Mentoring Relationships that Work

Mentoring Relationships that Work

Published by Dr. William A. Gray at Smashwords

© 2011 William A. Gray

ISBN 978-0-9868796-0-9

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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ENDORSEMENTS

When I was Director of Human Resources for Eastman Kodak, I was responsible for orienting newly hired researchers into our research labs. They had doctorates from top universities. Because of our reorganization, they had to do applied research for a Business Unit, usually on a team. Previously, they mostly did pure research on their own projects, working alone. To orient them to our new way of doing research, we tried putting them beside veteran researchers in the lab – to receive informal mentoring when needed – but this didn’t work. So, I contacted Bill Gray to help us plan and implement a formalized Mentoring Program. To get high-level support, we created an assessment of knowledge, attitudes and competencies that new researchers need to learn during their first six months. During the training of mentor-protege partners, partners created an Action Plan for achieving learning outcomes identified by our assessment.

Because the first program worked so well, I contacted Bill again for help with another challenge. Kodak’s leaders had decided to enter the digital age, so we hired new researchers with doctorates in electronics, electrical engineering and related fields. We wanted them to work with our chemistry-oriented researchers on new hybrid projects, such as the laser printer and digital camera. However, they did not work together very well. During collaborative planning, we decided that a Knowledge Exchange Program was needed so researchers with backgrounds in chemistry and electronics could mutually exchange knowledge about their discipline – without either partner feeling superior or inferior to the other. After partners were matched, Bill trained them to exchange knowledge about major contributions each discipline can make, key concepts, problem-solving strategies, acronyms and jargon, etc. Partners created an Action Plan to schedule what they would do, so they both would be prepared.

Bill has helped many clients plan and implement formalized mentoring programs that produce intended results. His book – Mentoring Relationships that Work – describes the approach he has used for over 30 years. I know from personal experience that simply encouraging informal mentoring does not produce desired outcomes for proteges, mentors and their organization.

I can recommend Bill and this book with complete confidence, based on our professional association over the years we worked together on various Eastman Kodak projects.

~Bob Calman, former Director of Human Resources for Eastman Kodak

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My introduction to Bill Gray and Mentoring Relationships that Work started in the early 1990s, when CSX Transportation started its Associate Development Program (ADP) – which still continues today. It began when CEO Pete Carpenter sanctioned this mentoring program so CSX would become more competitive, serve customers better and increase profitability. CSX hired Bill Gray to conduct his Mentoring for Results Partner Training for CSX personnel at all levels – in management and the union – to break down existing departmental silos. From 1992-2000, Bill encouraged mentoring partners in different functions (e.g., sales and finance) to engage in reciprocal mentoring to break down silo thinking and gain a better appreciation of each other’s contributions to the overall company.

After the first eight years, I statistically analyzed all the data from about 300 participants and found that the mentors and proteges who reported the most benefits had been in long-distance relationships (not living or working in the same state). This outcome occurred because Dr. Gray taught partners to create an Action Plan during partner training and then use this to schedule meetings and be prepared for them. The long-distance partners did this better than same-location partners.

After 2000, I took over from Bill and conducted his Mentoring for Results Partner Training for CSX – even after I started my own company. I know from 18 years experience as a coordinator and trainer that virtual strangers (who have been matched as partners) feel so comfortable that mentoring actually occurs during partner training. Partners compare protege needs and mentor expertise after answering the Protege Needs Inventory. Partners discuss difficult challenges using Bill’s 6-Step Mentoring Process – and then plan how to address this using a Mentoring Action Plan. Partners learn how to use four Mentoring Styles for giving/receiving assistance, after answering Bill’s Mentoring Style Indicator.

Even during two recessions, Mentoring for Results Partner Training has continued to take place because it produces Mentoring Relationships that Work!

~Dr. Doug Klippel, former Mentoring Coordinator at CSX and current President of People Development Partners (http://www.peopledevpartners.com)

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William Gray has produced an epic work on formalized mentoring relationships that work. Bill’s work is significant in breaking new ground for understanding the importance of the journey for both the mentor and protege to succeed. Equally important are the tools provided to guide both parties. These tools are like road-signs or directions on a GPS. They guide you to the right destination with the fewest delays. Bill is responsible for my personal success as a mentor, at two organizations (Air National Guard and Defense Supply Center Columbus) where I helped introduce the formalized mentoring program concept.

~John Murphy, Retired Lieutenant Colonel USAF, and former Change Manager, Defense Supply Center Columbus, Ohio.

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FOREWORD

Mentoring Relationships that Work

Who should you read this ebook – and why should you – when there are over 300 other books already written on mentoring?

Only this ebook is based on over 30 years of experience in the field of mentoring, starting in 1978 when I began to formalize all aspects of carefully planned and structured mentoring programs and do research on these essential program components. Such as how to develop formalized mentoring relationships that work so well they produce intended mutual benefits for the protege, the mentor and their organization.

