1. Aidan Harney, Chartered FCIPD CPD Director, Engineers Ireland The processes that promote effective mentoring
2. How to become a CPD Accredited Employer A framework for driving strategy through CPD Mandatory for Accreditation 1. Internal CPD Committee 2. CPD Policy 3. Performance Management & Development System 4. Formal CPD – minimum 5 days average p.a. recorded 5. Mentoring for Professional Development 6. Linkages with Professional Institutions / Learned Bodies 7. Knowledge Sharing activities 8. Evaluation of impact of CPD
3. Cork Galway Cavan Co. Council Leixlip Ringaskiddy Pharmaceuticals Galway Medical Solutions Diagnostics Manufacturing Ltd Biomedical Engineering Dept. RPS Consulting Engineers (Northern Region) Waterman Waterford County Council WDR & RT TAGGART Consulting Engineers Abbott Ireland Pharmaceutical Operations Meath County Council Brinny
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9. Mentoring Coaching FOCUS: “ WHAT TO” MODE: THOUGHT GENERAL FOCUS: “ HOW TO” MODE: ACTION SPECIFIC The mentoring-coaching continuum
10. Mentoring Coaching FOCUS: “ WHAT TO” MODE: THOUGHT GENERAL FOCUS: “ HOW TO” MODE: ACTION SPECIFIC The mentoring-coaching continuum
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34. 2. Professional friendship process 1 - rapport Involves chat, coffee/tea, commonalities, trust is felt, there is a good fit, they get on, admiration, shared understanding , humour, easy to talk to 2 - relational abilities Mentor is approachable, is a skilled listener, has good social/people skills, has good communication skills, mentoring involves friendship 3 - emotional abilities Mentor requires emotional maturity, has capacity for empathy, can handle emotions, handling difficult situations
35. 2. Professional friendship process 1 - rapport Involves chat, coffee/tea, commonalities, trust is felt, there is a good fit, they get on, admiration, shared understanding , humour, easy to talk to 2 - relational abilities Mentor is approachable, is a skilled listener, has good social/people skills, has good communication skills, mentoring involves friendship 3 - emotional abilities Mentor requires emotional maturity, has capacity for empathy, can handle emotions, handling difficult situations
36. 2. Professional friendship process 1 - rapport Involves chat, coffee/tea, commonalities, trust is felt, there is a good fit, they get on, admiration, shared understanding , humour, easy to talk to 2 - relational abilities Mentor is approachable, is a skilled listener, has good social/people skills, has good communication skills, mentoring involves friendship 3 - emotional abilities Mentor requires emotional maturity, has capacity for empathy, can handle emotions, handling difficult situations
37. 2. Professional friendship process 1 - rapport Involves chat, coffee/tea, commonalities, trust is felt, there is a good fit, they get on, admiration, shared understanding , humour, easy to talk to 2 - relational abilities Mentor is approachable, is a skilled listener, has good social/people skills, has good communication skills, mentoring involves friendship 3 - emotional abilities Mentor requires emotional maturity, has capacity for empathy, can handle emotions, handling difficult situations
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41. 3. Expertise-sharing process 1 - shared expertise Value of being able to learn from mentor’s experience, the mentor is more experienced, give tips 2 - shared knowledge The value of expert knowledge, mentor’s wisdom, mentor’s capabilities
42. 3. Expertise-sharing process 1 - shared expertise Value of being able to learn from mentor’s experience, the mentor is more experienced, give tips 2 - shared knowledge The value of expert knowledge, mentor’s wisdom, mentor’s capabilities
43. 3. Expertise-sharing process 1 - shared expertise Value of being able to learn from mentor’s experience, the mentor is more experienced, give tips 2 - shared knowledge The value of expert knowledge, mentor’s wisdom, mentor’s capabilities
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47. 4. Mostly non-directive process 1 - non-directive Bounce ideas off, identify a range of options, offer feedback, act as a sounding board, do not give direct advice, driven by mentee, ask questions, work in a hands-off fashion, empower the learner 2 - assistive Offer support, assist with settling in, help the learner, assist with integration 3 - directive Give advice, give guidance, goal setting, agreed direction, action-orientated
