We do not find success or climb the ladder without learning quite a bit along the way. Learning from and creating valuable connections with others is a critical component to success; however, why is it that as business owners and leaders we often forget just how important it is to train, develop and mentor our teams and ourselves?
As a society, we look at Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Sir Richard Branson, for example, based on the success they have achieved – not so much at their journey and how they overcame challenges and failures along the way. The most recognized leaders in the world share a lot of the same traits and practices. They surround themselves with people that are smarter than they are, they persevere through failure and they invest in developing themselves and their teams to ensure their continued success.
John F. Kennedy once said that, “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” As leaders we can never stop learning. Mr. Buffet is said to read five hours a day, Mr. Gates will read 50 books a year and Elon Musk will read two books a day! These leaders acknowledge that they do not know everything. They continue to educate themselves daily and set that example for their teams.
Professional development is a daily process in every strong leader, but the task does not stop there. We need to dispense that knowledge through all levels of our corporate structure, and build a strong team that craves knowledge and is inspired to improve themselves. The good news is that all of this can be accomplished by implementing a mentorship program within your business.
If this sounds to you like work that you just do not have time for, here is a short list of the benefits that individuals and companies gain through mentorship and investing in team development:
- Successful onboarding of new hires;
- A smarter, highly educated team that results in higher revenue and lower expenses;
- Cultivating and preparing team members to grow with your organization;
- Increased employee retention;
- Easier employee recruitment (Who doesn’t want this?!);
- Knowledge transfer throughout your organization; and
- Building stronger more cohesive company cultures.
Implementing a mentorship program is not as hard as you may think, and more importantly, investing some time now to develop a program that can be duplicated over and over within your business to pay dividends well into the future.
Getting Started
Whether one employee or tens of thousands of employees, every business should have a mentorship program. The size of a business may determine how elaborate the program or change the logistics of how it works; however, all size businesses can implement a successful program.
The basics of setting up a mentorship program include pairing a mentee with a mentor in a structured program that includes regular meetings/calls, a professional development program, and creating a culture of transparency and sharing within the organization. Successful programs also provide tools and supporting documentation to help the mentors and mentees navigate the program.
Some programs find ways to connect their team members with their community to support causes important to the organization or individual employees that others can rally around.
There are a number of ways to tackle this. Smaller organizations may benefit from leveraging some outside resources to develop and manage the program. Larger organizations may have team members with the skill set to handle the development and management of the program.
If you are a business with less than 10 employees, look outside of your organization to non-competitive industry colleagues to enlist mentors and mentees into your program. If you do not know anyone, join a trade association or attend industry events to expand your knowledge and network. This can be especially helpful to learn how other businesses approach the same opportunities and challenges. Larger businesses will have enough team members to create mentor/mentee pairs internally.
Every business is unique. We may all work in the same industry, but we do not all install, market, procure, manage, onboard, retain, recruit, and sell the exact same way. As such, each company’s mentorship program should be unique to leverage the qualities and values that set the business apart. You can start small and only offer the program to a certain number of employees or you can roll it out to all. You can enroll team members on day one, or you can create ways for employees to qualify for the program.
Set Goals and Create a Playbook
It is imperative to first establish your company’s goals for the mentorship program and determine how long the program will run. Is it yearly, shorter or longer? Consider switching up your mentor/mentee pairs from time to time to keep it fresh, but also encourage ongoing relationship development across all levels of your organization.
Once you have established the structure and your goals, you will need to develop the playbook for how the program will run. Establish an “owner” of the program and charge that person with managing the program and being a resource for participant questions. Once you have worked out what the education and training components of the program, open enrollment and then put together your mentee/mentor pairs.
Provide your mentors and mentees with their roles and responsibilities, and be sure to get periodic reports on progress, lessons learned, key takeaways and valuable information that you should be sharing company wide.
There are a lot of details that go into the development of the program and ultimately determine how successful the program will be. If you or a team member does not have the knowledge or time to dedicate, then bring in a consultant to handle it for you. This will be less expensive than adding a new team member to manage the program, and it will also enable you to leverage the expertise of someone who has successfully run programs and knows what it takes to get started effectively.
Measure Success
Once you have been through a full cycle, you will likely get feedback on what worked and elements that need to be tweaked to make the program even more valuable for your team. Be flexible and open to feedback so you are able to continuously improve the program, and ensure it is valuable for the participants and your business.
Be sure to evaluate the results, measure your employee attrition/retention, employee satisfaction levels, employee referrals, sales and customer satisfaction etc. These are all areas that should improve due to successful mentoring within the business.
Mentorship helps to create a cohesive culture within organizations and keeps people at all levels of the organization informed and feeling like their work really matters. Benjamin Franklin said, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” This quote epitomizes the goals of mentorship and if done well the results should exceed your wildest expectations.
The relationships and knowledge transfer throughout mentorship pairs is incredible. You will be shocked at how much not only the mentees will learn, but how much the mentors will gain from the experience as well. Do not wait…kick-start the development of your company’s mentorship program today so you can reap the ROI and benefits in 2020 and beyond!
Robert Few is the Managing Partner of The Connection Xchange (TCX), where he works with top security and integration companies as well as MSOs, ISPs and other non-traditional companies looking to enter the connected home and security markets. He successfully launched and managed the Electronic Security Association’s (ESA) Mentorship Program for several years. Contact him for help in getting a mentorship program started: (201) 838-0091, email [email protected] or visit www.securityinfowatch.com/21111763 to request more info.
