5 Significant Reasons You Need to Start a Mentoring Program Now

NEW VIDEO ON THE TOPIC: https://youtu.be/zsT4KnO0B9c

The benefits have an incredible ripple effect of bringing out that side in human nature where we are of great service to each other. We see each other and we understand each other's needs to grow and evolve personally and professionally. Mentorship happens in long chains, where your mentor has a mentor and their mentor has a mentor. It's a professional living legacy.

Here are 5 reasons you need to start a mentoring program now and I will also share at the bottom an entire White Paper on the business case ROI of Mentoring with tremendous data.

1] MENTAL HEALTH OF YOUR TEAM-- I think you know by now that Zoom is terrific, but our employees are tuning it out. Zoom fatigue. Look at the group calls you are on. People are coming by video or electing not to. What do you think the engagement rate is when the news is on in the background, Amazon shopping is one click away, more coffee can be made and Felix needs a walk? Before COVID America was dealing with a significant loneliness epidemic where over 60% of people felt they didn't have someone to speak with. 

I was running a program for a major insurance company and found that when we set the stage for people to have 1:1 mentoring conversations (virtually-- Flash Mentoring experience) engagement rates increased from 50% to 95%. People need human connection and real conversations. We yearn for learning and sharing about what's really going on and these conversations reinforce the notion that we are not alone and can get to a better place with strategic action and solid perspective. We also need to push each other, be accountable to another, and get that skip back into our step.

2] DRIVING DIVERSITY + BELONGING-- A few years ago I was working with a US agency in law enforcement and I asked them how many had mentors? Out of 35 people, a few hands went up. "Someone you can go to on an ongoing basis for professional advice?" I asked. A few more hands went up. I then asked "How many of you are currently mentoring others?" and only two hands went up out of 35, BTW the only two white men in the room. This startled me. I saw a similar response at a renowned Spanish owned bank- less than 10% stated they were mentoring others. Most women also said their professional mentors are/were men. When I decided to build a company around mentoring I thought it was apple pie and that at least 50% or more of executives were participating in mentoring. I was wrong.

People often mentor in their own likeness and if we want more diversity, we need to champion people who do not remind us of ourselves or look just like us. We also need to engineer a program with a beginning, a middle, and an end to give people the permission they are looking for to engage. The good news is willingness, people if asked do want to mentor. In starting a mentoring program, think about inclusion mentoring and how we cumulatively can match with people who do not mirror us. Part of it is also confidence. "Am I enough" to mentor someone else? A little training and engineering go a long way. People may also be concerned about the level of responsibility given other priorities. How about 1 hour 2x a month for 6-9 months? That is a 12 - 18 hour annual commitment to change the life, feel more belonging, get a COVID buddy. Have your team members do 1-hour a month to start if you are concerned about timing. In these White Papers (link here)- you will also learn how mentors get promoted 6x more than people who don't mentor in a major Wharton study. Mentees 5x and a great increase in retention.

CLICK LINK FOR YOUR COPY: https://www.twomentor.com/white-paper-roi-mentoring/ 

3] LEADERS LEAD SO LEAD (YOUR LEADERS)-- This Is something my mentor told me that I took to heart. Leadership is taking action. But how do you lead if others are not willing to join you and/or follow you? As a leadership development play, your executives should learn the nuance between mentorship and sponsorship in your program. A sponsor will champion their protege to others and advocate for them. The difference is action and taking one who is deserving under your wing. So as an example, I might contact 20 HR leaders on behalf of Beatrice to help a dynamo-executive who is out of work get a new job (sponsorship).  I might also contact my boss and ask him/her to meet Beatrice for coffee to discuss an upcoming contract and lay the case for her candidacy (sponsorship), and/or I might share with Beatrice how I re-invented myself and started a fulfilling new career and what pitfalls to avoid (mentorship). Leaders lead, so lead. When we mentor and sponsor we have a choice and as leaders, we should have a deliberate plan for 2021 on whom we will champion. One executive whom I worked with ran a 10b division of a company and she told her entire team that mentoring as part of their year-end bonuses, a big part. "I will not be a weak link in the mentoring chain," she said to them after sharing how she got her job through mentors and sponsors.  

