Art of Mentoring corporate logo, flying geese colored version
Contact Us
Menu
Art of Mentoring corporate logo, flying geese colored version

Self-Matching vs Partner Preferencing

Self-Matching, Facilitator Matching, Traditional Mentoring, too many options and types of mentoring so how do I choose…?

At Art of Mentoring, we have deliberately avoided developing self-matching, fast-knowledge-transfer solutions into our platform because we firmly believe that it does not lend itself to real, developmental mentoring. This type of mentoring is a mutual exchange that develops over time, often quickly addressing short term goals and then delving deeply into more substantial conversations around career direction, unhelpful thinking, etc. Developmental, transformational mentoring goes beyond one or two coffee catch ups or a couple of online questions. Like the old adage of “give a man (or woman) a fish and feed him for a day but teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime”, we’re in the business of enabling people for life! Recently a mentor said to us, “Yeah? Open my networks to the mentee, that’s pretty cool, but teach him or her to network, now that’s powerful, isn’t it?”

Technology has a habit of looking for efficiencies to save money and so too has the mentoring industry succumbed, with many mentoring software providers touting self-matching as an administrator-friendly solution, creating a marketplace of mentors for mentees to choose from.

What is self-matching and 3 reasons why it falls short?

In self-match solutions, a mentee is presented with a marketplace of potential matches and can search, then request a match from a preferred mentor. There are a number of reasons why this is fraught with problems and produces less effective matches:

  1. Biased self-selection
    Bias and misguided assumptions lead a mentee to select a partner based on their seniority level (having a senior exec as a mentor can be a status symbol) or whether they like or feel comfortable with them. In fact, matching with someone too senior can be a mistake, and challenge, rather than comfort, is good for a mentoring relationship if the mentee is to be pushed outside their comfort zone.
  2. Availability of the mentor or mentee
    Say you open applications to participants, and mentees log in for the first time to the marketplace of mentors. They notice the C-Suite is available for mentoring at the time and so reach out to the C-Suite in droves, inundating their inboxes with match requests and leaving other mentors disappointed and unwilling to mentor again in future. In addition to this, imagine if the mentor had applied 6-months prior to only be contacted now to mentor, but by this time circumstances have changed and they’re no longer available.
  3. The match maker knows best
    Sometimes the match maker seems to have a magic touch and somehow knows what’s going to work, even if the participants are not convinced at first. The benefit of a matching algorithm and a third-party match maker who can take algorithm suggestions or override them, is that it injects some objectivity into the process.. When the small proportion of facilitator matched participants in a program report they are unhappy with their match, there may be a valid reason to re-match, like “they used to be my direct report” or “they are a competitor”.  But when they say “I was more looking for someone with x, y and z”, or “I’m not sure I will get along with this person”,  our response is “we suggest that you give the match a try and come back to us if not.” 99% of the time these matches see the program through to the end and come back saying “we don’t know how you knew but that was the best match for me!”

When we started to build our alternative to self-matching, we were searching for a way for mentees to have input to their mentor allocation, without leaving them the final choice.

Spawned from research and experience, our new method, called Partner Preferencing,  allows the administrator to oversee and finalise matches, but streamlines the selection process, saving large amounts of time for the administrator. It’s not a silver bullet, there are always trade-offs, but we see it as a better solution. The premise is that mentees are presented with pre-curated mentor options based on agreed match criteria; powered with a smart algorithm. This solution is a great first step towards a more evidence-based way of matching effectively and efficiently. Mentees only see the most compatible mentors’ profiles, then choose which mentors they would be prepared to work with. Research suggests that having some degree of choice via Partner Preferencing is likely to increase a mentee’s commitment to the match and to the program.

Partner Preferencing isn’t going to be the best solution for all but for those, especially with large numbers or participants, this may be a great option to streamline some of the matching process to increase efficiency during the matching phase. At Art of Mentoring, we help you design and implement the most appropriate methodology for your needs so if you think Partner Preferencing sounds interesting or if you’d like to explore if it is for you, then please reach out to our team for a demonstration.  You can consider our Situation Analysis Workshop as a way of testing your program design ideas.