48. 4. Mostly non-directive process 1 - non-directive Bounce ideas off, identify a range of options, offer feedback, act as a sounding board, do not give direct advice, driven by mentee, ask questions, work in a hands-off fashion, empower the learner 2 - assistive Offer support, assist with settling in, help the learner, assist with integration 3 - directive Give advice, give guidance, goal setting, agreed direction, action-orientated
49. 4. Mostly non-directive process 1 - non-directive Bounce ideas off, identify a range of options, offer feedback, act as a sounding board, do not give direct advice, driven by mentee, ask questions, work in a hands-off fashion, empower the learner 2 - assistive Offer support, assist with settling in, help the learner, assist with integration 3 - directive Give advice, give guidance, goal setting, agreed direction, action-orientated
50. 4. Mostly non-directive process 1 - non-directive Bounce ideas off, identify a range of options, offer feedback, act as a sounding board, do not give direct advice, driven by mentee, ask questions, work in a hands-off fashion, empower the learner 2 - assistive Offer support, assist with settling in, help the learner, assist with integration 3 - directive Give advice, give guidance, goal setting, agreed direction, action-orientated
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52. Mentoring Coaching FOCUS: “ WHAT TO” MODE: THOUGHT GENERAL FOCUS: “ HOW TO” MODE: ACTION SPECIFIC The mentoring-coaching continuum
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Hinweis der Redaktion
Through the CPD Accredited Employer scheme, run by Engineers Ireland, and co-funded by the Irish Government, mentoring is currently at the forefront of strategies to improve workplace learning for engineering professionals in Ireland. To earn the CPD Accredited Employer standard, a firm’s CPD committee must provide evidence these eight mandatory criteria are in place.
Each year, a report from each CPD Accredited Employer has to be returned to Engineers Ireland outlining how these organisations feel they continue to adhere to the scheme’s criteria. The reports also indicate any aspects of CPD with which the organisation might need assistance. An examination of these reports highlighted that the majority outline various difficulties that the firms are having in sustaining their formal mentoring schemes. Hence this research topic was chosen.
In today’s agenda, over about 20 minutes, I want to step you through a recent study I was involved in with Dublin City University. Part of my own CPD as a HR professional is to share the results hence I am here today. There is a about 10-15 minutes for questions and debate and discussion at the end. My OBJECTIVE today is that you’ll learn 4 things you can do to make mentoring more effective. Hopefully, today’s presentation, for those of you who struggle with mentoring, will give you a greater sense of UNDERSTANDING and CONTROL.
Synopsize what is known. Flag any consensus. Highlight gaps in knowledge.
First thing that became evident is that defining mentoring is actually very problematic It lacks a universal definition and its application depends on organisation context, goals and participants. One study describes mentoring as “a plastic concept” – which isn’t very helpful SO mentoring is widely operational in practice but lacking in clear conceptual terms for those who want to improve their effectiveness as a mentor or as a mentor co-ordinator in a HR role.
One of the most widely quoted and influential scholarly studies from the 1980s found mentoring had two essential characteristics around CAREER and around WORKPLACE SOCIALISATION ISSUES. However, since then, very considerable disagreement has evolved and this study has been challenged a great deal.
An often found starting point in literature on mentoring is that it can be a difficult concept to understand as it borders and overlaps with other interventions such as teaching, supervision, coaching, apprenticeship and counselling. Coaching and mentoring, in particular, are prone to conceptual confusion and so in the time available I will distinguish between the two as the implications of the differences are critical.
Research literature suggests that in defining the two, if the goal to arrive at better decisions or accurately evaluate complex issues, a mentor is the more appropriate choice. Mentors offer options with the general objective of DEVELOPMENT.
If the goal is PERFORMANCE (action-orientated response) … coaching is the appropriate strategy. Coaching is more strongly associated with a specific objective. We can understand the two to lie on a continuum where the work of a mentor might develop into coaching as specific goals are discussed, debated and clarified and then, AFTER this exploration and understanding, action is required.
