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Jack Welch, the formidable, former CEO of General Electric (GE), popularized the concept of reverse mentoring in 1999. In his pilot project, he paired 500 senior and junior employees, in hopes the latter would teach the former about technological advances and tools. “We tipped the organization upside down,” he explained. “We now have the youngest and brightest teaching the oldest. In the years since Welch’s pioneering effort, many companies—including industry leaders such as Target, Cisco, UnitedHealthcare, and Fidelity—have developed their own reverse mentoring programs. Although they vary in scale and scope, all share one common approach: coordinating shared learning between colleagues of diverse backgrounds to create symbiotic corporate learning. As an academic and leadership consultant, I speak frequently with business leaders about the changing nature of work. Increasingly, they understand the value, and recognize the need, for prioritizing initiatives that focus on human capital. While reverse mentoring has obvious benefits for the mentor and mentee, the approach can also instigate powerful results for the core organization. Beyond flipping the hierarchy and mobilizing nontraditional teams, it can also facilitate organizations achieving strategic goals such as increasing millennial retention, fostering inclusivity, and maintaining competitive advantage through technological advancements. Increasing Millennial Retention The issue of millennial retention looms large for today’s employers. Millennials are now the largest generation in the labor force—and, according to the 2018 Deloitte Millennial Survey, 43% of the demographic group plan to leave their job in the next two years. The data highlight a historic turnover rate that has companies scrambling to develop and implement engagement strategies. In addition to flexible environments and socially responsible missions, this generation demands continuous learning and transferable skill development, personal fulfillment, and clear opportunities for career advancement—needs that reverse mentoring support. For example, Pershing is a financial services company that recently implemented a reverse mentoring program. Following implementation of the company-wide initiative, Pershing experienced a 96% retention rate for the 77 millennials who were involved. Inverting the hierarchy, and allowing millennials to act as mentors, results in equally beneficial outcomes. In this structure, millennials feel valued for their contributions, gain unparalleled access to networking with senior leaders and benefit from exposure to alternative career paths. When employers afford such satisfying opportunities, millennials feel confident that their investment in the company will be matched by the company’s investment in their future. Improving Diversity And Inclusion A recent Forbes study found that 85% of senior executives believe diverse and inclusive workforces are “crucial” to innovation. Reverse mentorship pairings can breed this inclusivity by bridging the gap between populations diverse in age, exceptionalities, ethnicity and gender. After Procter & Gamble’s reverse mentoring program paired senior leaders with employees with disabilities, it discovered its internal videos were inaccessible to those with hearing challenges and, accordingly, added captions to all. Another approach is demonstrated by law firm Shook Hardy & Bacon, where minority lawyers and senior leaders meet to learn about each other’s challenges and have “difficult conversations on diversity.” By pairing leaders with employees from different backgrounds, both develop empathic perspectives and reduce unconscious biases. Furthermore, when considered for organizational development strategy, these initiatives can incubate a diverse pipeline of talent that will yield a much-needed percentage increase in the diversity of upper-level management across industries and sectors. Staying Abreast Of Technological Advancements Keeping pace with dynamic shifts in technological change is often discouraging for global organizations. Even digital natives, who validate the perceptions of hundreds of global business school graduates recently surveyed, expect the rate of technological and digital advances to be their most difficult leadership challenge. When Julia Davis, formerly of GE, assumed the role as Aflac’s chief information officer, she paired older IT employees with recent grads to facilitate a transfer of knowledge of trends and best practices. Not only is the reverse mentoring program “paying dividends on the knowledge-sharing front,” reports CIO.com, it’s also “getting traditional IT workers out of their waterfall silos.” Given that we are on the precipice of Industry 4.0, the need for such synergetic, agile, teams is paramount. “To maximize the potential value of these technologies,” reports Deloitte, “organizations must put humans in the loop—reconstructing work, retraining people, and rearranging the organization.” While reverse mentoring appropriately complements and advances these strategies, it is vital that companies have a specific reason to create a program—and avoid following suit simply in response to peer activity. Sanghamitra Chaudhuri, a University of Minnesota professor who has researched reverse mentoring, reported to the Star Tribune that the most effective programs are “tied to a strong business need.” Other qualities of successful reverse mentoring programs include appropriate pairings, thorough guidelines, and clear goals. Even if, for budgetary or strategic reasons, a reverse mentoring program doesn’t align with a company’s vision, its underlying concepts cannot be ignored. Regardless of their specific approach, businesses that require competitive advantage must embrace collaboration and the cross-pollination of ideas that encourage organizations to envision new possibilities for success. Reverse mentoring is both trendy and a useful development tool. In this article I will take you step-by-step through the benefits, examples of reverse mentoring programs and how to ensure your program succeeds. Let’s start with a quick definition and the origins of reverse mentoring. What is reverse mentoring?A Mentor is an ‘experienced and trusted advisor’. That naturally defines a Mentee as ‘a person who is advised or counselled by a mentor’. Typically, a Mentor is someone more senior in the organization and the Mentee is more junior. Typically, the Mentor shares their experience of how to climb the organization and achieve a successful career. There’s more on mentoring and coaching, including their similarities and differences. Reverse mentoring flips that relationship. The Mentor is more junior in the organization, the Mentee is more senior. This concept of reverse mentoring was first developed in 1999 by Jack Welsh at GE when he required 500 of his top executives to pair up with junior associates for the purpose of learning how to use the internet.
