How Mentoring Supports Sustainable Long-Term Business Success

So here’s a puzzle for you… what consistent actions do you think truly support sustainable long-term business success?

In my opinion, there are three core ingredients…

The first is an alignment of individual and organisational values. To create this alignment you first need to communicate what your organisation stands for! When you do this consistently and authentically, people will align themselves automatically. People who share your values will love coming to work and organise their life around your company. People who don’t will simply move on!

The second is to provide a safe and stable environment where people want to do innovative work. An environment where people are not afraid to take a chance. (Arguably nobody does this better than Amazon!)

The third is to bake continuous improvement into every aspect of your organisational culture. People need to see that what they're doing has a direct impact on their own productivity and results, but also on the wider organisation too.

Both continuous improvement and innovation can be facilitated by good mentoring…

A Fast-Track of Sounding Boards

For me, mentoring provides a fast track of quality sounding boards that you won't find through structured internal channels. When you’re adopting a continuous learning approach, it's important to learn from individuals who have experience in the areas you need to improve in. Usually, these people will be outside of your company, and maybe even in a different part of the world!

Without mentors, learning anything worthwhile is a painstaking journey. Somebody, somewhere in the world will have already walked the path you’re on, and can see the holes in the road. (The fact that they fell into those holes usually makes them more willing to help!)

A good mentor will not only provide expertise, but also tips to help you grow as an individual. You can only build the type of company you want by first becoming the person you need to become! To help other people you first have to help yourself; this principle extends right though your organisation.

So who is it that you truly want to become as an individual? Mentoring is the most efficient way to become that person in the shortest amount of time.

Where Can Things Go Wrong?

The dark side of mentoring is that people sometimes enter into a mentoring arrangement with hidden agendas, especially if they're part of your team or your direct leader. When a mentor is too close to home, they usually have a vested interest in certain outcomes. (This is like riding a horse with blinkers on: the horse may get to the finish line faster, but it can’t see the big picture!)

It might be that they're trying to steer you towards a particular level or type of performance. Of course, this isn’t always a bad thing, but you lose the benefit of objectivity! It also creates an unbalanced relationship which tends to discourage honesty.

So the first step is to reflect internally on who you want to become. Once you understand that, I have personally found that having someone outside of my direct line of interest looking out for me has helped me to become that person. In fact, I can’t think of a bigger success factor in business!

A lot of research confirms that mentoring not only increases retention rates, but also that individuals become better professionals and leaders.

Tangible Opportunity Costs!

On the other hand, consider the cost of not developing better mentoring systems. Your best people will leave your organisation if they don’t feel a strong alignment between personal and organisational values. People will leave if they feel there is no progression available to them.

‘Progression’ can mean promotions, responsibility and such like; but it can also be personal progression. Besides, in order to to promote someone, they first need to become the person you need for that role!

Research suggests that if a skilled colleague leaves and you have to hire somebody new, it will cost 2-3 times their annual salary to directly replace them.

What if that person could have been better understood, supported and mentored? What if that person didn’t feel they had to move on?

If you can prevent these people from leaving through an effective mentorship program, you'll boost retention and create a happy, innovative working environment.

For a free assessment of your current mentoring setup, please take a few minutes now to complete my free corporate mentoring readiness quiz.

Dave