Page 9 – ART OF MENTORING

Mentoring Expert Interview Series

Lisa Fain, an ambassador for International Mentoring Association interviews a variety of mentoring experts about what interesting things they have discovered in their mentoring journeys and also taps into their knowledge and experiences to share with you. Today she interviews our Managing Director, Melissa Richardson.

In this podcast Melissa goes into depth on some of our most current research studies including how the #metoo movement has affected male/female mentoring relationships. She discusses our findings in intergenerational mentoring and the research project we recently released: Benchmark Report 2020. Take a listen!‘

October is Mental Health Month

It is Mental Health Month in Australia. We all experience sadness and stress sometimes – these are natural human responses to the challenges of life. It’s normal to feel stressed if your job security is threatened, or you don’t know how you can pay your bills, or to feel sad in response to loss. How can you distinguish these normal feelings from the mental health conditions, depression and anxiety and where can you go for help?

We asked our good friend and wellness expert Thea O’Connor for an easy-to-understand resource that you can use for reference if you suspect your mentoring partner needs specialist help (or you do).

DOWNLOAD RESOURCE

Thea O’Connor
“I thrive on encouraging people to develop the inner attitudes, daily practices, and group norms that will allow them to live and work with zest. And it all starts with the body – the non-negotiable foundation of our lives. The human body is AMAZING and I have a deep respect for it’s intelligence and honesty.”

Website: thea.com.au
LinkedIn: Thea O’Connor

Mentor Training

Two of the Art of Mentoring team looking at a laptop together.

Great managers often don’t make great mentors automatically. Mentoring takes a certain skillset to get the most out of the conversation, in particular active listening. These skills can be an asset in the workplace to get the most out of direct reports. To help your mentors become good at what they do it is important to support them with training.

The word mentor appears for the first time in Greek mythology, in Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, took on the guise of an old man called Mentor and advised Telemachus along his journey to find his father, the king, who was fighting in the Trojan War. Mentoring is an age-old concept that exists in different forms in Indigenous communities. Whilst many have attempted to modernise the craft, it still holds a certain important role within the social fabric of all humans no matter what culture or country one stems from.

Despite mentoring’s roots within human relationships in most societies, it can still be a difficult relationship to navigate. Some do it better than others. Professor David Clutterbuck quotes from his research that 1 in 3 mentoring relationships succeed when there is no training – so that’s 2 in 3 that are likely to fail. When you train the mentor the success rate tends to double and when you train the mentee too then success rates soar.

Apart from the skills that mentors learn from training it also helps set up the most basic fundamentals such as how to build rapport and trust, getting housekeeping set up early such as meeting frequency and what mentoring looks like vs coaching.

Any mentor training should cover at the very least:

What is mentoring and where does it come from
How to set the relationship up for success from the outset
Conversational techniques mentors use to help the mentee set goals and plan to achieve them
Other mentoring skills and tools, such as guiding, challenging, role modelling and summarising
What mentoring isn’t and how to avoid common mistakes – preferably with some examples so people can see the impact when it’s done poorly

Beyond the basics, you could delve into some more advanced techniques and learnings around powerful questioning, how to effectively support change, building confidence in a mentee, helping with ethical decision making, the list goes on. In certain circumstances it is also important to consider differences between the two individuals in the relationship and preparing them for those differences. Programs for diversity objectives, such as mentoring for women and Indigenous programs, are particularly in need of these preparative measures to be put in place to remove some common pitfalls such as unconscious bias or judgements, stereotyping and handling imposter syndrome in less privileged minority groups.

If you are looking for some training for your mentors then take a look at the Art of Mentoring options here – https://artofmentoring.net/online-training-for-mentors-and-mentees/

In the meantime you are probably looking for some good articles to support your mentors with so below is a quick curation of some of our best blogs to help you.

An important skill for any mentor is to reflect on their own practice. Reflection is important at all moments of the relationship but especially important at the end. Here is a good short article on how to effectively reflect on ones experience as a mentor – https://artofmentoring.net/the-critical-art-of-reflection/

Give a person fish and feed them for a day, teach a person to fish and feed them for a lifetime. This mantra should carry over to a mentor’s goals for their mentoring relationships. The purpose of the mentor is to help their mentee thrive in the circumstances for which they are requesting guidance. Here is some helpful information on how to help a mentee thrive – https://artofmentoring.net/mentors-help-your-mentee-thrive/

Asking the right questions can be hard and asking powerful questions without them feeling mechanical or premeditated is even harder. There are many resources out there that help guide coaches and mentors on how to question effectively so here is a quick resource to get your thoughts moving around 5 different modalities of questioning – https://artofmentoring.net/five-modes-questioning/

