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1 REVERSE MENTORING A Theoretical structure Mrs. KAMARUNIZA.A, Assistant Professor, Dept of Commerce, Shri Krishnaswamy College for Women, Anna Nagar, Chennai 40 Abstract: Reverse mentoring is an innovative way to encourage learning and facilitate relationships among employees. It involves the pairing of a younger, junior employee acting as mentor to share expertise with an older, senior colleague as mentee. The purpose is knowledge sharing, with the mentee focused on learning from the mentor s updated subject or technological expertise and generational perspective. In addition, there is an emphasis on the leadership development of then mentors. Reverse Mentoring, if committed to, can be such a powerful talent attraction tool, employee engagement tool and employer brand proposition. This article identifies the characteristics, functions, need, and outcomes of reverse mentoring relationships and suggests key considerations in creating a reverse mentoring program. Introduction: In the reverse mentoring situation, the mentee has more overall experience (typically as a result of age) than the mentor (who is typically younger), but the mentor has more knowledge in a particular area, and as such, reverses the typical constellation. Examples are when young internet or mobile savvy Millennial Generation teens train executives in using their high end Smart Phones. They in turn sometimes offer insight in business processes. The good news is that reverse or reciprocal mentoring can take place within existing company mentoring programs. It doesn t require a lot in the way of new processes, just the ability to match up employees of different generations and then encourage each team to meet regularly to exchange ideas and challenge each other. Mentoring relationships shouldn t be restricted to people of 104

2 the same gender or who have similar backgrounds because there s much we can learn from people who are different from ourselves! This approach shifts the responsibility for organizing mentoring to line employees, who learn from senior executives by mentoring them. A Millennial is matched to an executive and assigned to teach him or her how to, say, use social media to connect with customers. It s an effective way to give junior employees a window into the higher levels of the organization, so that when the mentees retire, the younger generation has a better understanding of the business. Reverse mentoring is an innovative tool for organizations looking to foster cross generational learning and to develop their current and future leaders. Although it seems odd, reverse mentorship can be quite beneficial for your established business. You can learn a great deal from a young professional. You can also teach the young professional at the same time. Your business can gain efficiency and more customers from you using the advice a young professional has to offer. You can also regain the love you once had when your business first opened its doors. So, if you feel as if your business could do better, see if a reverse mentorship will work for you. Objective of the study: To study the concept and need of Reverse Mentoring. To identify the outcome or implications of Reverse Mentoring. Theoretical Background: Historically the word mentorship has its roots as far back as the guru-discipline tradition the of the eager to learn discipline sitting at the feet of the older, more experienced guru, listening to every word and obeying the teaching of the guru. Reverse mentoring uses a different approach where younger, often less experience mentor, give advice to older individual. The assumption is that the older you are, the wiser you are. That is not so! Eg. Reverse Mentoring was championed by Jack Welch Former CEO, who ordered 500 executives to pair themselves up with a 105

3 younger employee, who would teach them to surf the internet, which, at the time would have been a fear for many older executives. Alan Webber, the co-founder of Fast Company explains reverse mentoring: Its a situation where the old fogies in an organization realize that by the time you re in your forties and fifties, you re not in touch with the future the same way the young twenty-something s. They come with fresh eyes, open minds, and instant links to the technology of our future. Florian Schäfer from The Hartford for one of our publications, and Florian mentioned one of the best things about The Hartford s corporate culture is its Reverse Mentorship Program. According to Schäfer, the program connects highpotential, tech-savvy millennials with executives to mentor them on emerging technologies and social media. Need for Reverse Mentoring: Figure 1 BRIDGING GAP BETWEEN BOOMERS AND MILLLENIALS KEEP BOOMERS ENGAGED AND MILLENIALS ENGAGED BROADER SOURCES OF INFORMATION NEED FOR REVERSE MENTORING Advantages of Reverse Mentoring: Closes the knowledge gap for both parties: For example, older employees learn social media from the younger person and the younger person learns business terminology and industry practices from the older employee. Brings different employee generations closer together: As Alexa Scordato, a reverse mentoring devotee states, We need to think about reverse mentorship and 106