© Alex Richardson 2021

Is it time… for men to seek female mentorship?

In a recently released working paper, Overcoming Gender Discrimination in Business: Reconsidering Mentoring in the Post #Me-Too and Covid-19 Eras, the authors provide an excellent description of the “women are wonderful” effect; men are associated with leadership qualities that are valued in corporate circles — confidence, risk taking and negotiation skills — while women are perceived as better at creating a safe and respectable workplace, valuing people of different backgrounds and considering the impact of business on society. The “women are wonderful” theory explains that the favourability of women is dependent on women behaving in a manner consistent with preconceived gender roles. When women threaten men by competing for traditionally male roles, men tend to withdraw support for them.

As the #MeToo movement has brought many things regarding sexual harassment out into the open, it has led many men to shy away from working with women. We reported on this in our own research report on mentoring post-#MeToo. The authors of the working paper believe that whilst #MeToo has raised awareness of inequality at work, if men resist spending time with women or mentoring more junior women at work, then women will be perceived more and more as the ‘outgroup’. In this way, ‘ingroup’ and ‘outgroup’ bias based on gender appears to have been heightened by #MeToo – the problem snowballs. It is argued that it is not enough to provide tips on how to avoid risk in male-female encounters, and try to encourage men to come forward. Rather, active steps are needed that cause the genders to re-categorize their workplace identities with something other than genders and their stereotyped qualities.

A solution offered in the paper is to have senior women mentor junior men, as a way to recondition the ingroup/ outgroup categorizations of the genders and reduce gender bias in the long term. The authors say “the reality is that it will take substantial effort to encourage senior level men to interact with junior women. These barriers, however, may not apply to encouraging senior women to mentor junior men. Ostensibly, senior women would, unlike their male counterparts, not fear a perception of impropriety or otherwise hesitate at interacting with junior men.”

They go on to say: “This form of mentoring relationship could naturally create the interdependence and cooperative interaction needed to break gender bias. In such a relationship, the success of the junior men would be irrevocably tied to the success of the senior women. The junior men would rely on the senior women for opportunities and their ability to capitalize on these opportunities would be tied to the success and approval of the senior women. This should help normalize cooperative interaction between the genders. Through these mentoring relationships, junior men may then be reconditioned into viewing women and men as belonging to the same workplace group. The interactions would also allow (or force) junior men to confront their gender bias. It is one thing to learn about gender bias through training, it is another to confront gender bias by interacting with women directly. By working with senior women, junior men may grow accustomed to interacting with women in a position of authority and learn to value women for their knowledge and guidance. These interactions would directly counter the prescriptive stereotypes created by the women-are-wonderful effect.”

So, there you have it. If you have senior women in your workplace, make sure they are encouraged to mentor junior men. The authors of the paper do not address how to solve the problem of there not being enough senior women to go around. So, whilst the paper was fascinating and I found myself nodding in agreement throughout, I was not totally convinced by the practicality of the solution.

The value in the paper for me was the description of the “women are wonderful” effect and of male-female ingroup-outgroup bias which has increased post-#MeToo. Knowing this, we should continue to find ways to enable more cross-gender mentorship pairings (or groups) within the relative safety of a formal, structured program, where it is widely known that pairs have been matched by a facilitator.  Fewer questions asked about why the pair is spending time together.

I was also inspired by the authors’ discussion of this form of mentoring as a means to achieve “positive externalities” – benefits that extend beyond the mentor and mentee and the here-and-now, to create constructive change in workgroups, organisations, professions and larger society.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

© Melissa Richardson 2021

Reverse & Reciprocal Mentoring

During the 2020 pandemic, we saw a huge rise in Reciprocal Mentoring – where traditional mentoring pairs flipped roles and mentors discovered they were receiving mentorship from their mentees. But how does Reciprocal Mentoring work and how does this differ from Reverse Mentoring?

