Mentors, Coaches and Other Scarce Resources
“We just don’t have enough skilled leaders around here!”
That all-too-common corporate refrain could be followed up with this retort: “So why aren’t you investing more in coaching and mentoring programs?”
It’s a legitimate question in light of findings from a recent i4cp survey of 303 organizations. It found that slightly less than half of surveyed organizations have a formal coaching or mentoring program in place. This would make more sense if these programs were seen by a majority of respondents as having little value, but that’s true for only a small minority. In fact, about six in 10 respondents consider coaching to be “quite” or “highly” valuable to their organizations, and 54% said the same about mentoring.
The single most widely cited reason for using these programs was “managerial development,” followed by the development of executive leadership. In other words, such guidance programs are often geared toward the development of skills deemed crucial by many organizations.
This emphasis on management probably explains why a relatively small percentage of employees wind up using coaches or mentors. The survey indicates that most companies apply these programs to 5% or less of their workforces.
But it doesn’t explain why so many employers consider themselves mediocre or worse at implementing coaching and mentoring. Less than a fifth of respondents said they were good or excellent at coaching or mentoring. It appears that effective coaches and mentors are a scarce resource.
On one hand, this suggests that there’s a large potential upside to improving such programs. “By boosting both the quality and usage of these programs, organizations might make a huge dent in today’s and tomorrow’s leadership shortages,” notes Jay Jamrog, i4cp’s senior vice president of research.
On the other hand, the data confirms that these can be exceptionally difficult programs to run well. For example, coaches are more likely than mentors to come from outside the organization, but it can be hard to select the most appropriate coach. Fewer than a third of the i4cp survey respondents said that they look at coaching certifications or validated and substantiated client results when selecting coaches. That’s probably because coaching remains a relatively unregulated field. There is no single certification or credential that ensures quality coaching.
The i4cp survey shows that most organizations select coaches based on the business experiences of coaching candidates. This makes some sense, but it doesn’t necessarily ensure quality coaching. After all, doing something well and teaching others how to do it well are two different things.
Ensuring quality mentoring isn’t easy either. There’s no consensus on how to train mentors, for instance. The i4cp survey shows that, among companies that say they have formal mentoring programs, the most common option is to use the internal training function. Yet, just over half (56%) say they do this, and over a quarter (28%) of those with formal programs say there is no particular training for mentors.
This helps explain why mentoring, as one BusinessWeek article put it, can sometimes turn out to be a “messy” affair. That is, mentors and their apprentices wind up being incompatible, creating tensions rather than learning opportunities. In some cases, mentors attempt to hold onto the relationships too long, not accepting their apprentices as equals. Or apprentices try to exploit such relationships in order to make a play for the jobs of their mentors (Berfield, 2007).
Gauging the quality of coaching and mentoring programs can also be a challenge. The i4cp survey indicates that the most commonly used method of measuring the success of such programs is to look at the individual productivity and performance of those who’ve received such training. The second most commonly used method entails measuring the performance of people who are being supervised by a coached or mentored manager.
Therefore, the primary goals of coaching and mentoring boil down to boosting the productivity of managers and the people they manage. If more employers can measure the associated productivity gains, then they’ll be more likely to invest time and money into adopting and improving these programs.
These programs will probably become more consistent and professional over time. For example, coaching credentials could become more academically established and rigorous, and coaching might become less of a cottage industry and more of an offering by major vendors. Meanwhile, employers might do more to ensure that the “chemistry” between mentors and apprentices is right, perhaps through tools such as personality and skills assessments. Taken as a whole, coaching and mentoring are likely to become more effective but lose a little something in the process as these relationships become less casual, unique and serendipitous.
For more information:
For more information, see the Coaching/Mentoring survey results. Also see the institute’s Coaching Knowledge Center as well as its Leadership and Succession Planning Knowledge Centers.
Documents referenced in this TrendWatcher include the following:
Berfield, Susan. “Mentoring Can Be Messy.” BusinessWeek, January 29, 2007.
Institute for Corporate Productivity. “Survey Results: Coaching/Mentoring.” May 2007.