Your Mentor and Captain Marvel

What the hell is a mentor anyway?  I hear the word, and I always think of Captain Marvel’s alter ego, Billy Batson, and his nameless Mentor.  As best I can tell, Mentor’s job was to drive a Winnebago around the United States with no particular destination in mind, and to give clichéd advice to Billy, all while giving any casual observers the creepy feeling they might be witnesses some form of pedophilia in progress.

The Management Gurus will tell you that when mentoring works well, it is a relationship of high trust, where the Mentor knows and understands the technical, political and social ramifications of a particular organization, but does not have organizational power or control over a person.  Some organizations even assign two people to each other for a mentor-mentee arrangement.

I don’t think this type of relationship is really possible in most organizations, and here’s why:

  • We fired most of the middle-managers that could have served in such a role several years ago.  Now, outside of the occasional peer, there is no one to act in this capacity.
  • Mentoring relationships take time – years in some cases.  Most people don’t stay in one job, or at one location that long anymore.
  • Workplaces are generally lower trust environments than they were a decade or two ago.  Employees don’t trust the employer to act in their individual best interests, and employers see their people as disloyal.

Many organizations start these well-intentioned, but misguided attempts at mentorship programs.  Mentoring relationships, by definition, must occur organically, so drawing up a schedule to pair one person with another is a waste of paper.  Not to mention the awkward situation this puts the participants in:

“I’d like to introduce you to your new mentor!  Now run along and share your deepest fears and aspirations with this person.”

So here’s my alternative:  a personal Board of Directors.  Don’t be put-off by how badly publically traded companies have bastardized this good idea.  It is their implementation that is suspect, not the idea.  There are a variety of aspects of your professional life (and maybe your personal life, too) that could benefit from the external feedback of a Board of Directors.

If you’ve found a great mentor, then that person, may provide adequate direction for all axes of your professional life.  If you don’t have a mentoring relationship in place, you may want to consider a different person for each of the following areas:

  • Technical – how can you better execute the core skills of your job?
  • Political – how do you negotiate the politics?
  • Organizational/Social  — who are the true leaders of the organization, and who defers to whom?
  • Networking – Who do you need to know?  Who knows them?
  • Community involvement — What causes or initiatives should you be involved in.
  • Self-promotion – How do you raise your profile, without coming across as a bootlicker?

There are undoubtedly other categories unique to your situation too.  Perhaps you have people who can serve in more than one role, or maybe you have someone for each different aspect.

Just make sure you use their real name, and don’t address them as “Political Director”, otherwise you may leave people with that creepy impression like Billy Batson and Mentor did.

 

How to Mentor Someone

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Many leaders get the call, and then have to figure out how to mentor someone.  Below we discuss:

  • Why you would want to learn how to mentor someone.
  • How mentoring someone is different than simply managing someone
  • The role of the mentor
  • The expectations of the mentee
  • The mentoring agreement

Why Learn How to Mentor Someone?

  • By learning how to mentor someone, you will improve employee retention within your department or organization.  An Interim Services study revealed that 35% of employees who did not have a mentor planned to look for a new employer within the next year, while only 16% of those with good mentors indicated the same intention.
  • Learning how to mentor someone will capture employee discretionary effort.  A 2002 University of Georgia study proved that mentored employees perform better, advance more rapidly, and report greater job and career satisfaction.
  • Learning how to mentor someone can better position you as an employer of choice.  A MMHA Managers’ Mentor study discovered that 60% of college and grad students said that the availability of a mentoring program weighed heavily in their decisions regarding selection of an employer.

Mentors and Managers

Many leaders don’t bother to learn how to mentor someone, because they believe it is the same as managing people.  It is not.  Immediate managers provide direction, resources, encouragement, consequences and measures progress.  Mentors, on the other hand, provide high-level guidance and help track progress.

