In 2000, the US Army started assigning every recruit in Basic Training a Battle Buddy to tackle high anxiety, stress, and fear.

Through this forced partnership, soldiers:

• establish peer mentoring and emotional support,
• observe and assess each other’s stressors through daily contact,
• validate their experiences,
• improve readiness and resilience,
• and look out for one another, in and out of combat.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the University of Minnesota Medical Center (UMMC) faced a similar urgency to address its staff’s acute mental health needs. 

Due to the high anxiety, stress, and fear experienced by its healthcare workers, UMMC sought a solution that it could deploy rapidly with high scalability, low cost, and few resources.

Like the Army, UMMC turned to human connection and adapted the Battle Buddy system:

• They asked everyone to participate, with leaders explicitly endorsing the program.
• They empowered frontline units to quickly pair individuals based on similar professional perspectives, life experiences, and exposure to stressors.
• They instructed pairs to connect daily for ten minutes to check-in, listen, and discuss daily challenges and successes (but not air grievances, debate, or argue).
• The daily contact allowed peers to emotionally support each other, observe and assess stress, and identify specific issues that might need additional support, attention, or escalation.

To guide their daily check-in conversations, each Battle Buddy received a pocket-card with thoughtful, compassionate questions:

• What is hardest right now?
• What worried you today? 
• What went well today?
• How are things at home?
• What challenges are you facing with sleep/rest, exercise, and nutrition?

By intervening with an in-the-moment-of-crisis solution, UMMC demonstrated its commitment to cultivating a working environment where people felt supported, validated, and ultimately resilient.

In its 2020 paper entitled “Battle Buddies: Rapid Deployment of a Psychological Resilience Intervention for Healthcare Workers During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic,” UMMC stated:

“Given the remarkable adaptability of human beings, we believe that, by promoting resilience, our diverse health care workforce can emerge from this monumental challenge with new skills, closer relationships, and greater confidence in the power of community.”

People face proverbial battlefields daily, not just in combat or during a pandemic. While human connection is essential, it often needs to be intentionally constructed.

Where could you deploy a Battle Buddy model on your team or in your organization?

© 2023. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

All new pledges in the sorority chapter received a “big sister.” I remember when my big sister chose me, I felt like I belonged! Lisa became my confidante and champion as I transitioned from pledge to sorority sister that first year.

Likewise, every junior in the chapter was expected to serve as a big sister. Why? Because the sustainability of the chapter relied on new pledges becoming sorority sisters and paying monthly dues.

The big sister/big brother model is an evidence-based strategy to improve onboarding and retention.

For the past decade, a research organization, Phired Up, collected and analyzed data to determine why members leave fraternal organizations.

They identified 3 main reasons:

(1) Misaligned Expectations.
People quit because of unclear or false expectations about membership.

(2) Lack of Connection.
People quit if they don’t have a friend group.

(3) Discord.
People quit over miscommunications and drama.

In their report, Phired Up recommends sororities and fraternities take the following actions to create engagement:

• Semesterly Engagement Assessments
• Retention Committee
• Big Brothers & Big Sisters

In summary, to retain chapter members, deploy “Bigs” to mentor, engage, and help new pledges find success as college students.

Why should we care about this report on sororities and fraternities?

Onboarding new members to a team or new nurses to a hospital is no different.

Simply put:

• People crave connection, acceptance, and belonging. 
• They will leave if they don’t feel it.
• It costs money and disruption when they go. 

Here’s where it gets nuanced. Most organizations already have some sort of onboarding initiative or residency program. So, where do many go wrong?

They either lack mentoring or…

1. make it optional
2. put the onus on the new hire

As a sorority pledge, I would not have created a relationship with a big sister (a mentor) if someone had told me that it was optional or my job to establish.

Why?

I felt intimidated, insecure, and isolated as a newbie. Asking an established chapter member to mentor me would have felt overwhelming and vulnerable.

New hires often feel the same way.

So what to do?

• Make mentorship uncomplicated, unavoidable, and rewarding. 
• Expect all employees to mentor new hires.
• Put mentors in charge. (Alternative titles: champion, buddy, advocate, ally, supporter, navigator, or “Big.”) 

If everyone in your organization takes someone under their wing, your organization’s culture will inevitably shift.

Retention doesn’t happen – it’s engineered through engagement. And mentorship is the spark.

© 2023. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

At the time, I was living in San Francisco in an indescribably small condo, working remotely in a corner of my kitchen.

I needed a third place. 

I discovered a Starbucks two blocks away that opened at 5:30 a.m. It became my third place for three months while I wrote my book each morning. It worked!

While I’ve always credited my willpower for my success and blamed it for my stumbles, that “third place” mattered.

According to the book Willpower Doesn’t Work by Benjamin Hardy, success has more to do with changing our environment than changing our willpower. He says:

“Your environment influences you whether you realize it or not.”

“Continuing to focus on mindset, willpower, and goal setting is an outdated and misplaced approach to success. It’s not that these strategies are inherently bad. Rather, it’s that the focus is entirely wrong.” 

