It is difficult to imagine a strategic HR programme without the word ‘mentoring’ written in capital letters. And prise for that to HR teams, because mentoring can be a great catalyst for the development of people and the company’s culture. However, when inappropriately implemented, mentoring will act as a handbrake applied suddenly – the effects will depend on whether this happens on a sharp curve of changes or on a straight way of the organisation’s development.
by: Irek Zyzański
Mentoring exists in many forms, but today, I will share with you my thoughts on the relatively rarely implemented group mentoring. How does it differ from and is similar to individual programmes? What to pay attention to when creating, implementing and monitoring it and when training the mentors and mentees? The word mentee seems to have entered permanently into the industry-specific language.
Let’s go back in time over 3,000 years. Ulysses is leaving his home island Ithaca to join the Achaeans on their way to Troy. Feeling that this expedition will last long, he entrusts the care of his son Telemachus and his entire household to his wise friend Mentor. Mentor must have done his job well, because his name became in our culture the synonym of a wise, noble and responsible man.
A wise person as a fountain of knowledge constitutes an asset not only in our culture. This figure can be found both among Bedouin tribes on the deadly hot sands of the Arabian Peninsula deserts and the Papuans living in the rainforests of New Guinea or the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Wherever we look, we will find the institution of the mentor, a person sharing his knowledge and caring about the well-being of his tribe.
The culture of business willingly made use of the institution of the mentor as a catalyst for the organisation’s development. Many mentoring models exist, the majority of which share several common features – it is a purposeful and voluntary relationship the objective of which is widely-understood development, using the mentee’s natural potential and the mentor’s resources. Often, there is an organisation in the background, which sponsors and benefits from these relationships.
Mentors are not ‘uncles good advice’. They do not bear any managerial responsibility, are not trainers, coaches or consultants, but – depending on needs – they draw abundantly from each of these roles. In fact, it is the mentee who stands in the spotlight and who is responsible for proposing and achieving his objectives, for the tedious work between sessions, which leads to breakthrough, development, refreshing of the mental software of a kind.
Is it still mentoring?
At CoachWise, we have been creating and implementing mentoring programs for national and international clients for years. We support organisations, mentors and mentees with different training courses and development tools. One of the latest initiatives is the nationwide group mentoring programme ‘HR Mentoring w Zmianie’ (‘HR Mentoring in Change’) addressed to the entire HR sector. As part of it, experienced senior mentors, HR directors with many years of experience, and members of Management Boards engage in group work with mentees from HR Departments occupying different positions. Our objective – mutual support for HR at a time of dramatic changes occurring over the past months, knowledge transfer and mutual inspiration.
Is it still mentoring? And if yes, what does it have to do with and how does it differ from individual programmes, and what did we have to learn from each other? It certainly is a form of traditional mentoring, enriched with facilitation tools and group exchange (peers mentoring). The mentor remains the mentor and must additionally act as the group moderator. In my opinion, this process is more difficult and demands more from all participants.
Group mentoring is collaboration between the mentor and several mentees, which consists in sharing knowledge and learning from each other. The optimal group size is three to five participants. With more people, access to the mentor’s resources starts to be problematic. Mentors should be flexible in changing their roles. They should not only share their knowledge, but also act as group moderators, using facilitation tools, however, without being facilitators, who tend to stay neutral and do not pass on their experience.
Mentees, in turn, should be aware of the fact that they are responsible not only for their own but also the entire group’s development. Therefore, they sometimes become mentors for others. A big advantage of such work is the richness of feedback received by participants both from the mentor and from other participants. This allows building relationships and a network of connections with people from different companies, which will certainly bear fruit in the future. By observing each other, participants may motivate and inspire one another. This is a classic sandbox known from programming – a safe space where participants test different ideas and practices, mutually enriching each other.
A bumpy road to reach the objective
If group mentoring is so great, why is it not commonly used in our companies? Unfortunately, in comparison with individual mentoring, it poses some considerable challenges for participants, which they all must consciously manage. Let us have a closer look at the areas that require more attention.
