The Advisory Council - SmartAdvice

Question: I'd like to establish a management mentoring program within my organization. How should I start?

Our advice: There's an old management maxim that states "Critique the problem, not the person!" That advice should always be applied to chartering and structuring management mentoring programs.

Our short answer is that the best way to assure business success through professional development is to link the mentoring program to clearly articulated organizational goals. By doing so, you not only position yourself as an enlightened, goal-oriented executive, you also position the mentoring program as a performance-improvement tool, not an employee benefit. This positioning maximizes the likelihood that mentoring will be resourced appropriately, and reduces the risk that mentors misconstrue their roles.

How To Build A Mentor Program
The long answer is that there are five major steps in designing and launching a mentoring program that achieves significant results:

Develop a business case -- What specific business goals do you plan to achieve? What operational performance and human behavior do you expect to change? How will you verify goal attainment and measure performance and behavioral change? Finally, how much will the effort cost in terms of internal and external resources? Your biggest payoff will come from mentoring and developing your highest performers, many of whom report directly to you. Since you control their annual performance appraisals, your position as their mentor is compromised. High-performers deserve external mentoring to improve critical skills such as building professional relationships with you and your peers.

Sell your boss and enroll your peers -- Your boss must enthusiastically support the effort (a big reason for the business case). For IT, it's also important that peer department leaders understand and support the effort because they're your customers, and any changes in practices and behaviors are likely to affect them. At a minimum, learn their views and sensitize yourself to potential issues.

Enroll your leaders -- You must obtain intellectual and emotional buy-in. Your IT leadership team must visualize the goals, benefits, and implications for change before proceeding further. It's best to redevelop the benefits list with them, and ensure that you discuss three levels: overall organization, personal for them, and for the broader staff. Note that I didn't state that the benefits and implications have to be clear, and they won't be for individuals who haven't experienced a well-designed program. Clarity develops through active learning. If you haven't obtained external assistance to this point, you may want to seek a trusted adviser to confirm your assessment of leadership team buy-in before proceeding further.

Design the program -- In a small IT organization, this activity should require about a day, and be completed no more than one week after enrolling the IT leadership team. For a large IT organization, several weeks of work are involved to design the program, specify roles and procedures, re-visit leadership team buy-in, and develop formal communications. Accordingly, a preliminary announcement is required to forestall unproductive rumors. Make sure the overall design embraces 360-degree practices where participants and mentors set goals, adopt new approaches (both practices and behaviors), and evaluate changes in business results and personal behaviors. In any event, complete the initial design in less than a month so that you can shift the participants into active learning mode.

Launch the program -- Set expectations that your management mentoring program will always be a work in progress, but focused on clear goals and regularly measured to assure it stays on track. Cascade effective new ideas across all participants. Monitor constituent satisfaction with the process and results at least twice a year.

In summary, by approaching management mentoring as a goal-oriented business-improvement effort, you maximize organizational benefits and optimize the overall participant experience.

-- Walt DeLaney

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