Those that have benefited from having a mentor range from Alexander the Great to maverick entrepreneur, Richard Branson. It seems obvious… what better way to learn the skills and knowledge of those at the top than by sharing their wisdom? Anna Tobin looks at the role of mentoring as an effective and cost-effective way to develop top-tier talent. This is not just another feel-good tactic employed by HR, it can really make a difference to your leadership pipeline.
Mentoring is the new buzzword in HR management. It can be seen at work in organisations as different as the NHS and Tesco. It seems that everyone is talking about mentoring. Ask a group of HR professionals to define it, however, and you are guaranteed to spark an interesting and possibly heated debate. Defining mentoring as a concept is not easy as each experience, and what is gained from it, is unique to the individuals involved.
At first glance, mentoring could be seen in a similar light to coaching, but they are quite different concepts. Jo Bond, marketing director for Savile Group, which comprises Cedar Talent Management and Fairplace, explains:
“A mentor is a trusted confidential adviser, friend, guide, counsellor, tutor, confidante, role model; usually an older, wiser, more experienced individual who mentors a younger, less experienced ‘student’.”
Coaching is now more typically used to refer to developing and enhancing individuals in particular skills, methodologies and practices to improve performance – both for the individual and their organisation. This could be coaching them as newly appointed managers, to improve their presentation skills or to operate as successful non-executive directors. It can be sub-divided into: leadership coaching, onboarding coaching, performance coaching as well as many other categories.
Informal mentoring has been going on in work situations, often without being acknowledged, for centuries as employees often find other work colleagues to look up and aspire to. “Mentoring has always been around in almost every society – even the most primitive. It gained prominence first in Ancient Greece where, for example, Aristotle mentored Alexander the Great,” says Bond, adding, “Multinationals have been using mentoring in a formal sense globally for years. It has been prevalent in an ‘unofficial’ capacity for as long as groups of people have worked together. Think of the apprentice or master concept in learning a trade or skill or craft – this is classic mentoring.”
Increasingly, however, employers of both large and small organisations are implementing official mentoring programmes that they can evaluate easily – and this is not limited to Western-style companies.
“Many global organisations employ mentoring as a tool and there is evidence of its practice worldwide. In fact, there is clear evidence of a strong cultural fit for organisations in the Far East where there is a real tradition in seeking senior sponsors,” says Simon Wilde, director of people development at Capita Resourcing.
Within a formal mentoring programme, you can create mentors within the organisation or bring in ‘professional’ mentors from outside. Many organisations and professions have mentoring programmes in which newcomers are paired with more experienced people to obtain good advice and learn best practices as they advance. Mentors help mentees advance their careers, enhance their education and build their networks.
“Many of the world's most successful people have benefited from having a mentor, including Richard Branson, who was mentored by Freddie Laker,” says Bond.
Fiona Lander, managing director of performance development and training specialists Lander Associates, adds: “Mentoring helps someone become what they aspire to be, and unlike a manager or supervisor, a mentor isn’t a strong authority figure.
“A mentor doesn’t necessarily have to perform the same role as the mentee – it depends on the level. If a senior consultant is mentoring a junior consultant then, yes, they do need to operate in the same area. But if a managing director is mentoring an upcoming leader, then they don’t need to work in the same area as it is about sharing business thinking and leadership skills.”
If the mentor is working within the same field Judith Germain, managing director of Dynamic Transitions Ltd, warns that: “One of the reasons it is preferable that the mentor is not the direct manager of the mentee is it enables the mentor to be unshackled from the responsibility of the pay and reward of the employee. This will allow the employee to be more honest in their feedback and concerns.”
There are also other benefits to be gained from taking the mentee out of their job area as this allows them to gain a greater perspective of how the wider organisation works and how they can grow within it. And, it also helps the employers by helping them build their talent pool. Mentoring increases the visibility of talent across the organisation and draws highly talented employees to the attention of the senior management team.
“In every organisation there is ‘hidden talent’ and mentoring can be a key factor in identifying potential across the organisation. There are also obvious benefits to developing future leaders in exposing them at the earliest opportunity to a wider view of their organisation. Many organisations still operate in silos and breaking this down can only better equip potential future leaders for their roles to come,” explains Wilde.
