Comparing Inclusive & Exclusive Mentor Selection Approaches

CHOICES OF SELECTION APPROACH:

1. THE FOLLOWING ITEMS ARE THOSE FOR WHICH THERE ARE NO CLEAR, "ALWAYS CORRECT" ANSWERS.

2. INITIALLY, ORGANIZATIONS WILL NEED TO CONSIDER THEIR SETTING, HISTORY, AND GOALS TO DETERMINE THE BEST WAY TO ADDRESS THESE ISSUES.

3. AFTER IMPLEMENTATION, USE PROGRAM EVALUATION TO COLLECT DATA CONCERNING THESE ISSUES AND MAKE REVISIONS AS NECESSARY.

Organizations must carefully decide between two approaches to mentor selection and the choice should be consistent with the purposes of the mentoring program.

AN EXCLUSIVE PROCESS -"Mentors must be the best available models of good practice." (Sadly, the implication is that as "models", mentors are perfect and done learning and improving.)
- -Many other experienced staff are then rejected as "not good enough"
- -The mentor's job is usually to ensure the protege reaches a minimal skill level
- -Mentors may be called on to "evaluate" the protege. Even if informal, it's a conflict with the mentor's developmental roles.
- -The technical skills of the job are highly valued
- -A higher degree of stress accompanies mentor status since they are viewed as "special"
- -It's possible that mentors will be identified as an "elite" group. This means that mentoring may become divisive and not promote collaboration across the staff as a whole.
AN INCLUSIVE PROCESS - "The best mentors must be model employees, but being a model includes continual, visible learning, openness to feedback and the daily, career-long struggle to be the best they can be."

-Most veterans can be mentors at some point, at least with some proteges.
-The mentor's job is to model professional growth and to support the protege's professional development
-Lower levels of stress result from expectations that participants will learn from each other
-Requires built-in, on-going training & support for mentor & proteges
-Requires planned opportunities for monitoring, checking for problems, and a process to support mentors.
-This means that the program needs a leader who will deal with any problems as they arise and also serve as the Mentor of mentors (MoM).
-People skills and the ability to help others develop analytical, reflective, and self-assessment practices are valued for mentors.

Without a doubt, I recommend the "inclusive" approach.

AVOID THE "EXCLUSIVE" APPROACH

You should also avoid use of criteria which are so exclusive and unusual that few can or choose to try to attain them. That would create the impression that mentorship is an exclusive "club" to which only the best can belong. Such an exclusive approach can create many problems, especially in a collaborative, or egalitarian culture and can actually be counter to the collaborative culture that mentoring tries to establish. Further, it can seriously decrease the number of people who will volunteer to be mentors in your program and it can create pressures and discomforts for those who do become mentors. You definitely want to avoid having criteria which will cause you to be perceived as saying to a mentor candidate, "Sorry, you're not good enough to be a mentor."

In fact, it is not necessary or even desirable to have mentors who are "the best" employees in order to build a highly effective mentor program.

USE THE "INCLUSIVE" APPROACH TO MENTOR SELECTION

A better solution is to use a more inclusive approach with "staged criteria" and built in periodic "safety checks".

The concept of the inclusive approach is to place the focus on mentors who:
- Meet certain minimal "threshold criteria", and...
- Agree to model and work toward becoming the best mentors they can be, rather than mentors who are already great and who know everything.
When the emphasis is on mentors as models of continual improvement, mentoring will be more consistent with a professional learning culture and the expectation that everyone is learning and growing.

You can be successful using an inclusive approach to mentor selection if you:

Avoid creating the impression that "anyone can be a mentor" by the use of "staged criteria". See below for advice about how to do that.
Create face-saving ways to opt out - Create ways in which people who are mentor candidates can decide, at any step in the selection process, that now is not the time to become a mentor and choose to remove themselves from the process.
- That is accomplished by candidly describing up front what becoming an effective mentor involves, then suggesting that those who would be uncomfortable doing those things should consider withdrawing their candidacy, at least for now.
Design "safety checks" at points during the selection process which allow the program to ensure the quality and/or appropriateness of the candidate to move to the next step of the selection process. See below for more information on how to do this.
Don't create too rigid of a selection process. Allow for flexibility. Let those who are interested in learning more about the mentor program know they can come to an informational meeting to hear about mentoring and that they may opt out at any time they wish. This is critical because some of the less desirable candidates will self-select out of the selection process when the role of the mentor, openness to protege questions about the mentor's own practice, and the expectation of modeling visible learning from others is understood.
Make attending Mentor Training a part of the selection process, not after selection occurs. Include role playing and other forms of authentic practice of skills that effective mentors must do with proteges. This allows the mentor trainer to observe candidates to see if they are open to doing these things and effective when they do them. People who are uncomfortable with role plays will also be uncomfortable with the doing the same activities with their assigned protege. Those should be counseled out of the process with a privately made comment like, "Feel free to leave at the next break if this activity makes you uncomfortable."
Don't make too many promises about what attending mentor training means. People should understand that being trained as a mentor DOES NOT mean they will automatically be assigned to work with a protege. The point is to match the strengths of the mentor to the needs of the protege. This means that (unstated) poorer employees who become trained mentors may find that they are never matched because the program can not find a protege whose needs are matched to the strengths of the (poor) mentor.