| An
Effective Mentor is NOT Enough
© 2008, Barry Sweeny
If one goal of your mentoring program is
to improve the performance of employees, then you need
to know that mentoring alone has been proven to be an insufficient
strategy to attain that result. That is so for two reasons:
- Most mentors are also full time employees with
their own work to accomplish. Their time is limited, so they cann
not provide all the support that their protege needs.
- Some of the kinds of support and training that
are needed should be group activities. That means the organization
is best positioned to provide these activities.
Instead, what is needed is long term support for
development within a data-based "Comprehensive System of Support
for Development". This page will give you an overview of what
such a system of support needs to include. Each component exists
for specific professional development reasons.
The research and principles
of effective professional development teach us that training
experiences are ALSO not sufficient by themselves to ensure improved
employee practice.
That is why effective mentoring programs need to
be a part of an integrated program which at least includes:
1. Initial group orientation
2. Training that is designed specifically
for learners’ needs
3. Opportunities for employees to observe
experts in their field at work
4. The support of facilitated, structured
peer support activities
5. On-going, individualized, follow up
mentoring support, guidance, and coaching.
Also, when the profession has identified professional
performance standards or the organization has performance competencies,
the support system also must include:
6. Professional growth goals and an action
plan
7. Professional growth portfolios containing
artifacts of the work and professional growth processes.
These latter two program components ensure the development
of employees as reflective practitioners who use data and
artifacts to self-monitor, self-assess, and adjust activities to
improve their own results.
ADVANCED
ORGANIZER FOR INDUCTION & MENTORING PROGRAMS
By Barry Sweeny, copyright 2008
Mentoring is one central strategy
among 7 program strategies which together, ensure the professional
growth process is effective and produces the desired results for
the organization. Programs can function without all of these components,
but when they do, they should not hold employees accountable for
results since they have not been sufficiently supported to produce
them.
One final caution - While having such a comprehensive
system of support is critical for protege accelerated growth and
performance improvement, the most effective system will ALSO ensure
that each component is planned and conducted so as to produce synergy,
a multiplying effect on the impact of each part in the practice
of program participants.
Designing, implementing and enhancing such a synergistic
system requires expertise. Contact Barry
Sweeny to limit the amount of time and trial and error learning
you experience as you seek to put such best practices to work in
your organization. You will be thrilled with your personnel and
supervisors' reactions, and with the results you can quickly achieve. |