So there remains great debate in academic research about just what exactly the essences of mentor are. Nevertheless, mentoring is being increasingly encouraged in business and industry. How can we optimise mentoring if we don’t understand what it’s essences are????? Where there is concensus in the literature, it suggests the essential functions of mentoring coalese around development, or CPD, which obviously is important to this audience…. And knowledge exchange.
Go to any bookshop and there is a wealth of information on HOW TO BE A MENTOR which suggests competences a mentor needs. I would caution against picking up these prescriptive texts. In analysing them for my research, almost all of them lack empirical evidence, they are largely conjecture but if you fancy making some money in publishing, they do SELL WELL!!!!!
The Competence approach to understanding mentoring, lists off lots of skills you need to be good at but for the practitioner who is looking for a proven way to make their mentoring more effective, these lists don’t give a grounded, applicable approach. I call it the tumble-weed effect. You can know these competence lists but when you go into a room and sit down opposite your mentee, you’ll still face the question, where do I begin, what do I do, what is the agenda….. There’s likely to be silence and awkward looks. Hence, the tumble-weed effect!!!!
For what it’s worth, the approach which lists off competences suggests communication skills are the key area for mentors to work on Again, this is very generic and generalist and I don’t know how much help this is to a mentor trying to become more effective Also, it’s someone’s opinion rather than based on scientific studies!!!!
So, a lot of researchers got fed up with the lack of empirical evidence and they began to do masses of QUANTITATIVE papers on mentoring. In fact, 95% of papers on mentoring were QUANTITATIVE in nature. Around the mid-90s they went off and did a whole lot of work to identify the various styles and schools of mentoring. They came up with two main schools: the functionalist school: very US-based, almost like master and apprentice, very paternalistic in it’s approach authoritarian, typically in a law firm, almost military style and very much focussed on performance and the firm and not, as we saw earlier, the person or their development. The second school identified is the evolutionary school: which is person-centric, it’s much more about exploring and sharing a learning journey rather than dictating one. It’s not about ‘the sage on the stage’ it’s about co-equals and it’s closely tied to the adult learning paradigm and its principles i.e. the learner, ultimately, knows best. These schools can be in three styles: traditional, formal or informal. Lovely concept!!!!! Not a great deal of help to a mentor or their supporters in HR!!!!! Your of the functionalist school in a formal style……….. Best of luck
In my trawl through the literature on mentoring, I detected a definite shift, albeit a small one. Several recent researchers, fed up with the competence-model and with the typology approach, decided to invest time in deep QUALITATIVE research to look at the specific characteristics and behaviours which make effective mentors effective.
Hence, my own frustration as a practitioner……..
Which led me to choose my research topic
The question I tackled was around practical, applicable processes for adult pairs or mentor and mentee
The research aimed to get real experiences through detailed interviews and to extract from these interviews, the essences of what makes up ‘effective’ mentoring.
The important difference in this research was that it worked with both mentors and mentees – in fact 10 pairs were consulted, mentors and mentees separately, interviewed for up to an hour each They were all adults, they self-identified for the study as being in effective mentoring relationship for more than six months and they could converse in English
Let’s move swiftly on to the results so…….
What can we take from this study of practical applicable for a room of HR professionals?
11 sub-strands fell into 4 themes which sign-post actual behaviours and approaches which will make your mentoring more effective
The four essentials are as follows: 1. Everything you do, your literature, your policies, your training, your briefings, your mentoring contacts, should underline the AGENDA for the relationship which is completely focussed on development. Items which stray outside development……. Such as counselling regarding a boyfriend or girlfriend, actually damage the effectiveness of mentoring 2. Mentoring at arm’s length, with an aloof, distant or superior approach is very ineffective. Whether they like it or not, your mentor will have to form a professional bond with their learner if they want to really accelerate the effectiveness of the learning relationship 3. Being a good story-teller, sharing anecdotes, examples, experiences, situational wisdom etc is vital. A closed shop, in terms of knowledge and expertise, will never make a good mentor. 4. And finally, mentees don’t want direct advice from their mentor. They may look for it but they value the process of evaluating options and ideas most with their mentor. This can be very hard for mentors to do. Effective mentors do not work in a directive manner.