A manager and an employee have a reporting relationship; a mentor/mentee relationship normally does not have a reporting relationship.  Finally, a mentee is under no obligation to accept the feedback or advice offered by a mentor, whereas the feedback and advice offered by a direct supervisor is often not optional.

The Role of a Mentor

A key part of learning how to mentor someone is to understand the role of this important relationship.  As a mentor, you should act as a(n):

  • Sounding Board
  • Development Coach
  • Interpreter and Guide
  • Role Model

What the Mentee Expects:

The other critical component of understanding how to mentor someone is knowing what the other person is expecting of you:

  • Encourage learning, achievement, and trying new approaches.
  • Mentees value mentors who are good listeners.
  • The mentee expects the mentor to keep their confidences.
  • Mentors who provide specific and honest feedback regarding their performance.
  • Mentors who suggest strategies for specific work challenges.
  • Most of all, participants want mentors who care about them and want them to succeed.

The Mentoring Agreement

A very useful tool for learning how to mentor someone is the Mentoring Agreement.  There are a variety of different formats for Mentoring Agreements, but here are some standard category contents for a mentoring agreement:

  • Purpose
  • Responsibilities of the mentor and the mentee
  • Measures of Success of the mentoring relationship.
  • Barriers
  • Ground Rules
  • Meetings

Click here for a Mentoring Agreement Template (members only)

3 Things to Remember about how to mentor someone

1)    Don’t bother if you are not committed.  A mentoring relationship will take some time and energy.  If you are unwilling to make that investment, you should decide early on NOT to do so.

2)    It’s about accelerating development.  Mentoring relationships are intended to advance the career of the mentee, and skill building.  If you are uncomfortable in such a role, you should not volunteer.

3)    Use a mentoring agreement.  A bit of structure can advance the relationship significantly.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about How to Mentor Someone (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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Millennials in the Workplace: How to Lead and Motivate Generation Y

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“The Children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect for adults, and love to talk rather than work or exercise. They no longer rise when adults enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter in front of company, gobble down their food at the table, and intimidate their teachers.”  – SOCRATES (469 -399 B.C.)

So perhaps generational friction in the workplace is not a new phenomena.  However, proactively managing Millennials in the workplace will reduce workplace conflict, improve productivity, and generally make your life as a leader more easy.

First, we should define the various generations currently at work:

  • Traditionalists:  1925 – 1945
  • Baby Boomers:  1946 – 1965
  • Generation X:  1966 – 1980
  • Millennials:  1980 – 1999

Who Cares About Millennials in the Workplace?

There are a variety of reasons a good leader will want to proactively manage Millennials in the workplace:

  • Clashes between generations can directly affect turnover. If team members do not feel like they fit in, or that their values are not reflected in the workplace, they are more likely to leave.  Millennials in the workplace often have specific skills that can be difficult to replace.
  • Different generations have been influenced by different life events and thus have different perspectives that can impact motivation and performance.  For example, Millennials in the workplace often have:
    • Unique ways of viewing quality.
    • Distinct and preferred ways of managing and being managed.
    • Different priorities that effect how and when they show up for work.

What has Shaped and Influenced Millennials in the Workplace?

Every generation or cohort has been affected by its life experience.  It is important to understand cultural influences when managing Millennials in the workplace:

  • The Trophy Generation. Millennials in the workplace often expect their work lives to be similar to their upbringing.  They have constantly been acknowledged and reinforced their entire lives.  They expect the same at work.
  • Millennials in the workplace can baffle other generations because they were raised with an entitlement and “rights” perspective.
  • Millennials don’t really remember a time without the internet
  • They have not known a world without microwaves, cell phones, CD’s, laptops and iPods.
  • Millennials were raised on reality television.  They believe anyone can be a star.
  • Many Millennials in the workplace were in high school during the Columbine tragedy.
  • They know never ending war, and don’t remember a time without terrorism.
  • Scandals – OJ Simpson, Monica Lewinsky

