Mentoring in workplace- assignment

013106_ParsloeMentoring.pdf

Home >Business & Finance homework help >Marketing homework help >Mentoring in workplace- assignment

----- Chapter 4 -----

Mentoring: Where Theory and Practice Collide

In Chapter 1, we established that there is no consensus yet on tenninology in the field ofcoaching and mentoring and that current tenns and definitions may continue to change as the 'revolution in thinking' continues. We have also noted that theoretical models are useful only if they are used to help us to understand new ideas or concepts, and to design models that suit our own specific situations. Applications and experiences of coaching and mentoring are likely to be different in different international and cultural contexts and we are all stillleaming. In this chapter, we shall see just how strongly traditional theory and practice of mentoring collide and create the need for new thinking and tenninology.

While mentoring is basically a one-to-one activity, it can happen in many different contexts or environments:

• Business-to-business, where the main thrust is on economic regeneration and where a mentor from a large organization works with one from a small or medium-sized enterprise .

• Business-to-enterprise, where, for example a Trust like the Prince's Youth Business Trust has mentors to guide young' starters' in business who have received grants from them.

Coaching and Mentoring : Practical Methods to Improve Learning / Eric Parsloe and Monika Wray. London : Kogan Page, 2001. ISBN 0749431180 Chapter 4 pages 75-107

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

• The Government's Fair Deal programme, similar to business-ta-enterprise, but where the learner might have special needs in gaining access to employment.

• Special needs and community projects, where the mentoring is more personal and designed for individual needs and where matching the mentor and learner may be critical.

• Business-ta-education, where business people volunteer to work with headteachers, teachers and students.

• Graduate or undergraduate mentoring, where more experienced people help to guide or counsel students through different stages of their studies.

Corporate mentoring roles are often designed to support specific groups:

• new recruits;

• graduate trainees;

• women;

• ethnic minorities;

• disabled or disadvantaged individuals;

• individuals facing a career change, redundancy or pre-retirement;

• people with a specific desire and motivation to manage their own learning and development.

It is hardly surprising that no single definition or model uniformly fits all these different contexts. We need to try to understand both the differences and the similarities.

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ...

Definitions of Mentoring -

Mentor was the name of a character from Greek mythology who was a wise and trusted adviser or counsellor. The word has. until recently. kept that meaning. It is a word that is often used by politicians, sports people, actors and other performers to describe the person whom they chose as a role model or someone who had a significant early influence on their professional careers.

We can probably all identify people who have been significant in our development. Eric Parsloe can identify an uncle, a friend who was successful in business, and a non-executive chairman who have all played a mentoring role for him. They played this role at different times in differing degrees and for different lengths of time. Two of them he selected himself rather unconsciously, the other one was politely imposed on him. All three helped him considerably, but at no time did they use the term 'mentor'; it just happened. His experience, we suspect, mirrors many others and left to itself, mentoring would have gone on in this way. as it has for hundreds of years.

Times have changed, however. Mentoring has become a business and policy makers' buzzword. Imported in its new form from the United States in the late 1980s, it was initially viewed somewhat suspiciously in the UK as another 'flavour of the month'. Still worse, its use as a vocational verb - 'to mentor' was resented by some traditionalists as another example ofthe 'Americanization' of the English language.

As with coaching, there are almost as many definitions ofmen to ring as there are individual coaches, mentors or tutors. The terms are often used inter changeably. The following definitions give an indication ofthe wide variety of interpretations ofmen to ring in the workplace, education and the community:

• One of the earliest British writers to attempt a definition was David Megginson (1979) who wrote:

Mentoring is an essential aid to staff development ... which calls for a perspective that looks for future possibilities. This requires a level of trust missing from the judgemental line management relationship where discipline has to be maintained and performance assessed.

• A report published in 1989 by the then Council for National Academic Awards and the Government Training Agency discussed mentoring in these terms:

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

There are many views and definitions of the role of mentor, but all include verbs like support, guide, facilitate, etc. Important aspects are to do with listening, questioning and enabling, as distinct from telling, directing and restricting. Mentors are crucial to good management development since they can exert great influence in developing attitudes and encouraging good managerial practice. ... high quality mentoring is concerned with competence, experience and clear role-definition, but it also crucially depends upon the right balance of personal qualities.

• In 1991, David Clutterbuck wrote in his book Everyone Needs a Mentor:

A mentor is a more experienced individual willing to share their knowl- edge with someone less experienced in a relationship of mutual trust. A mixture of parent and peer, the mentor's primary function is to be a transitional figure in an individual's development.

Mentoring includes coaching, facilitating, counselling and net- working. It is not necessary to dazzle the protege with knowledge and experience. The mentor just has to provide encouragement by sharing his enthusiasm for his job.

• There have been other definitions along the way, including:

In the modern business context, mentoring is always at least one stage removed (from direct line management responsibility), and is concerned with the longer-term acquisition and application of skills in a developing career by a form of adviSing and counselling. (Parsloe, E, Coaching, Mentoring and Assessing, 1992)

Mentors are people who, through their action and work, help others to achieve their potential. (Shea, G F, Mentoring: a guide to the basics, 1992)

Whether we label it coaching, advising, counselling or mentoring, if done well its effectiveness will depend in large measure on the manager's belief about human potential. (Whitmore, J, Coaching for Performance, 1997)

Mentoring is a role which includes coachinl5t but also embraces broader counselling and support, such as career counselling, privileged access to information, etc. (Landsberg, M, The Tao of Coaching, 1996)

MENTORINC: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ...

Behind every successful person, there is one elementary truth:

somewhere, somehow, someone cared about their growth and development. This person was their mentor.' (Kaye, B L, Up is Not the Only Way)

• In 1998, Clutterbuck, writing in Learning Alliances - Tapping into Talent, had developed his thinking and now described mentoring as an integrating role and wrote:

Mentoring is one of the most powerful developmental approaches available to individuals and organizations. Certainly the spread of planned mentoring programmes, first in the USA, then in Europe and Asia-Pacific, has been rapid.

