If you’re not in your company’s mentoring program, you’re stagnating. Or, if you’re in a senior position, then you should establish a succession plan or talent retention program that involves mentoring someone worthy of your time.
Take that bromide, plus two Advil, and let us know how it goes. Despite a slow and imperceptible payback, few question whether mentoring programs benefit employers, managers and their protégés. Yet, these programs are easier to mandate than do successfully.
Mentoring is relatively frictionless when you and your mentor can meet for lunch, coffee or a beer. But in a global enterprise, the mentoring program is most likely a virtual one, with mentors and mentees located in distant cities, different cultures, and remote time zones, too.
“The last few mentees [of mine] have been in California, Maryland, Mexico City and now Arizona,” says Artie Lynnworth, General Manager, Occidental Chemical Corp. in Santiago, Chile. In a Human Capital Institute webcast he spoke about mentoring a Maryland-based employee via a webcam. Sounds a bit dicey, but he says, “It’s great, it works, and virtual should not be any obstacle at all.”
Lynnworth’s bigger challenges concern dispensing advice that is cross-cultural in nature. “Those are things to be sensitive to,” Lynnworth says. “Guidance that might work in a USA environment might not work in another culture.”
Sue Stanek, consulting partner at Menttium, which provides corporations with mentoring programs, says these relationships can increase a mentee’s national or global perspective. Given that mentoring often works best when there is proximity, Stanek offers advice for bridging the virtual divide. “How can we know each other’s work environment without being there physically?” she asks. She suggests that mentors and mentees exchange photos both of themselves and their workplace – even photos of personal interests too.
Stanek cautions that not all mentoring prospects are able to flourish in virtual relationships. “Some mentors are not as open – we find mentees are open,” she says. To manage the challenges of time-zone differences and building relationships, Stanek recommends:
- A “lock-in” for meetings (which translates to establishing a regular time)
- Preparing and reviewing notes ahead of time
- Sharing pertinent, non-confidential documents and voice mail as “grist” for discussions
- Following-up on action items via e-mail.
Typically, says Stanek, it takes about three to four months to gain a sufficient “level of trust and rapport.” She prefers to see mentoring relationships last about one year: “so you have a length of time to move from tactical to strategic.”
Have you experienced a mentoring program in a virtual, global context? If not, what’s holding you back? In upcoming posts we will look at mentoring in the context of social networking and foreign assignments.
