mentorink newsletter november 2009 issue

MentorInk Newsletter Issue: November 2009 Year 23

©1986-2009 CMSI Mentoring Solutions. All rights reserved. www.mentoring-solutions.com

In this issue

Mentoring Timeline© ............ page 4 Dyslexia, mentoring and the world’s most prestigious award.

Mentoring Myths© ........................ page 5

Mentors alert: are you really a Superman or Superwoman in disguise? If you aren’t sure, here’s a recent ad for a mentoring position to help you make up your mind.

It’s all in how you read the headlines, isn’t it? ....................page 2

Mentor learns more about police mentoring in Timor.

The high cost of doing nothing (part 2) ...................................page 8

Is inaction good? Bad? Or a mix of both? In a time of economic meltdowns, inaction and decision paralysis, you need to read on for six more ideas about the high costs of doing nothing.

An Online Mentoring Project - 6 thumbs down ............................page 3

One little screen shot can tell you much about “e-mentoring” mistakes. Pay attention and you can lessen (and lesson) the results of your program.

Some programs still link partners this way …………………….. page 6

What others advise about e-mentoring ................page 11 Out of curiosity, Mentor visited one of the internet’s most popular mentoring sites to see what is recommended for “e-learning”.

Future Issues Virtual Mentoring Library, Mentor Answers FAQs, book reviews, Mentoring

Myths and more.

Program Paper & Pencil Tools go to www.mentoring-resources.com

From the Editor: Past issues (since 1986) have carried everything and anything on knowledge transfer & sharing using mentoring and skills coaching to support blended learning. Happy reading. Your editor: Marilynne Miles Gray



It’s all in how you read the headlines, isn’t it? Some days Mentor never knows what he’ll come across in the news. One fascinating item was a letter recounting the trials and tribulations of mentors and their juniors in Timor. Some months back, Jim Della-Giacoma decided to compare what he perceived is the wide gap between stories we hear and the realities on the ground. In this case, the story was about mentoring. First, he looked at Radio New Zealand’s description of the latest rotation of 25 Kiwi officers who “for 6 months will act as coaches and mentors to Timorese police, giving ideas and guidance on community policing.” Their training included learning the local dialect. That must have triggered his interest because, he then hop scotched amongst a variety of reports, for example one from New Straits Times of Malaysia that gave an account of an earlier 6 rotation of a larger 140-person force sent to Timor to wit: “There was a riot every day,” said the deputy commanding officer of the 10th Battalion of the General Operations Force based in Sibu. “Our ability to understand Bahasa Indonesia was both an asset and a liability. The locals spoke either Portuguese or Bahasa Indonesia, we and the contingent from Portugal bore the brunt of the troubles as we could communicate with them. We had stones and spears thrown at us and were even shot at with arrows. Police contingents from other nations were assigned to less troubled spots and relatively easier tasks like guarding the international airport. Good policing is the foundation on which the societies we all want to live in are built. It is not readily exportable to a country where you don’t understand the language, history or culture, though over the last decade, dozens of rotations involving thousands of police officers from around the world have shown they can make a valuable con- tribution to maintaining peace and security.” Can this be the same project? the same location? Next, Della-Giacoma pulled together other reports which he feels “demonstrates that it is a much tougher job to build, train, and mentor a police force [than seems on the surface].” He concludes: “For Timorese police, some on the job since early 2000 and others veterans… each rotation of new ‘coaches and mentors’ must feel like the movie Groundhog Day. It is an open secret of UN policing that good coppers back home don’t always make good mentors and trainers, especially in foreign countries. The kind of language skills and background knowledge to do this effectively cannot be found in a manual and takes longer than a six-month tour of duty to acquire... much gets lost in translation. For the Timorese police, UN mentoring could mean guidance from an officer from Ukraine today, the Philippines tomorrow, and Zambia next month. The upbeat and naïve tone of the [NZ] radio report belies the complex realities in a country that has experienced a generation of conflict... Acquiring local language skills is always a good thing for a short stay in any country, but knowing a little local history is also helpful... In their brief time in Timor-Leste, UNPOL probably have as much to learn as they will have time to teach. [Source: www.etan.org “Groundhog Day: UN police mentoring in Timor-Leste”]

A blind man’s world is bounded by the limits of his touch;

an ignorant man’s world by the limits of his knowledge;

a great man’s world by the limits of his vision.- E. Paul Hovey

Can this be the same project?

the same location?



