Higher Ups Get Coaching on New Trends, Technology & Social Media From Young Workers

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, reporter Leslie Kwoh, notes an exciting new trend taking off in a wide range of companies. Instead of workplace mentors who are older and higher up in the ranks than their mentees – younger employees are being tapped to help senior executives learn new skills.

The idea is to give senior managers an opportunity to learn about life outside the corner office. If that isn’t enough of a reason, companies are seeing reduced turnover among younger employees because mentoring this way gives them a sense of purpose, along with an enlightening glimpse into the world of management and access to top tier leaders.

According to Kwoh, reverse mentoring was championed by Jack Welch when he was chief executive of General Electric Co. He had 500 top-level executives pair up with people below them to learn to use the Internet. Welch took his own advice to heart and was matched with an employee in her 20s who taught him how to surf the Web. Today young mentors are teaching their senior mentees about Facebook and Twitter.

Technology and global thinking are changing so rapidly, older executives don’t want to be left behind. Reverse mentoring also helps acculturate the younger employees more quickly. They begin to see a promising future for themselves in the organization. This boosts loyalty, employee engagement and overall productivity.

There can be pitfalls. Many older workers resist the idea of being mentored by someone younger, especially when they have so many more years of experience. This is where a solid launch event featuring the people skills that make for more effective mentoring partnerships can make all the difference in the success of the program.

Leslie Truex, author of the Work At Home Bible, interviewed Susan Bender Phelps, CEO, of Odyssey Mentoring and Leadership for an audio podcast on her website www.Work-At-HomeSuccess.com this week. You’ll learn how she started Odyssey Mentoring and Leadership and hear why mentoring skills and mentoring are so critical for professional development, employee engagement and productivity: http://workathomesuccess.com/wahs-podcast-163-susan-phelps-of-odyssey-mentor (you’ll have to copy and paste the link into your browser to get there).

I want to share this article from The Star Ledger because they interviewed me. Though I really grew up on Long Island – it is a true story. Of course, if you are mentoring someone with a very pronounced regional accent – this might be helpful, too.

By Lee Miller/The Star-Ledger – Published: Sunday, July 24, 2011, 11:09 AM

After college, East Coast native Susan Bender Phelps, president of Odyssey Mentoring, moved to Southern California.

Her first job was as a telephone solicitor selling solar hot water heating systems. After being on the job just two hours, her manager called me into her office and said, “You cannot talk to people like that! Your accent and the fast-talking are scaring people. Slow down and lose the accent, or you will not be able to work here.”

Well, she succeeded in quickly losing the accent when she spoke on the phone at work, but it took a lot longer to lose it in general conversation. Now, as a corporate trainer and public speaker, she occasionally uses her accent for humor or when telling a story to add character, but has found she is generally more effective without a regional accent.

A study conducted by Diane Markley and Patricia Cukor-Avila shows how regional accents can affect hiring.

The study involved 56 hiring professionals who were asked to make judgments about potential based solely on how candidates, with different regional accents, sounded. The hirers were asked to judge if each speaker sounded educated or uneducated, intelligent or unintelligent, energetic or lazy, uptight or laid back, outgoing or withdrawn, assertive or docile.

Of the 10 regional accents, a distinctive “New Jersey” accent received the most negative rating by hiring professionals. When asked to decide what types of jobs the individuals were suited for based solely on their accents, only 5 percent of the hirers selected the New Jersey speaker for positions requiring a high level of customer contact and more than 64 percent selected the New Jersey speaker for positions requiring little technical expertise and little-to-no customer contact.

Can a New Jersey accent hurt you in a job search or in your quest for a promotion?

For jobs located outside of New Jersey or for positions where you work with a national clientele, it may sometimes limit your options.

According to Sharlene Vichness, president of Roseland-based Language Direction, a company that specializes in accent reduction, employers often make snap judgments based on how you sound. She refers to this as “accent prejudice.”

Vichness suggests that “while you can talk any way you want with your friends, to maximize your career potential it is best to speak standard business English.” Her goal when she works with someone who feels that their accent is hurting their career is to “make sure that what comes out of your mouth reflects what is in your head.”

Everyone has an accent of some sort, even if it is a Midwestern “non-accent” of the type most television anchors have. Unless it interferes with your ability to communicate or affects how you are perceived, it is generally not a problem.

Some people, in fact, view their local accents as a plus. Jené Luciani, an on-air style expert, spent several years working in production “behind the scenes” before transitioning to the other side of the camera.

When she was contemplating the move to on-air personality, several people in the business told her she would have to lose her accent. They said she would have trouble getting work or getting an agent to represent her, if she did not get rid of her accent. They also suggested changing her name. She chose to ignore their advice and, as she notes, it has turned out quite well for her.

If you believe your accent may be holding you back, you can do something about it. Dawn Cotter-Jenkins, a speech therapist who works for Language Directions, recently worked with an accountant who felt that her local accent was impeding her chances of being made a partner at the accounting firm where she works.