Much of the widespread confusion about what is and what is not mentoring comes from the fact that there are two distinct schools of thought. The traditional, North American concept of mentoring is embodied by someone older and more powerful, who expects loyalty in return for advice, guidance and a helping hand. In this person- ification, the mentor may be the person's line manager. The term protege is typically used to describe the relationship, which places relatively little emphasis on learning (by either party) and a lot on assistance with making the right career moves.

By contrast, the European concept of mentoring assumes that the mentor has more experience rather than more power. Indeed, a characteristic of an effective mentoring relationship is the 'parking' of any power differences so that the two can deal as equals. As a result, European mentors are almost always off-line, not least because it is difficult to be very open to someone who has the power to influence your pay, status and general well-being. The purpose of the relationship is primarily learning or development, although a result of learning may well be better career management by the mentee.

• The European Mentoring Centre, which reflects a growing consensus (non US) view, now has a catch-all definition of mentoring as:

Off-line help by one person to another in making significant transitions in knowledge, work or thinking.

Faced with this rather bewildering set of descriptions and language, it must be tempting for people wanting to establish a mentoring programme to conclude that mentoring in the work or community context can mean anything you like to describe it as.

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

In a sense, this should not surprise us. What we are involved in is a 'revolution in thinking' about education, training and development with new practices and processes being articulated and applied. It will take time for clear definitions and use of terminology to become established.

~entoring Defined (a Millennium Attempt)

Our research over recent years into men toring as a management and community activity in the UK suggests that it may be most helpful to distinguish between the noun, the adjective and the verb in seeking clearer definitions.

Asking 'What is a mentor?' (noun) leads us to recognize three broad primary types (adjective plus noun), albeit with different titles than we suggested in 1990. Within each primary type of mentoring, there arc a number of subsidiary mentoring roles (nouns) each of which may also need an adjective to describe it accurately, for instance:

A community mentor (a primary type)

includes

both a 'guidance provider' and a 'good parent' (as different roles that the community mentor can play).

The three broad primary types of mentor are:

• the 'corporate mentor' who acts as a guide, adviser, and counsellor at

various stages in someone's career from induction through formal development to a senior management position and possibly into retirement;

• the 'qualification mentor' who is required by a professional association or government-sponsored agency to be appointed to guide a candidate through their programme of study, leading to a professional qualification or a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ);

• the 'community mentor' who acts as a friend, expert adviser or counsellor to individuals in a wide range of situations where the individual may be disadvantaged or in an actual or potentially distressful position.

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ....

Examples of these three types of mentor can, of course, be found in many organizations, sometimes all three simultaneously in a single large organization. In this chapter, we will discuss both the 'corporate' and 'qualification' mentor. The 'community' mentor is such an important recent development that we deal with it separately in Chapter 5.

Towards a Definition

Asking 'What is mentoring?' leads us to definitions that describe the activities that mentors actually' do'. Given that the behaviour ofmentors is, or we believe should be, determined by the specific context in which they are working in, we believe that this question is best answered by first describing mentoring primarily as:

a process that supports and encourages learning to happen.

This then allows us to further describe mentoring, as with coaching, in terms of role, style, techniques, skills and quality of the relationship.

The terms mentoring and coaching are clearly used to describe a wide vari ety of activities. However, lazy use of words allows them to mean different things to different people within the same organization or community context, which is, at best, unnecessarily confusing and, at worst, dangerously mislead ing. The need for clarity is important and should be the first task in any exer cise to introduce a mentoring or coaching programme or scheme. We suggest that the following definition helps to make a clearer distinction between 'coach ing' and 'mentoring':

The distinction between coaching and mentoring is one of contex- tual roles, responsibilities and relationships as both are processes that enable or support and encourage learning to happen.

A 'corporate mentor' is rarely a learner's line manager. A 'qualifi- cation mentor' is almost always more experienced and qualified them- selves. A 'community mentor' can be anyone who has the ability and willingness to help.

All mentors seek to develop a special relationship as close as pos- sible to the traditional concept of a trusted advisor and counsellor. They can be more interested in improvements in performance and behaviour over a longer time scale, possibly a whole career, than is

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

the case with the necessary 'immediate results focus' of a line man- ager, qualification supervisor or personal skills coach.

This broad definition aims to make a distinction between coaching and mentoring for organizations with a typical line management structure. In small or voluntary organizations these distinctions may not easily apply. In some creative businesses with no real line management structure, for instance, coaching may be defined as a responsibility for everyone in the organization. In these cases, mentoring may then be an additional role for only the top management team with the responsibility to encourage, support and agree an individual's Personal Development Plan. However, remember the caveat that 'mentoring is always defined specifically by the context of the employing organization' .

So, while there are almost as many definitions of mentoring as there are mentoring programmes, each of them valid in their own context, it is useful to define mentoring as a process which supports learning and development, and thus performance improvements, either for an individual, team or business. Mentoring is also usefully understood as a special kind of relationship where

objectivity, credibility, honesty, trustworthiness and confidentiality are critical. When all the theory is stripped away, however, mentoring is still simply

about a regular one-to-one meeting to support the learner in their desire to improve their personal situation or their business life.

Mentoring as a Process

Mentoring, like coaching, is a process. However, while coaching is an enabling and helping process, mentoring is essentially a supportive process. It would be convenient if the mentoring process was as uniform as the coaching process. Unfortunately this is not the case, as the 'community mentoring' process has some important differences from the 'corporate' and 'qualification' processes. Let us first describe the corporate and qualification processes.

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ...

