Hack:
Mentoring - Informal, yet powerful

By Anantha Narasimhan - Marketing Manager, Large Enterprise at Dell, Inc.

October 31, 2010 at 8:03pm

Mentorship

Informal Leadership

Employee Retention

Moonshots

Increase trust, reduce fear

Summary

Mentoring is not a new to the world concept. I believe this has a positive impact on improving employee morale & retention, increasing out-of-the-box thinking, improving lines of communication, providing informal leadership & workforce management.

I'd like to hear from the MIX audience as to how you are using Mentorship in your organization.

Problem

How do you alleviate employee frustration (perceived and/or real) that lead to retention issues?
How do you get an employee to look beyond the obvious solutions & think out of the box?

Solution

Mentoring is one solution - by no means the only one - that I benefited from. Having several mentors to talk to, who have been in the organization & know the ins-&-outs helps not just from a org-agility perspective, but also helps vent out frustrations without disastrous consequences.

Steps taken that I found useful:
* Quarterly 1x1 with the mentor(s), to keep them abreast of the situations and also to talk about things that are bothersome
* Following up on suggestions provided by the mentor
* Closing the loop by providing feedback to the mentor on how the suggestions worked out

Practical Impact

Once a quarter meetings are not so frequent that it eats into the mentor(s)' time. Positive impact are:
1. Allows the employee to talk about frustrations in the job - real and perceived.
Employee is able to freely talking about issues/frustations without fear of retribution. Mentor is quickly able to differentiate between the real & the perceived issues (due to his/her experience within the organization) and to help figure out steps to overcome real issues.
This is definitely a big step in ensuring a frustrated employee's issues are taken care of (if steps are followed), potenitally averting an employee exit. (What is the cost of hiring a new employee and getting him/her to perform at the expected level?)
2. Allows the person to talk about projects currently being worked on/ideas that has bigger impact .
Ofcourse, if one is super comfortable with the manager and if the manager is the kind of person who encourages this, then there is relatively little need to look for outside help - though it helps open up the mind and doors
3. Helps with career planning
Looking beyond the current job, Mentor helps with goal setting and to think through the next few jobs in order to hit the goal

Ofcourse, if you are very comfortable with your manager and the chain, the above can be done without the help of the mentor...but the diversity of experience and expertise certainly help.

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November 1, 2010 at 10:55am

David Sims

Anantha, thanks for posting this. I love this topic, because I think it's so important and often overlooked. It's key to the individual's success, but also to the organization's performance, as mentoring is one of the best ways that tacit information is passed along from more experienced folks to newer ones. In addition to the points you've raised here, I think another important facet of mentorship is having multiple mentors. For example, one mentor may be more adept at the skills of the job while another is more attuned to the politics of the organization. A third may have more experience with work-life balance. Tapping the wisdom of all three can really help an employee thrive. Another interesting aspect of mentorship is that it can be completely informal. Some companies make an effort to encourage mentorship, especially for promising talent. But even in organizations that don't, there's nothing preventing us from seeking out our own mentors, being proactive in asking for time (whether that's a meeting, coffee, or lunch) and developing our own mentor programs. But like you, I'd be interesting in hearing how other companies manage their mentor programs.