Affected by Covid-19? Mentoring across geographies, interstate or internationally? If you answered yes to one of these then chances are that you are running a virtual mentoring relationship. These can be difficult to manage but there’s evidence that shows it has its advantages. Here is an article on how to do virtual mentoring well https://artofmentoring.net/guide-to-virtual-mentoring/

Don’t take trust for granted. Mentors often have a hard time building rapport and trust, especially if this is their first time. Actually, building trust is often counterintuitive for mentors because it requires some less natural skillsets such as listening before providing advice or demonstrating accountability (despite the fact that the mentor is likely volunteering their time). Here is an article on how to build trust – https://artofmentoring.net/mentors-build-trust/

How to create a coaching and mentoring culture in your organisation

GUEST BLOG:

Most organisations of more than a few hundred people have some experience of coaching. They may have employed a professional coach to support an executive, or given line managers some instruction on how to coach. But this is a long way from achieving a coaching and mentoring culture. Indeed, we can identify four stages of a coaching and mentoring culture:

Nascent – some uncoordinated and ad hoc activity, little or no engagement from the top, few if any links with business priorities and values
Tactical – some attempt to control and coordinate coaching / mentoring activities; training programmes; focus on coaching and mentoring to support specific business outcomes
Strategic – a coherent plan to link coaching and mentoring with the business priorities and values, with measurement of progress
Embedded – an integral part of the way we do things, with top management acting as role models for coaching and mentoring behaviours

This article explores four questions:

What do we mean by a coaching and mentoring culture?
Why should we want to create one?
What does it look like?
What do we need to do to create one?

What do we mean by a coaching and mentoring culture?

A formal definition of a coaching and mentoring culture is that it is one, where:

Coaching is the predominant style of managing and working together, and where a commitment to grow the organisation is embedded in a parallel commitment to grow the people in the organisation.
Mentoring enlarges the scope of the coaching culture, so that it encompasses not just skills and performance, but the holistic development of the each individual and his or her career

Why should we want to create a coaching and mentoring culture?

The simple answer is that organisations need to be flexible and adaptable to survive and that coaching and mentoring support doing so by:

Creating the habit of challenging processes, behaviours and assumptions
Speeding up the transfer of knowledge – especially in the context of indigenisation — and the pace of innovation
Making succession more robust and better able to encompass changes in the internal and external corporate environment

At the same time, coaching and mentoring reduce the turnover of talent; improve employee engagement and job commitment; contribute to performance at both individual and team level (the connection with business performance is less easy to demonstrate, but is a logical consequence); and are among the most effective methods of tackling issues of diversity and equal opportunities.

Studies from the US show that the performance of top teams in large companies is strongly and positively correlated with the amount of time the executives spend in coaching and being coached, or in using coaching approaches to address issues such as strategic planning.

What does a coaching and mentoring culture look like?

In a coaching and mentoring culture, people see the value of developing themselves and others – and take responsibility for both. They value time for reflection, with the result that better preparation and thinking around why things need to be done ensures that activity is more closely aligned with business priorities. People feel free to say what they think, rather than what is expected of them. They are more likely to seek their next job within the company, rather than outside. Coaching and mentoring are aligned – with coaching being focused more of skills, performance and behaviour in the current role (what do you want to achieve?); and mentoring focused more on longer term, career and more holistic outcomes (who do you want to become?).

What do we need to do to create a coaching and mentoring culture?

The first requirement in creating a coaching and mentoring culture is a strategic plan that explores all the potential components in terms of:

Applications of coaching and mentoring
Resources required – including education, marketing, and other forms of support
Timelines
Critical roles for HR, top management and other stakeholders

Typically, both coaching and mentoring deliver best results when they are closely linked to either a business objective (for example, diversity management, rapid induction of new employees, or to helping a new project team hit the ground running); or to a transition for the coachee or mentee (for example, from one level of management to another, or from good performance in an aspect of their work to great performance).

Some of the key ingredients of a coaching strategy include:

