March 2024
You are eager to try out a new cafe: “Got work to do? Our brew sees you through.” You arrive, see a wall lined with cute individual desks and settle into one. As your laptop begins to show its low battery alert, you look around for a plug. Strange… all the plugs are on the wall where people are lined up to order, and there’s none to be found nearby. It’s like no one thought through the experience of the customer from their point of view. If someone asked you about whether they should visit the cafe, it’d be tough to recommend.
Mentoring programs bring the promise of life-changing impact. But, without thinking through your program design from multiple angles, you risk learning firsthand:
Critical oversights can tank a mentoring experience.
Building a mentoring program unlocks an opportunity to create a special space, distinct from the world at large. At its best, the mentoring space becomes a “go-to” where mentors and mentees foster their connection, sharing guidance, support and ideas. But when the experience is particularly disjointed or short-sighted, participants may walk away confused or disappointed.
Humans are complex and their perceptions of mentorship can vary widely, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the evidence shows not all mentoring relationships are successful. Even when designers carefully match mentors and mentees on multiple dimensions, it’s always possible that a transformational connection will not materialize. The elements you include in your program to support the mentoring interactions can make or break outcomes for the participants. Thinking through the design can provide insights into how the participants will experience the program and help identify elements that might not land as you intend.
Suppose, for example, that your program kickoff event asks everyone to take turns popcorn-style: “introduce yourself, then call upon a new person to go next.” You go first, name your co-facilitator, then eagerly wait to hear from the rest of the program participants. But as the introductions unfold, you start to notice something. The people who haven’t been “popcorned to” yet all have longer names and are visibly beginning to tense up. This is particularly uncomfortable since inclusion was one of your program goals. If you had thought through how different participants might experience this activity, or brainstormed with others about potential risks with these commonly-used exercises, perhaps you would have chosen an alternative approach for introductions.
Use perspective-taking to build a program that aligns with your goals. At a high-level, remember to stay humble: having a mentor can be worse than having no mentor at all. Chart a course for your participants by deciding which structural elements, such as anchor activities, will guide the mentoring interactions. Then zoom in to evaluate the efficacy of those elements. Since perceptions of mentoring vary from person to person and across cultures, try on different perspectives to expose critical oversights when considering which elements to include. For example, you might decide to prepare mentors to think through how, when sharing a story with their mentee, they can frame it so their mentee leaves inspired rather than deflated.
Mentoring programs can be designed to deliver a promising set of connections. When deciding on elements in the abstract, we’re prone to missing important details that may manifest during rollout. To help offset these critical oversights, we can incorporate multiple perspectives into our design process, particularly those of our prospective participants. By being open to feedback and different viewpoints on our plans, we can avoid common pitfalls and be on course to maximize our mentoring impact.
Selected strategies: design for impact
💡 The birdseye view: create and share a roadmap.
Pull back and evaluate if your program elements align with your goals.
Have you structured interactions that keep mentoring interactions on track, so participants feel their time is well-spent?
Consider providing a trajectory of your program, so they can see where they are going and how individual moments fit into the journey. This can help participants to understand the potential impact of the program and set appropriate expectations. All programs will face some bumpiness. By being transparent, your participants can better appreciate your plan and stay with you along for the ride.
💡 A close look: gather feedback and multiple perspectives.
Build in checkpoints for understanding the potential impact of your program. You can decrease the chance of having an activity backfire by listening to and being open to participants. Try convening an informal focus group with prospective participants to evaluate some elements of your program. Support your mentors in undertaking the same practice; for example, provide resources to help them share stories that are relevant and meaningful.
💡 The complete package: preview the mentoring space.
Find ways to “preview” the experience of mentors and mentees in the mentoring space. You could pilot a key activity or two, convene focus groups or talk through how you think a session will go with a trusted buddy. As you assess whether the mentoring space supports your goals for the program, recognize that it is largely constructed by the mentors on the ground. While it is important to empower them to take ownership of the space, reflect on what assumptions you’ve made. Perhaps some of the knowledge or experience you take for granted is actually a growth area for some. Remember that you can set your mentors up for success by constructing intentional preparation and touchpoints.
💡 The birdseye view: create and share a roadmap.