An Online Mentoring Project - 6 thumbs down

It was just one little screen from one program’s end-of-cycle summary powerpoint. There it was dangling in internet space just begging for analysis. So here goes... To those of us who are seasoned veterans of program design, development and operations, this single screen (right) alone says much about what the organ-ization didn’t know at the outset. Or perhaps sadly still doesn’t know. Lesson #1: Know something about how many participants you need in order to make final judgments (especially for planning purposes). It has been assumed the “online” project has been a success. It’s not possible to know this when numbers are “small”? does “small” mean only 10 participants (as it often does) or only 20 or 5? Looking ahead, it will be virtually impossible (given the resulting scarce data) for this group to anticipate what form the program will need to take once (and if) numbers increase if and when there is a second cycle. Lesson #2: Following on from Lesson 1, don’t assume. It is assumed (for example) there is a direct cause and effect relationship is between interventions made (or not made) and “success”. How is this possible? Are interventions being made offline or online or both? What (successful/ unsuccessful) interventions were made? What is meant by "regardless of scope" -- scope of the interventions? or something else? Lesson #3: Understand why a program is being launched and how to reach goals. One reason programs are put online is to make them scalable. Clearly, the “online” program failed to reach a primary goal. Lesson #4: Use your technology. Test it. Use it well. Don’t save it for a rainy day. Mentoring technology – web apps or software – are developed to select and match participants. The fact that participants were “hand-selected” says much. All of it negative. Lesson #5: Understand your responsibility in handling logistics and planning. Those running the program had not thought through the logistics of “making the program available to all.” Why then have an online program of all could not or did not use it? Lesson #6: Don’t kill a program through lack of clarity Look at the final line on the screen: perhaps what is meant is that “paperwork” (for an online project) was excessive for only a few participants. Translation: only a few people out of a small number found the paperwork to be excessive... what can this possibly mean? Unless virtually all participants – and a goodly number at that -- supply complete feedback, nothing will be improved. Were participants asked too many questions? Possibly. However, there are ways to design data-gathering so participants will not view them as excessive -- but that’s another story. A success? There are far too many programs labelled “mentoring” and “successful” that don’t deserve the appellation. Back to the drawing board. The judges have awarded this one 6 thumbs down given what we’ve read.



Dyslexia, mentoring and the world’s most prestigious award The story goes that on Christmas Day 1984, Carol Grieder visited her lab at Ber-keley University to check an experiment. At the time, she was in her early 20s. While there, she discovered evidence of an enzyme called telomerase. For this, she and her mentor Elizabeth Blackburn (of UCSF), and Jack Szostak (of Harvard Medical School) have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physi-ology. Blackburn had been studying telomeres since her postdoc days in the late 1970s, and she and Szostak worked together in the field in the early 1980s, collaborating from two different angles. Telomeres (see below) are repeating DNA stretches found on the end of chromosomes. It was realized in the 1970s that something of this kind needed to be there, since otherwise replication of the chromosomes would inevitably clip off a bit from the end each time as enzymes involved can’t go all the way to the ends of the strands. Telomeres are disposable buffer regions that distinguish the natural end of a chromosome from a plain double-stranded DNA break.

According the Nobel Institute’s press release: “Most normal cells do not divide frequently, therefore their chromosomes are not at risk of shortening and they do not require high telomerase activity. In contrast, cancer cells have the ability to divide infinitely and yet preserve their telomeres. How do they escape cellular senescence? One explanation became apparent with the finding that cancer cells often have increased telomerase activity. It was therefore proposed that cancer might be treated by eradicating telomerase. Several

