By Robert Vega
A Brief Description
Mentoring is the process of growing and strengthening the relationship between a mentor, who is more experienced, not necessarily older, but who is certainly wiser; and his or her protégé, a mentee or someone who is less experienced and wise, and who therefore needs to be guided by the mentor.
A Brief History
The mentoring concept has a long history. In fact, it was Homer's Odyssey that first gave rise to the term "mentor" through its character called Mentor, who, despite the fact that he is presented as a somewhat debilitated old man, is actually used by Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, to guide Odysseus' son Telemachus through a difficult time in the young man's life. There are many mentor-protégé relationships in history. In ancient time consider the mentor-protégé relationship between Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. In modern times, the music industry had Dr. Dre who mentored younger rappers Snoop Dogg and Eminem. The role of a mentor has been illustrated on the silver screen in the portrayal of Yoda, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars epics.
Let’s get back to reality; can you pair the “not so famous” mentor with their “somewhat famous” protégé?
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Mentor
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Protégé
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A) Augustin de Robespierre
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1. Richard Branson – Founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways
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B) Scott McNealy & Paul Austin
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2. Warren Buffett – CEO, Berkshire Hathaway
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C) Michelle Robinson
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3. Jack Welch – Former CEO General Electric
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D) Freddie Laker
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4. Barack Obama – US President
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E) Benjamin Graham
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5. Napoleon Bonaparte – World Conqueror
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*See the correct pairings at the end of this article.
The Value Proposition
While, intuitively many CEOs and Executives understand the value of a skilled workforce, many companies fail to realize the impact minimal improvements in employee skills can have on an organization.
Let’s consider this simple example:
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Your organization employs 500 workers.
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The average employee salary is $40,000 annually or $ 20 per hour.
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Performance improvements result in 6 minutes saved per day or 2 hours per month.
So, what would this very conservative performance improvement mean to your organization? Let’s do a little math:
With a performance improvement of only 1% there is the potential for an annual gain of a quarter of a million dollars for your organization. Our experience with performance improvements attributed to mentorship programs is 15 to 20 fold. Supporting our experience, consider the following facts:
- Companies in the top quarter in staff development per employee per year ($1,500 or more) average 24% higher profit margins than companies that spend less per year, according to HR Magazine.
- Motorola estimated that every dollar spent on staff development yielded US $30 in productivity gains within three years.
Mentoring Continuum
The level of mentoring an organization chooses to achieve the value proposition forms a continuum. At one end you may need a Mentor to help guide individuals through a specific problem on a project; thus achieving modest value in a few employees and project success. At the other end you engage mentors in a mentorship program throughout the company to achieve high levels of productivity for many employees. The following table will give you an idea of this mentoring continuum.
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Level
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Size
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Effort
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Time
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Operational
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Project
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Deal with specific issue to get project back on track. Close a specific skill gap of a few people
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3 – 5 days
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Tactical
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Business Unit
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Help team members across projects incorporate best practices in a subject area (e.g. BA, OOAD, .NET)
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3 – 10 weeks
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Strategic
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Enterprise
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Change software development practices to archive companywide productivity goals
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3 – 18 months
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Getting Started
Our approach provides your organization with onsite Mentors that are involved in daily one-on-one training. This format is ideal when:
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Your organization has a substantial skill gap to be bridged.
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Your organization is looking to improve the demonstrated skills of students moving from the classroom to real-world applications.
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Your organization has gone through a merger and there are disparate methods, tools, and techniques.
At the point that the mentorship program is initiated, mentors are partnered with protégés to provide remedial training and practice clarification, facilitate communication and collaboration across the organization, and look for opportunities to continually improve the organization’s performance.
Our process is very simple and starts with a phone call to our Mentorship Program evangelist. We will then hold a series of “discovery” sessions to:
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Identify organizational goals / objectives.
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Identify Critical Success Factors.
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Define metrics to measure progress.
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Build mentorship program plan.
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Build communication plan.
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Determine a “Go Live” date for the Mentorship Program.
The DevelopMentor Advantage
So, why DevelopMentor?
We are very proud of the relationships that we have developed and success we have had with Fortune 500 companies.
We are extremely sensitive to your organization’s culture…
We tailor solutions that “fit” the organization’s culture and work style.
We become your organization’s Virtual Center of Excellence…
Our experienced Mentors provide senior level experience across the software development lifecycle.
We understand that our value to your organization is enabling the performance of the internal team…
Our success is measured by the organization’s ability to adopt, execute, and own methods and practices.
We recognize that changing an organization’s methods and practices is like “eating an elephant”…
We act as change agents to Influence the organization’s behavior on a “project by project” basis.
We are ready to talk to you about the performance improvements that you are seeking to strengthen your organization’s competitive advantage.
Contact us now for more information at 800.699.1932 or requests@develop.com
Correct mentor / protégé pairing:
· A-5
· B-3
· C-4
· D-1
· E-2