Here’s what you will learn in this webinar:

  • Reverse and Reciprocal mentoring – what are they and where have they come from?
  • How to design a Reverse or Reciprocal program
  • Top tips for mentors and mentees in Reverse or Reciprocal relationships.

Presented by:

  • Melissa Richardson
    Managing Director, Art of Mentoring
  • Gina Meibusch
    Client Service Delivery Manager, Art of Mentoring

 

Reviewing the mentor’s motivations towards the mentee

GUEST BLOG

In every mentoring or coaching relationship, patterns gradually become established in how you work with the learner. We fall into roles, which may not be obvious. Reviewing these from time to time helps keep us balanced and prevents those roles becoming “fixed”.

One useful model is the triangle of Protect – Exploit – Equate. Protect refers to the instinct to shield the learner from pain and/or to intervene on the learner’s behalf. It has much in common with the parent-child dimension of transactional analysis. In this mode, we are part-parent and part-hero. We give advice, rather than help the learner work things out for themselves. It taps into all our deep instincts of protecting the vulnerable but can easily lead to being overprotective.

Exploit is the dark side. It is the instinct to manipulate others to our own ends and/or to take advantage of their weaknesses. We don’t like to acknowledge this side of ourselves, but it comes to light in many, often subtle, ways – for example, when the mentor steers the mentee along a path that they wish they had taken. Mentors can sometimes create dependency in their mentees, not recognising that this is a by-product of their own needs for recognition and approbation.

Equate is where we achieve an appropriate equilibrium. It is not that we don’t have the instincts to protect and exploit; they are still there, often both at the same time. The skill of equating lies in being fully aware of them and managing them. Once we get used to acknowledging these instincts, we can put them to better use. For example, if we observe an inclination to exploit, it may lead us to wonder whether other people have similar reactions to the mentee and what the implications might be for the mentee. What is there in their behaviour that makes others view them as exploitable? Similarly, awareness of our own urge to protect might stimulate a stronger focus on helping the mentee achieve greater self-confidence and self-belief.

© David Clutterbuck 2020

9 Lies About Mentoring

I’ve heard it said, a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. What I’m talking about here today is the fake news about mentoring that’s criss-crossing the globe and the fallout we’re suffering, today, because of it. Through challenging these myths about mentoring, I’m going to reveal the truth and what actually works.

  1. Structured mentoring no longer works

The truth: Humans yearn for structure when they are uncertain

It can be hard for people to admit that they’re not sure how to start a mentoring relationship. Structured programs provide tried and true results and are probably needed even more today than ever before. Structured programs train mentors and mentees in their responsibilities and expectations. They train mentors in listening skills to help mentees discover their own goals, and solutions by prompting reflection and deep thinking around their work challenges. Mentors untrained in the art of listening can derail even the best mentoring relationships, by giving misguided advice, forming judgements about the mentee and simply not hearing what the mentee is saying.

  1. Any manager has the skills to mentor

The truth: Any manager has the potential to mentor.

Managing and mentoring are two very different skill sets. Managers come to the table to guide their team to achieve organisational goals. Good mentors, on the other hand, are expected to provide a safe and trusting environment for the mentee to explore and discover their own goals. Mentors use the art of listening and conversation to guide the mentee to their own solutions.

In AIM’s 2020 Leadership Survey,  it was found that the average manager overrates their performance in a number of areas – most notably in Coaching and Mentoring (41.81%), Displaying Emotional Intelligence (39.25%), and Displaying Honesty and Integrity (34.3%). Most managers have a lot to learn when it comes to mentoring – if only they would admit it.

  1. It’s easy to reach out to a mentor

Truth: It’s not easy to approach potential mentors.

In times past, when it was common to have elder members of the community spend unstructured time with less experienced people, the art of mentoring may have been handed down through generations. Today, it’s rare for younger generations to have access to wise counsel through their family and community, particularly for those who come from underrepresented groups in the workplace. Not only that, introverts find it intimidating to reach out to senior members of the workforce for career guidance.

