Managers As Mentors

Building Partnerships for Learning

Chip R Bell, Marshall Goldsmith

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781609947125
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Mentorat et coaching

The updated third edition of "the essential handbook for all those who are trusted advisors to aspiring leaders" (Jim Kouzes, coauthor of The Leadership Challenge ). This latest edition of the classic Managers as Mentors is a rapid-fire read that guides leaders in helping associates grow in today's tumultuous organizations. Thoroughly revised throughout with twelve new chapters, this edition places increased emphasis on the mentor acting as a learning catalyst with the protégé rather than simply handing down knowledge. As with previous editions, a fictional case study of a mentor-protégé relationship runs through the book. But now this is augmented with interviews with six top US CEOs. New chapters cover topics such as the role of mentoring in spurring innovation and mentoring a diverse and dispersed workforce accustomed to interacting digitally. Also new to this edition is the Mentor's Toolkit, six resources to help in developing the mentor-protégé relationship. This hands-on guide teaches leaders to be the kind of confident coaches integral to learning organizations. "Tightly written... helpful techniques." — Scientific American
"This book will help you become the mentor you always wanted and honor the terrific ones you had." —Mark Goulston, bestselling author of Just Listen

PART 1

MENTORING IS …

I am not a teacher, but an awakener.

Robert Frost

Take a minute to recall the people in your life who were effective at helping you learn something important. (We’ll wait.) Chip’s mother taught him a lot about dating etiquette when he was a teenager; one of Marshall’s doctoral professors at UCLA taught him about humility. Who taught you emotional intelligence in an adult world? Where did you learn to not call the CEO by her first name, how to get a great table at a restaurant, where to put your soup spoon when you have finished your soup, or how full to fill the wineglasses when you have guests over for dinner? Over the course of our lives, learning comes from many people, in many places, and through many events.

What are the reasons that people sometimes learn and sometimes fail to learn? What are the reasons that some people are skilled at helping others with personal or professional growth and some are not? Why does mentoring sometimes make an impact and at other times seem a complete waste of time and energy? What conditions and competencies spark discovery, insight, and understanding?

The complete answers to questions like these could occupy volumes—and you’re holding only a single book. As you will see, there are tools, tips, tactics, and techniques that make mentoring easier to understand, more effective, and a lot more fun—but to become good at the game, we must first mark off the playing field. Before we learn the pointers, we need to be clear on the meaning of mentoring and in harmony with the conditions conducive to its effectiveness.

The goal of the next few chapters is to explain the arena or context of mentoring. We opened the book by defining mentoring as simply “the act of helping another learn.” Mentoring is traditionally thought of as a transaction between a tutor and somebody else’s subordinate. However, Managers as Mentors will focus largely on the leader mentoring a follower. This will require a unique alteration in the relationship—actions aimed at eliminating (or at least reducing) the role that position power plays in the tutelage.

The mentoring arena is filled with assumptions about how people learn, roles mentors can play, qualities mentors should pursue, and traps mentors need to avoid. Because the mentor is also a learner, the intent of the next few chapters is to prompt self-examination, to advocate clarity of mission, and to nurture the linkage of who we are with what we do.

1

Panning for Insight

The Art of Mentoring

Learning is not attained by chance; it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.

Abigail Adams (1780)

Panning for gold is a lot like mentoring. It is not always easy. Panning for gold works like this. First, you put a double handful of sand in a heavy-gauge steel shallow pan and dip it in the water, filling it half full of water. Next, you gently move the pan back and forth as you let small amounts of yellow sand wash over the side of the pan.

The objective is to let the black sand sink to the bottom of the gold pan. But this is the point where panning for gold gets real serious. Impatience or strong-arming the way the pan is shaken means the black sand escapes over the side along with the yellow sand. Once black sand is the only sand left in the pan, you are rewarded with flecks of gold. The gold resides among the black sand.

Mentoring can be like panning for gold among the sand. Insight is generally not lying on top ready to be found and polished. If it were easy pickings, the help of a mentor would be unnecessary. It lies beneath the obvious and ordinary. It is lodged in the dark sands of irrational beliefs, myths, fears, prejudices, and biases. It lurks under untested hunches, ill-prepared starts, and unfortunate mistakes. Helping the protégé extract insight takes patience and persistence. It cannot be rushed and haphazardly forced. And, most of all, it cannot be strong-armed with the force of the mentor. It must be discovered by the protégé with the guidance of the mentor.

As a mentor, you are in charge of getting the protégé to properly shake the pan. You help the protégé learn to recognize the real treasures of insight and understanding and not be seduced by “fool’s gold”—achieved by rote and temporarily retained only “until the exam is over.” The way you help the protégé handle the dark sand is central to the acquisition of wisdom. That is the essence of mentoring with a partnership philosophy.

