use this chart to assess prevailing mindsets in your organisation by asking a sample of senior managers and HR people to score on a seven-point scale a) their own beliefs and b) what they consider to be the prevailing mindset in the organisation.

Linear	Systemic
Talent is innate and focused on the individual	Talent is contextual and dependent on the individual and the systems, of which they are a part
Clarity of succession is important	Flexibility of succession is important
Performance is dependent on individual behaviour	Performance is dependent on both individual, team and system
Motivation and reward should be individually based	Motivation and reward should be collectively based
Leadership skills are generic	Leadership skills are contextual
It’s important to identify talent	It’s important to create conditions where talent can emerge
Potential is fixed and measurable	Potential is contextual and largely unmeasurable
We need to invest most developmental resources in high potentials	We need to create conditions, where genuine high potentials can create their own developmental networks and pathways
Job roles are relatively stable	Job roles are constantly evolving
Job descriptions should focus on qualifications and experience & on how to do the role as it is	Job descriptions should focus on outcomes and potential to transform the role
The role of HR and the top team is to reduce the impact of change	The role of HR and the top team is to embrace and encourage change
Predictability and clarity are critical	Managing paradox is critical
Talent strategy is a top down process and responsibility	Talent strategy is a collaborative effort between HR/ Senior Management and talented employees
Our workforce is the people currently on our payroll	Our direct employees are only part of a wider resource of overlapping systems that include past, current and future employees, contractors and other contributors
We expect loyalty from our employees	We expect engagement from our employees
Diversity is one of our biggest problems	Diversity is one of our biggest opportunities

At Art of Mentoring we provide tools and resources for all aspects of the mentoring program design, implementation and evaluation. Please contact us for more information or take a look at our blog for more articles on mentoring.

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Self-confidence and critical thinking for mentees

Self-confidence and critical thinking are identified by mentees as top development needs

Every time Art of Mentoring initiates a mentoring program, interested mentees are asked to complete an application questionnaire. In the last year, nearly 600 mentees from a very diverse mix of occupations and career stages have participated in our online programs and each has been asked to identify the top competencies sought from a mentor in order to meet their own development needs. Answers were chosen from a list of about 30 options.

Recently we analysed the data from this diverse array of corporate and association mentoring programs to see if anything could be learned from their responses.

Mentees’ self-identified “top 5” development needs held some surprises and some important learning for L&D professionals.

Rank	Self-IdentifiedDevelopment Need	Percent
1	Developing career plans	44%
2	Developing self-confidence	30%
3	Working toward career objectives	26%
4	Decision making	23%
5	Problem analysis and problem solving	18%

No one would be surprised that developing career plans and working toward career objectives would rank highly when entering a mentoring program. However, the other development needs present some interesting insights for us, as designers of mentoring programs, and for HR and L&D executives more generally.

The Importance of Self–Confidence

Let’s look first at self-confidence, which was identified by almost a third of respondents as a development need. These results are very consistent with our experience in face-to-face training sessions, where lack of self-confidence is invariably raised as a concern amongst mentees.

Self-confidence is not only important to the individual, but to the organisation. A self-confident individual knows his or her own value and is better able to articulate it. This obviously benefits the individual, but it also helps the organisation to capitalise on that individual’s strengths. Further a self-confident employee is likely to run more successful meetings, operate with greater autonomy and step up to a leadership position when needed.

One might argue that self-confidence can only be gained through experience and maturity. However, our experience is that mentoring programs most certainly assist in developing self-confidence in both mentors and mentees. When we conduct surveys on completion and even one-year post completion of a mentoring program, increased self-confidence is invariably cited as a key benefit of the program, whether or not it was a goal at the outset.

We postulate that mentees derive confidence from being supported in a mentoring relationship, while mentors gain confidence by having a mentee look to them as a role model.

Critical Thinking Skills Are Needed

The fourth and fifth ranked development needs, decision-making and problem solving, are basic, core critical thinking skills. Interestingly, we see these skills as inexorably linked to self-confidence.

Without self-confidence in general can you trust your own decisions and solutions? If you don’t trust your own decision-making and problem-solving skills how can you feel self-confident? If you lack sound decision-making and problem-solving skills your self-assuredness becomes cockiness – a hazard rather than a benefit for organisations.

In our experience these basic skills do not always make it onto management or leadership training courses. Critical thinking skills can be learned but it takes some skill to teach them. So it is actually a big ask for mentors to be entrusted with developing decision-making and problem-solving skills in their mentees. It’s one thing to provide career guidance and open doors to networks, it’s another altogether for a manager not normally accountable for L&D to be expected to role model or teach decision-making and problem-solving skills, or even know where to refer the mentee for such training.

