Set Goals Before Developing Your Mentoring Program
Prior to beginning to develop the plan for your in-house mentoring program, spend a bit of time developing the strategy for the program. The goal is to develop a program that makes sense for your organization and the people you are trying to support with mentoring. Often organizations roll out a mentoring program without consideration of what they are trying to accomplish by having a mentoring program. When I asked one client why they were interested in launching a mentoring program, the response was “Because our competitor has one and we should too.” I’m not saying the client shouldn’t have a mentoring program, but they need a good business case for one and not simply because they competitor has one.
Consider the answers to these questions listed below in order to develop your strategy for a mentoring program and thereby ensure you develop a program that works to meet organizational goals.
- What challenges or issues are being faced within the organization that mentoring may be able to address?
- Which individuals would be suited to participate in a mentoring program – either as a mentor or the mentee? What is the ideal profile of a mentor? What is the ideal profile of a mentee?
- What is the experience with mentoring within the organization?
- What is the expected outcome or changes from a mentoring program? What is it expected that mentees will do better as a result of being mentored?
- How would a mentoring program link to the organization’s strategic long-term goals?
As a best practice, get the leaders of the organization together for a strategy session to respond to these questions. For a few clients, I do well when I send the questions out beforehand and then we discuss as a group –it gives them time to process and think. For yet others, I do better when we meet and talk through the questions as the connversation is lively and everyone participates and shares freely.
