By Kevin Schwenker, FCMC
A formal mentoring program can deliver significant benefits, if it is strategically established and supported.
This is the third in a series of three articles on the benefits of formal mentoring programs by Kevin Schwenker, a recognized expert in the field. If you missed the first two articles you can find them here:
Mentoring Fundamentals 1 (Jan 13 25) The 5 Stage Mentoring Process
https://leadafi.com/leadafi-councils-post/mentoring-fundamentals-the-five-stage-mentoring-process/
Mentoring Fundamentals 2 (Feb 21 25) The Six Roles of a Mentor
https://leadafi.com/leadafi-councils-post/mentoring-fundamentals-the-six-roles-of-a-mentor/
Introduction
Organizations today face a rapidly evolving landscape that demands agility, innovation, and efficiency. Leaders must grapple with increasing pressures to boost performance while managing costs. Amid these challenges, talent development initiatives -including training and coaching – are often the first to face budget cuts. On the other hand, a well-designed mentoring program, aligned with strategic goals, offers a cost-effective, impactful solution to talent development, leadership growth, and organizational resilience.
Mentoring can be a dynamic method to promote engagement, shift culture, develop and integrate diversity. It can play a key role in talent management processes such as onboarding, development, retention, and succession planning. It can be an effective tool in support of organizational change initiatives and knowledge transfer within an organization. Properly implemented it is a powerful lever in support of leadership development – both for advancing the skills of the Mentor as a leader and planting the seeds of leadership in the Mentee.
Is your organization dealing with any of these strategic issues where mentoring can contribute to the solution? Based on experience and research, foresight and planning are essential to craft and deliver a highly effective and sustainable mentoring program. This article outlines a 10-step framework to guide organizations in creating effective and sustainable mentoring programs. It summarizes the essential tasks and questions to be addressed and is applicable to any size of organization.
The 10-Step Program Design Framework
- Define the strategic purpose and primary objectives of the mentoring program initiative
What strategic goals will a mentoring program facilitate or support in your organization? What are the key business unit needs and priorities that need to be supported? Aligning the strategic purpose and primary objectives of the mentoring program with key business goals and operating plans is essential to realizing success through the mentoring initiative.
- Establish the context for the program
Determining organizational readiness is essential for creating the conditions for successful program implementation. What training and professional development processes are currently in place for leaders, managers and employees in your organization that will complement the mentoring initiative? What structures and practices are in place, or need to be in place, that will positively support implementing a robust, sustainable mentoring program?
With strategic goals defined and organizational readiness established, the program vision, mission and values can be articulated, thereby establishing the context and positioning for the mentoring program.
- Ensure leaders are on board and visible in providing consistent support
As with most organizational change and development initiatives, success and sustainability are dependent on strong leadership commitment and direction. It also makes a significant difference to the program when key leaders who are strong advocates of the program participate as mentors themselves.
What are the best ways to enroll and engage all levels of leaders, managers and employees, along with key stakeholders, to drive successful implementation of the program? How is it best to define and articulate the key benefits the organization and its employees will realize from this initiative? Where is the best place in the organization to run a pilot program? What will leaders be most willing to support? How do we engage these leaders in a pilot program that will create quick wins and demonstrate value?
- Set up management, oversight and coordination of the program.
As a minimum, management of the program should include processes for; 1) identifying, screening and matching mentors and mentees, 2) overseeing education and training of the candidates, 3) monitoring and tracking the health and effectiveness of active mentoring partnerships, 4) providing support, assistance and guidance to those participating in the mentoring program, and 5) reporting on the successes of the program against established program goals and objectives. It is important to provide relevant orientation training for managers and executives involved with the project so they can properly develop and/or support these processes.
Who are the key people that will best fulfill the demands and responsibilities in these roles? What additional training will be required to prepare the project management and coordinators for the initiative? Mentoring programs must have strong coordination and administration to be successful. Assigning a primary project lead to coordinate and direct various aspects of the program is best practice. Selecting members for the management team from multiple levels of the organization will allow faster scalability when the time is right to expand the program into other areas of the organization.
- Identify the criteria for participation and the matching process
There are many important things to undertake in identifying and matching participants. Who is the target audience? How will this expand over time? Who should participate – are there specific eligibility requirements? Is a recruitment process required? When recruiting mentors/mentees, will you employ a voluntary or demand participation process? How will you match mentors and mentees? How will you build in reverse mentoring to generate effective knowledge transfer and skills development between generations?
To create the conditions for success, it is essential to ensure that during the matching process both parties are aligned around the goals of the program, areas of accountability, boundaries, communication protocol, and how to navigate the challenges and difficulties that can occur during their work together.
