Benefits of Mentoring

Effective mentoring benefits everyone involved – the mentee and mentor, the organisation and the mentee’s line manager, in the employment context. Much the same is true in a community context; where there are major benefits for society from helping people overcome disadvantage and disaffection.

For the mentee, mentoring provides a safe haven to explore personal, work and career issues. The mentor provides a sounding board for difficult decisions, an independent view to put things into perspective, someone to encourage you when things aren’t going well and sometimes a role model for some of the personal goals you want to achieve.

For the mentor, mentoring is a great opportunity to develop the skill of developing others, away from the confines of his or her own team. It is also one of the few opportunities for the mentor to take reflective time out during the working day. Working with the mentee’s issues often leads the mentor to valuable insights about relationships with their own team. When asked for what they have gained from the relationship, mentors most commonly talk of intellectual challenge, of learning, and of the simple satisfaction at seeing someone else progress.

For the organisation, mentoring contributes significantly to the attraction and retention of talent. People, who have mentors, are less likely to leave the organisation, or at least likely to stay much longer. Various studies indicate, for example, that salespeople with mentors sell on average 20% more in their first year with an organisation. Having a mentoring program also contributes to the organisation’s reputation as a caring, people-centred employer.

Building Sustainable Relationship

This killing tendency is all too common. When you talk at someone, you’re talking down to her. You’re being condescending. Often this kind of approach is accompanied by pointing a finger or pen, and the frequent use of words like “I want” and “you should.” It can’t even be called “giving orders” — it is attacking people with rank and the threat of retribution. The result? Over time, team members will either leave or, perhaps worse, gradually become what your tyrannical style is teaching them to be: responsive only to direct orders … not self-starters … distrustful of management … uncommitted to your vision … unmotivated to operate beyond performance minimums. This absolutely destroys any connection or rapport with the person you are trying to reach.

Manager should talk with team members. One of the best ways to do this is to start using the words “we,” “our” and “us.” “We’ve got our work cut out for us in order to make the deadline we committed to.” “Well, we blew it on that order. Let’s figure out what we learned and do our best not to repeat the error.”

The Developing Person Through the Life Span

Delegation

A concept related to authority is delegation. Delegation is the downward transfer of authority from a manager to a subordinate. Most organizations today encourage managers to delegate authority in order to provide maximum flexibility in meeting customer needs. In addition, delegation leads to empowerment, in that people have the freedom to contribute ideas and do their jobs in the best possible ways. This involvement can increase job satisfaction for the individual and frequently results in better job performance. Without delegation, managers do all the work themselves and underutilize their workers. The ability to delegate is crucial to managerial success. Managers need to take four steps if they want to successfully delegate responsibilities to their teams.

1. Specifically assign tasks to individual team members.
   The manager needs to make sure that employees know that they are ultimately responsible for carrying out specific assignments.
2. Give team members the correct amount of authority to accomplish assignments.
   Typically, an employee is assigned authority commensurate with the task. A classical principle of organization warns managers not to delegate without giving the subordinate the authority to perform to delegated task. When an employee has responsibility for the task outcome but little authority, accomplishing the job is possible but difficult. The subordinate without authority must rely on persuasion and luck to meet performance expectations. When an employee has authority exceeding responsibility, he or she may become a tyrant, using authority toward frivolous outcomes.
3. Make sure that team members accept responsibility. Responsibility is the flip side of the authority coin. Responsibility is the duty to perform the task or activity an employee has been assigned. An important distinction between authority and responsibility is that the supervisor delegates authority, but the responsibility is shared. Delegation of authority gives a subordinate the right to make commitments, use resources, and take actions in relation to duties assigned. However, in making this delegation, the obligation created is not shifted from the supervisor to the subordinate — it is shared. A supervisor always retains some responsibility for work performed by lower-level units or individuals.
4. Create accountability.
   Team members need to know that they are accountable for their projects. Accountability means answering for one’s actions and accepting the consequences. Team members may need to report and justify task outcomes to their superiors. Managers can build accountability into their organizational structures by monitoring performances and rewarding successful outcomes. Although managers are encouraged to delegation authority, they often find accomplishing this step difficult for the following reasons:
   