Structured mentoring can make it possible for people from all walks of life to tap into the knowledge and wisdom around them, by having the match made for them.

  1. People choose mentors wisely

Truth: Most people choose a mentoring partner just like themselves.

Choosing mentors can be tricky: There is no one size fits all, and a lot of it comes down to luck and persistence. Left to their own devices, people may try to connect with mentors that are too senior for them, or mentors with whom they feel too comfortable because the mentor looks just like them, just a bit older. There needs to be enough stretch in the match to be sufficiently challenging for the mentee without intimidating them.

  1. Mentoring programs are easy to implement

Truth: Mentoring programs are surprisingly difficult to implement.

There are so many moving parts, including the sheer individuality and unpredictability of humans, it’s no wonder many programs fail!

Yet when a program is successful, participants will unanimously tell you (and everyone they know): “That was the best experience of my life”.

  1. The best mentors are the most successful in their careers

Truth: Career success and the ability to mentor are two very different beasts.

You may have discovered how to achieve excellence in your work by figuring out your uniqueness and how to apply this to the needs of your workplace. Yet helping a mentee to do precisely this is another story.

The best mentors achieve excellence in their ability to help a mentee discover their unique gifts and how to use them to best advantage at their place of work.

They’re gifted in the art of developmental conversations.

  1. The best time to start a mentoring program is when things are stable

Truth: A good time for mentoring can be in periods of disruption.

Organisations facing massive change or disruption change may avoid beginning mentoring programs for team members because they think it will overload them. Yet this is precisely when less experienced team members would benefit from talking with wise mentors. After all, it’s within the process of upheaval that people discover their real strengths and what they’re capable of achieving. The 2020 pandemic has revealed the great extent to which mentoring can be instrumental in maintaining meaningful connections with others – and social connection is important for wellbeing.

  1. The number of participants in a mentoring program equals success

Truth: The number of participants in a mentoring program frequently only reflects the budget!

No, seriously, participant numbers are meaningless. Quality trumps quantity every time in mentoring. It is the mentee’s satisfaction level and goal achievement at the close of the program that truly reflects its success for the individual participants. Did the mentee emerge from the program with a better understanding of their career aspirations, their professional development goals and how to get there? Do they feel more optimistic about their career direction? And did mentors also learn from the experience? These dimensions are how we gauge success.

  1. Mentoring is a “nice to have” but should not be high priority for organisations

Truth: Mentoring delivers a high ROI against many important people goals.

The benefits of mentoring to organisations are numerous. They include helping employees be more successful in their work, reducing turnover, increasing loyalty and helping create new development opportunities for participants. Mentoring programs have the potential to improve these and other measures of employee engagement. Most leaders would be hard pressed to say these are not high priorities for all organisations today.

There you have it—the nuts and bolts of what makes structured mentoring so great. Who would have known that mentoring conversations can deliver such fabulous results? Looks like the truth has put on its pants.

© Melissa Richardson, 2021

Turning Mentoring on its Head: Reverse and Reciprocal Mentoring

In our 2022 research with HR.com on Mentoring in the Workplace,  18% of survey participants had group mentoring programs, 17% had reciprocal mentoring and 9% had reverse mentoring programs.

During the pandemic, we saw a big rise in Reciprocal Mentoring – where traditional mentoring pairs flipped roles and mentors discovered they were receiving mentorship from their mentees.

But how does Reciprocal Mentoring work and how does this differ from Reverse Mentoring? And why are we seeing demand increase for these?

In Reciprocal mentoring, sometimes known as “co–mentoring”, two people work together through a mentoring process in which they both take on the roles of Mentor and Mentee. This could be done by each participating in both roles, or by each person taking a primary role as Mentor or Mentee, but being willing to exchange roles from time to time.

