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Creating a Successful Mentoring Program

By Florence Stone

You've read in business magazines and newsletters about many successful mentoring programs. You think you'd like to try out the idea of a formal program at your company. What can you do to increase the odds for success?

1. Have a clear purpose. Do you want the program solely to support leadership development or are you interested in encouraging the advancement of high-potential women and minorities? Are you thinking about the positive impact the program can have on employee and managerial recruitment and retention? Whatever the program’s purpose, it should be clearly defined, including the goals by which the initial effort will be measured. When a program has a specific purpose, it is more likely to have top management’s support.
2. Set realistic goals for the program. You want very clear, identifiable and—most important—realistic goals for that first effort. You will only be able to measure the program’s success if you establish quantifiable objectives, so consider how this might be possible. For instance, an increase in promotion of women or minority members, if that was an objective, can be quantified. Likewise, skill improvements can be measured by performance assessments of mentees by their managers.
3. Identify a program champion. The mentoring program director position need not be a full-time job, but the individual responsible for the program’s startup should be dedicated to the concept, have the time to devote to the effort and, most important, should be in a high enough position within the organization to garner the support he or she will need early in the effort.
4. Provide the program champion with his or her own team of mentors. A steering committee of well-regarded managers can help the program champion in representing the program to other managers to get prospective mentors, pair mentors and mentees and assess the success of mentor/mentee relationships.
5. Determine the nature of the effort. Will the program be separate from or a part of the company’s total development effort? Ideally, integrate the program into other career-planning, training and development efforts. Even if the program isn't a part of the human resources department, you should work closely with HR—independent programs are extremely vulnerable to economic downturns.
6. Communicate news of the startup. Use your corporate newsletter to alert staff about the program. Post information and any components of the program on your corporate intranet. Onsite, you can use posters and handouts and brochures to encourage managers and employees to sign up as mentors and mentees.
7. Start small. Begin with a pilot program—20 or so pairs—so the results can be studied. After six months, examine the relationships between mentors and mentees as well as the impact of the effort on the quantifiable goals that prompted the effort (e.g., improvement in managerial retention rates or increased mentee promotability). Adapt the program based on results. If the results are positive, you may want to expand the program geographically or organizationally to include more potential mentors and mentees.
8. Select prospective mentors and mentees. From the start, you want to choose as mentors those with a good track record at the company who understand the politics of the organization, truly want to help others and are willing to commit their time. As mentees, you want individuals who will be open to feedback and have demonstrated a willingness to learn. Pairing should be done based on best fit, such as mentor experience and expertise and mentee career goals and learning styles. Some organizations depend on data bases to create pairs, others rely on interviews with candidates to make selections.
9. Prepare mentors and mentees for their roles. At the very least, you need to provide both with an understanding of their responsibilities. To gain the support of mentees' supervisors, you should offer an orientation to familiarize them with the importance of their support to the mentees' development. Develop agreements or other forms that mentors and mentees can use to help them clarify their expectations, including commitments to the relationship.
10. Interview mentors and mentees together and individually about progress. Such reviews, ideally held quarterly, should yield information on how to improve the program as well as any pair counseling needed. No-fault breakups should enable you to separate those relationships where problems exist and provide new partners for each person.

Florence Stone is editorial director for American Management Association. A recognized authority on management, she has authored over 15 management books, including The Essential New Manager’s Kit and The Mentoring Advantage. For more information, e-mail: fstone@amanet.org