• Delegation requires planning, and planning takes time. A manager may say, “By the time I explain this task to someone, I could do it myself.” This manager is overlooking the fact that the initial time spent up front training someone to do a task may save much more time in the long run. Once an employee has learned how to do a task, the manager will not have to take the time to show that employee how to do it again. This improves the flow of the process from that point forward.
• Managers may simply lack confidence in the abilities of their subordinates. Such a situation fosters the attitude, “If you want it done well, do it yourself.” If managers feel that their subordinates lack abilities, they need to provide appropriate training so that all are comfortable performing their duties.
• Managers experience dual accountability. Managers are accountable for their own actions and the actions of their subordinates. If a subordinate fails to perform a certain task or does so poorly, the manager is ultimately responsible for the subordinate’s failure. But by the same token, if a subordinate succeeds, the manager shares in that success as well, and the department can be even more productive.
• Finally, managers may refrain from delegation because they are insecure about their value to the organization. However, managers need to realize that they become more valuable as their teams become more productive and talented.

Coaching Tips ........

Give the leader a wake-up call about how the organization is changing — Make sure that the leader understands the complexity of the changes required of her. What new results are expected from her in a changing business climate? What impact will this have on the competencies that will be required of her to be successful in the future?

Don’t be afraid to confront the leader — Confront her in a compassionate way if you feel that even though others need her to change, she is more comfortable acting the way she always has. Make sure that she fully understands the implications to her own career, to others she is working with, and to the legacy she is leaving the organization. This last implication is especially
important for leaders whose excuse for not changing is that they are soon to retire.

Use a “coachable moment” while you are working with the leader — Stop the discussion in the coaching session and point out how you are reacting if the leader is exhibiting the same behavior with you that others are finding counterproductive. For example, some leaders resist change by being the perpetual cynic, dismissing new ideas as being unworkable or portraying other senior management as being unrealistic in their expectations. During the coaching session, it may be appropriate for you to comment if you see any similarities between how the leader behaves with you and the patterns identified in the feedback from others.

Leveraging coaching across different cultures

Coaching across cultures means looking for opportunities to unleash more human potential by leveraging cultural differences. The outcome is increased performance and fulfillment. The following case studies illustrate how this can be done in a variety of situations.

Leveraging Unilever and Bestfoods Cultures
Research has shown that “over one merger out of two fails. Two out of three do not produce the value creation promised during the operation. The question of people and company culture is by far the number one failure factor.” In 2000, Unilever acquired Bestfoods for just over US$25 billion. The operation was among the twenty largest mergers and acquisitions worldwide that year.

Rather than de facto imposing its culture, Unilever understood that to make the merger work, cultural differences between the two companies had to be well understood. A task force, with the help of the Hay Group, identified the following differences, realizing that there were many exceptions to those generalizations:

The integration team recognized that all the orientations had potential merits. They considered amalgamating the best of both cultures but soon realized that a context was necessary to make that evaluation. The overall vision and strategy provided that context. What was called for was a new corporate culture that would draw characteristics from Unilever and Bestfoods. To that end, an enriched cultural repertoire has started to develop, leveraging Unilever and Bestfoods cultures. For example, Unilever executives are learning to make quicker decisions whenever extra analysis would only impede action. Bestfoods executives are developing a habit of constructively challenging decisions to avoid engaging in a hasty, inadequate course of action.

Several senior executives focused on the intellectual versus operational rather than to learn from the other culture to enrich their original company culture. Asked one Unilever executive to describe his vision in more specific terms and to spell out his operational priorities. Then, asked Bestfoods executive to articulate a general philosophy and a compelling business case, building on his intuitive ideas and concrete initiatives in order to bring his colleagues on board with his novel approach.

Time will tell how successful the Bestfoods acquisition will prove to be. But it is clear that this eagerness to learn from the other merging company has already strengthened Unilever–Bestfoods. Talent from the acquired Bestfoods has been retained and developed, rather than alienated, as is too often the case.