Also known as “upward mentoring”, Reverse mentoring turns the traditional hierarchical approach to mentoring completely on its head. Rather than having a senior player take a less experienced player “under their wing”, reverse mentoring relationships place the more senior person as the primary learner and emphasise the experience of the junior person.

Reverse mentoring is generally credited to Jack Welch, then CEO of General Electric, who in 1999 asked 500 of his top managers to each find a young employee to teach them about the internet. Adopted by some organisations as a means to spread the expertise and tech savvy of younger workers, reverse mentoring is said to foster improved intergenerational relationships, enhance diversity initiatives, drive innovation and engage millennials.

In our research into intergenerational mentoring, there was more widespread interest in and acceptance of Reciprocal Mentoring than Reverse mentoring. Senior executive mentees can struggle with the need to give up control to their more junior mentors and demonstrate willingness to learn. Junior mentors can be intimidated by their more experienced mentees and can have difficulty with the nuanced skills of mentoring someone older and more senior.

Co-mentoring avoids some of these potential challenges by allowing the relationship to develop and flourish first, before the junior person takes on the role of mentor. The more senior person can role-model the skills of mentoring first, encouraging the junior person to step into the role when ready. From here, it becomes a mutual learning experience where juniors get to hone their leadership and interpersonal skills, be heard on issues important to their generation and expand their network into upper organisational levels. The seniors gain greater understanding of issues at lower organisational levels, gain new knowledge and learn new skills.

Reverse mentoring cases tend to divide into four overlapping categories, revolving around:

Technology and knowledge transfer. Ogilvy & Mather managing director Spencer Osborn told the Wall Street Journal that his junior mentors have taught him how to jazz up his Twitter posts, which had a reputation for being “very boring”.

Intergenerational understanding gaps. Alan Webber, the co-founder of Fast Company, is quoted as saying that reverse mentoring is:  “a situation where the old fogies in an organisation realise that by the time you’re in your forties and fifties, you’re not in touch with the future the same way the young twenty-something’s are. They come with fresh eyes, open minds, and instant links to the technology of our future”.

Retention of young employees. Investment banking firm BNY Mellon used Reverse mentoring to increase retention of millennial employees and share digital skills.

Diversity awareness. A higher turnover amongst women in junior and middle management posts was one of the key triggers for the Mentoring Up program introduced in P&G’s marketing division in the US some years ago. Reuters opted for a reverse mentoring programme because it was disappointed with the impact of diversity awareness training.

So, why the increased interest in Reverse and Reciprocal Mentoring in the 2020’s? Our European partners have observed the same trend. My theory is that there are two drivers:

  1. COVID-19 sparked greater interest in mentoring in general, as organisations looked to keep their people connected and supported in meaningful relationships. Traditional mentoring has morphed into reciprocal partnerships organically, as both parties have sought the mutual support to help them make sense of and survive in a rapidly changing and uncertain climate. Post-pandemic talent scarcity has also driven companies to use mentoring to increase engagement and retention.
  2. Organisations are looking for ways to turbo-charge leadership and diversity initiatives. Reverse mentoring has been associated with good outcomes for both, and, like all mentoring programs, Reverse mentoring programs are surprisingly cost-effective.

© Melissa Richardson, 2023

Media Release: Mentor and Mentee of the Year 2020

MEDIA RELEASE
Art of Mentoring announces the winners of their 2020 Mentor of the Year and Mentee of the Year Awards.

Art of Mentoring Awards Karen Johns, Mentor of the Year Award 2020 and Kerrie Gregory, Mentee of the Year 2020

Sydney, 2 DECEMBER, 2020: To celebrate International Mentoring Day in October, Art of Mentoring, an Australian based mentoring business and leading supplier of mentoring programs to associations, corporates, federal and local government, opened nominations for the annual mentoring awards. The company has awarded Karen Johns, the prestigious Mentor of the Year Award 2020. This year’s Mentee of the Year Award goes to Kerrie Gregory.