Can L&D Offer More Opportunities to Learn Critical Thinking?

For professional mentoring program designers, a key take away is the need to design training and resources for mentors that helps them to provide the self-confidence and skills training that mentees need.

Art of Mentoring training programs already provide training to help mentors to listen better, ask good questions and give constructive feedback, all of which lends itself to building self-confidence. Skilled mentors naturally ask the kinds of questions that stimulate critical thinking and this could build critical thinking capacity in their mentees. However, most mentors and mentees needs assisitance so there is also room for us to supplement our training with specific assistance in testing and improving mentee’s decision-making and problem-solving skills.

For organisations, it is time to start tackling these issues from an overall L&D perspective. Obviously we would advocate for the use of mentoring programs, which have already proven effective in fostering self-confidence. Perhaps it is also time to go back to basics and offer training for core skills like decision-making and problem-solving at a number of levels within the organisation.

Organisations also need to consider the role of the line manager in building self-confidence and core skills. It’s time to consider how to upskill managers to coach and give better quality feedback to build self-awareness and confidence in their direct reports.

Building self-confidence, and the key skills needed to foster self-confidence, should be considered a priority in organisational learning and development. Mentoring programs have an important role to play in nurturing and building organisational confidence. What other tools and resources can L&D professionals employ to build core skills and self-confidence?

Melissa Richardson is one of Australia’s experts in coaching and mentoring having worked in the field for nearly 20 years. She has designed and implemented programs across many public and private sector organisations.

The Three Legs of a Successful Mentoring Program

The Three Legs of a Successful Mentoring Program

A lot has been written about the detailed processes for running a mentoring program, but we too rarely take a top-level view to understand the core elements required to ensure mentoring program success. In our view, there are three essentials to successful mentoring and like a three-legged stool; when one leg is removed things fall flat.

The Three Legs Successful Mentoring Stands On

For any mentoring program to succeed it must stand on three legs:

Program Manager

Mentoring programs simply do not run themselves. Technological advancements give companies access to database functionality, matching algorithms and even some automation of key administrative tasks. But don’t be fooled that technology eliminates the need for a program manager.

A good program manager will act as an internal champion for the program, ensuring ongoing management support, as well as evaluate program effectiveness and recommend improvements. Most important he or she will problem solve, guide and encourage participants at an individual level and as a group, a nurturing role that ensures that both the organisation and participants get the most out of the program.

Expertise

While mentoring is a powerful tool to achieve a range of organisational objectives, it is also a major investment for an organisation, at the very least demanding a considerable amount of time from key staff members. It only makes sense to run a mentoring program using best practice techniques as well as professional training and support resources to maximise your return on investment.

There are two options here. Either you can employ a program manager with specific mentoring expertise and experience, or you can support your inexperienced program manager with outside guidance and resources for program design, management and participant training.

Technology

Mentoring programs increasingly rely on technology to optimise outcomes. Where a program is large in scope or covers a broad geographical territory, different technologies such as program administration software, webinar access for program events and high quality eLearning for mentors and mentees, are essential to success. Technology allows mentoring programs to be delivered into remote areas or pairs to be matched up across regions or countries. Ideally, these technologies should be integrated to simplify access and optimise the user experience.

Why a Two Legged Stool Falls Over

The most important thing to understand is that a successful mentoring program requires ALL THREE legs, remove one and your program will fall flat. Worse still, remove two legs and your program may never get off the ground.

Expertise + Technology

It may seem possible to build a strong mentoring program using expert resources and technology alone. But without the nurturing of a program manager, the mentoring pairs tend to lose momentum. Yes, some pairs will have success regardless, but others will falter, reducing the effectiveness of your program.

Program Manager + Expertise

If your mentoring program is very small it is possible to run a mentoring program with a good program manager and expert resources. But once your mentoring program scales up or demands broad geographic reach, technology will be essential to holding your program together without overextending your program manager.

Program Manager + Technology

It is certainly possible to set up a mentoring program without expertise. Let technology do the matching and find an eager but inexperienced volunteer to administer the program. Your program might even appear to run along satisfactorily. But there is no question that your results will fall short of potential if the program has not been designed properly or if mentors and mentees have not been well prepared for a successful learning partnership.

At the end of the day, a mentoring program should be about delivering against organisational objectives. Expertise is needed to design a program to specifically address core objectives and to continually evaluate and improve it. Professional resources and expert training are essential to fostering strong mentoring relationships, upskilling participants and optimizing program outcomes.

There is simply no getting around it. A successful mentoring campaign stands on three legs.