Expectations of Millennials in the Workplace

  • Lot’s of positive feedback.  Millennials in the workplace expect the same reinforcement they were brought up on.  Feedback is not optional to them.
  • Millennials in the workplace expect to win and are optimistic.
  • Millennials in the workplace expect a work/life balance.  They will work hard, but also expect to play hard as well, and will quickly leave an employer that insists on constantly interrupting their work/life balance.
  • Millennials in the workplace expect to be listened to and collaborated with.
  • Hierarchy doesn’t matter to Millennials in the workplace.  The pursuit of titles and status has far lower value than it does for other generations.
  • They expect to be able to work with the latest technology.

How to Lead and Motivate Millennials in the Workplace

Not every workplace can achieve all of the suggestion below, but serious consideration should be given to how to best manage and motivate Millennials in the workplace:

  • Make the workplace fun.  Provide an informal, digital, multi-tasking, team oriented workplace.
  • Make the workplace flexible.  Focus on the work outputs; not when, or even how it gets done.
  • Give them guidance and some structure. Millennials in the workplace are used to listening to others for advice and input.  They are used to following schedules and having routines laid out.
  • Leverage their comfort with collaboration and multi-tasking.  Give them a wide range of projects to work.  Use project teams.
  • Positive feedback is especially important to this generation. Give them on the spot recognition and public praise.
  • Give answers to all of their questions.  They expect to be well informed and they expect to be able to question you.
  • Let them know that what they do matters. They expect to make a difference “You and your coworkers can help turn this company around” can be an effective way to motivate Millennials in the workplace.

Three things that Frustrate Millennials about other Generations:

  1. Traditionalists’ hierarchy means nothing.  Often older managers cannot understand why the promise of a title and promotion fails to motivate Millennials in the workplace.  They are far more interested in being listened to, and collaboration than they are with a title.
  2. The Boomers’ resistance to technology.  Millennials in the workplace have little patience with those that cannot perform the simplest of technical functions.  Email, text messaging and social media are not optional to the Millennials; they are critical business tools.
  3. Generation X needs to lighten up.  Millennials in the workplace don’t have much patience for the doom and gloom that characterizes many Gen Xers.  They were not privy to corporate downsizing, and other challenges the Xers endured, and even if they were, they would suggest the Xers “get over it”.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Millennials in the Workplace (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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All Employees are NOT Created Equal

OK… maybe they are created equal, but after their first day of work, they are no longer on an equal footing.

So before the letters start, let me be clear that I would never suggest inequality due to gender, race, sexual orientation or any of the other usual culprits.  I am a firm believer that once you take the time to get to know a person, there are so many other reasons to dislike them, that normally defined prejudices need not apply.

But I read in the business press that I need to install a hot tub in every other office at work to make sure that no one quits.  Here’s the thing:  I desperately want a few of them to quit.  I don’t exactly have grounds to fire them, but I know that if a vacancy comes up, I can do better.  So the last thing I want to do is make it too comfortable for them… then they’ll never quit.

The HR people hate this part: some people are simply more valuable to organizations than others.  It doesn’t mean that we don’t value all people, nor does it mean that we don’t treat all people with respect.  It does mean that we will work harder to keep some people on board than others.

Many of the employee retention programs out there are horribly misguided in this regard.  They are well intentioned in so far as wanting to create a positive working environment, but these programs miss the mark by not identifying and targeting those employees that we especially want to keep.

Yes, I know it’s problematic to only put the hot tubs in some offices, but not others.  However, the very best employee retention tactic is investing in, and developing high quality leadership within an organization.  Most people that leave a company actually “quit their boss”, rather than resign from the organization.

Interestingly, a high quality leader can also raise the performance of that employee I talked about earlier that I would rather part company with.  If the employee can’t be saved, then a high quality leader will steward the employee’s departure out of the organization in a professional and respectful manner.