“The future of self-help will not be focused on ‘the self,’ but rather it will be focused on the environment that shapes the self.”

While Hardy primarily speaks to how we design the physicality of our environment, I read the book in reference to the people we choose to spend time with – they either contribute to or contaminate our environment.

As I pored over his book, I reflected on our mentoring programs. I constantly implore participants to “Make time for mentoring!” But isn’t this merely a shrouded appeal to mindset and willpower?

Instead, I should ask them if they want to change their lives.

When you want to change your behaviors, your success, and your life, change the people in your environment:

• Get a mentor.
• Be a mentor.
• Ask a mentor to sponsor you for a role or opportunity.
• Recruit an accountability partner.
• Engage a peer to be a champion.
• Seek allies and idea advocates.
• Create a mastermind group.
• Join a program.
• Take a class.
• Attend a conference.
• Volunteer.
• Travel.

The people you surround yourself with are a gateway to your future… choose intentionally!

© 2023. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

In April, we adopted Ollie, a vigilant but fearless 2-year-old boxer mix who had been abandoned. The rescue organization warned us that she was a “runner,” but we had no idea…

After a car ride one afternoon, we opened the door to let her out. But something spooked her. Before we could grab her leash, she took off, like a hostage tasting freedom.

Instinctually, we ran after her, shouting her name and chasing Ollie through town until we lost her in a wooded area. We spent the next seven hours searching desperately. And each time we spotted her, she sprinted away – in her feral state, there was no catching her.

Near midnight, I drove home to let my other dog out. And that’s when I found Ollie in the backyard – she came home!

The next day, we purchased a GPS tracker for her harness and hired a trainer to train us.

Upon hearing our saga, the trainer said compassionately, “You can’t chase Ollie. Coming to you needs to be Ollie’s choice. Not yours.”

I hadn’t given her any choice!

My mentoring program leaders similarly grapple with the choices they offer participants in their programs. With too much choice (“They’re adults; they’ll figure it out”), participants may flounder and relationships fizzle; with too little choice (“Let’s dictate every aspect of their relationship”), participants can feel hindered and disempowered.

An underlying goal of any mentoring program is to teach people transferable mentoring skills. But that requires giving the participants some control over their experience and success – choices!

Research demonstrates the upside of choice:

• ownership of outcome
• belonging
• increased intrinsic motivation
• improved performance
• expanded skills
• higher confidence

Most importantly, research reveals that these benefits occur regardless of whether the choice is actual, trivial, or illusory.  

Ollie tested this choice theory last weekend.

In our backyard, she found a weak board in the wooden fence and pushed her way through it.

This time, I didn’t panic, chase, or shout when I realized she had escaped. Instead, I offered in a sweet, sing-songy voice, “Hey, Ollie Girl! Wanna go for a ride in the car?” (One of her favorite activities.) She turned to me excitedly, ran back to our fence, followed me alongside it until we reached the driveway, and jumped into my car – her choice. Pursuit averted!

People support that which they help choose. Apparently, dogs do, too!

© 2023. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

“I was initially hesitant to take it on as I didn’t have a record deal yet, so how could I call myself a ‘legend’? But then I decided to grab it because I’m not going to go into my career with this fear that it won’t work out. I’m going to go live up to this name. It was a bit audacious, I know.”

Sigourney:
When Sue Weaver was 13, she was already towering over her classmates.

“I had great trouble at the height of six feet, saying my name is “Sue” – so small. Then I read the book The Great Gatsby and saw the name “Sigourney,” I liked its look – it goes on for three syllables. I’m going to use it as a placeholder, I thought. It wasn’t supposed to be a stage name.”

Bono:
As teens, Paul David Hewson and his friends joined a surrealist street gang in Dublin and needed nicknames. Paul’s friend dubbed him “Bono Vox” after a hearing-aid store in the neighborhood. Paul did not like it until he learned it was derived from the Latin word “Bonovox,” which means “good voice.”

The Question
One of my favorite get-to-know-you-quickly questions is, “What’s the story behind your name?”

It serves to unlock connections in a few ways:

• Being curious and interested in someone else is a gateway to trust.
• It helps me remember their name (because the brain quickly processes information when it’s connected to a story).
• It makes the other person feel important and validated (especially when I can easily recall their name!)
• It offers a glimpse into their life, allowing me to discover their origin, family, or journey.
• It sometimes identifies a commonality we share.
• It requires a low investment of time and preparation.

In addition, this one question decreases the inevitable anxiety of meeting someone new because it shifts the spotlight from “We don’t know each other!” to “What could we learn about each other?”

When you are eager to connect with a new person or strengthen the relationship with a colleague, a mentoring partner, or a friend, simply (but genuinely!) inquire about their name.

Everyone has a story. Even no story is a story.

© 2023. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

While growing her company, she navigated roadblocks, pivoted her strategy, and exhausted her life savings. Eventually, after demonstrating demand for her product and leveraging her network, Holly earned the attention of an executive at Sephora, the beauty retailer.

