Mentoring provides real world wisdom, actual life experience, allowing the mentee to absorb and ... [+]
How would you learn to do something difficult, like walk through a mine field? Would you read a book, take a seminar or download an eCourse?
Of course not. You would do what people have done for thousands of years. You find a mentor who knows how to get through a mine field to teach you.
Growing a business can be likened to a trip through a mine field. A business leader or entrepreneur needs to attract the right clients and employees to serve them, retain great employees in a competitive environment, and inspire high performance during trying times. Definitely not something you want to learn by trial and error. Some say the answer is training and coaching.
“Leadership training and coaching may be the current buzzwords, but the ancient practice of mentoring has proven to outperform them” in growing a business by retaining top talent and boosting productivity, according to author Eric Rogell.
In fact, Rogell contends that mentoring has been used for thousands of years to improve performance.
Rogell is the founder of Mentors On Mission, a consultancy that works with executives and entrepreneurs. For more than 30 years, he has mentored and guided thousands of ambitious people driven to accelerate their lives and careers. His next book, Forging Greatness, will be published in summer 2022.
Rogell contends mentoring can solve two of the biggest issues facing business leaders and solopreneurs:
Attracting and (especially) retaining top talent. “The Great Resignation taught us today’s employees are looking for more than just a salary,” says Rogell. “One of the biggest things they desire is a chance to grow and develop professionally and personally. Mentoring allows for this more than leadership training or coaching can.”
Rogell says according to a study by MentorcliQ, employees who are involved in mentoring programs have a 50% higher retention rate than those not involved in mentoring.
Engagement, development, and productivity. “According to a Gallup poll, only 16% of people working today consider themselves engaged in their work, costing the global economy nearly $300 billion or more each year in lost productivity,” says Rogell.
“A mentor also provides what I call ‘real world wisdom’ that can’t be taken from a book or training manual,” says Rogell. “It’s the passing on of their actual life experience, how they got their battle scars, allowing the mentee to absorb and integrate that experience, to ask questions and go deeper. This delivers impact and continued development long after the training course has ended.”
He does acknowledge many mentoring initiatives fail. “Mentoring initiatives are fairly simple to implement, but many fail over time because they make easy-to-avoid mistakes,” says Rogell. These include not having a framework, not setting goals and milestones, not having a set of guidelines for participants, not challenging the mentee, becoming a friend or buddy rather than a mentor.
Despite the advantages of mentoring, Rogell notes the majority of people in the workforce do not have a formal mentor. He feels there is tremendous opportunity here.
“Mentees feel more highly valued than those not in a mentoring program,” says Rogell. “Having a formal mentoring initiative shows current, and potential, employees that you care deeply about their long term professional and personal development.”