Corporate and Qualification Mentoring Processes

The words used to describe each stage ofthe process for both these roles reflect the distinctions between them and the community mentor process. The key process stages are:

Stage 1 Confirm the Personal Development Plan (PDP); Stage 2 Encourage self-management of learning;

Stage 3 Provide support during the PDP process;

Stage 4 Assist in the evaluation of success.

The use of these words also reflects the different roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of a mentor from that of a coach. Mentors, in the workplace, are rarely a learner's direct line manager whereas a coach usually is. The mentoring process can be illustrated graphically, as in Figure 4.1:

Stage 1 ..... Confirm personal development plan (PDP)

Stage 4 Stage 2 Assist in evaluation Encourage the self-

of success management of learning

Stage 3 Provide support during

PDP process

Figure 4.1 The Mentoring Process

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

Let's now focus on some of the key tasks ofa mentor during each stage of the process.

Stage 1 Confirm the Personal Development Plan

• Final responsibility for the Personal Development Plan lies with the learner and their ',(manager) coach'. A mentor may be involved at any stage during the preparation of the PDP, but their role is simply to help to confinn by providing guidance, access to infonnation and acting as a 'sounding-board'. The mentor has no direct responsibility or accountability for the learner's perfonnance although, in the qualification context, they are often required to follow set guidelines.

• The mentor has to prepare for their role by analysing, identifying and anticipating the likely needs that the learner will have in achieving their learning and development goals. The mentor will need to be sensitive to all the circumstances within which the learner is operating, including their personal beliefs, capabilities, aspirations and learning style preferences.

• The mentor needs to encourage the development of self-awareness in the learner by showing how self-assessment and honest open questioning can help to achieve this.

• One of the key areas where a mentor may help is by checking that all the learning and development goals meet the SMART criteria. (Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Relevant and Timescaled). The mentor can also usefully draw attention to the need to set goals with short and realistic time scales. Even a long qualification programme is more successfully tackled in short manageable stages.

Stage 2 Encourage the Self-management of Learning

• One of the characteristics of a good PDP is the extent to which it allows for self-management of the process. However, not all learners will have sufficient experience to manage the implementation of the PDP. The mentor's greater experience should allow them, by asking probing questions, to encourage the learner to think ahead and anticipate some of the administrative aspects of implementing the PDP.

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE <l1li

• The mentor can also provide a useful service by giving clear explanations

and reminders at the appropriate moment of the range of support options that may be available .

• One of the most critical aspects of the mentoring role is to ensure that the day-to-day working relationship between the learner and the line manager is not compromised by the mentor's activities. Learners should be encour aged on all occasions to work out their own solutions to any problem they have with their line manager or other colleagues. A mentor is a 'sounding board', not a trouble-shooter. Conversations need to be in strict confidence so that a genuine level of trust can exist. Only in the most extreme situa tions should a mentor intervene directly. Adopting a genuinely objective, confidential and impartial role may not always be easy in practice, but it is essential.

Stage 3 Provide Support during the PDP Implementation Process

• As soon as the POP starts to be implemented, the mentor needs to be available to provide support. In practical terms, this means agreeing a schedule of meetings as frequently as seems necessary. It is also useful to agree methods for arranging impromptu meetings or contact to deal with any urgent and unforeseen difficulties.

• The way in which the mentor provides guidance and information is critical. Timing, pace and level are obviously important, but the danger ofimposing the mentor's natural preferences must be guarded against. Avoiding bias of all kinds and remaining objective, while at the same time fully involved, is not always an easy balance to strike.

• Mentors will sometimes be asked to provide advice and make suggestions. The key here is to ensure that advice and suggestions are given only when requested and not imposed on the learner in an attempt to appear helpful. The mentor is definitely not expected to be the source of all knowledge and information, and they should be quite willing to direct learners to alternative and perhaps more appropriate sources.

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

• A key role for the mentor is to help learners to deal with mistakes and setbacks which in some line management relationships may result in blame, guilt and feelings of inadequacy. The mentoring relationship should be non judgemental and 'risk-free'. This allows the mentor to help the learner to treat mistakes and setbacks as real learning opportunities. Properly handled, these situations are often rich learning experiences.

• At all times, the mentor should try to build self-confidence and motivation in the learner, in order to develop a positive attitude and a will to complete the PDP.

Stage 4 Assist in the Evaluation of Success

• There is a distinction between regular monitoring of progress and final evaluation at the end ofthe PDP. A mentor's role is to encourage the learners to arrange formal evaluations with their line managers or qualification superVIsors.

• Helping the learner to prepare for a formal evaluation is a useful mentoring function. Reminding them of the value of self-ssessment and peer assessment of performance standards is particularly helpful.

• Mentors can use reflective questions to help learners to analyse the causes of any barriers to learning that occur, as well as quantifying the benefits that were gained by themselves and the organization during the PDP process.

• Formal mentoring relationships usually come to an end. Most often this occurs when a learner changes job or with the achievement ofa professional or vocational qualification. Ending a relationship is often not easy. Celebrating success and recognizing the mutual benefits gained is important. The mentor should make a special effort to encourage the learner to continue to set new development and career goals. Agreeing to maintain interest and contact in the future is a positive note to end on.

----

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ...

What Happens in Practice? __

We have chosen four examples that illustrate the wide variations in the application of mentoring theory and practice. The first relates to the role of 'qualification' mentor the other three relate to 'corporate' mentoring. Example 1 The 'Qualification' Mentor

The Institute ofChartered Accountants (lCA) has used the concept ofmentoring for many years as part ofthe process ofqualifying candidates to full membership of the Institute. Thcy use the word' counsellor' rather than mcntor but the roles are very similar and, likc many other instances, also include a role as expert advisor and assessor.

The Institute requires all professional accountancy firms, who are registered members ofthe Institute, to follow strict guidelines on the training, development and eventual qualification of candidate members of the Institute.