Her trip to San Francisco to pitch her product to Sephora was a turning point. Holly recalls feeling great about her presentation and the potential for partnership.

But as soon as she left Sephora and before heading to the airport, she called Nordstrom to request a meeting to pitch Supergoop!.

Why?

She shared the following in a recent interview on the Guy Raz podcast How I Built This…

“My father had this theory about doing things in twos. He always said, ‘The best time to accomplish something is after you’ve accomplished something. You’re on a high. You feel optimistic. You feel good about yourself.’ Whenever I had done something well, he would say, ‘That’s awesome, Holly. Now, what are you going to do?’”

Holly’s father was right – stacking successes works.

When we accomplish something, our brain releases dopamine, the brain’s feel-good neurotransmitter. And because feeling good is addictive, we are seduced to repeat the associated behavior (accomplish something!) in order to feel good again.

Even simple to-do lists generate great satisfaction because checking off small tasks floods our brain with dopamine!

I experienced the power of success stacking when applying for my first job out of law school. I remember spending an indescribable amount of time sending out letters and resumes.

But landing an interview with KPMG was the dopamine-friendly boost my confidence needed. In a surge of audacity, I immediately called the other “Big 6” accounting firms and invited them to interview me, too!

Whether you are talking to yourself, your employee, or your mentee, first celebrate the achievement, then challenge, “What’s next?”

© 2023. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

Interviewer: Are there people in your life you consider mentors?

Mark: No. I have never thought, “I’m going to call this guy and see what he thinks.” 

Interviewer: Why? 

Mark: Because at some point, I’m going to need to be responsible for whatever that knowledge is.

Interviewer: If you haven’t had mentors or people you leaned on or who advised you, you must have people you admire. 

Mark: Sure, the best advice I ever got was from Larry in one of my first jobs. 

But that’s as close as I’ve come because figuring it out creates a platform for me to go forward.

While Mark is scrappy and entrepreneurial, he is surprisingly puzzled about mentoring.

Evidently, Mark believes a mentor figures things out for you, solves your problems, and tells you what to do.

But that’s not mentoring. That’s consulting.

Mentors:

• Share stories and lessons learned from relevant experiences
• Provide connections and resources
• Contribute advice and ideas
• Offer feedback and perspectives
• Nudge action and experimentation
• Help identify insights and discoveries
• Boost confidence; encourage; validate
• Spark hope and inspiration

However, Mentees are ultimately responsible for acting on whatever knowledge, insights, ideas, or advice Mentors contribute.

When Larry offered listening advice, Mark was responsible for acting on it. Mark experimented with the suggestion and improved his engagement skills.

Let’s assume that Mark has continued to listen and engage in meetings earnestly. Inevitably, he has heard valuable perspectives, insights, and ideas that have advanced his learning. And let’s surmise that Mark has shifted his actions or implemented some ideas based on what others have contributed.

That’s mentoring!

(The irony? Mark was mentoring thousands of conference attendees during that interview, in which he questioned the value of mentoring.)

Mentors don’t figure, fix, or find a solution. They contribute insights and ideas so Mentees can move forward faster or favorably… even when Mentees don’t recognize the contribution.

© 2023. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.

“I called up Bill Hewlett when I was a kid. ‘Hi, I’m Steve Jobs. I’m 14 years old. I’m a student in high school. I want to build a frequency counter, and I was wondering if you have any spare parts I could have.’

“He laughed, gave me the spare parts, and gave me a job that summer at Hewlett-Packard… and I was in heaven.

“Most people never ask, and that’s what separates those who do from those who dream.”

What’s behind help hesitation?

• Asking for help feels vulnerable.
• We overestimate the likelihood that we will be rejected.
• We dread appearing incompetent, weak, or inferior.
• We avoid bothering or inconveniencing others.
• We don’t want to relinquish control and independence.

But studies show that when you ask for help, the other person feels:

1. Admiration: you clearly care more about results than the opinions of others
2. Respected and appreciated: you chose them to help
3. Connected: you trust them enough to share your vulnerabilities
4. Happy: people feel joy doing acts of kindness
5. Engaged: they are working with you on a shared goal (getting you the help you need)

3 steps to confidently ask for help:

1. Context: Share your story – why you need help.

1. Choice: Invite them to make a difference. “Could I ask you a favor?” “Would you be able to help me?”

1. Craving: Describe what you need: “I want some advice.” “I need an introduction.” “I could use some ideas.”

On an airplane once, I had the following exchange with the passenger in front of me:

Me: “I’m finally writing my first book, and I’ve been looking forward to this time on the plane to work on it.”
Passenger: “Exciting!”
Me: “Could I ask you a favor?” 
Passenger: “Sure!”
Me: “I need space to type on my computer. Would you kindly not recline your seat?”
Passenger: “Happy to help!”

She instantly felt respected, appreciated, and engaged. And my request allowed her to do an act of kindness for me, which made her feel good about herself.

When we inspire people with a story, give them a choice, and invite them to make a difference, they feel compelled to contribute to our success.

Just ask.

© 2023. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved.