SOMETIMES MENTORING GOES BAD–HOW CAN WE PREVENT THAT OUTCOME?
When I speak of mentoring, whether it’s in my Crafting a Successful Career: 8 Principles for Winning in a Challenging World, here in the blog, or when I’m speaking to groups, I’m always leaning forward into the land of positive outcomes. Rarely does it cross my mind that sometimes mentoring fails and changes must be made. But when I encountered “When Mentoring Goes Bad,” a wonderful article for the Wall Street Journal published May 24, 2010, written by Dawn E. Chandler, Lillian Eby and Stacy E. McManus, I paid attention.
In the article the authors consider some ways relationships fail and provide directions regarding how the mentor, their protégée or the organization can spot the problems and take remedial steps. It’s an excellent article and I recommend it to you.
Late in my career I met Randi Pintens whose company, PRISM, helped us set up the mentoring program for the research center in my company. Having been tutored by a pro, I appreciate the help those who’ve worked in this arena can provide.
Early in our program, Randi helped us focus on two things: mentor selection and matching—who in our company did we want in our mentoring corps, and what match-ups of mentors and protégées had the greatest probabilities for success. Wise focus.
Why wise? Not every experienced person can function well as a mentor, and the chemistry between individuals is important—random pairing just doesn’t work.
Let’s focus on the mentor. In my terminology, a mentor is not an advocate, a “ticket to the big leagues” as the WSJ article mentions, a route to promotion. No. A mentor is an experienced person who is willing to share honestly his or her experience, to point out possible pitfalls, to suggest alternative action steps which might lead to better outcomes—a person who is willing to walk with a less experienced person and help them find their way more knowingly.
An experienced person does not become a mentor to have their “community service ticket punched” to say to management, “I am a good person because I’m willing to serve my fellow humans by reaching out and touching someone—see! I even mentor lesser individuals. I share my time and experience. I am wonderful. And by the way, what else should I have on my resume to be considered for promotion?” No. A person demonstrating such a point of view should not be considered for the program. That is the wrong motivation. But it’s hard to spot and even more difficult to weed out once it’s part of the program.
The mentor-protégé relationship is built on trust. If either person enters the relationship with improper motives, the trust will not be built and the contract will fail. Diligence on the part of the selection group is mandatory.
But the protégé must really want a mentor’s help and not just be seeking a quicker route to corporate advancement. And be teachable. Without both those pieces in place, the contract will fail and the getting together will be a waste of time—for both parties—and it will damage the program.
So, how do we prevent bad outcomes? We start by selecting people who have proper reasons to mentor as the mentors; selecting teachable people who really want to learn and grow as protégés; and provide them the opportunity to work together. Still, it all boils down to trust and honesty, and those are individual virtues. But if we practice them, we can prevent bad outcomes.