4 pairing young people with seasoned executives. We need to stop thinking about it as an us versus them conversation. It s a two-way street. Technology: Technology changes on almost a daily basis. Businesses invest in new forms of technology to make their processes more efficient. Although using the same methods to offer your product or service may be convenient for you, your customer and clients may suffer. By entering a reverse mentorship, you will be able to learn how to utilize new technology for the benefit of your business. Young professionals usually keep up with technical changes in their industry. They can teach you the ins and outs of different computer programs and the like so you can keep pace with the competition. Get Motivated Again: After years of doing the same thing, you can sometimes become bored operating your business in your comfort zone. The desire that you initially had when you opened your business may begin to dwindle. Having a reverse mentor can help to motivate you again. Brainstorming to come up with new ideas and working with new technology will get you excited for continuing your business. You can also gain motivation from sharing your business experience with the reverse mentor. Teaching someone what you know can help you remember why you got into business in the first place. Find New Customers :You may be content attracting the same customers that you always had, but there are many more people out there that may need your business. The reverse mentor can help you to target a market segment that you may be neglecting. Young professionals came up in a very diverse environment, with people from all walks of life. They know what s popular and understand the mindsets of those in their peer group. Use their experience to help you grow your customer base. For the success of Reverse Mentoring: With good leaders acting as mentors, the mentees - mostly team members, reportee or a colleague - get to learn new technology, a new process in the organization structure, a new and innovative way to handle customers or close a sale. An organization that fosters a good mentoring culture and environment attracts talent 107

5 that prefers to learn by the day, innovate, contribute and grow in the rungs. With mentoring having been around for a while, and widely accepted at the personal and organizational level, the benefits are there to see for all. According to Alexia Vernon, President of Catalyst for Action, a leadership development company, for a reverse mentoring relationship to be beneficial, several factors must be in place: Defined expectations: Each party needs to be very clear on their expectations. The HR/OD team works and gets a buy in for institutionalizing reverse mentoring in the overall scheme of things. Agreed upon rules: Each party must be fully committed to the mentoring relationship and agree upon the rules that will be followed. The team also gets a 'reverse mentoring' manual done, so that, when circulated, the manual makes clear what the process is, what the intent is, how everyone in the team, and in turn the organization can benefit. Willingness to learn: In a reverse mentoring relationship, both parties act in the capacity of a mentor as well as a mentee; so they must both genuinely want to learn from and share with the other. Trust: Reverse mentoring requires the trust of each party. The goal is to push one another outside of their comfort zones and try new ways of thinking, working and being. Transparency: Both parties must be open with their feelings and with what they are thinking. They must be able to overcome differences in communication style (since 108

6 different generations communicate differently) and be open to seeing situations from different angles. Outcome of Reverse Mentoring: A successful reverse mentoring program offers several benefits for individuals learning and professional development. Many of these positive proximal outcomes have been discussed throughout this article. The positive distal outcomes for organizations that extend from individual participants are numerous. For organizations, reverse mentoring is an innovative tool for talent management, recruiting and retention, improving social equity and diversity, bridging technology gaps among employees, understanding trends and customers, and driving innovation. In addition, the individual learning of participants may extend to organizational learning and promote a culture of continuous learning. Mentor Outcomes: For mentors, the primary benefit of participating in a reverse Mentoring relationship is their own leadership development and the experience of managing a professional mentoring relationship. Through interactions with seasoned executives, young professionals gain organizational knowledge, such as insight into the leadership hierarchy of the organization and learning how to navigate and get work done in the organization. They get access to a wealth of experience for his/ her own personal development picking up the mentee s brains. Valuable insights on the virtual world, which is becoming increasingly relevant for the business. Venture into unexplored territory something that he/she may not be doing in the routine job. Mentees Outcomes: For mentees, the primary benefit of participating in a reverse mentoring relationship is the opportunity to learn the newest content knowledge or technical skills and gain 109

7 exposure to the perspective of new organizational entrants. Through one-on-one interactions with millennial mentors, mentees also hone leadership skills through an increased ability to understand and communicate across generations in the workplace. They understand the preference, likes and dislikes of the youth segment. Engage the team better by understanding their needs and desires acquainted with technology, social media, trends etc. Figure 2: REVERSE MENTORING RELATIONSHIPS OUTCOME MENTOR OUTCOME LEADERSHIP ORGANISATION DEVELOPMENT DIRECT EXPOSURE PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP SOCIAL CAPABILITY MENTEES OUTCOME TECHNICAL OUTCOME DIRECT EXPOSURE RELATIONAL LEARNING SOCIAL CAPITAL ORGANISATIO NAL OUTCOME TALENT MANAGEMENT RECURITMENT AND SELECTION SOCIAL EQUITY AND DIVEORSITY TECHNICAL GAPS UNDERSTANDING TREND AND CUSTOMER INNOVATION ORGANISATION LEARNING Organizational Outcomes 1. Talent Management: While organizations may use a variety of tools to identify highpotential employees including performance appraisal, personality instruments, cognitive ability measures, competency ratings, or situational judgment inventories, the reliance on such assessments for leadership development is still relatively rare (Konczak & Foster, 2009). Instead, organizations tend to rely on the subjective judgment of higher-level managers to identify future leadership talent. Reverse mentoring increases the frequency and quality of interaction that these high-level managers have with young employees, which should improve the accuracy and reliability of subjective assessments. 2. Recruiting and Retention: Reverse mentoring is one of several tools for organizations who provide developmental opportunities as a strategy for recruiting and retaining talent. In particular, millennial employees want personalized opportunities to contribute in the workplace and to feel that their ideas are being heard (Meister & Willyerd, 2010; Twenge, 2006). As one millennial mentor 110