If you are a mentor, you will learn how to improve your effectiveness – by creating a better mentor-protege relationship, by interacting with proteges in new ways to equip and empower them, by helping proteges achieve desired goals. What you learn will save you valuable time (lack of time seems to be everyone’s main problem these days).

If you are a protege, you will learn how to manage the mentoring process – by requesting the exact mentor assistance you need, by knowing which mentoring variations will most help you (e.g., Peer Mentoring or Top-down Mentoring), by converting talk into actions that produce results. You will also learn how to provide effective and efficient mentoring for others.

If you are the coordinator or champion of a mentoring program, you will learn what I’ve learned about improving formalized mentor-protege relationships from developing over 150 very different formalized mentoring programs (none was the same – even within the same organization). You will learn how this produced intended benefits for proteges, mentors and the sponsoring organization. This will enable you to enhance mentoring relationships and outcomes within your program, and use mentoring to enhance other efforts like Training and Talent Management.

At the end of each Chapter, I summarize how the concepts and skills just described are useful. I do this as:

Summarized Tips for Mentors

Summarized Tips for Proteges

Summarized Tips for Mentoring Coordinators and Champions

I use the anglicized word protege (meaning the protected one) for four reasons: (1) Protege is of French origin, where le protégé (male) and la protégée (female) indicate gender. (2) It is awkward using the two French versions when writing in English. (3) Protege has been used longer than mentee or mentoree or any other word, to designate the recipient of mentoring. (4) Beginning in 1984, I copyrighted over 20 customized products that use the word protege. Even if you use another word for protege, like some of my clients do, you will still learn helpful concepts and skills by reading this ebook.

I share answers to 15 key questions listed in the Table of Contents, answers that I discovered from research and development of over 150 formalized mentoring programs since 1978. What you learn will improve your mentoring relationship and multiply the benefits produced, whether you are the mentor or the protege. You will also learn why informal mentoring practices are not as beneficial to you or your organization (I’ve found that if the sponsoring organization does not benefit in intended ways, it ceases support).

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 – Why Informal Mentoring Practices Won’t Improve Your Mentoring Relationship – answers the following questions:

Q1. Which relationship below involves the most complex type of human activity, and why?

Teacher-Student relationship

Counselor-Client relationship

Supervisor-Subordinate relationship

Coach-Learner relationship

Leader-follower relationship

Mentor-Protege relationship

Q2. Which informal mentoring roles should not be employed in formalized mentoring relationships, and why?

Gate-opener

Gate-keeper

Advocate

Sponsor

Coach

Advisor

Q3. Do you know who can best enhance mentoring relationships, who cannot, and why?

Novice in the field of mentoring

Advanced Beginner in the field of mentoring

Competent person in the field of mentoring

Proficient person in the field of mentoring

Expert in the field of mentoring

Q4. Do you know why the following informal mentoring practices are not appropriate in formalized mentoring relationships?

Mentoring assistance occurring without the protege being aware of this.

Doing your own thing without any training.

Expecting special chemistry will keep your mentoring relationship going.

Not knowing how to end your mentoring relationship.

Answers to these first four questions are important to know because about 90% of everything written on mentoring has described informal mentoring – the kind of mentoring that just happens without a clear beginning and often ends with a power struggle. What happens during each informal mentoring relationship occurs so naturally and spontaneously that knowing what happens won’t necessarily improve your mentoring relationships.

Chapter 2 – Why Mentoring Relationships Work or Fail – will enable you to find out how to develop a successful mentoring relationship:

Q5. What are the main reasons why mentor-protege relationships fail, and how can you prevent this?

Mentor persistently tells the protege what to do.

Mentor expects the protege to figure out what to do.

Protege depends on the mentor too much.

Protege is too self-reliant.

Q6. Do you know 12 reasons why mentors should equip and empower proteges in the following ways?

Equip the protege with what the mentor knows.

Empower what the protege wants to do and become.

Q7. Do you know how mentors can have a transformational impact on proteges and their organizations, by helping them progress through these five levels?

Receptive to mentor assistance.

Respond to mentor assistance.

Value what mentor provides.

Internalize mentor-provided concepts and values.

Become characterized by new concepts and values as a method of operating (e.g., be a leader, not simply fulfill leader functions; be a scientist, not simply do science; be a project manager, not just oversee projects).

Q8. Do you know when each of the following formalized mentoring variations is appropriate?

Group Mentoring

Reciprocal Mentoring

Rotational Mentoring

Team Mentoring

Intensive Mentoring

Reading Chapter 3 – Mentoring with the Right Style – will enable you to improve the quality of your mentoring relationship by knowing answers to these