Mentoring
is now an established learning and development tool used by organisations and
individuals alike as a key component of talent management, performance
management, on the job learning and change management to mention but a few
reasons.
In many
cases mentoring delivers what other more common interventions – such as
training – cannot hope to achieve, but especially ownership and accountability – a key
factor in organisational success!
However,
mentoring is less intuitive than it is generally acknowledged when
it comes to its implementation and even more, when it comes to keeping momentum
in an established programme. That is why
many mentoring programmes quickly fizzle out or disappoint the parties
involved.
The following three questions are not the only ones that an organisation should be investigating, but attempting to answer them will undoubtedly help in setting you and your organisation up on the pathway to success.
The following three questions are not the only ones that an organisation should be investigating, but attempting to answer them will undoubtedly help in setting you and your organisation up on the pathway to success.
#1 – Is the organisation ready for mentoring?
Let’s face
it – mentoring is not everyone’s ‘cup of
tea’ and there will be organisations that are not mentoring-ready. Common
reasons for this are:
Ø Internal
communication channels are constrained
Ø Transparency,
openness and trust are not practiced values
Ø There are limited
opportunities to nurture and develop employees
Ø Education
and learning is not core to the organisation.
As you take a long, hard look at
your organisation you may find that enough of the above exists to make
mentoring successful. This is also likely to happen when the organisation
practices talent management and succession planning, has clear learning and
development policy and values diversity. On the other hand it is possible that
mentoring may have to wait a bit, until one or more of these areas are fully
addressed.
#2 –
What is the organisation hoping to achieve through mentoring and how?
As mentioned, mentoring programmes can be helpful in a
variety of contexts but are no panacea. Thus, it is critical to think through
which outcomes the organisation is hoping to achieve in the short, medium, and
long term. Are you looking to mentor for performance? Are you providing
mentoring to support an existing leadership programme? Are you perhaps hoping
to achieve greater employee engagement? Whatever the reason, it will be good to
thoroughly investigate your objectives in order to fully understand how
mentoring will contribute to achieving the outcomes.
Next is the format, meaning how mentoring will actually take
place. Will it be one to one or group? Formal or informal? Structure or
unstructured? There are almost as many
ways as there are organisations and no one-size-fit- all answer. So it may be
worthwhile piloting a couple of different schemes to evaluate what works best
for your purpose.
#3 What resources –
including budget - does the organisation need to make available?
Any kind of mentoring programme will require support in the
form of coordination, recruitment of mentors and mentees, training of mentors
and mentees, communication/PR/Events, possibly an ambassador programme and so
on. Even the most basic and informal mentoring programme will require some
administrative support, as well as monitoring and review.
It is important not to underestimate these costs as without
a budget - however small – the programme may never go further than the planning
stage. A mentoring programme does not need to cost a lot, but it would be wrong
to assume that it won’t cost the organisation anything, if only in terms of
time and internal resources. It is also important to acknowledge that not all expertise
may be available in-house and that taking short-cuts (such as not training
mentors and mentees or not monitoring activities) will only increase the risk
of not achieving the desirable outcomes.
In summary, any organisation looking at initiating a mentoring
programme should ensure that context, purpose and resources are clearly aligned
to support its successful implementation.
Do you need any help with your mentoring programme? Feel free to contact me for an informal chat!
Jacket Leather Indonesia
ReplyDeleteCivet Coffee Indonesia
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