The Mentoring Partnership Agreement or MPA for short is an important part of the early stages of a mentoring partnership. But, many people either don't use an MPA or pay 'lip service' to this document.  Let's take a quick look at how you can use an MPA and why it's important for the success of a mentoring partnership, especially a formal partnership.

Let's also clarify some terminology.  In some literature, you'll see reference to Mentoring Contract. To be blunt - I'm not a fan of the term contract, as most people think this means legally binding.  And, the thing about mentoring is that for 99% of the time, a mentoring partnership is (and should be) a voluntary activity which both the mentee and mentor enter into willingly.  An MPA is there to document the personal and professional agreement that a mentee and mentor make about how they are going to conduct their mentoring partnership and what are the key areas of focus for the mentee.  So in short - ditch the 'contract terminology' - this can actually end up putting people off doing the document at all.

So how do you actually use an MPA?  The MPA should be used at three critical junction points of a mentoring partnership including:

• At the beginning of a partnership - the discussion around the MPA helps to ensure that both the mentee and mentor have shared expectations of the mentoring partnership and that some concrete areas of focus for the mentee have been identified.
• During the middle of the parntership - as a way to monitor your progress, refocus your mentoring conversation or redirect your mentoring objectives.  Using the MPA along the way is a great way to measure the progress of your partnership.
• At the end of a mentoring partnership - as a way to look back at your original vision and to reflect upon and celebrate your achievements.  It's also a way to connect to what's coming up next in the mentee's career and professional development, and perhaps discuss any objectives that you didn't achieve and how the mentee might take these forward in the future.

Where do you get an MPA from?  If you're part of a formal mentoring program, you'll probably be provided with a copy of an MPA template that you and your mentoring partner can use.  Sometimes, you'll also be asked to provide a copy to the Mentoring Program Coordinator.  Don't be too concerned about this request - good Mentoring Program Coordinators should ask for a copy as it helps them to:

• Ensure a minimum standard of conversation at the start of a mentoring partnership (quality assurance)
• Review the collective mentee areas of focus and identify any themes from the objectives - this can then help to schedule relevant support events during the mentoring program (development)
• Support your mentoring partnership if you get 'off track' and need a bit of a helping hand in reconnecting or starting again (support).

If you are not part of a formal mentoring program and don't have access to a template - you can make one up.  Key headings that you could use include:

• Expectations
• Logistics
• Confidentiality
• Goals and Objectives
• Monitoring Progress
• Potential Challenges and Solutions
• General comments.

In summary - if you're about to embark on a mentoring partnership - either formal or informal - do consider the use of an MPA - just to help you both get the most of the mentoring partnership.

Yours in mentoring

Gilly Johnson

Director & Founder, Australian Mentor Centre

We love to support Mentoring Program Coordinators - as you are one of the key people in helping mentoring to be successful in the workplace (or indeed in any program).  Here's five videos on a range of topics pertinent to the formal mentoring program which we hope you will find helpful.

Talking Mentoring | Mentoring Program Coordinator Tips

As always - do drop us a line and let us know your thoughts.

Yours in Mentoring

Gilly Johnson

Director & Founder, Australian Mentor Centre

I'm often asked about tips for mentees and mentors (and mentoring partnerships!).  So, this blog entry will be a Work in Progress (WIP) of useful coaching tips for mentees, mentors and partnerships to get the most out of their mentoring conversations. As the blog posting grows, we may look to split it into different sections, but for now, let's keep it all under the one umbrella.  As I post new coaching tips - I'll flag these as 'new' for ease of reference.

Ending a Partnership - Protocols and Courtesies

Just as you did at the beginning of your mentoring partnership, you took some time to get to know your mentoring partner and to agree upon how your mentoring partnership would work.  It stands to reason that the other end of your mentoring partnership also requires some attention.