Confidentiality
The participants of the process come from different companies, often competing ones. In individual mentoring, the ‘what happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas’ rule is key in building a healthy relationship based on mutual trust for both parties. Mentees need to feel safe to share their problems and doubts, while mentors, who share not only their successes, but also their failures, do not want the latter to become the subject of gossip over coffee the next day in the company. Confidentiality, which has such a vital importance in individual processes, cannot be ensured to the same extent in group work despite the best intentions of all parties.
Participants’ personalities
Every participant brings in his communication style, temperament, introvertism and extrovertism, DISC style, Hogan profile, Reiss motivators, and many other dimensions measured by different tests. Certainly, not everyone will be equally willing to share their experiences publicly in a group. There will be competition for the most valuable resource – the mentor’s time and attention. And let us not forget about the group creation dynamics. Remember the old, good Tuckman’s model (forming, storming, norming and performing)? I would simplify it like this – after the first phase of politeness, we will jump down each other’s throats, just to work on the results after cooling down. And this happens each time a group is formed, so the sooner we pass through this, the faster we will start working efficiently.
Mentoring is a purposeful relationship. We can still meet without setting any objective, but this will be a series of pleasant conversations and not mentoring process. In individual programmes, the mentee presents his objective, which they clarify with the mentor and on which they will later work together. It is not physically possible for the mentor in group mentoring to play many games at the same time, working with all mentees on their individual objectives. A wide and inclusive objective has to be set in such a way that mentees may fit into it with their individual objectives. In our programme, this objective is support in change, passing through the COVID crisis, which has affected us all.
Logistics
The entire logistics, correspondence, information exchange between participants, changes of meeting dates, documenting the process is another bottomless pit. At the beginning, we completely underestimated the time necessary to handle such details – IT system management, rules and regulations, information campaigns in social media, coordination of trainers and training dates.
Expectations
The last important issues are the expectations of mentees and the point of reference that they have, which especially concerns those mentees who have already participated in an individual mentoring programme. In group mentoring, they gain different experiences, develop in a different way. To use a simple metaphor – if you expect to have a pork chop on your plate and you are given sushi, you may feel disappointed, even though the majority of us find both tasty and nutritive. Therefore, appropriate preparation of mentors and mentees plays an enormous role in this case. We met online with both groups of participants, explaining to them what group mentoring was and what it wasn’t. This permitted them, at least at the beginning, to consciously manage their expectations, reflect on the objectives, and neutralise challenges.
What is more, we equip mentors with practical knowledge of work tools in a nutshell. Our meetings had to be continued online, which required at least the basic knowledge of remote work software. Even the simplest ones, like Jamboard, will make online work much more attractive.
The importance of the first meeting cannot be overstated. Let us imagine what happens when both groups with big expectations and consciously assuming their roles meet for the
first time. This is still the stage of polite formulation, introduction and getting to know each other. Sometimes, the storm phase appears already during the first meeting. However, whatever happens, there should be a contract and clear rules.
How do we imagine working together? What is the objective of our group? How to include our individual objectives in it? What experience and resources do the mentor and the mentee bring in? How are we going to communicate between sessions? Through WhatsApp or Messenger? What degree of confidentiality are we agreeing to? How do we give feedback to each other? What is our group’s savoir-vivre? What should we do when something is not working or is disturbing us? What are our individual responsibilities and how do we prepare for the meetings? How do we enjoy each other and celebrate our future success?
Effectiveness in the long run
Let us return for a moment to ancient times. Ulysses had a good feeling that the journey would take longer than he had planned. After 20 years, he stood at the shore of his Ithaca. His investment in Mentor was one of the best decisions in his life. In corporate language, we would say that “he prepared a strategic plan to develop the human resources left at home required for the radical transformation of the organisation”. In this specific case, it was the slaughter of the suitors staying in his house.
Rarely can mentoring bring instantaneous effects, however, its effective rate of return is hard to beat long-term. And this is what we will be looking at in the following articles from the “Mentor mentoring the mentor” series.
If you are interested in it, please visit the website of our “Nationwide Mentoring Programme for HR” at http://www.coachingcenter.pl
Irek Zyzański
is an intercultural management and communication consultant, a mentor and coach. He is the Content Leader of the CoachWise HR RAZEM (HR TOGETHER) programme. He managed multicultural teams in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.