Manager Coaches

Of the different roles that the manager performs, the coach is ‘the most difficult one to perform’.
(Gerber, 1992)

Impact of manager coaching - 10 main areas:
• changes the culture or helps to embed a coaching culture
• improved management skills and capability
• behaviour change in the coaches
• benefits for the coachees as a result of receiving coaching
• greater employee engagement and commitment
• improvements to business indicators or results
• savings in HR time/costs
• achievement of external awards and recognition
• unexpected spin-offs
• accelerated talent development

Coaching can have a very positive impact on individuals for whom traditional learning modes such as classroom teaching has very negative associations. Feedback from the coachees is that managers have created better working relationships and were more effective in communicating with their teams – resulting in improved team results .

Coaching - Questions to Ask

Within coaching there are key questions that unlock larger doors than their own size seems to justify. These are questions that really punch above their weight. Some are asked of the client. Some are asked of yourself as a coach:

• ‘Help me to understand . . .’ takes responsibility from first position for not yet having understood. No blame is attached to the other person.
• ‘Help me to understand what is going on with you right now.’ Although this is a request, it is received as a question. In order to explain to you what is going on right now, the client must first understand it themselves. This question triggers them into a less emotional and more logical view of their situation.
• ‘If you did know, what might it be?’ Ask this when your client says they do not know how to respond to a specific question. Often they cannot answer because they are blocking out or suppressing the answer. This question gives them permission to imagine what the answer is as if they are making it up, allowing the real answer to come out.
• ‘What do you need (from me) right now?’ This question makes the client connect with their true needs and allows them to express them.
• ‘What would be a good question for me to ask right now?’ This question works because it takes the coach to the most relevant areas of the situation. Also, it stimulates objectivity in the client.
• ‘What does this person/client need from me right now?’ This is a question the coach asks of themselves to give themselves direction.
• ‘And. . .?’ If you’re not sure which direction to go in, or if you feel there’s more the client needs to say.
• ‘Because. . .?’ enables the client to explore their rationale.
• ‘You want to leave this session at X pm having achieved what, exactly?’ enables the client to focus on successful outcomes within their time frame. (A less effective version of this might be: ‘What would you like to achieve, if that’s possible, within our time constraints?’)
• ‘What have you achieved, that you might not have been aware of at the time?’ enables a person to start filtering for what they have done that has worked for them.

COACHING

The future of any organization rests with increasing the capabilities and productivity of its workforce. This is not news. The future of any individual rests with growing their worth to their organization and developing their toolbox of transferable skills to enhance their market value. Most of us understand that these prerequisites for prosperous organizational and individual futures are compatible – but have yet to act on them.

Traditionally, if a manager achieved the desired result no one was too concerned about whether they were addressing the developmental side of their responsibilities. In the future, these developmental demands will grow and become a higher priority. Coaching will cease to be the preserve of the specialists and will become a common practice for managers. Retaining and developing staff will be impossible without relevant facilitated learning taking place.

And that, at its best, is coaching.

Coaching has been recognized as one of the most cost- effective and focused ways of improving individual performance. However, coaching has increasingly become a specialist function brought in from outside, at a cost, and there is often no way of measuring how cost-effective it has been. Coaching has been seen as the responsibility of the human resource department, especially if its purpose is remedial. Managers are increasingly relegated to managing tasks and not people, even though the responsibility for skill and performance improvement has shifted more towards the individual.

The organization may pay and provide for training and coaching but the initiator often has to be the individual themselves. It is their career so it is down to them to make it happen.

Not only does having more skills create opportunities for more choice in your career, but the techniques covered in this book are not limited to organizations. If you have children, friends, peers, parents, partners, or work with activity groups or clubs, all of these skills can be of use in helping others achieve what they want to achieve. Coaching can be carried out in small pieces – a question here, an observation there. It does not have to be an organized process spread over many sessions and incurring high costs.

When you see yourself as a coach you will automatically coach when it is useful. By coaching others you will also learn more about yourself. It is almost impossible to be with someone and not have your internal voice saying things such as ‘this applies to me as much as them’, or ‘I could make those changes myself’.