Every authorized training organization has to appoint a 'Member Responsible for Training' who has to already be a qualified member of the Institute themselves. The firm also has to appoint a 'counsellor' and a 'supervisor' (in ICA terms, the counsellor is the mentor and the supervisor, the line manager, is the coach in effect). The ICA roles and responsibilities are clearly laid down as follows:

Counsellor

The training organization must appoint a counsellor for every student under training, ensuring that the number assigned to the person nominated is not so large to inhibit ready access by the student and the proper fulfilment of the role. A ratio of 15 students per counsellor has usually been acceptable, but much will depend on the counsellor's other commitments.

A counsellor should normally be a member of the Institute. If that is not feasible, the counsellor must be a member of the Scottish, or Irish Institute, or ofACCA, CIMA, or CIPFA.

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

Responsibilities

Working closely with the 'Member Responsible for Training', the counsellor has responsibility for:

A. counselling arrangements. to ensure students have access to counselling at any time;

B. delegation of counselling functions (where appropriate);

C. students' personal and professional development;

D. reviewing students' examination studies and performance;

E. unless undertaken by the Member Responsible for Training, conducting the fonnal half-yearly reviews of students' progress;

F. confirming to the Member Responsible for Training, that a student is fit to become a member of the Institute;

G. ensuring that any successor is provided with all relevant information about the students to whom he or she is to become counsellor.

Supervisor ------- ------------------ ----l

The supervisor is the individual in the line management chain to whom I the student reports in the first instance whilst preparing for, and undertaking, a particular assignment or task.

The supervisor need not have any formal professional qualifications, but he or she must be someone of the right calibre who has had prior training and/or experience in supervision and who:

A. is technically competent and sufficiently up to date to undertake and supervise the assignment or task;

B. is able to analyse work into the main technical work experience categories;

C. has a working knowledge of the Institute's Guide to Professional Ethics and is able to apply the advice it contains;

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ....

D. understands the Institute's recording and progress monitoring system;

E. understands the components of supervision.

In view of the foregoing, it is desirable that the appointment of a supervisor should be endorsed by the Member Responsible for Training.

Responsibilities

The supervisor is responsible for:

A. liaising closely with senior supervisors, managers, counsellors and the Member Responsible for Training in respect of students' work experience, progress and performance;

B. before starting an assignment or task, conducting an oral briefing with the student for the purpose of ensuring that objectives are clear;

C. supervising work experience;

D. conducting an oral review of the work with the student;

E. assessing the student's progress in preparation for the student's half yearly review.

These are the official guidelines and what happens in practice can vary considerably. In the large firm, KPMG for instance, the ICA guidelines are translated thus as John Bailey (Development Advisor) and Catherine Miller (Manager Responsible for Audit Training) explain:

KPMG does have a Member Responsible for Training who is known as the Exam Training Partner. He is responsible within the organization as the official point of contact for the Institute's education and training system.

There are also Counselling Partners who are responsible for monitoring the longer term development of an individual. His or her role is to ensure that the individual's appraisal objectives are set and met through appropriate training and experience. They also ensure that the individual's development is on course to achieve their career ambitions. The Counselling Partner is responsible for reviewing and signing the individual's admission forms to the Institute on behalf of KPMG.

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

KPMC also assigns Counselling Managers to be responsible for meeting individuals every 6 to 12 months to review their performance in the intervening period as well as any training they have received and the experience they have gained. This person is within the line management hierarchy of the appraisee and therefore could be their manager or senior manager.

Assistant managers and managers have day-to-day responsibility for individuals. Before the individual starts an assignment, they will be briefed by an assistant manager or manager. The individual's objectives for the assignment will be jointly agreed. While the work is being completed, the assistant manager or manager will supervise the individual, providing coaching where necessary. They will then review the work and discuss performance. The individual will perform a self-assessment which will then be discussed with the assistant manager or manager. Strengths as well as areas for development are considered and an action plan determined. A written record is maintained.

In addition, KPMG operates a separate men taring scheme for new employees.

When a new graduate joins the firm, they are assigned a mentor to support and guide them through the early years. This person is at least one year more senior to the graduate and so is knowledgeable about KPMC, yet still remembers the pressure of studying for exams. The mentor acts as a buddy and has a confidential relationship with the graduate. They also take on 'a developmental role', coaching and counselling the trainee as necessary on a more informal basis. The guidance provided is based around KPMC's Passport scheme. The 'Passport' sets out the competencies which the firm expects staff to demonstrate as well as providing guidance as to how to develop and demonstrate these competencies.

During the first year of employment, the mentor and mentee meet together on a regular basis, discuss progress and developmental needs as well as any concerns which the individual may have. After the first year, the relationship tends to continue on a more ad hoc basis. Mentors are volunteers and the role provides the mentor with the opportunity to develop their own 'people' skills. The aim is that each mentor is assigned to only one mentee so that greater input is provided.

Mentors receive a day of internal training on their role. The emphasis is on the practicalities of the role and centres on the knowledge and tools required by the mentor to develop the mentee. In addition, the course provides a forum for mentors to raise any concerns about their role.

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ....

KPMG's approach illustrates how the 'qualification' and 'corporate' mentor's roles overlap with the coaches in some instances. However, in situations where NVQs are operating, it is likely that the roles are far more prescribed and separated. Special training and qualifications are also a requirement for the

various advisor, assessor and mentoring roles. The next three examples all relate to 'corporate' mentoring.

Example 2 The Executive Mentor

Company directors and chief executives have probably always looked for counsel and guidance from outside their organizations on an informal, unpaid basis. The concept of the paid mentor to senior executives, based on a formal agreement, is a more modern and increasingly popular arrangement.

As Clutterbuck and Megginson explain and demonstrate in their book Mentoring Executives and Directors (1999), there are different levels of formality at which executive mentoring takes place - from the formal and paid to the more informal and unpaid. They write:

There is also an executive mentoring role that falls between the formal and informal where a retiring CEO becomes a mentor to his or her successor.