So to explore each of the four essences a little deeper………… All participants formed the views that effective mentoring is explicitly linked to learning and development One mentee understood the whole purpose of mentoring to be simply: “To help me in my development.” One mentor stated: “The person has to be developing. If they’re not, it’s not having its purpose. It’s to help them develop faster than they would if you weren’t there.”
So everything you have in your firm about mentoring, should link it to development. We changed our old “Mentoring Training Programme” and called it “Mentoring for Professional Development”. It’s one of the most popular programmes we run.
All of the participants in this study identified the main discourse to be about training, learning and development They discussed accelerated development to assist them make progress and changes in their career This aspect of mentoring had a very high MOTIVATIONAL factor for both mentor and mentee
Interestingly, all except one MENTOR in the study perceived that they had learned during the process This learning did not have to include academic knowledge or professional skills One mentor said she “gained a fresh perspective and reflected on her past” as a result of working as a mentor.
All but 3 participants identified specific learning or development outcomes as a result of the mentoring process But look at the learning. I was bowled over by this. There was no skill-based learning as such. Participants mentioned they valued the process so much because they got A FRESH PERSPECTIVE, NEW INSIGHTS or INCREASED SELF-AWARENESS and CONFIDENCE. One mentee said: “It opened my eyes a lot.” Another valued getting “another point of view” while a third found that his understanding of what his company actually did was broadened. Several mentioned they had been motivated to get to know other members of staff as a result of seeing how well-liked and well-known their mentors were.
I think as professional practitioners we really need to ponder this I am still pondering it certainly. Mentoring is a very special intervention that we perhaps don’t fully appreciate. It allows us do something which class-room based training often cannot – that is to drive knowledge- and behaviour-based learning. Good mentoring unlocks new insights. Mentoring is a powerful change tool. But do we use it as such?
So that’s the first plank
The second element of more effective mentoring is complex.
All participants in the study alluded to a feeling of comfort and connectedness within the mentoring dyad One mentor stated: “There has to be some kind of friendship almost there” and this theme was repeated again and again for effective mentoring. When on holidays in the Alps, one mentor was in an old book shop and she found a Stephen Covey book. She brought it back as a present for her mentee who agreed she would read three chapters a month for discussion during their mentoring sessions.
For effective mentoring to take place, rapport was an important factor. ALL mentoring meeting tended to begin with some friendly chat. Tea/coffee was frequent. Coffee shops or coffee docks were often the meeting place. Commonalities were VERY important for this banter: football teams, where they were from. This built high TRUST levels. In one case, the tandem found they had a lot of common interests including an interest in cookery. On one occasion, the mentee was presented with a CAKE which her mentor had baked for her!!!! Have you ever baked a cake for your mentee??? I know I haven’t.
That the mentor was APPROACHABLE was the most oft-mentioned statement from the mentees in this study of effectiveness in mentoring. What can we do with our body language, our actual language, our office lay-out, our time table, where we sit in the canteen etc…. To be MORE APPROACHABLE Frequently referenced also were: being a good listener and having good people skills and social skills: broadly, good INTERPERSONAL skills
Two-thirds of all participants mentioned how important it is that the mentor be “emotionally mature” and have the capacity for empathy. As one mentor put it: “It’s not about age, it’s about stage.” The life stage you are at. One mentor commented: “I think you need a lot of emotional intelligence.” Do we ever assess EI or EQ in our mentors? One mentor said: “You need to participate, by not participating.” There’s a lot in that.
For today, let us consider how absent the concept of professional friendship is from the literature How can we do this? Are there dangers? How we can teach a mentor to chat and engage in small-talk because if they want to be more effective – they need to be able to do this!!!! In short, this strand of the research highlights the focus on the learner rather than the firm they work for
Strand two
The third essence of more effective mentoring is around giving generously
ALL of the mentees alluded to the experience of benefitting from the expertise of their mentor, either through hearing of their experience of a certain situation or from gleaning expert knowledge from them on a particular topic. Again, this highlights the personal investment which a mentor needs to put into mentor for it to be optimised. Many of the mentors recognised this. One gave a very strong depiction of how he viewed mentoring to be about: “You want to be able to get them to The Holy Grail without having to follow the path up and around the mountain all the time.”