Quality and value for money in using external coaches. There is no correlation between what coaches charge, or the number of hours of coaching they have done, or even client feedback (because many clients don’t know what to look for) and quality. Accreditation is at best a sign of fitness to practice – it doesn’t tell you whether the coach is world class or below average. Wise buyers of coaching have robust methods of assessing external coaches on criteria that include how well they will fit the particular organisation.
Creating an internal cadre of experienced, semi-professional coaches. Well-trained internal coaches can be at least as capable as the average externally-resourced coach. Plus they have the added value of knowing the organisation. A downside may be that they may sometimes be intimidated by more senior coachees. Some companies now support their internal coaches and line manager coaches through professional supervision, to encourage continuous development in the role and to maintain standards of safety.
Coaching within the work team is the fulcrum of culture change. Sending people on line manger as coach courses on its own is often a waste of money, because the newly learned skills are not embedded in the team culture. Good practice is to educate the entire team about how to coach and be coached; and to provide opportunities for the team to decide how to apply their learning to improve collective performance.
Team coaching is an intervention by a specialist coach from outside the team, with the objective of helping the team develop its coaching culture. It requires a deep understanding of both coaching and team dynamics. Well-founded team coaching accreditation courses are now available in several countries in Europe.
Companies serious about developing a coaching and mentoring culture usually measure their progress. They also measure the quality of coaching within teams and by externally resourced coaches; and the impact of mentoring on both individuals and the business. A pragmatic measure of the quality of mentoring programmes are the International Standards for Mentoring and Coaching Programmes (ISMCP)
Top management sponsors and role models are essential in getting buy-in across the organisation – as with any major cultural change!
Coaching and mentoring management. A head of coaching and mentoring is helpful in achieving consistency and maximising use of resources.

Achieving this kind of culture change doesn’t happen quickly – it may take years. The investment of money does not have to be high (indeed, top down high cost training interventions have a poor track record in terms of return on investment). What works is having a coherent, long-term and practical approach that harnesses people’s energy to improve individual and collective performance.

Indigenous Mentoring

The Indigenous Mentoring webinar will explore best practices in mentoring program delivery and how to tailor the design to Indigenous cohorts when they are mentors, mentees or both. Join our presenters as they talk to their experience of implementing Indigenous Programs and how to tailor that in particular to government applications.

Presenter
Gina Meibusch, Client Service Delivery Manager, Art of Mentoring

Guest Panellists
Karyn Ervin, Director of Inclusion, APSC
Tim Donovan, Managing Director, Warrgambi

Mentoring Development Needs & Outcomes: Benchmark Report 2020

We’ve been collecting data across thousands of mentors and mentees in our programs for the last three years. In this webinar we will share with you the highlights of what we’ve learned about what mentees say they are seeking from their mentoring experience. There may be some surprises.

This webinar was based on findings in the 2020 Benchmark Report that can be accessed here: Benchmark Report 2020

Benchmark Report 2020

RESEARCH REPORT:
What mentees need, what mentors offer and 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 drew on anonymised data from 13,000+ mentoring applications and surveys completed by 1,500+ mentors and mentees. Because many of our clients use our mentoring application and survey templates, we were able to use data from commonly worded questions. The diverse nature of the programs, including graduate, early career, mid-career, late career cohorts, means the mentees and mentors in the sample are of all age groups, generations and gender. In-company and professional membership programs are included, therefore a variety of professions, industries and thousands of employing organisations are represented. There is a bias to white-collar employees in the sample, but it is not exclusively so.

The findings of this report are outlined in our webinar Mentoring Development Needs and Outcomes which can be viewed here: Mentoring Development Needs and Outcomes

What makes a great mentoring program manager?

One part match-maker, another part relationship counsellor, mixed with liberal doses of financial controller, communications specialist, trainer and project manager. That’s what makes up the unique characteristics of a great program manager. The role is so broad that it’s actually quite hard to do really well at all aspects.

The European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) administers a Global Coach/Mentor Program Manager Training Quality Award (PMQA). This Award has 12 professional core standards against which program managers are assessed. I’ve grouped them into six:

Program Planning. An effective mentoring program manager designs a program to suit the context and clearly identifies the purpose, scope and goals, making the methodology available to key stakeholders.
Program governance, stakeholder management, risks and issue management. Good program management requires effective reporting to stakeholders, ability to balance and skilfully navigate different agendas of participants, program team and wider stakeholders. Good governance includes maintaining high ethical standards and duty of care. A skilled program manager identifies risk up front and makes timely adjustments to suit a changing context.
Budgeting and ROI. It is the program manager’s role to ensure the program is adequately funded and delivers a return on investment.
Recruit, select, match, train and supervise participants. Great program managers design and implement effective processes for these core activities, ideally informed by evidence. They establish a suitable supervision or reflective practice plan for participants.
Program evaluation and quality assurance. An evaluation strategy and methodology must be identified at the beginning so that program effectiveness can be assessed. The program manager will apply quality assurance processes, enabling individual, training or program accreditation as appropriate.
Focus on self. A great program manager is highly self-aware and invests in continuing professional development for the role.

The best program managers I know have the ability to balance empathy with assertiveness. The role requires outstanding listening and communication skills, so that mentors and mentees will open up and seek assistance when needed. At the same time, an accomplished program manager knows when to push the responsibility back to participants as needed, and how to push back on stakeholders’ (sometimes) unreasonable demands. For programs with large numbers, numeracy and a degree of tech savviness are also needed.