The bottom line is that if organizations are serious about retaining high quality employees, they should save the investment in air-hockey tables, hot tubs, and concierge services, and funnel those resources into the attraction and development of high quality leadership throughout the organization.

You’ll get better returns, retain more high quality employees, and won’t have water damage from the steam of the hot tub.

 

 

The Situational Leadership Model

Learn to identify your default management style and select the best management style to match the situation.

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First Day on the Job? Check Your Zipper

The first day on a new job is a harrowing experience.  It creates impressions on all those you work with, and sets the stage for your success (or failure) with that employer.

Probably my most memorable first day on the job was literally my first day on the job – any job.  I was fifteen years old, and I got a job bagging groceries at the local supermarket.  Ron Grant was the manager on duty, and he met me at the door.  Ron was never one to smile much, but he was a good guy, and he knew his job very well.

What he didn’t do as well, was to remember people’s names.  From my first day onwards, my name was always “Brad” – the curse of having a last name that is many others’ first name.  In the months to come, I’d hear him paging Brad time after time, and then wonder why Brad (whoever that was) never answered.

Ron toured me through the whole store, stopping along the way to introduce me to everyone on staff that we met, and to point out the things I might need to know for my new career wrapping groceries.  He also doled out advice that was very useful and well intentioned, but easily could have been included in the best-seller, “Sh*t My Dad Says.”  Needless to say, I learned some new words and expressions that day, that came in very handy when I recycled them back at high school.

I learned in the months and years to come, that Ron oriented me to my new workplace completely of his own initiative.  The organization really had no process for bringing people on besides the requisite signing of the official paperwork.

At the end of this orientation, he returned me to the front of the store, where I’d spend the next several years bagging groceries.

“Any questions?” asked Ron.

“Nope… I’m ready to go.” I replied.

“Great”, he said, as I turned to get started.  “Hey Brad,”

“Yep?”

“Your fly’s open”, he said without cracking a smile.

Presumably, he’d noticed this before he’d toured me through the whole place, but had waited until now to share this news with me.  It’s been a while since I’ve been teenage boy, but I’m assuming at the time I would have had checklist of basic hygiene items – such as making sure one’s zipper was properly secured.  Apparently, first day job jitters successfully eclipsed basic personal maintenance items.

Walking around in a public place with your fly open — I suppose that’s one way to make a first impression on when starting a new job.

Good Interviews Start With Semi-Intelligent Questions

“Tell me about your strengths and weaknesses”

If that is the opening line at an employment interview, you may want to run away so fast that there is a “you-shaped” hole in the door.  If you hear those words come out of your own mouth as a hiring manager, you need to do some work to up your game for this important managerial function.

Let’s examine why this is a useless question that shows a startling lack of imagination:

  • First of all, this is a question that invites insincere answers.  You might as well ask, “could you dust off some lies and embellishments, and trot them out now?”
  • Second, you are not really testing the validity of the match between the competencies required for a position, and the profile of a candidate.  Your questions need to be far more specific than this.
  • Third, this question invites the most rehearsed, least spontaneous answers.  It is possible as the hiring manager, you hear something in the syndicated response that you can follow up on, but that would be pure good luck.

I know that many managers and recruiters will disagree with my viewpoint on this, so to encourage you to abandon this useless question, here are some typical responses, and the literal translation.  You can cut and paste these ones into your interview notes, and spare the candidate the pain of the question:

What are your strengths?

  • I’m a hard worker. I don’t have any other interests or hobbies, and like to spend upwards to 80 hours a week at the office.
  • I’m a people person. I really like people, and even the few I don’t like I will treat with mock civility.
  • I’m detail oriented. I’d much rather lose myself in a spreadsheet than deal with people.

What are your weaknesses?

  • I’m a perfectionist. Not only am I perfect, but I demand the same of everyone around me.  I’m a delight at the water-cooler.
  • I’m impatient. If my paycheque is an hour late, I will launch a class-action suit on behalf of everyone who works here.
  • I work too hard. I’m not quite sure what I’m doing, so I’ll compensate by being in the office at 6am, and not leave until 9pm.  I’ll probably be on stress leave before the end of my first month.