8 explained, When you work in a large corporation and you re one of the younger individuals, it s nice that people see value inyour capabilities and they come to you and you have a feeling of expertise and knowledge (Cohen, 2003). 3. Social Equity and Diversity: As a formal initiative, reverse mentoring has the potential to enhance the access of young women and minorities to individuals in powerful organizational positions (Harvey et al., 2009). Informally, traditional mentors tend to select mentees who are viewed as younger versions of themselves, and to the perspective of new organizational en mentees select mentors who are role models (Ragins & Cotton, 1999). Research indicates that individuals tend to choose same-sex or same-race role models or career referents (Gibson & Lawrence, 2010). 4. Bridging Technology Gaps: Millennials have been characterized as technologically sophisticated with a strong preference for multitasking (Sacks, 2006; Twenge, 2006). Since technology is so salient to this group, reverse mentoring will likely involve some discussion of technology. Both individuals and employers increasingly use online social media, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook (Zeidler, 2009) for multiple purposes, such as sharing information, networking, keeping in touch, and entertainment, among others. 5. Understanding Trends and Customers : In the process of reverse mentoring relationships, senior members of the organization are exposed to the worldviews and desires of their younger colleagues. Recent college graduates and young professionals tend to be highly conscious of new trends and part of the target market for early adoption of new products. For example, at Bharti Airtel, India s largest cellular services company, reverse mentoring is being used to help high level managers understand the demands of young cell phone users (Rai, 2009). The advantage of reverse mentoring is that while mentee needs dictate the topics that are addressed, ment ors drive the agenda in terms of the material covered. 6. Driving Innovation: In reverse mentoring relationships, mentees and mentors serve as sounding boards for one another s ideas. Since participants are not directly 111

9 evaluating one another in terms of performance, the capacity to openly brainstorm should be encouraged. This unique dynamic has the potential to engage both participants in a creative process that generates new approaches to problem identification, research efforts (data collection and analysis), solution generation, and implementation (cf. Zhang & Bartol, 2010). Thus, bringing together millennial mentors, who tend to be entrepreneurial and have a fresh perspective on products, services, and organizational processes, with baby boomer mentees, who understand how to get things done in the organization, creates new opportunities for driving innovation. The key is to tap into the creativity of mentors as newcomers before they get socialized into the organizations old ways of thinking (i.e., old mental models) (Rollag, Parise, & Cross, 2005). 7. Organizational Learning: Individual learning is transferred to the organization through mental models (Kim, 199 ). Mental models are defined as the images, assumptions, and stories which we carry in our minds of ourselves, other people, institutions, and every aspect of the world (Senge, Kleiner, Roberts, Ross & Smith, 1994). Mental models are usually tacit, affecting what we see and how we behave (Senge et al., 1994). Because reverse mentoring challenges participants to learn outside their typical roles, they may be more open to new interpretations or changing and revising their mental models. Conclusion: Reverse mentoring programs pair younger, junior employees as mentors with older, senior colleagues as mentees to share knowledge. The objectives of these relationships are learning and leadership development. Since much of our knowledge and experience is filtered through a generational lens (Twenge, 2006), reverse mentoring relationships also expose participants to different generational perspectives and build on the strengths of participants. The Chinese verb to listen has four components Ears, Eyes, Undivided attention and Our hearts. Older 112

10 executives, groomed to be bottom line driven, often profile out as being highly task oriented and poor as mediocre in people development. Many parents share with us that children born since 1970 appear to be smarter with greater people skills. Therefore executives with open ears and minds can learn new people management skills from these young mentees, especially in the area of listening. Bibliography: RM21489.pdf Reverse Mentoring - A Vital Employee Engagement and a Great Employer Branding Tool - By Muralidharan Dhanapalan 113