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In 1979 my cousin Ben started his career as an assistant buyer at JCPenney in New York City. During his training program, one of the senior leaders walked to Ben’s desk each week and said, “Let’s open our calendars and find a time for lunch.” It was easy to schedule since everyone worked in the office and took lunch daily from 12-1:00 pm.
During these lunches, they connected personally and discussed career paths at JCPenney. This senior leader wasn’t stressed, over-scheduled, or frenzied with any work, as Ben remembers it. His only role in the department at that swan song point in his career was to mentor new hires.
Mentoring doesn’t look like this anymore because our work doesn’t look like this anymore.
To reap the benefits of mentoring in today’s rapidly changing, everything-is-urgent work environments, we need a bend & flex approach. One in which we bend and flex our expectations and contributions to meet our mentoring partners where they are.
Examples of Bend & Flex Mentoring:
- A night shift mentee connects via Zoom on her phone with a day shift mentor as she ends her shift and he begins his.
- An executive at a medical center leaves her office each week to “walk and mentor” her mentee, a nurse manager, while he visits patients.
- When a new hire mentee didn’t reach out or respond to her emails, a mentor called and sent text messages to initiate contact. Because of this perseverance, the mentee immediately trusted her new mentor.
- When Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans in 2021, the mentors in a leadership mentoring program ensured their mentees shadowed them during the hospital’s hurricane briefing sessions.
- A mentor on the West coast talks with his mentee in the UK via WhatsApp when the mentor is heading to the office and the mentee is driving home from the office.
- Two directors paired in a year-long leadership mentoring program booked weekly 10-minute touch-base calls to ensure they sustained their momentum throughout the program.
How to bend & flex in mentoring:
- Utilize calls, texts, emails, and LinkedIn messages
- Leverage Zoom, Teams, Webex, FaceTime, or WhatsApp
- Schedule quick 15-minute calls
- Send questions/topics in advance
- Engage in bite-sized conversations (tackle one question or one issue only)
- Anchor meetings to other activities (ex: attending a company event)
- Share calendars or a calendar link
- Enroll assistants to find available timeslots
- Jump on a Waiting List (meetings are regularly canceled or rescheduled; ask to jump into an available slot when one opens)
- Take advantage of transition points, downtimes, and routines (ex: driving, airport waiting, dog walking)
When you are committed to growing, developing, and improving, saying “I’m too busy” is simply a breakdown in resourcefulness and a failure in gumption.
Bend & flex to create a mentoring adventure together.
© 2022. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved. |