If you've been involved in a formal mentoring program, it's likely that mentors (in particular) have volunteered their time and experience and mentees have committed to professional development. So it's always disappointing when people simpley 'fall or fade' out of contact.  It fact - it's one of the most commonly cited feedbak comments from mentees and mentors involved in formal mentoring program.

So how do you avoid this? 

Here are few tips to ensure you finish your mentoring partnership in a courteous, professional and confident manner.

1. Schedule a time to meet and review your original Mentoring Partnership Agreement.  At this time - share your experiences and identify:
   • Goals that were achieved - celebrate!
   • Goals that need further work and how the mentee might take this forward.
   • Goals or learning that happened but were not originally included in the Mentoring Partnership Agreement.
2. For mentees - take time to formally say 'thank you' to your mentor.  
3. For mentors - take the time to share your own learning with the mentee.
4. For you both - ensure you agree on the next steps for your mentoring partnership which could include:
   • Keeping the partnership going - if so - you'll need to reset your objectives.
   • Moving to an informal arrangement OR agreeing to the 'ad hoc' catch up.  Be sure that you both understand how you view this arrangement - remember to have shared understanding - even of informal arrangements.
   • Ending the partnership all together - saying thanks and moving on.

Remember - the aim is to end your mentoring partnership in a positive and professional manner.
 

Conversations on Career Decisions

A key part of many mentoring conversations is discussing what the mentee wants to do or pursue in a career sense.  Sometimes the conversation is prompted by a general feeling of disasitisfaction with the current job or career situation or that slight nagging feeling that perhaps there's more to their career than currently meets the eye.  Or perhaps, the mentee is consdering leaving the organisation because they do not work well with their current manager (sound familiar?).  Of perhaps a new role or challenge has come up (hooray!).

As you can imagine, this conversation could be HUGE (and HUGELY important)!  So where to start?  Here's a quick technique to fast-track your career mentoring conversation and to get you on the road to practical and smart results.

As 'career' enters the mentoring conversation, divide the conversation up into three areas:

• Personal
• Professional
• Environmental

I've always referred to this approach as the P2E mentoring conversation approach (for those of you who like a good acronym or two!).  Now - how to use the P2E approach.

Nearly all career decisions include elements of a personal nature; elements of a job or profession related nature; and elements to do with the work or career environment.  What's important is that any career related decision discussion takes the time to delve in, pull apart, and consider all of these three areas in leading up to a new decision.

So questions that you might use to explore the career decision, based on the P2E include:

• How do you feel about the situation personally?
• If you made a change, how would this impact you personally in a pro's and con's sense?
• What do you enjoy about the professional or job related aspects of what you currently do?
• What are your aspirations in respect of your profession?
• What aspects of the work environment make your smile? Which ones frustrate you?
• What do you value in a work environment?  What' a 'must have' vs 'nice to have' in the workplace?

Without giving you a list of 100 questions (although that may come) the idea with this question conversation coaching tip is to ensure that when 'career' comes up in discussion that you factor in all elements and don't just get stuck on one.

Ok - love your feedback on this quick tip - drop me a line.

Yours in mentoring

Gilly Johnson

Director & Founder

What constitutes good mentoring practice?  I was asked this question recently in an email and thought I'd share my quick response.

• A strong business link and need for mentoring – it has to be more than just a good idea and needs to be positioned and promoted well.
• A transparent and strong framework for how mentoring happens in the organisation, both formally and informally. 
• A way for mentoring relationships to come together, either through their own methods or via a formal selection and matching process.
• An education process that ensures mentees, mentors, line managers, and other key stakeholders understand the mentoring framework and process.
• A way to resource and support mentors and mentees, including methods of ethical and confidential support. In some cases this may also include mentor supervision and ongoing development.
• An evaluation process that gathers information relating to the personal, program and organisational outcomes of mentoring.
• A method that captures the formal aspects of a mentoring program and helps to leverage these into a mentoring culture.'

