Creating a Mentoring Culture

The Organization's Guide

Lois J. Zachary

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780787964016
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781118046517
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Mentoring & Coaching
• Index: Business

In order to succeed in today's competitive environment, corporate and nonprofit institutions must create a workplace climate that encourages employees to continue to learn and grow. From the author of the best-selling The Mentor's Guide comes the next-step mentoring resource to ensure personnel at all levels of an organization will teach and learn from each other. Written for anyone who wants to embed mentoring within their organization, Creating a Mentoring Culture is filled with step-by-step guidance, practical advice, engaging stories, and includes a wealth of reproducible forms and tools. 

Part One

Taking Stock Mentoring’s Foundation

MENTORING IS NOT NEW. Informal mentoring relationships have existed for centuries. However, the concept of formal organizational mentoring is relatively new. When organizational mentoring first became popular in the mid-1970s, many considered mentoring programs just another management training fad. Some organizations ignored it, and others immediately got on the mentoring bandwagon for fear of missing out on something their competitors were doing right. Mentoring programs for select populations (mostly elite, high-potential and high-performance leaders) seemed to be the spirit of the day. Some programs were successful; others were not. The mentoring management fad seemed to fade away for a period of time, replaced by more “critical” programs.

A decade later, many more organizations began to focus on mentoring as a vehicle for transferring or handing down organizational knowledge from one generation to another. The predominant model was the mentor as “sage on the stage,” with the mentee’s role a passive receiver of knowledge.

Since then, the practice of mentoring has evolved in lock step with the expanding knowledge of how to best facilitate learning. Mentoring practice has shifted from a product-oriented model (characterized by transfer of knowledge) to a process-oriented relationship (involving knowledge acquisition, application, and critical reflection). The hierarchical transfer of knowledge and information from an older, more experienced person to a younger, less experienced person is no longer the prevailing mentoring paradigm.

Organizations engage in mentoring for a number of business reasons, many of which relate to the need to cultivate or manage knowledge and relationships. The emphasis is not on making available a mentoring program but supporting mentoring efforts throughout the organization.

The best chance for fulfilling the promise of mentoring within organizations today, I believe, lies in creating a mentoring culture. Organizations must create readiness, provide opportunities, and build in support so that mentoring can have a profound, deep, and enduring impact on their people. The extent to which an organization can accomplish this depends on its ability to take stock. Creating a mentoring culture begins with looking in the organizational mirror: reflecting on people and processes, culture, and the vision of what your organization might become. Every organization has its own unique ways of conducting business. In any organization, “the way things get done” is demonstrated in thought and deed every day. For a mentoring culture to be sustained, the mentoring effort, the culture, and the organizational practices must be aligned with one another. Taking stock begins with full understanding of mentoring and the mentoring process.

What Is Mentoring, Anyway?

Mentoring is best described as a reciprocal and collaborative learning relationship between two (or more) individuals who share mutual responsibility and accountability for helping a mentee work toward achievement of clear and mutually defined learning goals. Learning is the fundamental process, purpose, and product of mentoring. Building, maintaining, and growing a relationship of mutual responsibility and accountability is vital to keeping the learning focused and on track.

Mentoring often involves skillful coaching. Although the two terms mentoring and coaching are often used interchangeably, it is important to understand the difference. They are two distinct practices, but in process very much kindred spirits; ideally, they work together to support organizational learning.

Mentoring, at its fullest, is a self-directed learning relationship, driven by the learning needs of the mentee. It is more process-oriented than service-driven and may focus on broader, “softer,” intangible issues as learning goals (getting to know the corporate culture) as well as “harder,” more tangible goals (learning how to manage one’s direct reports). Generally speaking, there is more mutual accountability in a mentoring relationship than in a coaching relationship. Both mentoring and coaching focus on expanding individual potential by enhancing development and performance success. Coaching focuses more on boosting performance and skill enhancement; mentoring, on achievement of personal or professional development goals. Mentoring relationships are voluntary (they may be assigned and enhanced by individual preparation and training but are not-for-hire); in contrast, coaching relationships are often (but not always) contractual (for pay). Coaching is a burgeoning professional field with certification, established ethical standards, and protocols of practice. Coaches are often hired outside an organization, while mentors usually come from within the organization. Although there are many mentoring best practices one can point to, mentoring lacks standardization and is not a professional field of practice (even though professionals practice it). Mentoring relationships evolve organically over time. The type and number of people involved in a mentoring relationship can vary (from formal mentoring to informal group mentoring or peer mentoring, for example), and multiple learning opportunities (shadowing, project development, conferences, meetings) are used in a mentoring relationship. In contrast, most coaching is carried out one-to-one, typically using one or two learning venues.

How individuals and organizations define mentoring depends on past history, training, and experiences. Without establishing some common ground regarding definition, expectations are never met to everyone’s satisfaction.