Lander believes that organisations have nothing to lose from setting up in-house mentoring schemes, she says: “I’d encourage organisations to set up mentoring as part of their internal strategy. With technology such as the internet, it is even possible to have a mentor in a different country. Obviously, it depends on the type of mentoring and the purpose of it, but it is absolutely an opportunity to share cultures and broaden thinking, providing benefits for both parties.
“The process is good for the mentor as well as the mentee as it makes them feel valued and provides them with a new challenge. It can not only be hugely successful in supporting development and career progression, but it can be a useful tool in difficult situations, such as redundancy and a change programme.”
This internal support is essential and is a great way of increasing communication within an organisation, sharing best practices and maximising the potential talent. It is a way of showing your employees they
are valued and that you are investing in them.
External mentors
Mentors can also come from outside the organisation. Marilyn Huckerby is network director of the Enterprise Hub Network, a team of SEEDA-backed business experts working across the South East set up to help high growth businesses in the area reach their potential. She says external mentors can be very effective.
“Our Enterprise Hub Network mentoring is aimed at high growth small businesses so we are helping teams that are responsible for all aspects of running a business. It is, therefore, important the mentor understands how to grow a business overall, and not focus on just one business function.
“It is not the mentor’s job to tell the finance director how cash flow works, for example, but to help the whole management team understand the issues around their cash flow and how these can be improved, as well as how they tie in with all the other related issues, such as sales, marketing, barriers to growth, product development, and HR.
Having a background in the specific businesses sector can be an advantage to a mentor, particularly in areas where the market is complex. However, a mentor who is too close to a company’s market can approach the programme with pre-conceived ideas, whereas someone whose experience is in a different market may be better able to take a more objective approach, drawing out the real business issues, rather than getting tied up in those relating just to the product or service. Backgrounds can have advantages and disadvantages, but the important issue is to ensure that the chemistry between the mentor and the company is right from the start.
“We have found that bringing in different mentors at different times to help a company can be very beneficial as the issues change and the company progresses. We have also found that a group of mentors working with a client in a brainstorming session on a particular issue can produce fantastic results,” explains Huckerby.
There are a number of permutations of mentoring – official, unofficial, in-house, external – and alternate methods work for different individuals, organisations and situations. What everyone is in agreement over is that mentoring, whatever its form, helps in the discovery, nurturing, management and retention of talent.
Case study: An internal mentoring scheme
Juliet Crisp, head of Everyone Welcome at Tesco and Flexibility at Tesco, explains the reasoning behind Tesco’s mentoring scheme: “Although the programme is open to all, it is principally targeted at developing under-represented groups within the business; for example, women and people from ethnically diverse backgrounds. It is designed to benefit both the mentee and mentor’s professional development.”
Tesco encourages a pro-active approach from both mentor and mentorees. “Senior leaders nominate themselves as mentors. They identify talented individuals and help accelerate their development, particularly people who are different from them in some way,” Juliet says. “We also encourage people who want a mentor to approach a senior leader. We have a simple guide for mentors and mentees to use; however, they develop their working relationship together to suit their individual needs. We have seen a number of people taking on bigger roles as a result of mentoring and we are using our recently formed Women's Network to extend the programme. At the same time, we are encouraging more senior leaders to be a mentor as a learning opportunity for them.”
Case study: The professional mentor
Lisa Rossetti is a mentor and executive coach in the NHS and she sees a clear definition between coaching and mentoring – although benefits can be gained from both concepts.
“I’ve previously worked as a trainer and I did management training in the NHS,” she explains. “I trained as a mentor about three years ago, to add a slightly different tool to my tool box.
“Coaching is about helping people get what they want without doing it for them and mentoring is more about sharing and passing on knowledge.
“I now see a senior manager in the NHS for an hour once a month. I give advice, I share knowledge and the conversation focuses on him – his career, how to move him on, raise his profile and feel more confident about his skills.
“He says he has gained a lot of insight into his own strengths and become more confident in his vision, which we have created together, of where he wants to be. We are now putting in place steps he needs to take to get there. He is definitely enjoying the experience.”