Have you got a mentoring question? Why not reach out and drop me a line. 

Yours in Mentoring

Gilly Johnson

Director & Founder

Taking the Mentoring out of Mentoring

I'm on a mission to take the mentoring out of mentoring.  What I mean is to focus less on the terminology around mentoring and more on the benefits, outcomes and problems solved by embracing mentoring. So - with a bit of a 'push' from a friend of mine - here's goes.  I'm aiming to create a list of 101 Problems that Mentoring Solves.

Once reach 101 on the list, I'll create a 'jazzy' PDF document and share with anyone who has contributed to the list - so want to get involved?  Drop me a line and let's add your ideas to the list.

101 Problems that Mentoring Solves (Work in Progress)

1. Improving the business knowledge of new hires.
2. Sharing the values and cultures of the business - internally - without expenditure.
3. Connecting different generations in the business and improving understanding of intergenerational nuiances.
4. Helping new hires feel part of the business - quickly.
5. Helping employees feel engaged to their workplace and valued - increased engagement spells increased loyalty and productivity.
6. Providing extension opportunities for experienced team members as mentors.
7. Sharing the collective wisdom and knowledge of the business - you know the 'stuff' that's not written in any procedures.
8. Supporting those who may leave the organisation to a. explore all the opportunities the organisation can offer and stay OR b. leave on good terms with the door open.
9. Providing an impartial conversation, outside of the line management but not in competition with it, that still champions the values and direction of the business.
10. Harnessing and sharing the people-to-people power of the business.
11. Improving the training ROI by allocating a mentor to all employees who undertake 'significant' training courses during the application of theory to practise phase. In short - ramping up the accountability of applicatin of learning.
12. Meaningfully sharing the wisdom and knowledge of transition to retirement employees to ensure corporate knowledge does not simply 'walk out the door'.
13. Providing opportunities to role model the values of the organisation through linking the role of the mentor to values and coporate culture 'in action'.
14. Helping to steer the course of cultural or other forms of change in an organisation through the use of peer mentoring circles for frontline managers responsible for change.
15. Helping senior managers understand the generations they manage through reverse mentoring opportunities where younger or less experienced employees as as the mentors.
16. Enhancing the leadership capability of employees.
17. Providing support for the development of culturally appropriate business practices through the provision of 'in-country' mentors. In short - enhancing the ability of leaders to operate in a global business environment.
18. Fulfilling the philanthropic desire of leaders who want to 'give back' to individuals and their community as part of a 'pay it forward' approach.
19. Improving the diversity of the workplace, board of management etc through enhanced mentoring and networking between groups less represented.
20. Speeding up the ability of local employees to 'take over the reins' from expatriate staff. 
21. Helping individuals to remain true to their career and professional development goals, by having a mentor. Thus in some cases, improving the expenditure of scholarship funds in certain programs.
22. Linking the corporate and not for profit sectors in a cost-effective and meaninginful way to share skills, knowledge, and experiences.
23. Improving the perception of an organisation as an employer of choice.
24. Attracting high quality employees to the organisation in a competitive skills market place.
25. Leveraging 'corporate know how' speedily across the organisation.
26. Connecting individuals across the organisation and reducing the effect of the 'workplace silo'.
27. Assisting individuals to understand other parts of the business and therefore see their role in perspective of the total business function.
28. Building trust, rapport and respect across individuals and business functions.
29. Helping to provide a safe space for work discussions that are offline and not related to the performance appraisal.
30. Providing a stable 'voice' for individuals (eg. graduates) who rotate through different parts of the business.
31. Promoting peer-to-peer conversations with a focus on knowledge sharing.
32. Providing internal 'just in time' knowledge sharing opportunities.
33. Engaging intergenerational workplaces with a shared conversation platform.
34. Guiding new employees through the 'business polictics'.
35. Providing individuals with an impartial viewpoint on job, career and professional development opportunities. 
36. Promotes peer to peer conversations for professional development.
37. Creates a cultural norm where sharing is expected.