Several years ago, I worked with a highly motivated organizational planning team. At the beginning of the meeting, we set aside time to talk about individual experience with mentoring. The discussion began with my asking the people sitting around the table to identify symbols, words, or images that captured what mentoring meant for them. The two planning team members, who had previously participated together in a mentoring program, described mentoring as “taking someone under my wing.” When I asked what they meant by that, they used another metaphor: “You know, showing someone the ropes and protecting them. Kind of like a preceptorship.” Several people drew a handshake and explained that the image represented mentors as friends who have implicit trust in each other. Another drew an image of a door and proudly shouted, “Mentoring opens doors.” I urged him to say more. He responded, “A mentor opens doors so that others can walk through.” There were several images of a corporate ladder. One person pointed out the mentor at the bottom pushing the mentee up the ladder. Someone else had drawn a similar image, but with the mentor on top of the ladder with a hand extended downward, pulling the mentee up. The three corporate team members had previously discussed the need to establish a web of peer learning relationships; each envisioned a spider web and reported on the idea when it was their turn to present their image.

There were clearly multiple mentoring images among those in the room. In sharing their images, the group realized the need to establish common understanding about the concept of mentoring. It was obvious to everyone that the group would end up working at cross purposes and no one would be satisfied with the end result unless there was some clarification. The learning point is that however your organization ultimately chooses to define mentoring within the organization, learning and relationship must be subsumed in the definition.

Does Mentoring Add Value to the Organization?

A mentoring culture is a vivid expression of organizational vitality. It embraces individual and organizational learning. It values and promotes individual and organizational growth and development; consequently, employees are better able to manage their own growth and development. The relationship skills learned through mentoring strengthen relationships throughout the organization; as these relationships deepen, people feel more connected to the organization. Ultimately, a mentoring culture enriches the vibrancy and productivity of an organization and the people within it.

Creating a mentoring culture enables an organization to enrich the learning that takes place throughout the organization; leverage its energy; and better use and maximize its time, effort, and resources. Launching a mentoring program without simultaneously creating a mentoring culture reduces its long-term effectiveness and sustainability and decreases the likelihood that a program or programs will grow and thrive over time.

A mentoring culture sustains a continuum of expectation, which in turn creates standards and consistency of good mentoring practice. A mentoring culture is a powerful mechanism for achieving cultural alignment.

How Do We Start?

The chapters of Part One help you take stock and prepare your organization to actively engage in the work of creating a mentoring culture. Chapter One illustrates the importance of embedding mentoring in an organization’s culture. Using the fictional example of Ideal Organization, we see what a successfully implemented, integrated, and aligned mentoring culture might look like in practice and how the phases of a mentoring relationship progress. Chapter Two presents tools to help you take stock of your organization’s culture as it currently exists. It introduces a framework for connecting the mentoring program to the culture and what you want for your organization. Chapter Three helps you focus on the future and sets out a model for effective change. It offers strategies for planning and aligning mentoring initiatives and then going forward with implementing those plans.

Creating a mentoring culture is a work-in-progress. To begin the process, let’s get started by seeing why mentoring works best when embedded in the culture.

Chapter 1

Mentoring, Embedded in the Culture

Along the way
places and people
planted seeds in my soul and in my spirit
and added stones to the foundation
I was trying to form

—LISA FAIN

AN ORGANIZATION’S CULTURE profoundly influences its people, processes, and business practices. Its impact is felt and expressed daily, in many ways. Culture also has explanatory value. It explains why things are done in a specific way in an organization, and why specific rituals, language, stories, and customs are shared. In addition to explaining behaviors, culture also sets boundaries and offers stability. Culture is rooted in behavior based on shared values, assumptions, and practices and processes, all of which live within a mentoring culture.

Mentoring requires a culture to support its implementation and fully integrate it into the organization. Without cultural congruence, the challenge of embedding mentoring into the organization is daunting. Any mentoring effort will continuously face challenges that have an impact on its viability and sustainability. For example, an organizational culture that fosters learning strengthens mentoring; if learning is not valued, learning is stifled and mentoring efforts are undermined. As the work of creating a mentoring culture unfolds, mentoring integrates itself more deeply into the organization’s culture and becomes embedded in the fabric of the culture. Alignment between the organizational culture and the mentoring effort must be well established in order to promote cultural integration.

A congruent organizational culture becomes the placeholder for mentoring by maintaining its presence on the organizat...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Exhibits
• Table of Figures
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Part One - Taking Stock Mentoring’s Foundation
• Part Two - Moving Forward Mentoring at Work
• Epilogue
• Appendix One - Mentoring Culture Audit
• Appendix Two - Digging Deeper
• References
• Index
• Credits
• How to Use the CD-ROM
• END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION