Businesses today face many challenges, especially when it comes to developing leaders within their organizations. Mentorship is a great opportunity for both professional development and employee retention.
Mentors play a critical role in providing guidance and encouragement, says Michelle Venturini, a consultant and coach with over 25 years of leadership and operations experience. Mentors contribute importantly to an employee’s development journey, lending structure, advice, and support. Each mentoring relationship is unique; mentors might be managers focusing on performance, or they may focus primarily on teaching and nurturing growth.
But mentees are not passive recipients in this process, Venturini adds. They take ownership, organize meetings, implement advice, provide progress reports, and derive personalized learning from their interactions.
Most people are familiar with structured mentoring, the most common way a mentorship program is offered. But if that doesn’t work for your organization, or you’re looking for a different approach to take, try one of these non-traditional mentorship methods.
Speed Mentoring
In speed mentoring, mentors, armed with specific expertise, engage with mentees who have specific questions in short, 10-to-15-minute conversations before rotating to the next mentor. Similar to speed dating, a mentee has the opportunity to meet with several mentors during the session.
The mentee could choose to ask each mentor the same question or different questions about a specific topic.
“This is something that could be done at any interval you want; monthly, quarterly, semi-annually,” Venturini says. “It might be interesting to organize this by department. For example, you could have leaders from one department be the mentors and then mentees from another department have the chance to ‘pick their brains’. It’s a chance for the mentors to share what they know and build connections between departments.”
Speed mentoring can also be used as a way to welcome new employees. For this approach, the mentors could be leaders from all departments and the mentees are new employees.
“It is a lot of connections in a short amount of time,” Venturini says. “It’s a way to engage mentors who might be in high demand whose time is limited. Have them impact a lot of people in a short amount of time.”
These events can be fun and high energy. And, hopefully, mentors and mentees might find a connection and decide to continue the relationship in a more traditional mentorship structure.
Group Mentoring
Group mentoring is a one-to-many approach to mentorship. It involves one mentor interacting with a small group of mentees, typically no more than five. Group mentoring sessions can be a one-time event or set up as an ongoing meeting.
“I’ve used this effectively when there’s a visiting leader,” Venturini says. A senior leader or executive that isn’t often accessible could meet a lot of people through group mentoring. It can be formatted like a Q&A.
“It’s an effective way for a lot of people to get face time with the mentor, and it’s an efficient way to engage with someone who might be an in-demand mentor.”
This method encourages discussion and sharing experiences among group members. Once again, group mentoring helps build relationships and networks within your organization. It’s a great way to spread knowledge and reinforce culture aspects you want your future leaders to possess.
Topic Mentoring
With topic mentoring, your organization identifies topic mentors who have expertise in that topic. This can be an ongoing mentorship program where the topic rotates with each meeting and, therefore, the mentors rotate as well.
You could also combine topic mentoring with other mentorship approaches such as speed mentoring.
“Topic mentoring is helpful for mentors who feel like ‘I know some things, but I don’t feel like I know enough to be somebody’s mentor,’” Venturini says. “This gets them comfortable with the process, it builds up their confidence, and they learn they have a lot to offer.”
On the mentee side, they get very targeted, specific help when they need it.
Reverse Mentoring
Often, when we think of mentoring, we think of the mentor as the wise, usually older person, who has more experience. In a reverse mentoring relationship, someone from a younger generation mentors someone from an older generation.
“This can be exciting, and it works very well for organizations,” Venturini says. “First of all, you’re connecting those generations and you’re strengthening those relationships.”
This is one way to help your organization’s retention as well and build its leadership pipeline.
“When you have newer, less experienced, employees put in a position where their knowledge and their experience is really valued, you’re building leadership muscles. That will make a difference down the road when it comes to succession planning and identifying the next generation of your leaders at your organization.
Mentorship Programs Need a Champion to Gain Buy-in
To gain buy-in from senior leaders, it is critical to have a mentorship program champion – someone who genuinely believes in the value of mentoring and the importance of being intentional about forming developmental relationships.
The champion needs to be willing to ask for resources or have the authority to provide resources. This person has the ability to influence people.
This champion should also be able to explain how a mentoring program aligns with the organization’s strategic priorities using language that resonates with organizational leaders.
“It’s not the champion alone,” Venturini says. “All leadership must support and buy-in to a mentoring program. There must be leadership recognition that this is an important, critical development opportunity for the organization.”
Mentorship Develops Team Members at All Levels
Mentoring plays a substantial role in professional and organizational development. Both traditional and non-traditional methods provide opportunities to build relationships and grow professionally.
While the process requires careful planning and implementation, its benefits are plenty – from accelerating the development of potential successors to filling crucial gaps.
Above all, mentoring builds strong, beneficial relationships that celebrate learning and growth, cementing its value to participants and the organization as a whole.
It’s time to emphasize the importance of mentorship in our business culture. After all, the leaders of tomorrow are being shaped today!
Gain even more insights into creating a successful mentorship program at your organization, watch the webinar Mentorship and Coaching at Your Organization: Developing Leaders at All Levels