What is the nature of your responsibility? The whole concept of mentor has had a checkered path in the world of work. The most typical mental image has been that of a seasoned corporate sage conversing with a naïve, wet-behind-the-ears young recruit. The conversation would probably have been laced with informal rules, closely guarded secrets, and “I remember back in ’77 … ” stories of daredevil heroics and too-close-to-call tactics. And work-based mentoring has had an almost heady, academic sound, reserved solely for workers in white collars whose fathers advised, “Get to know ol’ Charlie.”

In recent years the term “mentor” became connected less with privilege and more with affirmative action. An organization viewed as a part of its responsibility enabling minority employees through a mentor to expedite their route through glass ceilings, beyond old-boy networks and the private winks formerly reserved for WASP males. Such mentoring sponsors sometimes salved the consciences of those who bravely talked goodness but became squeamish if expected to spearhead courageous acts. These mentoring programs sounded contemporary and forward-thinking. Some were of great service, but many were just lip service.

But what are the role and responsibility of mentoring, really? When the package is unwrapped and the politically correct is scraped away, what’s left? A mentor is defined in the dictionary as “a wise, trusted advisor … a teacher or coach.” Such a simple definition communicates a plain-vanilla context. In case you missed the preface, mentoring is defined as that part of the leader’s role that has learning as its primary outcome. Bottom line, a mentor is simply someone who helps someone else learn something that would have otherwise been learned less well, more slowly, or not at all. Notice the power-free nature of this definition; mentors are not power figures.

The traditional use of the word “mentor” denotes a person outside one’s usual chain of command—from the junior’s point of view, someone who “can help me understand the informal system and offer guidance on how to be successful in this crazy organization.” Not all mentors are supervisors or managers, but most effective supervisors and managers act as mentors. Mentoring is typically focused on one person; group mentoring is training or teaching. We will focus on the one-to-one relationship; the others are beyond the scope of this book.

Good leaders do a lot of things in the organizations they inhabit. Good leaders communicate a clear vision and articulate a precise direction. Good leaders provide performance feedback, inspire and encourage, and, when necessary, discipline. Good leaders also mentor. Once more, mentoring is that part of a leader’s role that has growth as its primary outcome.

Lessons from the First Mentor

The word “mentor” comes from The Odyssey, written by the Greek poet Homer. As Odysseus (Ulysses, in the Latin translation) is preparing to go fight the Trojan War, he realizes he is leaving behind his one and only heir, Telemachus. Since “Telie” (as he was probably known to his buddies) is in junior high, and since wars tended to drag on for years (the Trojan War lasted ten), Odysseus recognizes that Telie needs to be coached on how to “king” while Daddy is off fighting. He hires a trusted family friend named Mentor to be Telie’s tutor. Mentor is both wise and sensitive—two important ingredients of world-class mentoring.

The history of the word “mentor” is instructive for several reasons. First, it underscores the legacy nature of mentoring. Like Odysseus, great leaders strive to leave behind a benefaction of added value. Second, Mentor (the old man) combined the wisdom of experience with the sensitivity of a fawn in his attempts to convey kinging skills to young Telemachus. We all know the challenge of conveying our hard-won wisdom to another without resistance. The successful mentor is able to circumvent resistance.

Homer characterizes Mentor as a family friend. The symbolism contained in this relationship is apropos to contemporary mentors. Effective mentors are like friends in that their goal is to create a safe context for growth. They are also like family in that their focus is to offer an unconditional, faithful acceptance of the protégé. Friends work to add and multiply, not subtract. Family members care, even in the face of mistakes and errors.

Superior mentors know how adults learn. Operating out of their intuition or on what they have learned from books, classes, or other mentors, the best mentors recognize that they are, first and foremost, facilitators and catalysts in a process of discovery and insight. They know that mentoring is not about smart comments, eloquent lectures, or clever quips. Mentors practice their skills with a combination of never-ending compassion, crystal-clear communication, and a sincere joy in the role of being a helper along a journey toward mastering.

Just like the first practitioner of their craft, mentors love learning, not teaching. They treasure sharing rather than showing off, giving rather than boasting. Great mentors are not only devoted fans of their protégés, they are loyal fans of the dream of what their protégés can become with their guidance.

Traps to Avoid

There are countless traps along the path of mentordom. Mentoring can be a power trip for those seeking an admirer, a manifestation of greed for those who must have slaves. Mentoring can be a platform for proselytizing for a cause or crusade, a strong tale told to an innocent or unknowing listener. However, the traps of power, greed, and crusading all pale when compared with the subtler “watch out fors” listed below. There are other traps, of course, but these are the ones that most frequently raise their ugly heads to sabotage healthy relationships.

Keep the traps in mind as you read the rest of the book; search for them within yourself. By the time you’ve read the last page, you will perhaps have learned to avoid those to which you are most susceptible.

I Can Help

When is help helpful and when is it harmful? People inclined to be charitable with their time, energy, and expertise often attempt to help when what the learner actually needs is to struggle and find her own way. Here’s a test: if you ask the protég...