In an interview, either as the hiring manager, or the candidate, you want some indication that the person you are dealing with is semi-intelligent.  You also hope that you are portraying yourself similarly.  Otherwise, you might as well audition for a reality-based TV show with the other mentally impaired contestants.

I had trouble choosing just one video clip this week, so I gave up, and embedded both of them.

SMART Goals and HARD Goals

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What are SMART Goals?
  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant
  • Time-bound
Why We Like SMART Goals
  • It forces people to focus on specific things
  • It is very clear when goals are achieved
  • They are connected with the overall objectives of the organization

What are HARD Goals?

  • Heartfelt – My goals will enrich the lives of somebody besides me
  • Animated – I can vividly picture how great it will feel when I achieve my goals
  • Required – My goals are absolutely necessary to help this organization
  • Difficult – I will have to learn new skills and leave my comfort zone to achieve my goals

Why We Like HARD Goals

  • It takes people beyond normal performance
  • Encourages discretionary effort
  • The only way to create a “game-changer”

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A Guide to Ace Your Annual Performance Review

In many organizations, Annual Performance Reviews are about as popular as Ike at the Tina Turner Fan Club meeting.  They are done sporadically, if at all, and they typically have very little impact on organizational performance.

The last big multi-national corporate organization I worked for as an employee had a fascinating “system” for the annual performance review.  I would suggest it’s very typical to what is seen in other companies, so in the interests of demystifying the whole process, here is a list of definitions and translations to sort out some of the vernacular that accompanies the annual performance review:

Annual: In the case of the annual performance review, “annual” means maybe once every 18 to 24 months, or maybe never at all.

Performance Review Meeting: This is where both manager and employee avoid eye contact and share some awkward small talk before the boss launches into his/her diatribe of the last year in review.  Similar to a bad sitcom in format.

Coaching: This is the organizational equivalent of Batman.  You might see it late at night after a signal (usually a corporate memo) has been flashed, but if you see it at all, it will be in a poor light, and you’ll never be sure if it happened or not.

Developmental Opportunities: These are the things you will get fired for, if you don’t fix them.  If there were no employment laws, they would revert to what they used to be called: threats.

Pay for Performance: Managers who get along well with people, take the amount of discretionary salary dollars they have, and divide by the number of direct reports they have.  Managers who don’t care how well they get along with people give it to the people they like the most.  In the rarest of cases, there is a good measurement system in place that everyone understands, and it truly is pay for performance.  It is about as common as spotting a unicorn at the fall carnival.

Performance Appraisal Documents: This is a template that bears little resemblance to your actual job, written by someone in HR who has never worked in the core business.

Performance Review Meeting Preparation: This describes the immediate 30 seconds prior to the meeting starting

The Sandwich Method of Feedback: This is where poorly trained managers slip some “constructive” feedback in between two compliments.  For example, “Nice shoes; you’ve got some significant improvement to make on your analytical skills, but I like your socks.  Also known as the “Sh*t Filled Twinkie” method.

Performance Management Philosophy: This is the same affliction that causes writers of annual reports to declare, “Employees are our most important asset” without the implied disclaimer, “unless they cost us money, or otherwise inconvenience us.”

Seek the Employees View: This is the final 30 seconds of the meeting where the employee is expected to thank the supervisor for the constructive feedback, and declare his/her intentions to act on it.  Only trouble-makers would disagree with the feedback.  Under no circumstances should an employee ever speak his mind here.

I hope this translation helps.  For ideas on how to cope with, and ultimately succeed at your Annual Performance Review, download this week’s podcast.

Leadership Boot Camp

Find out all about the Wily Manager Leadership Boot Camp:

  • Why bother?
  • What it’s about
  • Who should participate
  • How it works
  • What’s covered

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