Since then the applications of reverse mentoring have been dramatically expanded, but the principle remains the same. Older, more senior staff learning from younger colleagues. Together they form a ‘professional partnership’ that benefits the development of both. The benefits of reverse mentoringThere are many benefits of reverse mentoring: for the mentee (the more senior person in the partnership!), the Mentor (the less senior person in the partnership) and for the organization too. For the MenteeThe Mentee can gain valuable insights that can help them lead the organization. There are many potential insight areas, including:
For the MentorThe Mentor can also benefit from the experience. For a more junior member of the organization, the opportunity to collaborate with a senior member of staff can:
For the organizationAs you would expect, the organization also benefits. There is potential for improved engagement and retention of junior staff. And the insights gained by the more senior staff offer significant benefits, including the potential to drive a more inclusive, collaborative and productive environment. This Insperity article highlights 5 business benefits of reverse mentoring:
Examples of reverse mentoring programsFor many companies, reverse mentoring is an important part of the employer brand. As a result, there are plenty of ‘showcased’ reverse mentoring programs. Here we share a few of the most interesting that I have found. This first video is from AXA and is rooted in the original concept: younger staff helping their older colleagues with ‘digital transformation’ and encouraging inter-generational dialogue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQltmugk9fc This is an example from the UK NHS Foundation Trust. It’s a longer video but really highlights the value of a personal connection and how it can drive change within the leadership. The focus is supporting the BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) staff within the Trust: And this example is from Lilly in the US, there’s also a D&I perspective to this reverse mentoring program: And finally, here’s an example from Roche, which returns back to the original intent, to support older staff with technology adoption. How to make a reverse mentoring program a successThere are 7 steps to keep in mind when developing a reverse mentoring program. 1. Define the goal and secure a senior sponsorWhat is the business issue you’re addressing and how will you define the goal of the program? There are many potential benefits of reverse mentoring, you’ll need to decide the right focus for your program. Perhaps the greatest benefit to the business will be a technology focus, or perhaps there’s value in bridging generational barriers, or perhaps reverse mentoring can become part of a broader D&I strategy. Once you’ve agreed the focus it will be helpful to secure a senior sponsor. Recruiting Mentees may well be amongst your biggest challenges and you’ll benefit from having a senior sponsor who can advocate for the program. 2. Set expectationsThere are some key messages that you need to emphasize as you start to promote reverse mentoring. Reverse mentoring forms part of the Mentee’s overall development program, it is the not answer to all their development needs. There is a structured commitment. Typically, 3-9 months, with weekly or bi-weekly 1-1 meetings. Also, the Mentee will have more work to do outside of the meetings (applying what is learnt). The Mentor’s role is to provide advice (see the definition, above). It’s the Mentee who must decide whether to accept that advice, and if they act on the advice, they own the outcomes. The Mentor / Mentee relationship will be supported in the following ways (select what you think is appropriate for your own program!):
As you’re setting expectations you can also reference the benefits above and the examples too. 3. Promote the program and recruit applicantsStart by recruiting the Mentees (the more senior people in the organization). As mentioned earlier, in a reverse mentoring program it is this group that are likely to be the most challenging to recruit. You might want to consider running a pilot first, with a few early adopters, to build a case for reverse mentoring. You will likely find that recruiting Mentors (the younger and less senior person in the partnership) is relatively easy. 4. Match the applicationsThis is the question that potential participants ask most often, “how will you match me?”. The best way to do this is for potential participants to complete an application template. This will include a combination of matching criteria. For example, there can be specific, ‘hard’ data that allow for a clear match:
These matching criteria can be supplemented with more open questions. For example, for potential Mentees:
When making a match, think of a Venn diagram. There are the skills and experience of the Mentor, and the development needs of the Mentee. A good match is achieved when the two sides of the Venn diagram have a good overlap! It’s important when you’re promoting the program to highlight that it may not be possible to match every person who applies to participate in the program. 5. Run an orientationOnce the matching is complete, you’ll need to communicate the matches and kick-off the program with an orientation and appropriate training. The orientation will define the roles and the commitment, what to do if things are not working, the support that will be provided, etc. A key outcome of the orientation should be the completion, by each Mentor / Mentee pair, of a written agreement. This will form the foundation of their partnership. A typical agreement template will have three sections: development needs, expectations of the relationship and logistics. Training is typically focused around communications skills. This could include: It can also be helpful to include growth mindset activities into the discussion, as a context for personal growth. 6. Provide on-going supportOngoing support can take several forms. Typically, these would be:
7. Measure your success!Finally, measurement of the program. This is where having a clear goal defined for the program really helps. There are many benefits to a reverse mentoring program, but to measure what you set out to achieve will validate the investment. This can be achieved through an online survey as well as short focus groups to gather deeper insights. Reverse mentoring in summaryReverse mentoring flips the conventional mentoring relationship. The more senior employee is the Mentee and the more junior employee is the Mentor. It originated to help senior staff understand how younger staff make use of technology. Since then many other applications and benefits have been recognized. A successful program will be built around the following 7 points:
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