Corporate Training Specialists

Mentoring

The other night I was at a dinner and met a brilliant Organisational Psychologist.  We talked about Mentoring and the value it plays in organisations.  She said she had never seen one run effectively.

“...the ongoing feedback we receive from participants and clients is they have provided great value with succession planning, retention, employee engagement....”

This was surprising to hear because the team at Happening People have had a very different experience. We have successfully implemented mentoring programs in organisations over the past 18 years and the ongoing feedback we receive from participants and clients is they have provided great value with succession planning, retention, employee engagement, breaking down organisational silos, to name a few. 

So when we spoke further and I discussed some of the solutions to the pitfalls my dinner companion raised, she became very interested.

Firstly, there is some confusion about the difference between mentoring and coaching.  An analogy we use is if you want to be the world’s best swimmer, then you would find the world’s best coach but if you wanted to know what it is like to be the world’s best swimmer then you would talk with Michael Phelps.

Mentoring has stages and people who participate in mentoring programs, either mentors or mentees, need to understand them.  It normalises the process for both participants and organisers of the programs.  The four phases are;

1.            Launch – start-up of the process
2.            Interact – the mentee stands on their own feet
3.            Depart– the relationship/process becomes less needed
4.            Equals – the mentee becomes a peer

Establishing mentoring programs and matching mentees and mentors is like dating.  Sometimes there is a match and sometimes not.  When both are voluntary to the process buy in and success is higher.

There is value to both informal and formal mentoring programs.  We have found formal mentoring programs have greater commitment as the process gets greater priority, through performance measurements and KPIs.

Whilst the mentee has guidance from the mentor, the mentor has none.  They may be a mentor because of their track record and experience but mentoring per say may not be there expertise.  We have found mentoring forums useful where mentors gather and share their concerns.  This needs to be managed effectively as key component to mentoring is confidentiality.

Come Knocking at www.ManagersDoor.com

Over the past 17 years we have had numerous requests from people who don’t have time to attend training programs but want information they can use straight away.

So, over the past 2 years we have been working on a resource to meet that need.  It’s called www.ManagersDoor.com and has ready-to-use resources for managers. For example, for Silver level members there are: models, templates, contract clauses, and examples that managers can download and use straight away saving them bucket loads of time and helping them be more effective.  Plus, they can ask an expert about any problems they may have, or at the Gold level have documents reviewed for them or one on one executive coaching. There is plenty of free stuff too! http://www.managersdoor.com/pricing/

There are three focus areas:

1. Managing yourself
2. Managing others
3. Managing the business

With topics under each like: Managing Teams, Behavioural Interviewing, Marketing, Project Management, Sales, Performance Management/Reviews. and the list goes on with new topics added each month and content every week. http://www.managersdoor.com/topics/

It’s all practical and best practice content we have designed over the past 18 years and is perfect for managers in small, medium and large organisations.

So if you or your managers want management answers then come a knockin’ at  www.ManagersDoor.com !

I’m incredibly proud of our team this year working tirelessly to launch www.ManagersDoor.com (explained above).  If you have ever worked on a project like this where you are standardising 100s of management resources designed over 18 plus years you will understand what I mean.  We’ve had members signing up every day since our launch. Thank you! Al, Vera, Josh – great work! 

Our social media activity has exploded since our last newsletter up another 20,000 people to well over 50,000 followers.  Great job Vera!  We are here to enable people in the workplace and it appears people are really seeing the value in our daily management topics www.facebook.com/happeningpeople.

We have had hundreds of people through our corporate training programs this year.  It’s been awesome!  Some highlights include our leadership graduates in Sydney and Melbourne who after 2 years completed their leadership program.  Very proud!

As we have grown my spare time has shrunk so I am extremely happy to find and welcome Matt Barnason to our team as General Manager.  You can meet Matt below in his Q and A.

So I sign off this section of our quarterly newsletter 102 with “If you love what we do please tell others, if not please tell me”.

Kind regards
Sam

Q & A Meet Matt

Q. How do you keep motivated?
A. My motivation levels can vary greatly from day to day. When I'm struggling to feel motivated, it's usually because I'm either overwhelmed with the challenge in front of me, or I'm tired. I find that by breaking it down into phases and mapping it out on a Gantt chart timeline makes it seem less intimidating. I also find it useful to ask myself, "What would one of my role models or heroes do?" This gives me a little distance and objectivity that's often needed. Also, a good night's sleep and a daily coffee don't hurt!

Q. What’s a single piece of advice you have been given that you still work with?
A. Never accept the status quo. Whenever I hear someone say "because we've always done it this way," that sets off alarm bells in my head. There may be reasons why things have been done in a certain way, or inertia and lack of better methods have kept things from moving forward.Challenge the status quo and trust your people, but verify.

Q. What gives you the biggest thrill?
A. Other than zipping down a steep mountain on my snowboard, seeing the impact of what I've created gives me a great thrill at a professional or a personal level. The satisfaction and sense of worth that comes from reaching a milestone and seeing the ripple effect it creates, really keeps me going!

Q. What attracted you to [work] with Happening People?
A. The optimistic energy and core values of the company drew me to Happening People. I'm someone who favours and appreciates clarity in all things, whether that's communication, business processes or strategic goals.

Q. What role models do you have?
A. I find different aspects of different people worth admiring and emulating. Madeline Albright is someone I deeply admire for her intelligence, her ability to speak multiple languages and her leadership skills. I admired Steve Jobs for having the audacity to go back into the company he created after he was ousted, take it over again and foster genius-level creativity among thousands of employees. I am utterly amazed at the strength of character of Australia's gold medal Olympic diver, Matthew Mitcham, who at 25 has already competed in two Olympics, written a book and overcome personal obstacles that would have ruined many others.

Q. What inspires you?
A. Unflagging determination, aesthetic beauty and altruistic generosity.

Q. If you could invite 3 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?
A. The challenge to answering this question is I'd prefer to have a one-on-one dinner or drinks with each of my personal heroes! I refer to the earlier question and say I'd invite Madeline Albright, Steve Jobs and Matthew Mitcham, but actually juggling three such enormous personalities would deprive me of getting to know them individually!

Meet Some of Our Team

Below are some of our corporate training team who specialise is the areas of Leadership, Management, Sales development and more.
Click on their name to link through to our website and find out more.