Executive mentors do much the same as other mentors do, but they need credibility at the highest level of business and often an accompanying knowledge and experience base. Mentoring roles are still that of acting as sounding board, critical friend, listener, advisor, guide. They may also choose to coach on behaviour and/or counsel on how to deal with others' behaviour.

Megginson and Clutterbuck identify three common executive mentoring roles:

• The executive coach is usually part ofa short-term relationship, based on a clearly defined skills or behavioural issue for the executive concerned.

• The elder statesman is typically the senior player who has 'been there, seen it, done it'. Elder statesmen give the benefit of their experience and may act as role models.

• The reflective mentors operate at a more holistic level... 'they help executives explore their own issues, build their own insights and self awareness and develop their own unique ways ofhandling how they interact

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

with key colleagues and the business. They use current issues to examine recurrent patterns of thinking and behaviour, asking penetrating questions and stimulating the executive to take control of the issues slhe has avoided. They build the executive's confidence through greater self-understanding'.

Executive mentoring is seen by Megginson and Clutterbuck as difficult to do well, as it operates at several different levels - the intellectual, the emotional and the business context.

The mentor has to be flexible, challenging, rigorous, aware of the executive's needs, ambitions and values, and have a breadth of knowledge about the world of business/work. The success of the relationship between mentor and executive lies also in the latter being prepared to accept the partnership, preparing for the sessions and valuing the opportunity to learn about both their personal and work lives.

Example 3 Mentoring in Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council IT Division

There were several reasons why the Information Technology Division at Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council chose to start a mentoring programme, most of which emerged during preparatory work for Investors in People (lIP) reassessment.

The corporate Employee Development Scheme (EDS) was not working particularly well within the Division. It was based on an annual development interview, which tended to result in a list ofplanned training courses as opposed to 'owned' self-development. Some managers were too keen to please staff while some staff had fixed views on their development wishes. Some plans for the year ahead tended to be unrealistic and failed to materialize therefore leading to a degree ofcynicism. The needs ofthe business also tended to change during the year - IT is very fast moving. Although the EDS scheme was meant to be an overall framework, many development opportunities were being taken up as and when they arose. For example, NVQ programmes offered to all staff at a particular point in time.

By its very nature, working in IT calls for much self-managed learning. Change is constant and it is essential to learn on-the-job in order to keep up to date. Reliance on frequent training courses is neither realistic nor economic. A

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ~

Self-Managed Integrated Learning system (SMILE) developed by Wolsey Hall, Oxford was chosen as the 'tool' to replace the existing development scheme. This was welcomed for many reasons: as a means of encouraging ownership oflearning; as providing a holistic approach to learning; and as a way ofenabling staff to accept that change is constant and that they had to be flexible yet responsive - 'learn how to manage their own career'.

By deciding to use SMILE, the IT Division was in effect endorsing a mentoring programme. As Mark Wheatley, Head of the IT Division explained:

The main reason for using mentoring was that it was an integral part of the SMILE approach. The process ensures that the learners set their own agenda for the sessions and keep their own records of their action points. The various reflection and self-assessment cycles within SMILE repeatedly bring them back to the learning objectives and creates virtuous circles.

The mentoring programme in the IT Division took place in two phases. Phase One began in July 1998 and was intended to run for six months. It involved a single section of 12 staff. The whole group had a short initial briefing session, and the four most senior members of the team received mentoring each month from an external mentor. As they in turn mentored two other colleagues each, the process cascaded throughout the section.

As the mentors were managers or supervisors from within the same team as their learners, they inevitably acted as both mentors and coaches. However, the emphasis of the programme was firmly on mentoring. The aim was:

To encourage the learner to do the work themselves and to reflect; for the mentor to act as a mirror. The discipline of the SMILE meeting puts the onus on the learner to use their mentor as a sounding board but to solve their own problems. The mentor's role is to ensure it is the learner's agenda (that is discussed).

Within four months, it was decided to extend the self-managed learning programme, as the advising consultants for lIP were impressed by what it had to offer. Phase Two had a different focus - cross-team mentoring. The impetus for this development was 'to provide a better one-Division approach'. In a Division where there is a potential risk of people being a 'little bit precious about their specialist expertise', there was a need to reinforce co-operation so that customers receive 'joined-up solutions' to meet their needs.

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

Phase Two began in November 1998 and absorbed Phase One, thus providing an ongoing programme of both 'within-team' and 'cross-team' mentoring. A total of29 staff (about 40 per cent ofthe Division) volunteered to participate in this second phase. The existing mentors, who already had two team members as learners, took on a third from outside the team. A couple of learners from Phase One became mentors themselves, and some new mentors were taken from the remaining senior managers who had all volunteered to join the programme. All the mentors had monthly sessions with an external mentor, which enabled them to develop their expertise by role-modelling and discussion.

Phase Two was also originally designed to run for six months, but it very quickly became evident that it was superior to the existing EDS and so it was decided to continue with it. An evaluation after some five months of operation confirmed this. As issues around people's aspirations or performance came up at EDS, they were encouraged (but not coerced) to join the new programme. This meant that mentoring capacity was stretched. Some mentors were asked to take on a third or fourth learner, while some new ones had to be recruited. By the end of 1999, over two-thirds of the Division's staff were involved in the programme with nine acting as mentors.

The pairing ofmentors and learners was given some thought. In Phase One, where both came from the same team, the mentor was either the line manager or another senior person. Phase Two was more complicated. Learners were not allowed to choose their own mentors as this could have led to overload for some and a paucity oftakers for other potential mentors. The senior management team, therefore, identified possibilities for each learner and offered a first choice mentor. If that match was rejected, there was a second choice available for discussion.

