I recently read an HBR article about team Mentorship. While the article described a more formal mentorship progression in academia, it got me thinking about the idea of utilizing team mentoring in my mentoring programs. In particular, I came up with a step-by-step process to leverage a team for effective mentoring.
Begin by forming a coalition of 4-5 diverse individuals with similar challenges and conduct at least 6 calls (use zoom or skype for a more interactive connection) to discuss the challenges and share solutions.
Here’s what the structure might look like:
Form a group. Identify 2 people in your network who have similar challenges. For me, it would be “staying focused and making progress toward my goals.” I ask former colleagues Tom and Anne to participate in my mentorship team. So now there’s 3 of us. Then I ask Tom and Anne to each identify one individual from their network who will bring a diverse perspective to our mentorship team. Now we have 5!
Schedule the calls. Using zoom recurring meetings is a great way to really connect because you can see expressions and you stay focused on the conversation. (just be sure to lock your meeting to avoid potential “Zoombombing”). Ideally, you should schedule the calls every week or at least every other week.
Set the agenda. It’s up to you on how you want to structure the calls. Here’s a sample agenda to get you started:
Call #1 Introduction
Call #2 KJ leads with specific insights and ideas on how she’s addressing the challenge.
Call #3 Anne leads
Call #4 Tom leads
Call #5 Anne’s connection leads
Call #6 Tom’s connection leads
Call #7 You might want to have a 7th call to wrap up....and decide if you want to continue the calls.
Open Discussion - Or you can make your calls less formal and just have an open discussion and dialogue. What’s important, if you do this, is that you at least lay some ground rules. For example: Here’s the topic we’re going to discuss. Ask everyone to bring at least one idea (article, book, podcast, story, best practice) to each call. That way everyone is prepared with something they will share and you avoid that awkward silence of “what are we here for again?” And yet, you might find, as I’ve found, when you get a cool group of dynamic diverse people together, you can’t stop talking!
Share information. Consider using Google drive or Dropbox to share notes from the calls, articles, relevant information. How many times do we learn about something new and have to go back to the person who told us about it to ask “What was that article you told me about?” or “Can you send me that link to the cool podcast again?” Put it in your shared drive and it’s always there for you.
While one-on-one mentoring remains critical, mentees also need mentoring teams that evolve over time. I hope you’ll try out this approach and share with me your feedback and experience.
Photo by Chang Duong on Unsplash