Pull back and evaluate if your program elements align with your goals. Have you structured interactions that keep mentoring interactions on track, so participants feel their time is well-spent? Consider providing a trajectory of your program, so they can see where they are going and how individual moments fit into the journey. This can help participants to understand the potential impact of the program and set appropriate expectations. All programs will face some bumpiness. By being transparent, your participants can better appreciate your plan and stay with you along for the ride.
💡 A close look: gather feedback and multiple perspectives.
Build in checkpoints for understanding the potential impact of your program. You can decrease the chance of having an activity backfire by listening to and being open to participants. Try convening an informal focus group with prospective participants to evaluate some elements of your program. Support your mentors in undertaking the same practice; for example, provide resources to help them share stories that are relevant and meaningful.
💡 The complete package: preview the mentoring space.
Find ways to “preview” the experience of mentors and mentees in the mentoring space. You could pilot a key activity or two, convene focus groups or talk through how you think a session will go with a trusted buddy. As you assess whether the mentoring space supports your goals for the program, recognize that it is largely constructed by the mentors on the ground. While it is important to empower them to take ownership of the space, reflect on what assumptions you’ve made. Perhaps some of the knowledge or experience you take for granted is actually a growth area for some. Remember that you can set your mentors up for success by constructing intentional preparation and touchpoints.
About this mentor thread
This post wraps up our mentor thread on intention versus impact. Despite the best of intentions, successful mentoring is not a guarantee. We hope the common pitfalls we’ve unpacked and the selected strategies for addressing them will help you align your mentoring experience (impact) with your high-level goals (intention).
In writing this thread, we reflected upon our success in building mentoring programs and realized we have drawn heavily from our decades of experience as educators. The process we follow when developing programs closely mirrors how we construct curricula that support the learning goals for a course. The most profound example presented in class will have little value if students are not engaged or paying attention. Knowing this prompts us to analyze every element of the classroom experience from the overarching sequence of topics down to the construction of a 75-minute agenda. We also aim to step back and consider the whole experience of the course, and how the different pieces fit together. While the mentoring programs that we have designed for the workplace are distinct from the courses we develop, we use a similar approach to deliver high impact experiences.
References
O'Meara, K., Griffin, K. A., Nyunt, G., & Lounder, A. (2019). Disrupting ruling relations: The role of the PROMISE program as a third space. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 12(3), 205–218. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000095.
This piece focuses on the concept of a “third space”: a place that is neither home or work but another place – whether a program, a community meeting place, or elsewhere – where people can thrive, often reflecting norms different from what they may experience elsewhere. When applied to mentoring programs, we can be deliberate in how we construct norms so people feel respected and valued, and come to appreciate the mentoring program as a third space.
Ragins, B. R., Cotton, J. L., & Miller, J. S. (2000). Marginal Mentoring: The Effects of Type of Mentor, Quality of Relationship, and Program Design on Work and Career Attitudes. The Academy of Management Journal, 43(6), 1177–1194. https://doi.org/10.2307/1556344.
Noting that mentoring relationships lie on a continuum, this piece highlights the importance of the mentee’s perception of effectiveness when determining the impact of mentoring. Some factors that contribute to “marginal” mentoring are related to scheduling and mentor capacity. When designing a program, being clear about expectations and roles can help offset this effect.
Montgomery, B. L. (2017). Mapping a Mentoring Roadmap and Developing a Supportive Network for Strategic Career Advancement. SAGE Open, 7(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244017710288/
Although this piece focuses on an individual’s mentoring roadmap, a similar idea can be applied to a mentoring program. Providing the roadmap for how multiple mentoring experiences will fit together can help mentoring participants effectively plug into the program experience.
Ghosh R., Hutchins H. M., Rose K. J., & Manongsong A. M. (2020). Exploring the lived experiences of mutuality in diverse formal faculty mentoring partnerships through the lens of mentoring schemas. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 31(3), 319–340. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21386
Participants can bring different perspectives and expectations into mentoring, which may impact the effectiveness of the program. This article highlights the importance of gathering information about the participants’ individual perceptions of mentoring and recommends designers use these insights to guide the mentoring interactions (e.g., by having participants engage in discussion around mentoring expectations early on in the experience).