Where possible, although not exclusively, every attempt was made to match women with women and ethnic minority staff with each other. As Mark Wheatley explained:

While this could be seen as either sensitive or insensitive, depending on your perspective, we thought it would probably add some value, especially if there were issues around race or gender.

Other criteria used for matching included the top team's perceptions ofpossible 'synergies' and/or compatibility of personalities. Mark then sounded out both mentors and learners on their potential partners and made adjustments where

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ....

there were reservations. Over 90 per cent agreed to their first choice mentor or

learner. The programme is ongoing. Mentors and learners meet monthly for an hour.

Occasionally there is some slippage mainly caused by pressure ofwork or fear - on the part of the learner - of being seen to be unprepared. Mentors are discouraged from agreeing to the cancellation of a meeting in case the reason given reflects an underlying development need such as time management.

The format of these development review meetings follows a pattern: the learner is asked to identify their agenda for the meeting; the mentor follows up any actions from the last meeting; anything (else) that the mentor suggests might be useful to discuss (with the learner's consent) is also included.

This framework also allows for: the discussion of any areas of anxiety or concern in the job that might be translated into opportunities; existing development issues; and for analysis of new possibilities.

The early meetings tended to centre around getting the learner to work through the self-managed learning guide in SMILE, reflecting on their personal profile. their competences, and what is required for the job, defining goals and coming up with an action plan for learning - a Personal Development Plan (PDP). The purpose was to get the learner familiar with and moving around that cycle:

This general format encourages learners to reflect on the issues and to come up with actions. The mentor's role is to prompt them to decide what they are going to do about things. The objective is ultimately to produce a Personal Development Plan, work towards it, evaluate it and then move on to the next one. The mentor is there to listen, act as a mirror, prompt, encourage reflection, and to steer people towards ownership of their learning and plans of action. It is then up to the learner to decide what is best for or important to them.

The success of the programme is monitored in several ways. Mark checks up informally that meetings have taken place. A 'support mechanism' has also been established with separate meetings for mentors and learners, chaired by Mark, every couple of months, where they discuss SMILE, talk of their expectations, raise queries, exchange views. The meetings are carefully managed so as not to betray any confidences. This is an informal way ofpicking up what is actually happening and what is not happening. Mark is also available, on a one-to-one basis, to answer queries and to discuss issues such as the mentor learner relationship, the line manager's support for the PDP and how to get back on track, where necessary.

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

Evaluation has been done using a 360-degree feedback questionnaire to check on the process and to gather views about mentors' skills and attributes. The results of this have been compared to a 'norm' group and the results discussed with mentors to aid their own development and growth.

While relationships between mentors and learners are confidential, as is the content oftheir meetings, it is evident that SMILE and the mentoring programme have been welcomed, are embraced and are working well. Some people have found their relationships quick to establish; others have taken longer to appreciate their value. Only a couple of relationships have 'broken down', where the mentor was too keen to give advice and/or less interested in listening.

Although the programme is essentially a mentoring one, coaching has occasionally crept in. Some mentors have coached their learners through the SMILE process showing how it might best be used. Occasionally, a mentor might make specific suggestions where the learner, after much reflection, has not found a way forward themselves. This would be very much in the context of 'This is what I might do. This might work for me, but it might not work for you ... ' As the idea is that you get learners to suggest things for themselves, problem solving for learners is discouraged, while any intervention by the mentor with the line manager on behalf of the learner is 'positively frowned upon'.

The role of the outside mentor at Sandwell

Mark described his relationship with the external mentor thus:

... virtually no coaching, effectively acting as a mirror, but cracking the pace and getting me through the SMILE process. A lot of issues that we discussed arose because of my particular concerns about the job or career. I had managed to do a lot of preparatory work beforehand as I had previously been involved in a management development programme that had involved mentoring, 360-degree feedback, analysis of learning styles, ete.

My approach this time was to follow the SMILE process slavishly so that I could pass it on, mentor others and advise people if they came to me with difficulties.

The mentor acted as a mirror, but was also pretty challenging, which was what I needed. He was good at pursuing actions that I had agreed to and was obviously very experienced at picking up the underlying

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ....

issues. He is good at listening and at intervening to focus me back on the SMILE process. Success depends upon the learner and their motives for joining

the scheme. I certainly treated SMILE seriously, regarding it as something for my whole development. We are all volunteers, no one

has been press-ganged.

Benefits of self-managed learning

For the Division, the mentoring programme and self-managed learning have had many benefits.

It has encouraged people to reflect on the wide range oflearning opportunities available to attain goals:

... just getting people to think more flexibly about the opportunities that are out there, about learning, about developing themselves and about the pros and cons of where they are at the moment has been very advantageous and has contributed much to morale.

It has also improved the capacity for individuals to deal with change:

There is a potential organizational change on the cards which I feel some people in this Division would have found inherently threatening. However, I have not noticed the kind of reaction I would have expected. That could be the mentoring process or it could be down to the way that we have attempted to manage it. It could show a cultural shift. Mentoring contributes to people's comfort with change and gives a greater sense of self-determination.

SMILE has proven to be a workable system of self-managed learning:

a sense that we have something sustainable, a robust framework that generates confidence ... a virtuous circle involving the majority of the Division.

The mentoring programme has helped to plug communication deficits:

The process can expose a few gaps, for example, where line managers are not making it clear to staff what is expected of them. It has helped to identify where some of the basics have been neglected.

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

The programme has increased learning opportunities:

For some managers, it has added to their interpersonal skills and some have chosen to pursue a mentoring qualification, showing that they see the value in being skilled mentors.

The programme has increased cohesiveness of the Division:

The programme has also made a contribution to a 'one-Division' feel.

Personally, for Mark Wheatley as a learner, the benefits have been that:

Something is happening on a regular basis that forces me to concentrate on my personal development - the constant cycle, the discipline. It has also improved my listening skills by putting me into situations where I have had to listen as a mentor.