studies are underway in this area, including clinical trials evaluating vaccines directed against cells with elevated telomerase activity. Some inherited diseases are now known to be caused by telomerase defects, including certain forms of congenital aplastic anemia, in which insufficient cell divisions in the stem cells of the bone marrow lead to severe anemia. Certain inherited diseases of the skin and the lungs are also caused by telomerase defects.” So where does dyslexia fit into the story? And mentoring? Apparently at an early age, Grieder had to learn how to tune out dis- tractions and focus. Her father encouraged her to work on things that engaged her. Upon graduation from college, she determined to set her focus on molecular biology. Due to her disability, she did not do well on tests. This meant she was rejected by a number of schools except for Berkeley and Cal Tech. She chose the former because Blackburn worked there and Grieder was able to attach herself to one of Blackburn’s projects. Her unusual ability to concentrate was obvious early on in the labs. On the now-famous Christmas day, Grieder looked at an X-ray film, spotting a pattern that suggested she had discovered the enzyme Blackburn was looking for. Mentor Blackburn reports she was “bowled over” by the discovery. [Sources: Vancouver Sun, October 24, 2009; Nobel Institute, October 2009; Derek Lowe @ www.pipeline]

telomerase pronounced (tel-AH-mer-AZE): helps maintain telomeres which are cap-like structures that protect the ends of chromosomes. An enzyme that adds specific DNA sequence repeats Implicated in cancer and genetic diseases. Telomeres pronounced (TEEL-oh-meres) do not get shorter with cell division. Play a critical role in aging.



Mentoring Myths© SuperMentor!

While searching for instances of how mentoring (and mentors) is perceived, this item (left) jumped off the screen as one of the most exactingly detailed descriptions of how the role is to be carried out in at least one organization. Likely there are other organizations in this groove. We don’t need an entire description to get the essence of the very high expectations.

It’s somewhat troubling that this ad is a laundry list – this person is expected to

combine capabilities ranging from quasi-supervisor, to coach, writer,

manager, counsellor, analyst (etc.) -- all within the context of “good practice mentoring methodologies under the

supervision of the Project Manager”.

It is to be hoped that the PM knows a great deal about the “good practice

mentoring methodologies”. Whatever those are.

Sounds good and lofty on paper. In

actual practice, it could be otherwise.

We added a Superman logo to put the seal on another myth. Mentors are not

super people born on another planet.

It's long been a myth that mentors were special people able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. The

expectations some people have placed upon the position are ridiculously high. For this reason, those of us in the

mentoring field with long experience have learned to recommend that the Primary mentor take on, as one of

his/her roles, the task of connecting the protégé with others who can help (coaches, secondary mentors, etc.).

Depending on the design of the program, some protégés have a series of mentors over the year so that one person

does not carry all the burden. While it isn't possible to outline all the issues wrapped around this topic, suffice to

say, here's another myth we need to explode.



Some programs still link partners this way

It doesn't need to be like this. Our approach? Simple and straightforward

Your results? Detailed as you want them to be. Still not convinced?

What you see (above) is only half way through the paperwork other groups make participants / prospects wade through...

These forms are sent back to the Coordinators, who then key in the data.

The work of matching has just begun. Read on to see more "uglies" they put their people through…

Good grief! Look at all the text I have to type. Then read. Then send. Or not read. Or use… I'm dropping out.



Some programs still link partners this way (cont)

The example we show you is from a current mentoring program application form that's not working. And they wonder why.

Don't try it this way. What's our approach?

We don't wear you out, confuse you,

frustrate you, or bore you with unnecessary work.

For real results, talk to us at Mentoring Solutions. Call: (250) 652-0324 or 652-0326 or 652-9247

If you don't know what's wrong with this approach to matching, you've got a huge problem.

This is the 6th… no wait, the 7th text box I've had to fill in. Doubt anyone will read all of it. Why are you doing this to me?

We have no idea if we're getting any results. That's not good… unless we don't care.



The high cost of doing nothing - Part 2

We pick up the discussion (from our last MentorInk issue) with examples of the excuses some people are prone to use when frozen in decision-making mode. Recognize any or all of them? Which have you used recently?

