101: Outside mentors
The benefits of mentoring across teams are well documented. But what about bringing in folks from the outside for mentoring your teams as a standard practice? Here are three things to know if you're looking for outside mentors to elevate your employees.
External or agile talent mentors are, by nature, entrepreneurial, which is a good thing, says Jon Younger at Harvard Business Review. “This type of entrepreneurial mindset is extremely helpful and is very often lacking among full-time employees who don't have significant market or competitive contact,” he writes. It may open up new ways of problem solving and collaborations that lead to professional development. And it gives your company another inroad to connections and insight. “We encourage managers and team members to … have the conversation about who is worth getting to know,” writes Younger.
Brainstorm mentor sources. You don't have to necessarily use a mentor firm. Martin Lehman of the apparel industry, a long-time counselor at Service Corps of Retired Engineers (SCORE) suggests seeking out mentors at larger businesses that don't compete with yours. In an article at Inc. magazine, he encouraged companies to “think industry,” and consider suppliers, local chambers of commerce and trade publications as resources for willing mentors.
Get out there with a strong mentor agenda. Seminars, conferences and workshops are great chances to identify outside mentors. “As a keynote speaker delivering over 60 presentations a year, I can assure you … few people actually take time to personally thank a speaker or ask them a follow-up question. You'd also be surprised how memorable this makes you to the speaker,” Jo Miller writes at Mashable.com. She suggests asking if it's OK to follow up with questions on the speaker's area of expertise initially, and if they are willing, building the relationship from there.
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