Current count: 37 - more to follow...

Want to get involved in the list?  Drop me a line and let's add your ideas to the list.

Yours in Mentoring

Gilly Johnson

Director & Founder

I'm often asked about which books to buy relating to mentoring.  To be honest - there's so many resources written about mentoring often it is about your own personal choice.  It's also about what you're looking for in relation to mentoring. Is it about how to run a mentoring program? Be a mentee? A mentor? Or for more philosophical commentary about this unique developmental relationship?

Here's a quick list of some of the texts that sit in my own personal mentoring library - hope you find them helpful.  Probably the most cost effective way to source them is through Amazon.

Useful Reading List

Three books by US author – Lois Zachary. These books are based around an adult learning centred approach to mentoring - which is a very nice space for mentoring to 'sit'.  I know and use these books myself – the titles are:

In the September 2010 edition of Harvard Business Review, an article caught my eye.  The article was titled: Why Men Still Get More Promotions Than Women.  The context of the article was to explore why women in particular need more than 'well-meaning mentors' to advance their careers and promotion prospects.

The themes throughout the article included:

• the need for women to have stronger and more influential sponsors rather than mentors

• an exploration of the differences between mentors and sponsors

• gender differences in mentoring outcomes for males and females

• difference of formal vs informal mentoring on influencing promotions

• more women are being mentored but they are not being promoted

• the emergence of a more sponsorship focussed mentoring approach.

One very interesting aspect to this article was a table that explored the differences between mentors and sponsors.  Primarily this table of information was influenced by the research of Boston's University, Kathy Kram.  The key difference between mentors and sponsors according to Kathy Kram is that 'mentors offer psychosocial support for personal and professional development, plus career help that includes advice and coaching, while sponsors actively advocate for advancement./' (p84, HBR, September 2010).

I think the interesting aspect of this is the 'global' approach to mentoring. Traditionally, mentoring literature emanating from the USA has had more of a sponsorship 'flavour' than literature that emanates from Europe and even Australia. In fact perhaps in Australia we have actively shied away from including sponsorship as an outcome for many mainstream mentoring programs as we've sought to keep the relationship offline and just about career and professional development.  I know that in my own teaching on the role of the mentor, I've always put forward that in fact mentors need to be careful of how they speak about their mentee in any talent management forum so as not to bring a performance aspect into the mentoring conversation. But - perhaps we should rethink this a bit?

So - as you have the mentoring conversation at your workplace - are you seeking advancement outcomes for your mentees?  Perhaps the focus of the mentor role could include elements of a sponsorship role where the sponsor is actively making sure their mentee (?) is considered for opportunities and assignments that could influence their promotional aspirations.  I'll certainly be doing more thinking on this aspect of contemporary mentoring.

This article may be a useful addition for you to consider if you are putting sponsorship on the mentoring outcome agenda. To purchase the full PDF text article - go here: http://hbr.org/product/why-men-still-get-more-promotions-than-women/an/R1009F-PDF-ENG.

I'd love to hear your questions and thoughts on this topic - so do email info@thementoringcentre.com.au.

Yours in mentoring

Gilly Johnson

Director & Founder 

Ok - the title of this posting is a little direct: Formal Mentoring - Get Serious Will You.  So what is it all about?

It's about organisations who are only willing to 'give mentoring a try' for short amounts of time.  You know - let's do a 3-month pilot mentoring program.  Relationships take time to build and any organisation serious about fostering a mentoring culture, either formal or informal (or both), will know that you need more than 3 months to do this.

I want to share this quick true story with you to illustrate my point.  I was managing a national mentoring program that paired university students with people in their chosen profession who acted as the mentors.  It was a totally voluntary role for the mentors with no payment involved.  At the end of one of the annual programs, a mentor rang me to say that she thought she had not really done much for her mentee.  In fact - she really felt that she had not contributed to her development at all.  Aside from my conversation with the mentor about how mentees also needed to contribute - I got the general picture. She was a dedicated professional in her own right and personally felt that she had 'missed' some connection with her mentee along the way.

