Make Mentoring Memorable

Make Mentoring Memorable
SHRM Vol. 54

5/1/2009

No. 5

By David C. Pease, SPHR

Along the way people planted seeds in my soul and spirit and added stones to the foundation
I was trying to form.
—Lisa Fain, quoted in Creating a Mentoring Culture: The Organization Guide by Lois Zachary
(John Wiley and Sons, 2005).
hen I began my human resources career, I was thrilled when a leader inmy organization
picked me as a protégé. His advice was helpful in navigating the unknown waters of
corporate America; however, I was soon in the middle of a political battle of corporate power
and wills. Although I learned about personal loyalty and organization alignment in this
process, that experience, even 20 years later, still leaves a bitter taste about power
struggles and corporatepolitics.
So, when a second executive tapped me to be a "high potential," I was more cautious than
excited. Again, learning the ropes from someone who has gone before is indeed a benefit of
having a mentor. Unfortunately, like my first experience, instead of catapulting my career, I
was once again used as a pawn to shield a mentor.
So, after two early, negative experiences, I was disillusionedand did not immediately seek
out, or accept offers from, potential mentors. However, I continued to observe leaders that I
admired and those that weren’t always effective, learning from both types. I examined
mentoring programs and talked to HR professionals who had positive and negative
experiences with mentors. Hence, I assumed my current—and more positive—point of view
on mentoring throughobservation, research and self-reflection.
My experiences as a mentor and a protégé during the past 10 years have been personally
rewarding and professionally invaluable. During the past three years, I have done a
tremendous amount of research on best practices.
Contemporary mentoring focuses on learning partnerships, with mentor and protégé playing
action roles. Whether the mentoringrelationship comes together formally or informally, it
should have an educational framework with objectives, development goals, shared roles and
outcomes.
As I learned from my first experiences, mentoring is not an innate skill, so mentors and
protégés should receive training, tools and support. Mentoring relationships are short in
duration, but the dialogue and work should focus on a long-termscope of the protégé’s
profession, and look at the person holistically during different stages of his or her life and
career.
Mentors don’t develop people; they equip protégés to learn for themselves by sharing
experiences, asking great questions, challenging decision-making and expanding problemsolving skills. A mentor becomes a catalyst for professional change and growth. A mentor
inspires themind and heart of the protégé. Below, I offer a framework—in the form of an
acrostic—to make your partnerships more MEMORABLE.
Mutual trust. An ideal mentor is not one’s boss. It is difficult to maintain an objective,
nonjudgmental dialogue when a formal reporting relationship exists.

Yet you must include the protégé’s manager in the process. When I began mentoring freespirited PierreRougny, director of rehabilitation services at Sebasticook Valley Hospital—a
new, talented front-line manager—it was clear that we needed to include his corporateminded manager Mike Peterson, vice president of clinical services.
I start each new relationship with a mentor-protégé agreement outlining the roles of each
individual, setting realistic expectations and establishing specific, customobjectives. In
Rougny’s agreement, we agreed upon providing monthly feedback to Mike on the projects we
were working on and the progress made. Once I began working with Rougny, and with little
prompting, he began suggesting innovative solutions to his department’s challenges. In
addition to working with Rougny on creating these proposals and gaining executive support,
I also spent time coaching...