Working
with the right mentor, can and will be extremely rewarding, on both the
professional and personal front, for both the mentor and mentee. JP Morgan
Chase has an excellent mentor program. One of the research programmes they ran
revealed that over 87 % of protégés, reported significant career advancement,
as a result of the mentoring program. They also reported massive improvements
in their confidence levels and things in their personal lives improved as well.
Creating a Great Mentorship
program
The
first thing to remember is that a mentorship program, is never a substitute for
leadership, nor is it a replacement for an appropriate training and development
program, within your organisation. Mentorship is always a complimentary program
to support great leadership and targeted training.
Remember
that a winning mentorship relationship is one built on trust, between two
individuals. It is basically one where, the more experienced person provides
insights and guidance to the less experienced one. In many cases they also help
the other person make the right contacts, with the right people too.
Make it part of the
organisational DNA
To
really be successful with any mentoring program within your organisation, it
needs to not be something separate from the organisation. It must become an
integral part of the DNA or culture within the organisation. Right from the
recruiting phase, you should look to hire people, who are willing to listen and
who have an appetite for teaching. Remember that a great mentor fills the role
of both a teacher and a trusted friend. To really be successful, you should not
only mentor a few rising stars within your organisation, but try to ensure that
everyone within your organisation is supported. When mentoring is an entrenched
culture within your organisation, it is far easier than you think to support
and guide everyone to greatness.
Making this work in your
organisationü
- Make mentoring part of the DNA of your organisation. It should be an integral part of what your organisation wants. As everyone within your organisation grows, so too will your business over time.
- Identify a good passionate and driven leader within your organisation, to champion your mentoring program. This will help keep the program focused and support the program to grow and flourish.
- Identify people within your organisation, who are good listeners, great teachers and truly passionate about guiding and supporting others to grow. They should not mentor anyone to get a feather in their own cap, but rather for the greater good of the organisation.
- Invest resources to train your mentors. Clearly define their roles and establish boundaries, to support both parties to make the mentor process work.
- Nominate mentees and try to match them as perfectly as possible with their mentors. The better the fit, the greater will be the benefit enjoyed from the programme. The best fit often comes when the mentee, gets to choose their mentor themselves.
- Create a very clear framework for the relationship. The best results come from longer term relationships, so try to ensure that the relationship will be for a minimum of one year. Set a minimum number of meetings, which should be conducted during this period. Bi-weekly seems to work best. Once you have given them a formal platform, allow them to develop things more naturally going forward.
- Schedule gatherings for all mentors and mentees to get together. This gives them the opportunity to connect with each other and allows them to share experiences. Quarterly meetings for mentors and mentees, is a great way to learn from each other and build on experiences.
- Regularly measure success. As you monitor your mentoring program. Check to see if it is delivering on expectations. Are the mentees growing and improving the professional success and is the level of job satisfaction for both the mentor and mentee, where it should be?
The
mentoring program, within your organisation, will be a fulfilling experience
for both the mentors and mentees and will help your organisation to expand and flourish.
As you know this will be a worthwhile endeavour for any organisation.
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