3.. If I don’t make a decision, and something bad happens, I can’t be faulted. Actually, you did make a choice. Further, doing nothing offers a false sense of security. Unfortunately, doing nothing commonly turns out to be the worst thing for the organization. Imagine what the outcome would have been had the Allies decided in 1939 to let Germany (for example) continue their schemes? Here’s a prime example of how doing nothing can hurt and can be faulted. CASE STUDY: A few years ago, a manufacturing company was being helped to restructure its internal operations and management responsibilities. Some recommendations were self-evident. Other activities required senior executives to think differently about the business. For example, one division used highly toxic materials in part of its manufacturing process. The restructuring suggestion was for the company to create a new position: Vice President of Plant Safety. This person would have broad authority to ensure that workers, the public and the environment were not endangered by the company’s procedures. However, the company President decided there was no negative risk in maintaining the status quo. In the meantime, other, more immediate, business issues drew attention away and the suggestion was shelved. In all likelihood, immediate and longer term salary for this person was a factor. Too, the President probably looked back on the corporate history and decided “It hasn’t happened so far... how likely is it to happen in future? Not too likely.” Fast forward 10 months. A completely avoidable chemical spill injured nine floor employees. Not only was the company was handed a hefty fine for not having proper safety procedures in place, but there were also costs associated with sending people to hospital and workers compensation claims. So, yes, it seems there are hard numbers that can be offered as proof that the “business as usual” approach can be negative.

4. If I let things ride as they are, I save time. I’m too busy. Admittedly, doing something new will consume time, cost money and take effort. But, as has already been pointed out, the new costs could well be lower than current costs. Now consider doing something different could save the loss of an asset including staff. Add to this the fact that there’s more than time to be factored into a decision.

5. If I keep the status quo, everyone will know what to do / what the policies are/ what programs are in place. In fact, doing nothing may actually cause confusion, and create a lack of clarity. In a period of rapid technological change, corporate mergers, and globalization, nothing stays the same. Staff may not wonder what the policy is for social networking – they’ll just go ahead and use it. If anything bad happens or if productivity drops as a result of this one activity, a do nothing stance hasn’t helped.



As another example of what happens with a business-as-usual attitude, look at this story. A supplier of commercial products ignored warning signs that receivables were stretching out to an average of 3+ months. Instead of deciding to get tougher with customers or take some other immediate steps and put a new policy in place, the decision was to let things ride. The company almost went bankrupt.

6. We’re in a leading position. Why bother to make a change now? We’ve got lots of time if necessary when the signs seem to point towards change. This could be an expensive choice. A let’s-do-nothing decision normally drifts along for a period of time during which market forces change, new technology emerges and staff leave for greener pastures or just plain leave because they sense sooner than you do that your organization is no longer in the lead. (cont. next page) When it comes time to “make a move” -- to continue programs, add on programs, do one of these or neither -- without being open-minded about the possibilities, a vote for as-is without being open could be very expensive and cause the organization to become stale and dated. And a leader no more. Here’s an instance of this effect. A consumer service company had a new opportunity but dithered over making a decision to make a change. What happened? They lost market share, sales and profits when a more-nimble competitor quickly seized the opportunity. Has this ever happened to you? Let’s hope not.

7. If I make a choice to change, there’s no guarantee it will work. Life holds no guarantees for any of us. Here’s another case in point: A food distributor found itself frozen out of an emerging market because it could not decide whether or not to invest in re/training part of its sales force. Decision makers in this company could not accept the notion that there is no guaranteed rate of return on investment so they found it easier to accept the status quo. There will be a return but at what level will depend on many factors. Whatever the reasoning, in fairly short order it cost them an entire market. Even if they could eventually make inroads in this market at some future date, the cost clearly would be even greater to do so than if they had invested in the training in the first place.

8. We must make our current ___ (fill in blank with most fitting term such as: software / process / etc.) work. Even assuming what’s in place is flawed, incomplete, or wrong, time is too precious to try to improve the current situation. The attempt would likely be piecemeal and could stretch out to the crack of doom as the saying goes. One good first step is to clarify assumptions and unpack what led to this. Consider the different perspectives that have gone into the original decision: strategic, operational, economic, cultural, etc. Then, make your move-on decisions.

Knowledge Transfer Now to my specific focus: Knowledge Transfer (KT). If it does not happen, there are increasing risks that the organization falls further behind or is further removed from the center of activity / leading edge.