Now - let's go forward two years (yes - that would be 2 years folks).  I got another call from the mentor who had just received an email from her university student mentee. The mentee was now working in the profession and wrote an email to her mentor to say how much she had appreciated the mentor support and now that she was working in the field, many of the lessons learned and thoughts the mentor had shared with her were proving to be very helpful.  As you can imagine - the mentor was on cloud nine after receiving this very heartening email.

So what is the moral of the story?  Sometimes, the true impact of a formal mentoring program/relationship can take place AFTER the program has finished.  And so - when you only implement mentoring for a small amount of time, evaluate it and expect to see amazing results - you could be severely disappointed.

My advice is very straightforward on this matter.

If you are considering implementing a formal mentoring program, you should be prepared to take a stand and resource this program for a minimum of 3-5 years if you truly expect to see results for individuals and your organisation AND better still the movement towards more of a mentoring culture.  The breakdown of years is as follows:

Year 1: pilot of the program with the target group

Year 2: small expansion of the program with the target group with lessons learned applied

Year 3: embedding of the program into the development suite for the target group and the starting of a mentoring alumni or network of people with mentoring related skill sets PLUS you might also consider expanding mentoring into other target groups and/or using different models of mentoring

Year 4: continued mentoring approach, now with the added advantage of a higher profile of formal mentoring and the added advantage of developing capacity within the organisation to facilitate formal mentoring

Year 5: a smooth running program of mentoring within your organisation, potentially with multiple opportunities for mentoring and use of multiple models

Along the way, you can then develop a documented procedure set for how mentoring happens at your organisation and embed mentoring into the ongoing workforce development business case.

I'd love to hear your questions and thoughts on this topic - so do email to info@thementoringcentre.com.au.

Yours in mentoring

Gilly Johnson

Director & Founder

A recent article in Harvard Business Review put forward the notion that mentoring was ‘old hat’ - indeed it went so far as to say to forget about mentors.   Just the title of the article was enough to get my fingers dancing along the keyboard with some thoughts.

So - is mentoring old hat?  Is it a fad? Is the game over for mentoring?

Well personally - I think not!

Mentoring is not old hat—it’s been around a variety of forms since ancient Greece and will always be a integral part of our development—whether it be in the informal or formal settings. What is old hat is thinking that there’s only one way to be involved in mentoring and perhaps that is where the problem lies.  

Over the past 5-10 years, there's been a big focus on formal mentoring programs, and sometimes, I think this focus has been at the detriment of growing the naturally occurring mentoring that happens in an organisation or as part of the network of an individual.  

Often, formal mentoring programs are started with the best of intentions BUT ultimately the wrong drivers. What I mean by drivers is the impetus or reason for starting mentoring. Take this scenario:

Your organisation has some money left over for the financial year OR there is some funding available through a grant.  Someone (with good intentions I might add) suggests that you implement a mentoring program while the funding is available. So - the 'driver' for the implementation of a formal mentoring program is the availability of money!  Ultimately, when the money runs out very often so does the mentoring program. This leads to comments such as:

• 'Yeah - we gave mentoring a try - but it didn't really work for us.'
• 'We started the program but ran out of money so couldn't afford to put any resources to it.'
• 'We can only resource the program for this year - so can't commit to any ongoing activity.'

You get the picture huh?

These sorts of results only serve to dampen the enthusiasm of people towards mentoring and ultimately 'give' mentoring a bad rap (and hence 'fad status') - which then leads to the sorts of articles on the downfall of mentoring.

So what to do?  Here's five key thoughts to consider as you discuss mentoring in your patch!

