Margo Murray author of "Beyond the Myths and Magic of Mentoring" with delegates at a day for training mentors. Margo is a long time Associate of BAI and brings her world renowned expertise to the design and delivery of mentoring schemes. This workshop was sponsored by Invest Northern Ireland.

Mentoring in the Process of Management Development

Introduction

There are several key elements in the process of management development but two elements are crucial in planning the process.

The first key element deals with understanding the goal of the process. Development is not purely a process of growth. Specifically, it is not purely a growth in knowledge. Growth in knowledge does not guarantee increase in performance. You can say, for example, that a graveyard grows, but does it develop? That type of growth doesn’t enable the graveyard to do anything for itself or for others. Real development is the increase in the ability to solve one’s own and other people’s problems. Therefore it is not a growth in knowledge alone that creates development. It may be the reassessment and realignment of existing knowledge or simply putting that knowledge to a different use. Real development therefore is concerned with the ability to apply knowledge and skills to practical situations.

The second key element concerns how the process links the growth or realignment of knowledge with the practical situation. Many methods have been tried including case studies, special projects, job swapping and mentoring/coaching. Many of the methods are determined and limited by the nature of the development process. For example, short concentrated development programmes have relied heavily on case studies because of the time frame. A longer process allows some of the other methods to be used. In his original work on Action Learning Professor R Revans used job swapping as the tool to achieve this link. He argued that as uncertainty was a key factor in modern management a learning experience had to include that factor. He further argued that a manager's own job did not provide that obvious uncertainty so maximum learning was not unlocked. Revans originally used the participants as their own coaches and mentors. Our understanding of the coach/mentor relationship and process has grown considerably since early Action Learning. Job swapping also has many practical difficulties in its organisation. For these two reasons many programmes now use an approach that centres on independent coach/mentors working with participants either on special projects or their own areas.

We now see mentoring in the development process as a method of helping individuals improve their ability to solve their own and other people's problems.

Mentoring

Despite its associations with education, professional mentoring is not a teaching service. Mentors act as trusted and experienced advisors in helping individuals achieve their maximum development potential. They do not teach individuals, but they do stretch them. Their understanding and experience of the process of defining goals, mapping strengths and weaknesses, and motivation, help individuals determine where they want to be at some point in the future. Their knowledge and experience of organisational dynamics then helps them guide individuals towards the steps they need to take to achieve those goals.

 Mentoring concentrates on the present and the future not the past. It is therefore not a therapy.

Mentoring is a process that requires the development of trust and respect and a degree of personal chemistry, but it does not have to be built on personal liking. It also requires a careful balance between assessment, advice and dependency. Therefore not all mentoring processes work. The key ingredient is the degree of openness, candour and respect that can be established between the participants. Too high a degree of personal liking may actually inhibit the process because it may reduce the degree of candour or encourage dependency. In internal mentoring, respected senior individuals from within organisations are clear choices. On a programme, individuals who have respect and recent experiences within the participants' business or related field may make excellent mentor/coaches. They can add a dimension of objectivity and detachment and from the participants view point there is no worry of damage to future prospects if the relationship does not work.

A successful mentoring process allows the mentee to develop a vision of where they want to be in the future, to build a plan to achieve that vision and to develop the skills, attitudes and knowledge required to reach their goals.

The stages of mentoring

Most successful processes go through four major stages.

The Review Stage

This stage determines what is expected from the mentoring and mutually determining reasonable outcomes. It will also involve a review of the history of the individual’s development and an assessment of motivation, strengths and areas for development.

The Planning Stage

This stage starts to set goals and to design methods of achieving those goals.

The Performing Stage

This stage is usually the one spread over the longest period of time and consists of reviews of progress, problem solving, revision of goals and dealing with specific situations and circumstances as they arise. The Mentors role is not to solve the problems but help the individual in two ways. It may involve helping them through a thought process that enables then to provide solutions, or they may act as a sounding board for solutions, playing at times a devil’s advocate’s role.

The End Stage

In this Stage the contact becomes much less frequent and probably only involves major new developments, or the need to reassess progress after a period of years.

There may be no formal end to the relationship just a diminishing need for the service.

This Stage may take months or years to develop, although by its nature mentoring tends to be for a limited period.

Linking the processes

In an ideal process the learning will be linked to the needs of the job and the individual. In classic Action Learning for example, the participants determine the syllabus as they progress and no two programmes may be exactly the same. In a programme looking for accreditation it is more difficult to achieve this structure. A compromise is the core syllabus with project work and some optional subjects.

The key to making this work is the project. Projects need to meet a number of criteria. Ideally the project would be actual work of the participant. Failing this, projects should be real, long enough to give real benefit, and non-technical.

Real projects are problems that organisations must solve regardless of any development programme. There are not specially invented for the programme, or peripheral to the real work. There must be a need to solve them.

The project needs to have a life that at least matches the duration of the development and mentoring programme.  This can sometimes be substituted by a series of shorter projects. Projects that can be solved in a few hours or days do not give sufficient scope for real development.

The project needs to be non-technical. If there is a simple right or wrong answer, or if the answer is dependent on technical skill, it does not work as a management development tool. Ideally the project should have a spread across more than one department or speciality, involve people and have a high element of uncertainty or ambiguity.

Given these criteria the project can then be individual or team based.   Ideally the project will be individual but where cost is restraining factor a team based approach can work. The difficulty with team based is having everyone fully involved; the advantage is that it automatically involves the problems of team building and teamwork. The role of the mentor in the team approach involves looking at the processes of the team as well as the individuals.

In looking at the overall mentoring process, management development programmes fall mostly into stage three, although successful programmes usually incorporate a strong element of personal discovery as in stages one and two.

Qualities of the Mentor

The mentor does not need to be a traditional expert in the subject although this does help establish an early level of respect. However, long-term respect will depend on the mentor’s ability to work with the processes. Mentors who prescribe solutions may be successful in the short term but make little contribution to the development of mentees.

Mentors therefore require knowledge of the mentoring process and good communication skills. They will also require a level of empathy, and knowledge of the mentees motivation. Knowledge of good goal setting, and planning techniques are essential plus a range of different thinking styles.  Successful mentors also understand interpersonal and organisational dynamics and can identify and work with them to achieve goals. It follows therefore that there is a clear training need for potential mentors to help develop these skills and awareness. The greatest difficulty with most first time mentors is to have them understand that their role has to do with developing the mentee, not solving their problems for them or demonstrating the mentor's skill and experience. They have to understand the difference between helping someone in the decision-making process and making the decision for them. The mentors' measure of success is their own redundancy.

[ Home ] [ Up ]

Send mail to gerry@beamishassociates.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2007 Beamish Associates International
Last modified: 02/13/07