Cotter-Jenkins was able to teach her techniques to change her pronunciation of words, such as dog and coffee, eliminating her local accent. Within six months her client was promoted to partner at the firm.

As Vichness notes, how you look and how you speak are the first things people notice about you. She adds, “first impressions matter and you never get a second chance to make a good first impression.

When your organization doesn’t have a formal mentoring program, or you haven’t been invited to participate, you can still benefit from mentoring. The difference is, you’ll have to find one on your own. How you can do that has changed, says Susan Balcom Walton, M.A., APR, associate professor of public relations at Brigham Young University, in the latest issue of Public Relations Strategist. Though her advice is targeted to public relations professionals and students, it is advice that any person aspiring to advance his or her career can use.

Balcom Walton asserts that mentoring relationships will come from networks that are broader. In the old days, potential mentees turned to people they knew well. But increasingly, mentor-seekers will find themselves approaching people they either don’t know well or may have never met.

She believes we will see more distance mentoring: successful mentoring relationships that exist primarily — or even completely — in the virtual world, with most exchanges of information taking place via email or social media.

“Situational mentoring” is also becoming more common. Balcom Walton sees this as a trend where mentees connect with mentors for certain periods of time or certain situations, rather than turning to one mentor for everything. Even so, traditional, long-term mentoring relationships will continue to thrive.

To learn how to find a mentor in this new environment, how to “pop” the question and anticipate some of the pitfalls of this new kind of mentoring, see Balcom Walton’s article in the July 12 issue of the Public Relations Strategist.

An actively engaged employee is a productive member of your organization. They care, they’re motivated and they are actively contributing. In fact, a large part of your company’s success is the direct result of their accomplishments, creativity, drive and talent.

A 2006 Gallup poll found that higher performing companies have a significant difference in the ratio of engaged versus disengaged employees than lower performing organizations. That’s 8:1 for the best, and just 2:1 at the average companies. If yours is one of those high-performing companies, that’s very good news.

But, according to a 2010 survey by global consulting firm BlessingWhite, only 31 percent of the global work force is actively engaged. Overall, they found that 52 percent of the work force is not engaged. That means they come to work and do what’s expected or less. If that isn’t an eye opener; it turns out 17 percent of the workforce is actively disengaged: they show up when they feel like it, and continually undermine and work against you.

This is important because employees who aren’t engaged lower overall productivity and add to turn over and that costs you. Before the recession, the cost of replacing an employee averaged $17,000 and those who made more than $60,000 per year cost more than $38,000 to replace. Now human resource managers tell us to look at an employee’s annual salary and figure 100 to 150 percent is what it will cost you to replace them. This includes lost productivity, recruitment and training. When you consider managerial and C-suite compensation packages, the total cost is sobering.

It turns out that the best predictor of high performance is that ratio of actively engaged employees at every level of the company. And employee engagement is most positively impacted when managers have excellent people skills. Managers who have great relationships with their direct reports out-perform those who rely solely on management actions.

This leads me to conclude that mentorship skills (people skills) and a mentoring environment (learning and support) are important tools for improving employee engagement at all levels of your organization. Once you have hired the best and brightest, mentoring is one of the most effective ways to ensure they stay engaged and committed to your organization. Mentoring enhances loyalty by placing high potential employees on the fast track with the extraordinary benefit of high quality senior level guidance.

Mentoring programs deliver three proven outcomes:

• While the best skills training can produce a bump in productivity of 33 percent, training combined with effective professional mentoring improves productivity up to 88 percent.
• Mentees form stronger bonds with you and your company because they can see a worthwhile future that includes them.
• Mentors experience a stronger sense of purpose and satisfaction when they use their knowledge and expertise to cultivate and develop another person.

Costly employee turnover will be reduced because employees in an effective mentoring relationship feel appreciated, have the opportunity to give and grow. Mentees get personal coaching, sponsorship and encouragement, enhance their skills, and increased levels of confidence. Both sides of the mentoring partnership experience a greater sense of satisfaction in their careers and often in their personal lives.

Here’s where you can see the complete study: http://www.blessingwhite.com/eee__report.asp

The people skills employees need in order to have effective mentoring partnerships can be learned and Odyssey Mentoring provides the training that empowers effective mentorship.

I just love it when research proves I am on the right track.

“The potential benefits of academic mentoring for women are important,” say researchers who conducted a pilot study at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London.

Forty-six women academics were matched 1:1 or 2:1 with more senior academic mentors. At the end of a year, job-related well-being (anxiety-contentment), self-esteem and self-efficacy all improved significantly and work-family conflict diminished at one year. The mentees affirmed their professional development was enhanced by their mentorship.

The results show that mentoring can contribute to women’s personal and professional development. The study also begins to demonstrate the mechanisms that bring about those positive results.

The bottom line is professional mentoring will help institutions that want to retain and develop the careers of their academic staff, particularly their women academics.

My experience shows that when you prepares mentors and mentees to be effective in their mentoring partnership, you will boost results even more. Pre-program training sets the mentoring partners up to win.