Ms Johns participated in the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) Mentoring Program and Ms Gregory was a mentee in the NSW Department of Planning, Industry & Environment’s Women in Senior Leadership Mentoring Program.

Art of Mentoring received over 150 nominations for the coveted awards. The winners were selected on the basis of their mentoring partners’ descriptions of their character and behaviour during the mentoring relationship.

What makes an exceptional mentor?
Analysis of the mentor nominations revealed that exemplary mentors were caring and warm, worked hard to build rapport and trust, humble and authentic and a true inspiration to their mentees. They guided the mentee’s learning journey, open doors to their networks, encouraged and motivated and, at times, challenged the mentee to aim higher. They went above and beyond to support their mentee, particularly during stressful times such as job loss. Having the support of a mentor during COVID-19 proved to be invaluable for many.

Ms Johns displayed almost all of the landmark mentor characteristics and was enthusiastically nominated by her mentee.

What separates a stand-out mentee from the rest?
A great mentee starts the relationship with intention and gives the relationship full focus right to the end. Mentees nominated for the awards were well-organised, driven and purposeful. They were courageous about making themselves vulnerable to share their development gaps, open to challenge  and remained accountable for their own success.

Ms Gregory is a perfect example of a mentee who embraced the opportunity with relish and was described by her mentor as having transformed over the course of the relationship.

Art of Mentoring recognises outstanding mentors across programs in Australian organisations and associations
Art of Mentoring also awarded five Highly Commended Awards to outstanding mentors in the following mentoring programs within organisations and associations:

Mentors

  1. Rebecca Blowes, Ministry for Primary Industries, NZ Mentoring Program
  2. Anna Broughton, Australian Institute of Project Management Mentoring Program
  3. Jane Powles, Beaumont People LEAD Mentoring Program

Mentees

  1. Ben Parker, Australian Institute of Project Management Mentoring Program
  2. Zeanda Ragg, a Commonwealth Government agency Mentoring Program

Mentoring helps attract and retain employees and association members through professional development
Art of Mentoring designs, implements and manages mentoring programs for organisations and membership associations throughout Australia.
Studies show that a well-run mentoring program helps attract and retain employees by demonstrating an organisation’s or association’s commitment to talent development. Mentoring is also instrumental in preparing the next generation of leaders. Researchers have shown that teaching people high quality mentoring skills, helps them develop their transformational leadership capacities.1 There is also growing consensus that mentors benefit as much as mentees in this regard.

For associations, attracting and retaining members is critical to their financial viability. A well-structured and managed mentoring program offers significant returns by providing high quality professional development that engages their member base and advances the profession or industry they represent.

[1] Kram, K. and Ragins, B.R. (2007) The Landscape of Mentoring in the 21st Century. In K. Kram & B.R. Ragins (Eds.) The Handbook of Mentoring at Work (pp. 659-692), CA: Sage.

Mentoring Program Business Plan Template

People come to us saying they want to implement a mentoring program, and whilst they know they will be asked to submit a business case in order to get approval, they just don’t know where to start.

To make it easy for you to get internal support, we have created this Mentoring Program Business Plan Template that will take you through the key points you will need to cover, to get your mentoring program approved. Packed with our tips on program design and references for supporting information and data, we hope this will make your job much, much easier.

Association Case Studies – Engaging members with mentoring webinar

Join Art of Mentoring‘s CEO Melissa Richardson, Senior Program Designer Gina Miebusch and guest panellists Elizabeth Foley, CEO of the Australian Institute of Project Management and Monika Cole, Executive Officer Veterinary Business and Early Career Groups, Australian Veterinary Association, as we discuss how mentoring can engage members at any level. The panel explores how mentoring can give members a feeling of belonging, provide them with ongoing, meaningful development and help retain them.

Discussion Topics:

  • How two associations implemented mentoring and why they are achieving results with mature programs that have become firmly-embedded into the associations and their membership
  • Different types of programs that can be used
  • How to engage and retain members with mentoring
  • How to involve corporate partners in a mentoring program