1.  Before you leap into formal training for mentors - take stock of how mentoring is 'conducted' and perceived in your organisation.  Get a feel for the tone of the organisation with respect to how people understand mentoring.  If you like - a mini-survey or audit to begin with is a great way to get your finger on the pulse of how mentoring is perceived, understood and needed within your workplace. Ultimately for mentoring (that is formal mentoring) to 'stick' in your organisation there must be a clear demand or need for it (even if this demand/need is small to begin with).

2.  Be prepared to walk away from conducting a formal mentoring program.  You know - you don't have to have a formal mentoring program!  Perhaps your needs are more about orientation buddies, better induction programs etc. Perhaps what you need is to be more supportive of the naturally occurring relationships in the workplace and provide opportunities for engagement and learning about how to enhance what is already happening naturally. For example - why not pop up some mentoring related literature or resources on your company intranet, provide some information/training to line managers about what's on offer, and communicate broadly about how the resources can help the organisation.  You might find that a formal mentoring activity might come from firstly enhancing what is happening naturally.

3.  Consider the variety of formats that mentoring could take in your organisation. Aside from whether it happens formally or informally, don't forget that mentoring is not just a 1:1 relationship anymore.  With the advent of a more socially networked world, group mentoring can be a great way to provide additional developmental support for your team. For examples, consider new managers in their first management role.  This can be daunting time for anyone with the transition from a senior technician to a manager.  How about getting a small group of new managers together to be mentored by a senior manager in a group environment (eg. one mentor with multiple mentees - say 3-5 at the most).  This is a great way for new managers to 'share the load', learn from others, gain confidence from individuals in the same 'boat', build their own management peer networks, and at the same time be guided by a senior manager who can role- model the leadership and management values of the organisation.  

4.  Be really clear about the position for mentoring with other developmental, training or management related activities.  There's been so much literature about the differences between mentoring and coaching as if it's important to have a competition between the two activities.  I think we all need to get over this topic! Both activities are developmental with one (coaching) is normally focussed more on the performance of an individual and one (mentoring) is normally focussed on the more general career and professional development.  BUT - both help an individual to develop and grow.  The more important aspect of this conversation is to ensure that mentoring, coaching, managing, training and counselling are seen as a suite of ways in which to develop, grow and support your team.  All can be complimentary to one another NOT in competition with one another.  So - do have the conversation as to how mentoring is positioned so that your team understand this.  And - you'll then avoid mentees who say 'what have I done wrong to deserve a mentor?' (eg. this mentee thinks that having a mentor is some sort of punitive action!).

5.  Remember that mentoring is not a profession or science.  Over the past few years there has been a 'trend' towards making mentoring into (in my opinion) something that it is not.  You don't need to hold a PhD or Masters in mentoring to be a mentor.  This trend starts to make mentoring exclusive instead of inclusive. Now - don't misread me here.  I'm a strong advocate of having certain criteria that individuals need to demonstrate to be a mentor eg. evidence of interest in developing others, sound communication skills, emotional and social intelligence etc.  But we can't forget that essentially mentoring is about one (or a network) of people helping another person for the good of it!  And, sometimes those people that you knock back from being in the mentor role may be just the person that one of your mentees needs.  So as part of this aspect of your own mentoring conversation - think about being inclusive of mentoring rather than making it an exclusive role for only a few in your organisation.

So - is mentoring old hat?  In short my answer is NO.  What is old hat is doing things the same way and expecting different results.  Before you dive into mentoring (or if you've already dived in - come up for some air) - take some serious time to mull over what mentoring could and would look like in your organisation. And for the sake of the 'reputation' of mentoring - err on starting small OR enhancing what is already happening and learning from this.  It's about getting mentoring right for your workplace culture so that it enhances your team, contributes to your workplace, and ultimately helps your business outcomes.

I'd love to hear your questions and thoughts on this topic - so do email to info@thementoringcentre.com.au.

Yours in mentoring

Gilly Johnson

Director & Founder