- Assess issues, challenges and risks
As with any project, risk assessment and mitigation planning are important. Issues, challenges, conflicts and “creative” tension will show up in most mentoring partnerships, or among diverse groups and sub-groups involved in the program in different parts of the organization.
To avoid unnecessary and negative consequences the initial program planning stage should anticipate and prepare for these situations. Having safety nets, protocols and processes in place ensures that participants can respond and adapt with constructive learning and positive change. What can be put in place that will act as an “early warning system” to flag issues and problems before they cause damage to the mentoring partnership? What strategies and tools will be needed to prepare participants to pre-empt or navigate these inevitable situations?
- Plan education and training programs
Integrated education and training for both mentors and mentees makes a significant difference in the quality and effectiveness of mentoring partnerships. Research confirms that with formal training mentoring relationships are three times more likely to succeed if both the mentor and the mentee participate in similar, formal training. It cuts down wasted time figuring out how to proceed and gets the relationship off to a running start.
The education and training process should, at a minimum, clearly outline the core stages of the mentoring process. Within that, it is important to establish requisite preparations; define roles and responsibilities, protocols and practices; provide problem solving and communications tools and techniques and make clear the essential competencies that will cultivate excellence in the work of the partnership. It should prepare participants to bring their relationship to a successful close. What is the organization’s current inventory of mentoring/coaching tools and professional development processes? What additional education and training may be required for individuals and groups engaged in and around the program?
- Develop a strategic communications plan
Communication is a lynchpin in the process; it is critical to creating and sustaining a high-performance mentoring culture. Communication creates value, visibility and commitment for mentoring, and makes clear the benefits and results that align with an organization’s strategic mandate. What will be the best way to integrate the mentoring program communication plan with the broader organizational communications strategy and initiatives?
Communications should be geared to gain ongoing engagement from employees to executives, and transfer relevant and real time knowledge within, and about, the program. What needs to be communicated in order to increase trust, strengthen relationships and create alignment in the organization, and with external stakeholders? A communications plan which carefully identifies what, why, who, when, how, and who is responsible for what, is fundamental to support program effectiveness.
- Rollout and launch the mentoring program
A well-executed launch sets the tone for program success. This is the time to put a clear focus on the program goals and objectives and engage individuals in reflection on how they will benefit from their potential participation. What events and strategies will be employed to create excitement and readiness within the organization for the mentoring program?
Consider effective use of kick-off events, such as town halls, to announce the program and to engage and enrol the target audiences. Highlight the support of senior leaders and key stakeholders across the organization. Report on the successes of the pilot project(s). Be prepared for questions about the program and have the answers ready to bring clarity and understanding to the participants. Plan activities that will engage participants and encourage them to recognize and visualize themselves as successful contributors to the mentoring program.
- Track and measure progress, learn from results to fine tune the program
To ensure long term support of senior management and key stakeholders, a mentoring program must have clear, focused goals and associated metrics. Knowing that the mentoring program is delivering results is a powerful way to strengthen commitment and increase motivation for engagement in the program. This requires well thought out processes for tracking, measuring and evaluating, with a focus on continuous improvement. What performance measurement processes does the organization currently employ? How can these be augmented to identify results, measure progress, and fine tune the program?
Building on what is working, and taking action on required changes and modifications, is the hallmark of effective mentoring programs. Tracking and evaluation provides the mechanism to identify and acknowledge the value and benefits gained, and, thereby, fuel motivation, interest and commitment among program participants and in the organization.
Conclusion
Properly designed mentoring programs, combined with focused, relevant training and ongoing support, are a proven way to achieve, or significantly contribute, to strategic organizational goals. The results can be dramatic – improving employee loyalty and engagement, creating more effective teams, building leadership capacity, facilitating practical knowledge acquisition and transfer, improving retention and succession planning, and delivering consistent quality to serve and retain customers.
Establishing a mentoring culture builds capacity, competence, and resilience; hallmarks of those organizations which are successfully navigating today’s challenging environment.
About the Author
Kevin Schwenker, FCMC has considerable experience in coaching and training, including the development of strategic, and effective mentoring programs. He has mentored young entrepreneurs for over 20 years earning accolades such as a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. As a Certified Management Consultant, Kevin specializes in assisting organizations succeed with strategic planning, implementing organizational excellence initiatives, and creating engaged employees through performance management and talent development. He is a recognized consultant to consultants, making significant contributions to the international management consulting industry, while leading a practice delivering multi-faceted consulting projects locally, nationally, and internationally. He is also an adjunct professor at the Sobey School of Business in Halifax, Canada where he delivers advanced practical MBA courses.
M: +1 (902) 483-044; E: kschwenk@eastlink.ca; W: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/kevinschwenker
