Mentorship and coaching are essential skills for team leaders who want to grow their careers and help others do the same. In this article, you will learn how to design and facilitate a workshop that fosters a culture of learning and feedback among your team members.
Before you plan your workshop, you need to clarify what you want to achieve and how you will measure it. Do you want to improve your team's performance, communication, collaboration, or innovation? Do you want to develop specific competencies, such as problem-solving, decision-making, or conflict resolution? Do you want to create a personal development plan for each team member? Write down your goals and outcomes in SMART terms: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
As part of a pilot mentoring program, my team and I set the following goals: - Highlight the benefits of mentorship and coaching for leadership development, collaboration, and communications. - Inspire participants to seek out mentors/coaches to help create professional development plans. - Connect participants to potential mentors/coaching resources emphasizing DEI. The target outcomes from the pilot program were: - Participants understood the value of mentoring/coaching relationships - Participants identified 1-2 potential mentors to engage with post-workshop - Participants learned how to set SMART development goals based on coaching conversations. - Participants left with a post-workshop action plan for engaging mentors.
Next, you need to decide how you will deliver your workshop and what methods you will use to engage your team. Will you use a face-to-face, online, or hybrid format? How long will your workshop be and how will you divide the time? Will you use lectures, discussions, case studies, simulations, role-plays, or games? How will you balance theory and practice, individual and group work, and feedback and reflection? Choose the format and methods that suit your goals, outcomes, and audience.
For our pilot mentoring program, we started with a small group of participants using a structured approach. We started with a group discussion on benefits and best practices; this included storytelling from leaders who have been mentored/coached. Next, we created structured networking activities to identify potential mentors where participants were encouraged to share self-assessments and reflection questions to identify development needs. We ended the workshop with goal-setting and action planning for participants to engage with a mentor/coach afterward. The methods used were highly interactive and experiential. Storytelling, networking, and reflections ensured the learning would stick.
Now, you need to prepare the materials and resources that you will use during your workshop. These may include slides, handouts, worksheets, exercises, scenarios, quizzes, surveys, or tools. Make sure that your materials and resources are clear, concise, and relevant to your topic. Also, make sure that you have the necessary equipment, software, and platforms to run your workshop smoothly and effectively.
As the day of your workshop approaches, there are a few steps you can take to facilitate mentorship and coaching during the event. Begin with an icebreaker that helps your team get to know each other and build rapport. Then, set the ground rules and expectations for the workshop, such as participation, confidentiality, respect, and feedback. During the workshop, use open-ended questions, active listening, and paraphrasing to stimulate dialogue and understanding among your team. Additionally, provide constructive feedback that is specific, timely, and actionable to help your team improve their skills and performance. Create opportunities for peer feedback and coaching by encouraging your team to share their insights, experiences, and suggestions with each other. Finally, use reflection and debriefing activities to help your team review what they learned, how they applied it, and what they can do differently in the future.
To ensure the success of your workshop, it’s important to follow up and evaluate it. Start by sending a thank-you note and a summary of the workshop to your team. Ask them to complete a feedback form or survey to measure their satisfaction, learning, and application of the workshop. Analyze the feedback and data to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your workshop and how you can improve it for next time. Additionally, provide ongoing support and coaching to your team to help them implement their learning and achieve their goals.