The value of being able to learn from a mentor’s experience was unilaterally regarded as a process that promoted effective mentoring. Experience sharing particularly enriched the process for the mentees and made it very helpful. Many of the mentee related aspects of learning from the shared experience of their mentor. Some said that trying to solve a problem with their peers would not be so beneficial compared with the experienced point of view of their mentor.
Less frequently mentioned was the importance of shared knowledge. Nevertheless, two-thirds of the participants did reference it. Knowledge when starting off in a new organisation was particularly valued. Cultural nuances of how a firm operates were very valuable pieces of knowledge which mentees picked up from their mentors. The knowledge was rarely of a ‘hard’ technical nature.
This is odd in a way because in Kram’s seminal 1980s study on mentoring, expertise-sharing is completely missing. This might be because of the shift, certainly in the UK, with regard to the overall approach What we can say is that if knowledge and expertise-sharing are essential for effective mentoring, mentors should have worthwhile knowledge and expertise to share and they may need to be perceived as KNOWLEDGABLE in the first place. Are your mentors perceived as approachable yet knowledgeable in your organisation? Often one is seen to negate the other unfortunately in terms of IVORY TOWER syndrome.
And so the final strand of building more effective mentoring
This last finding was particularly interesting in that it signalled clearly HOW mentors worked most effectively with their mentees
The study provides evidence that mentors can adopt a variety of behaviours to improve their efficacy. The behavioural styles in this study depended largely on the philosophy of the mentor with regard to how mentoring should be conducted, It also changed when specific topics were brought up by the mentee. The LEAST valued behaviour was direct advice giving from the mentor.
The specific statement “bounce ideas off” was one of the most frequently mentioned phrases throughout all of the interviews to describe the way in which mentor and mentee operated. Another commonplace phrase was “acting as a sounding board” again suggesting non-directive behaviours. In fact, several of the mentors felt they had a responsibility as a mentor NOT to give direct advice. A frequently-mentioned technique for those who chose to work in a non-directive style was to ask questions in order to identify a range of options. Several statements from mentees showed that they found this to be an empowering approach. One mentor described the context in which he worked as “the stage before action” which provides a clue as to the suitability of this style of mentoring behaviour i.e. to consider options and to empower the learner to make decisions regarding next steps.
When mentees presented “issues” or “problems” which required “support” or “assistance” a more hands-on behavioural style was noted. One mentee was very isolated in the organisation. His mentor worked with HR to integrate him with other graduates by organising a table quiz!!!! Examples of this kind of generosity were not uncommon. This kind of support, in a helpful and caring way, emerged when the learner had a problem the mentor could assist with. It very much featured around issues such as settling in, integrating, getting to grips with a new role and other general help which might be understood to alleviate unnecessary pressures so that the key learning agenda, development, could be returned to.
A very small number of interviewees reported direct advice giving or strong guidance. 1 in fact really. In a positive sense, it can be viewed as action-orientated or a goal setting behaviour. But really, this is mentoring crossing over into coaching territory, as we saw earlier. It is noteworthy that it was just 1 mentor in this study who accounted for nearly all of the total references to advice-giving in a very directive fashion. She simple stated: “I like giving advice to people. I can dish out a lot of advice.” In truth, there was no other indication that direct advice-giving is a behaviour which necessarily promotes more effective mentoring in adult dyads. For the majority of those in the study (94%) the mentor did not behave in a directive fashion at all. Most mentors worked in a non-directive manner, supplemented by assistive or helping behaviours when required.
The findings reflect other recent qualitative studies like this which highlight that the most effective mentoring methodology includes extensive and varied use of questioning, active listening and feedback. Probing questions are important. This is really significant as we try to understand the concept of mentoring. In essence, we can say, it is not necessary for a good mentor to be able to ‘do’ the things he or she talks about. It is only necessary for them to understand the situation and to be able to open up options and possibilities for the learner.