The disadvantages of the programme, such as there have been, have been minor:

The fact that a few people have been disappointed probably because they saw SMILE as a panacea to solving all their problems or as a quick way of getting themselves a better job;

The scheme was voluntary, therefore some who would have benefited a great deal did not put themselves forward;

Confusion on the part of one or two participants who thought that SMILE was concerned with their personal aspirations, but not with developing them for the 'day job'.

Mark Wheatley considers the key factors that have contributed to the success of the programme at Sandwell to be:

• that many staff are keen and aspirational;

• that mentors and learners were volunteers;

• that there is a framework which is smart, sustainable, robust and resilient;

• that the cycle is relatively fast within that framework, which ensures progress in bite-size chunks via the PDP;

• that mentors werc fully committed;

• that there was an external mentor available to support and encourage the senior people;

- ---

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ....

• and that SMILE obviously encourages people to take responsibility for

their learning.

So in the 'corporate' world, at least, 'coach-mentor' is the most appropriate model, but the quality of the relationships are the key.

Example 4 Mentoring in Spicer Hallfield

Diane Caswell joined Spicer Hallfield, a market-leading manufacturer and distributor of photographic accessories, in 1998 as their Managing Director. The company operates from three sites in central and northern England and employs some 160 staff.

Very early on, Diane set about introducing a new culture into the company that would, she hoped, involve individuals more in the development of the business and in their own future. She recognized the need to motivate, encourage and support individuals so that they could think for themselves, grow in confidence and take responsibility. The new culture - a coaching/mentoring one - also had to fit the business plan and be designed to help people to understand the business, otherwise it might be viewed as 'flavour ofthe month' and as an initiative in its own right.

The first step was to start at the top, by agreeing that the three directors (including herself) and three senior managers would be mentored by an external mentor. After three months, the programme was extended to allow another 20 30 key people (everyone in a supervisory, management or with a specialist role in the business) to have the same opportunity. They were mentored by insiders - the senior management team.

Preparation and training

Coach/mentors received some preparation for their role and did a lot on their own. They had their own three months with an external mentor and time to become fully familiar with SMILE by working through it.

Since then they have supported each other, shared reading matter, looked at how best to listen and ask questions, completed personality inventories, attended a workshop on understanding how their own personality traits might work! clash with others, completed team inventories (like Belbin) and done some

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

work on understanding themselves. 'They have taken responsibility for their own learning.'

In their regular discussions about the programme, they have shared some of the issues that have come up and which challenge them as mentors. They have explored when it is appropriate to be challenging with a learner; how best to work with a reluctant learner or one who does want change; how to make learners feel all right about the fact that they may wish to change jobs or move out of the programme.

Matching coach/mentors with learners

When the programme was cascaded and the management team started to work with others, it was necessary to match coaches/mentors (ie the management team) with their learners. Matching was done by the management team in discussion. They agreed, as a team, who would work with whom, Learners were told who their coach/mentor would be and had the choice of declining if they so wished. None did. Diane feels that this was very much the result of the careful thinking that the management team had put into deciding the matching. She explained the criteria used to match:

It was based on 'best fit' .. , the personalities, different roles ... We (the management team) matched everyone on a one-to-one basis... All coach/mentors were more senior than the learners ... We were not necessarily looking for the same personalities. The main thing was that they should not clash so that there would not, for example, be an out-and-out extrovert matched with a very inward thinking reflector. The coach/mentors all went through Myers-Briggs first to establish what they were. In terms of roles, we tried to cover cross- functional roles because, in the business, we needed more understanding of each other.

100

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ~

The format

Coach/mentors meet with their learners for an hour about once a month on average. The detailed organization ofthe meetings is left up to the pairs. Some, who work far away from each other, prefer to meet for a longer session, but less often (eg two hours every two months), keeping in touch by telephone in the interim; others meet every three weeks for a shorter session. 'It's up to the needs of the individual. It was important not to force-fit a particular format on everyone.'

The meetings between coach/mentor and learner follow a similar procedure, based on the SMILE process. 'Everybody has a structure to work with, but where there is an element of flexibility, based on what the learner wants to talk about.' Action points are reviewed, the learner sets the agenda, anything that happened in between sessions and any reflection on that are discussed.

The SMILE format is there as a tool. If you force people to follow it, it becomes a process and that is not what I wanted. I wanted coaching and mentoring to become a way of life.

Diane works with four learners herself and has been working with them for about nine months. Initially, her sessions with them followed a set structure working through the modules in the SMILE programme. With time, learners' specific needs have become clearer and the focus of sessions has turned to address these.

Diane has found that some of her learners were initially apprehensive, 'nervous and in awe', about talking about themselves in front of her. They were unused to such an open style ofmanagement from an MD. This was also true when the management team first starting mentoring others. These feelings have now been calmed.

Monitoring and evaluation

The coaching/mentoring programme is not monitored as such. It is up to the management team themselves to take responsibility for ensuring that their meetings do happen. They are all highly committed and Diane has no doubt the programme runs as it should.

101

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

The programme is, however, evaluated in several ways:

• through a 360-degree feedback exercise, where all learners rate their coach! mentors on their skills, techniques and personal attributes;

• through learners' meetings to discuss how the programme is going;

• through having coaching and mentoring as part of the regular agenda at management team meetings;

• through discussion with the learners' line managers, so that they give the learners support, too.

Every attempt is made not to break confidentiality.

Coaching or mentoring or both?

The programme is essentially a mix of coaching and mentoring, using the SMILE package as a base tool.

Coaching takes place where a learner might ask for specific guidance on a task or where a person might be new to the business and needs to learn the in house procedures. Mentoring takes place, for example, when a learner might want to talk about their future or where they might be going through difficult or challenging times at work or even at home.