Here is an exercise we do with executives that you can try. Have your team think of themselves as sitting on a plane. Whom will they invite to sit in first class (who will they sponsor) and who will sit in coach? Think of the implications here on succession planning. I have executives list people by name and then ask them if they have selected a diverse group of people (women, different ethnicities, ages, and more). If not, back to the drawing board! We then move into action planning for each relationship to be incredibly well thought through. One company that really impressed me did a 180 and had their entire executive team mentored by people under the age of 30! I recently reached out to someone much younger than me to mentor me on a go-to-market strategy I'm working on. I took 5 pages of notes! Helpful (thanks Chelsea).

4] RETHINK MANAGEMENT TRAINING COMPLETELY-- Think back on when you were trained to be a manager. All the binders and PowerPoints. The notes you took. Have those handy? Can you remember 10 things you learned? ATD did a study and found that management training increased manager productivity by over 20%. Not bad! But managers who had mentors increased productivity by over 84%. It's really situational mentorship. A mentor is like an incredible book of life experience and learning. This week, based on the needs of their mentees, they open Chapter 6 and next month Chapter 14. Management is hard, especially during a lockdown, and we need continuous learning. Also, people leave companies as a result of poor management so investing in their capabilities has a massive ripple effect on retention and corporate culture. Good managers, happy employees! In traveling the globe I've learned so many leaders of people do not or have never had a mentor (70% don't is what has become evident), if you don't mentor other people how on earth can you be a good manager? You have the ability at your company to formalize a mentoring program targeting managers, rising stars, women executives, ERG groups that want to build their pipeline, interns that you later plan on hiring. Limitless potential. You can also do what a major food chain did, they went Mentor 2.0-- Mentor + Sponsor and we can discuss that as well.

5] IS MENTORING HAVE TO HAVE OR NICE TO HAVE?-- Here is what I am seeing out there. Mentoring is perceived as nice to have. More and more sponsorship is perceived as have to have in the women's movement and diversity space. Companies have good intentions but often haven't allocated mentoring to someone's job or it's spread out under a volunteer team and each person is contributing 5% of their time to it. It gets off to a good start and then like a hopeful date with no commitment to a second date, crash and burn. Sometimes a good program begins to stagnate like a long marriage, and it needs to be strengthened modernized and boosted. One of the primary factors in my starting Twomentor was realizing that people like the concept of mentoring but might need some help standing up a sustainable program. The good news is the goodwill of people and I have seen that over and over and over again when we work with associations and run sessions at conferences. In short mentoring conversations, I see people exchanging phone numbers, bringing each other solutions, beaming, and thrilled to be part of a mentoring experience. They share their concerns with each other and realize they are not alone (remember the adage 'we are as sick as our secrets'). The bad news is that without the support of the CEO, CFO, or head of the business operating unit, the program's survival rate is low so you do need the buy-in. A friend Ravi said to me once, once a leader climbs the ladder they often forget the ladder is there. They might need to be reminded. Because on that new ladder are your children, my children, our employees, and dear friends. Separated by a pandemic, divided by politics, extending a mentoring hand is an act of strength and hope.

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WE'VE GOT YOUR BACK! 

Twomentor has half a decade of experience training mentors and mentees. Our vision is to see a world where everyone has an effective mentor. The programs we offer can help your organization reap the benefits of mentorship and sponsorship by developing training and strategies ensuring the programs are successful. 

We are more convinced than ever of the power of two people helping each other professionally and the need to build mentoring and sponsorship initiatives to drive diversity. GUESS WHAT! Twomentor is now Training the Trainer to help your people build a sustainable in-house 9-month program with all the tools and resources you need for under $1,000 an employee. We also have a Mentoring-in-a-Box model (think outsourced mentoring) and can run a world-class program for and with you.

Do you want to see your employees thrive? Your organization can achieve the full potential of mentorship and sponsorship programs, and Twomentor is excited to share the opportunity to help you create a happier, more productive, and diverse workforce. 

Contact us and let us help champion your vision together!

[email protected] - 1 833 5 MENTOR