The role requirements are often under-estimated. Whilst there is a degree of administration in the role, a good program manager has wisdom and judgement that junior administrators lack. It is also highly rewarding. There is nothing better than mentor and mentee feedback when the mentoring experience has been life-changing. It is a gift to have the opportunity to enable that for others.

Mentoring Development Needs & Outcomes

12 noon to 1pm, 11 August 2020 AEST

We explore:

What mentees are looking for and how this compares with what mentors think they can offer
How mentees and their mentors evaluate their mentoring experience
The impact of mentoring for both parties

You can register to attend the webinar here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4526334632273761794

Can’t attend? Simply register your details and we will send you a recording instead.

Are you mentorable?

In her TED Talk “No one is talking to mentees” Victoria Black describes her research study which examined mentoring program websites across 187 post-secondary institutions. She found that only 19% addressed ‘mentorability’ by defining mentee characteristics and expectations, compared to 37% which defined mentor characteristics and expectations. Her conclusion? That, on the whole, mentoring programs do a pretty poor job of preparing participants, especially mentees, for the mentoring engagement.

We know about this. We advise that training mentees is just as important as program briefing for mentors. It raises the probability that mentees will engage from a ‘mentorable’ stance, and that mentors know what is expected of them.

But what do we mean by ‘mentorability’? There is very little in published research about mentorability. On the other hand, there are studies of what makes someone ‘coachable’ – a very closely related term. Kretzachmar¹ studied ‘coachability’ or ‘readiness for coaching’ and developed a ‘coaching client readiness’ theoretical model which has six themes that influence coaching readiness.

Culture and class. Whilst it may seem politically incorrect to mention this, the researcher argues that the person’s context and background determines whether they have essential skills like reflexivity, self-awareness and the ability to take responsibility.
Knowledge about coaching. Many people don’t really know what coaching (or mentoring) is. How can I be ready for something, if I don’t know what to be ready for?
Access to coaching. Cost and lack of time can make coaching inaccessible to many.
Psychological interpretations. Being ready for coaching is influenced by how people interpret themselves and the world. Lack of confidence and self-esteem is a reported barrier to engagement in the coaching process and indeed, to participating in adult learning. Being psychologically and emotionally stable enables people to deal with feedback and explore deeper issues that allow movement forward.
Feeling safe. A coachee needs to feel safe within the coach-coachee relationship, but also in the organisation offering the coaching.
Commitment to change. It’s more than just turning up. Time and place play an important role in the change process. People who make the most of coaching feel a sense that this is the perfect time for coaching to be happening.

These 6 factors could just as readily be applied to ‘mentorability’ as coachability’. The factors are a combination of knowledge, skills, experiences and attitude. It’s not just a matter of telling potential mentees to have the ‘right’ mindset in order to be mentorable. As mentoring program managers, it is incumbent upon us to:

Understand that some people, by virtue of their context, prior knowledge and personality, will be immediately more mentorable than others.
Educate potential mentees about what mentoring is, what their roles and responsibilities are, what they can expect of a mentor and the organisation offering mentoring, and what they can achieve if they commit themselves to the process.
Suggest that a mentorable mindset includes such characteristics as openness, willingness to be vulnerable and viewing feedback, not at criticism, but a valuable tool for their development.
Help provide a safe environment by emphasising confidentiality, making sure mentees and mentors feel well-supported and that mentors are equipped to undertake the role of a mentor.
Make mentoring as accessible to as many people as possible, from different backgrounds. It should not be just for an elite few. Suggest ways that mentoring can fit easily into busy schedules, so it remains accessible.

So how mentorable are you? Try this quiz:

What do I know about mentoring, and if not much, how could I find out more?
How will my cultural background and prior experiences affect my openness to mentoring? Do I have the skills for reflection and self-exploration?
Will I make time for mentoring? Being too busy is just an excuse – we make time for the things we find important. Is now the right time?
Do I feel emotionally ready to take feedback and try new things that my mentor might suggest, even though it might scare me?
Am I willing to work hard to build rapport with my mentor so that we can establish a trusting relationship? (sometimes chemistry takes a bit of time and takes a little work)
Will I do more than just turn up and wait for my mentor to ‘do it for me’?

I don’t believe mentorability is a fixed state. I know that there are times when I am not at all coachable or mentorable. It’s a question of being self-aware enough to know how ready you are for mentoring, moment by moment, and working towards having more mentorable moments.

Kretzachmar, I. (2010) Exploring Client’s Readiness for Coaching, International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring Special Issue No. 4, October