Sessions vary, depending on need: some might be 80/20 coaching and mentoring; some the reverse or anything in between. The balance depends on what the learner brings up and what their needs are and the way in which the business is moving.

We initially thought of the more senior person primarily as a coach, but the mentoring role has developed ... There's a bit of both - a bit of mentoring in terms of helping learners to deal with different situations and there's a bit of coaching on the work front. It's difficult to say sometimes if they were coaches or mentors. People are doing different things depending on where their learners are with their jobs.

102

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ...

The role of the external mentor

The external mentor's role was varied. For Diane as MD, the external mentor

was: ... able to benchmark our progress ... to point out any gaps between

where I wanted to be and where individuals in the business were ... He was able to encourage me to take it one step at a time and to understand that any progress was good progress ... He was a 'reality measure', making sure that I did not over-expect... His experience of other businesses was very important.

Members ofthe management team talked of the external mentor's importance in 'keeping them on the straight and narrow ... keeping them focused.' He also had a role in helping his learners to confinn or explore whether they were in the right role within the business and whether their present jobs were playing to their best strengths.

Hugely important to all those mentored by the external mentor was that he was respected and trusted and so 'people were prepared to listen to him, he could be challenging in a non-confrontational way, making it possible for learners to get more out of themselves '.

The extent to which the external mentor coached or mentored varied with his learners. It was predominantly mentoring, but coaching was used when asked for.

Benefits of SMILE and the coachinglmentoring culture

Personally, Diane feels that the programme has given her:

The opportunity to explore my leadership and management style, as this is my first time as a Managing Director and there is no one else to turn to ... It has given an element of comfort ... and confidence.

For the management team, the programme has helped them to learn:

Who in their team can make a difference to the business ... It has helped them to step back and ask 'Have I got the right people in my team to achieve the business goals?'

103

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

In tenus of the business, SMILE and the coaching/mentoring culture:

One of the big successes is that the programme has broken down barriers ... Learners, if they have an opinion, feel that they can express it, without feeling there is going to be some reprisal. They now feel that if they have got ideas that we will listen to them ... It has opened people's minds to the concept of accountability ... You can't have empowerment without people understanding what they are accountable for. It has made them realize that they have to make things happen themselves and not rely on others. In terms of the company as a whole, it will take a while, but I believe there is already more trust, more sharing, better teamwork, a breaking down of barriers. People feel they can be involved, can express ideas and opinions for the benefit of the business.

The hope is that the coaching/mentoring culture will become the status quo:

SMILE has been about moving the business forward, not an initiative in its own right ... The initiative needs to be embedded and not be seen as a one-off. .. It is still very early days.

The factors which have contributed most to the success of the culture so far have been several:

• the commitment of the management team;

• the learners' willingness to 'have a go';

• a fundamental and passionate belief on Diane's part that this is a way of moving the business forward.

A recent visit from an Investors in People assessor confinued that things were changing for the better. She reported finding a 'happy environment within the business', where people felt listened to, where they could trust their managers, where they felt valued and where they realized that they could make a differ ence to the business. People were thought to be thinking for themselves more and to be thinking beyond the task in hand. Diane felt this had come about through 'perseverance and hard work, and not by luck. It would have been easy at times to give up, but we are all very committed and have worked through difficult times.'

Each ofthese four examples illustrates the case for designing a model to suit the specific context and then interpreting flexibly and practically. The reader

104

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE ....

may now also have a clearer understanding of why we believe that the tenn

'coach-mentor' quite accurately describes what happens in practice, in both the qualification and corporate contexts.

The following self-assessment exercise may prove useful in helping you to judge your current competence as a 'corporate' or 'qualification' mentor.

Performance Criteria

Assessment Guidelines

There are three commonsense levels of assessment: Good which is above standard OK which is acceptable Needs help which is self-explanatory and is the information on

which to base a PDP

Stage! : Confirm the Development Plan

You identify and agree specific needs for guidance.

You ensure that information and guidance given avoid bias and take account of individual learning styles and the learning context.

You ensure that information and advice given cover choice of any relevant qualification process.

You encourage the use of self-assessment to develop self-awareness.

You confirm that any development goals are SMART

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

105

~ COACHING AND MENTORING

Stage 2: Encourage Self-Management of Learning

You help to identify the range of factors that need to be managed to achieve learning goals, including the comptences and resources required.

You help to identify the causes of any difficulties that arise and encourage learners to work out their own solutions.

You ensure that the relationship with the line manager is never compromised by any advice and guidance you offer.

You explain clearly the range of support available to manage the learners' own learning.

Stage 3: PrO\ iell' Support During Development Plan

You agree a regular schedule of meetings and establish methods of gaining access to you as and when need for support arises.

You offer, but never impose, opinions and suggestions and, where appropriate, refer to other sources of guidance.

You ensure that guidance is given in a timely manner, at a level and pace appropriate and in such a way that it avoids bias.

You conduct and conclude discussions in a manner that promotes effective working relationships.

You encourage mistakes and setbacks to be seen as learning opportunities and build self-confidence and motivation to achieve goals.

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

106

MENTORING: WHERE THEORY AND PRACTICE COLLIDE .....

Stage 4: Assist in the Evaluation of Success

You encourage formal evaluations of POPs with line managers.

You ensure thorough preparation for formal evaluations by conducting assessments of the achievement of standards with peers and colleagues.

You help to identify any factors inhibiting the learning process as well as identifying any unexpected benefits gained during the learning experiences.

You offer encouragement and ongoing support to apply the learning.

You motivate individuals to set new development goals and help to identify any support they will need.

If appropriate, you ensure that the mentoring relationship ends on a constructive and positive note.

Figure 4.2 Assessment of competence

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

Good

OK __ Needs help

Good

OK ~ Needs help

Good

OK Needs help

107