Here’s an instance: A large research council is about to lose most of its experts due to retirement in the next two years. Currently, the upcoming generation of workers pop in and out of offices to get help on the fly. Everyone imagines this will continue. Or if they appreciate the fact that the day will come when the experts will be gone, the thinking is: “We can hire them back as external consultants.” Or “Two years is plenty of time to transfer all that knowledge.” What they forget is that rehiring is very costly. Often, retirees decide to pack it in and to not continue as consultants. Or, retirees go on vacations and are unavailable for long periods at a time. Or, that a mere two years, is the length of time the firm had some six months ago and now only 18 months are actually left – time gets gobbled in status quo mode. Finally, two years is not sufficient time to carry out the following: • prioritize positions for which knowledge needs to be preserved • identify critical knowledge • identify processes for KT to capture, adapt, and transfer for reuse on a consistent basis the work force’s relevant knowledge, information, and most important, experience and insight • build a KT action plan • carry out the KT action plan Failing to take these five steps will be an additional expense as there will be gaps in KT, and duplications at the very least. To compound all this, when and if there is a need for collaboration – internally or externally -- this cannot occur if staff are not aware of their respective capabilities and thus what they are able to do for one another. Add to this the possibility of unevenness. For example, some staff will have strong links with their industry / field; some will have very diverse community they work with; some will have a limited natural user community. KT under these conditions complicates the challenge but it does not take it away.

The deadliest disease It’s been said that often, the deadliest disease afflicting an organization is simple paralysis. Sadly, not enough executives ask themselves one critical question: “Did I make a decision or was my decision to do nothing?” As Roosevelt insightfully noted decades ago, the worst decision is doing nothing.

How to counteract the disease? We need to understand we live in a society in which the expectation of passing along knowledge and leaving a legacy no longer fits well within the cultural values because there are fewer and fewer long-tenured employees who have spent their careers with the same organization. The workforce has evolved so that a greater number of senior-level professionals rather than mid- and junior-level professionals have the greater share of knowledge and experience. This is primarily due to the sheer size of the senior pool relative to the rest of the workforce. Some see this current proportion as a distortion from the ideal. The consequence is that knowledge can rapidly disappear when large numbers of the senior workforce depart within a fairly short time period. Overall, this challenge will lead to a lowered growth capacity, and reduced efficiency in the organization when cross-



generational knowledge transfer (KT) isn’t happening to the degree needed. What is the business case for cross-generational KT? Various studies have documented benefits for the workplace including increases in productivity, speed, agility, profits, and growth plus meeting the challenges of lowered growth capacity and reduced efficiency in the organization -- poor quality, wasted time, and wasted overhead.

All our dreams can come true,

if we have the courage to pursue them.

~ Walt Disney

What others advise about online mentoring

Our page 3 article ("Online Project, 6 thumbs down") profiling the woes of one group’s online mentoring project was completed some months ago. Then curiosity this week prompted a search through archives in one of the larger mentoring websites: Mentoring.org. This was to see what others say about e-mentoring projects and if our recommendations would be similar. While Mentoring.org is not the only source of advice on how to organize a project, it does provide a good start -- for example with a toolkit developed by MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership: How to Build a Successful Mentoring Program” (September 2009). Under the heading “E-Mentoring” in this document are suggestions that those considering an “online project” might consider prior to the launch of their activities. The E-mentoring section starts out by noting: “... set goals that seem achievable....” Further on, recommendation 3 reads: “Make sure your e-mentoring is all technology based. Automate everything from the application to the matching process. Develop a database that works with your e-mentoring software.” Recommendation 8 reads: “Recruit mentors who are technologically savvy and like to work with computers.” The assumption, and a logical one at that, is people need to go online and have access to the internet for an e-mentoring program. Otherwise why put all the time, effort and funding into it? This goes to the heart of our ongoing criticism of uneven North American practices. "E-mentoring" and "online

mentoring" are often no more than a catch-all phrase for a simple exchange of e-mails. It's well known what the

challenges and pitfalls are of e-mails. Too, it's become a fall-back for those who don't reside in the same vicinity and

who might be pressured by time constraints to offer only a couple of hours per year to a relationship that needs more

than that.

Under this same term, however, are much more sophisticated programs that use software and web applications. It's

important to understand that e-mail is but one means of working together and more robust ways of connecting aren't

much more expensive in the long run and can yield far better results.

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