The findings here really validate the model we looked at earlier that mentoring and coaching should probably be thought of as a continuum whereby ULTIMATELY coaching may form part of the ‘tool kit’ of a mentor but only once an appropriate phase of trust and rapport and exploration and reflection has elapsed and action or performance is then desired. I think this is important in terms of understanding when a learner might need a mentor and when they might need a coach. In my own experience, I have seen the folly of organisations mixing this up. A learner who needed to explore options in a complex situation can be pushed far too early to take action by a well-meaning coach.
So, briefly, to close, what can we take from today to learn ourselves in our roles in HR and CPD?
Well, in summary, we can say that the processes which promote effective mentoring in adult dyads, according to this study, have the essential attributes of: A development-orientated process, with identifiable benefits accruing to both the mentor and the mentee A process founded on the basis of good rapport and strengthened through a deepening professional friendship A process whereby the more experienced person shares their expertise with the less experienced individual A process whereby the more knowledgeable person shares their knowledge with the less knowledgeable person A predominantly non-directive, reflective process
There is a style and a character and skill-set which effective mentors need Does this look like your mentors?
Analysis of the learning outcomes experienced by participants in this study show that learning was predominantly: COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE Rather than SKILL-BASED For me, this is one of the most important EUREKA aspects of this study. How we might use mentoring……
Given that mentoring enables learners to tap into such rich fresh perspectives, increased self-awareness and fresh insights in a way other development interventions, such as traditional classroom training do not, we can understand mentoring afresh as a device for assisting and enabling change and transition. This has been shown in terms of increased motivation and confidence-building and altering attitudes. Here mentoring offers unique possibilities. As HR professionals, do we utilise mentoring in this way though?
The implications for mentors of the major finding that mentoring involves a personal investment in terms of banter and chat and trust-building and rapport means poor communicators or those lacking in the time and emotional maturity to make this investment are likely to practice less-effective mentoring This knowledge might be used to assist potential mentors to self-diagnose their readiness to act as a mentor Mentees who are made aware of the characteristics and personal qualities that have proved to be most valuable in a mentor might also be able to choose who it is they might work best with.
HRD professionals must play a part in ensuring that mentors have the requiste characteristics and qualities to facilitate effective mentoring. Mentors who desire to keep their mentees at arm’s length (the old paternalistic, autocratic style) are increasingly less likely to succeed in creating a workable, effective mentoring setting. This study certainly suggests contemporary mentoring has little to do with performance management and talent management and more to do with empowerment and enlightenment. Have we made this shift in how we implement and support our mentoring programmes though?
Those involved in training mentors (or briefing mentees) may wish to consider carefully the implications of the findings that effective mentoring is as a result of working predominantly in a non-directive, reflective style with little place for direct advice-giving. Do we train our staff to really understand the NUANCES of coaching versus mentoring and how the two might be linked and when one or the other might be consciously engaged, for its desired effect? Those engaged in training mentors might wish to explore non-directive, practitioner models, such as those of Mike Pegg, which have been empirically substantiated here and by other studies recently. Hundreds of other titles offer great advice to mentors, but they are mere guess-work and frankly, often get it wrong.
The key implications for organisations is that mentoring is about CPD and it is about knowledge exchange. It’s not about skill-based learning at all really. It is about fresh insights, broader understanding and increased self-awareness: the cognitive and affective aspect of learning. Therefore, in deploying mentoring, firms might link it to their organisations strategic intent. We in Engineers Ireland insist when aiding organisations to roll-out a mentoring programme that they put down in writing what the strategic intent of their mentoring is and how it fits the organisational goals. We’ve done mentoring for innovation with Whirlpool, mentoring for graduate development with our Electricity Grid, EirGrid, mentoring for leadership development with a large local authority in Dublin and mentoring to support candidates to become Chartered Engineers with the consultancy firm, RPS in Dublin and Belfast. Does the mentoring you support, fit the strategic aims of your organisation?
I hope today has challenged you and given you a fresh perspective on a subject I am passionate about. More so, I hope it has given you ideas and a sense that you could take control of your mentoring to improve it. My own practical application of this research has wielded results. I guarantee you, if you apply these principles, you’ll notice a difference and you’ll be thanked for it. I’d like to thank today’s organisers for inviting me to share with you. We have about 10 minutes left for questions and debate and discussion, so thank you very much for listening.