Click here for the full study Mentoring Pilot Study.

Last month I had the great pleasure of speaking at the Hillsboro Chamber of Commerce Westside Business Women lunch and learn event. The topic was  Being The MESSENGER – the nine principles that make networking so powerful. To capitalize on the momentum, the Chamber is having me back on February 17th for “Where Oh Where Should I Network?” - Whether it’s lunches, meetings, dinners, building that on-line tribe – how do you determine the BEST networking opportunities for you and your business? This session will help you save hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours while increasing your ROI on what you do spend.

On March 17th – “How to Generate 50 Contacts a Week” - - You can maximize your networking and have enough contacts to keep your business growing no matter how busy you are. Learn effective tactics you can use the minute you hit the street.

Please join us at these information packed sessions. WBW will be on February 17th from 11:30 AM-1:00PM at Coyotes Bar and Grill located at 5301 W. Baseline, Hillsboro 97124. RSVP by February 15th to Darcey Edwards 503-726-2143 darceye@hillchamber.org

I am the Chief Navigator for Odyssey Mentoring. We provide training to companies and professional associations for their mentoring and leadership programs. We opened our doors a little more than one year ago and we are in the black!

When I speak and write, I  share my business-building principles, strategies and tactics. She has trained hundreds in the art and science of networking. Throughout my career, I have delivered success after success in marketing, advertising and public relations – increased sales, broadened customer bases, community action, media campaigns and charitable fund raising. She has more than 20 years of hands-on experience as an entrepreneur, manager, trainer, writer and speaker.

A lot of experts recommend that having one or more mentors is an important aspect of developing your career. Being a mentor can be just as valuable. The problem with finding or being an effective mentor is that many people who are very accomplished in a particular area, may not have the skills to lead someone through the thinking that takes you from the problem to an insight to action and accountability – the keystones of breakthrough performance.

Years ago, I asked the finance manager where I worked if he would be willing to be my mentor. It was scary for me at the time. He was very smart, younger than I was by a decade, but higher up in management, and he knew finance like nobody else I had ever worked with. He was very abrupt, but I thought if he was being my mentor, he might soften his approach and it could improve our working relationship.

Math had always been a weakness for me and budgets and financial reports – full of numbers – seemed so daunting. The first couple of times  I brought him an issue I was struggling with, he  immediately showed me where the answer to my question could be found, or where the error was.  It helped in the short-run, but I didn’t learn from the experience so I could do it myself the next time. If I asked clarifying questions, he would roll his eyes and tell me to just do it the way he said to do it. Eventually, I stopped asking for his guidance. It was a mentoring match that simply didn’t work.

Practical mentoring skills can be learned and ultimately, mastery will make mentors better managers and leaders, while preparing mentees and proteges for the future.

The key things a professional mentor needs to be able to do are:

1. Develop a rapport with the protege/mentee to build trust and make it safe for open and constructive communication. Start by asking for and receiving your mentoring partner’s permission to delve into the problem.

2. Observe patterns in behavior and your mentoring partner’s ability to produce results – this allows the mentor to see what the protege or mentee cannot see from their point of view.

3. Listen to the core of the problem as identified by the protege/mentee – there is valuable insight in their take on what is happening or not happening.

4. Ask reflective questions that lead the protege/mentee through a problem-solving process that has them do all of the heavy thinking. Examples of reflective questions are:

What was the result you were trying to produce?

What actions did you take to get there?

How close to your goal did you get?

What do you think worked about what you did?

If you had to do this sales call, presentation, etc. again, what would you do differently?

In thinking through and answering these kinds of questions, the mentee has the best opportunity of getting to an “aha” moment. When he/she discovers their own answers, they can truly own the solutions.

5. Create a Specific, Measurable, Achievable Result in Time – SMART and a feedback method that works for both of you. This is what allows the mentor the opportunity to be supportive and encourage the mentee as he or she practices new behaviors, techniques  and ways of being.

This method initially takes more time than showing someone how to do it, telling them what to do, or giving “constructive criticism.”  It allows a person to think through a problem and to learn from their experience, whether they succeed or fail. The more you do it, the more trust there is in the relationship between mentor and protege, the faster the questioning and thinking process becomes.

During college, I had a faculty adviser who became one of the most effective mentors to ever work with me. Sometimes, even now I ask myself the kind of question she would ask and it gets me going in the right direction. Like the time I had writer’s block and the deadline was nearing. I was writing a biographical account for an article and it just wasn’t coming together. I remember telling her how hard it was to write about this topic in the first person. She said, “What if you wrote as if it was about someone else?”

I had my “aha” moment right then and there. I said, “I can do that,” and went on to complete the article that evening. It was one of my best.

These kinds of conversations don’t come naturally to most people. In our training programs, we give mentoring partners the underpinnings for these conversations, opportunities to try them in a safe environment and to  see how they work. As effective as these conversations are in a mentoring partnership, they are also very useful in management, supervision and even parenting.