The Powerful Mentorship Model That Builds Successful Teams
I've lost millions of dollars because I was incompetent in my role.
It's an issue many companies struggle with at the leadership level, big and small. In an All-In podcast, Chamath Palihapitiya said, "We've gone through an entire decade of undertraining an entire generation of people in Silicon Valley."
But it's not just in The Valley.
It's everywhere. It's a problem that permeates every company. According to Chamath,
"We have undertrained and under-mentored the product managers, the engineers, the senior executive management, the CEOs. Many of these people, unfortunately, don't have the skill set to execute at a high level."
Early in my career, I only knew what I knew.
My higher education prepared me for book-related case studies, but in the real world, it was wildly different.
I struggled because I was trying to figure things out on the fly. I was navigating the world with no map and no co-pilot. I didn't have a mentor to help coach and teach me along the way. I was constantly learning, trying, and improving, but the world didn't give an F about me.
It wanted to teach me some hard business lessons — most of them people problems — and it succeeded.
The problem with so many businesses is a lack of mentorship.
Underinvesting in employee mentorship creates massive operational problems.
When teams work without the proper guidance of mentoring and coaching, it creates an atmosphere of weak performance.
Without good role models to follow, employees learn from the enemies of success; incompetent people (likely their manager) who can be all too willing to perpetuate their bad habits upon others.
This "virus of stupidity" quickly spreads through companies like wildfire, costing time, energy, and resources.
It's often not the employee's fault. They didn't have a good guide — a successful mentor to learn from.
Without a coaching culture, everything suffers.
When a salesperson learns how to sell from a weak sales manager, they become weak. When a manager models selfish behavior, they become terrible leaders.
How might this issue be avoided?
How do you create a cohesive team with strong leaders and contributors?
That answer lies in implementing a structured, purposeful mentoring program that ensures everyone has access to good guidance.
The benefits of employee mentors.
After a decade of figuring it out on my own, I hired a successful business owner as my advisor, who became my mentor and transformed me and my businesses.
Everyone deserves a chance to learn from mentors who will help them reach their greatest potential, not hinder their growth with misguided advice. A mentor sets the standard of how to do things. They help coach through issues, share advice on navigating future problems and improve how people think.
Like most, I didn't have a good manager, mentor, or role model.
In fact, if it weren't for my own personal values, I would have been taught very selfish traits that rewarded my success at the expense of others. I had to learn on the go.
Mentors help keep people focused on what matters.
They coach you on the best way to do things from their vast experiences. They embody values that are worth modeling. They keep teams focused on the company's vision, mission, and values.
Once I hired a coach to keep me accountable to my priorities and focus on the things that mattered, progress began to increase rapidly.
Mentors become models worth modeling.
But that doesn't mean these guides know everything and have the exact path to follow. People can still have their own unique traits and come up with brilliant ideas.
Yet, a mentor helps sharpen those strengths, not inhibit them.
They're also incredible models for life.
They're loving fathers, strong mothers, value-creating sales professionals, and much more.
Great mentors and models are needed in every life domain.
Who needs mentors?
But investing precious mentoring in the wrong people wastes time and frustrates mentors.
Companies can't just pair anyone with a mentor. They have to prove in some way they're worth mentoring. The four dimensions of employee growth are a great way to understand who to mentor.
These are the team members that need great models to learn from:
1/ New hires
Establishing the right models early in the employee's tenure at a company sets them up for quicker development and success.
In the beginning, this might be a highly competent direct manager, but over time this needs to grow beyond just their team.
2/ Role players
These people are highly competent in their roles and have no desire to grow.
They like what they do, and they don't get bored. But they also deserve a mentor when and as needed.
3/ Grow players
Stars are employees with high desire and high competency.
These team members don't want to feel stagnant. They want to grow. They might feel uncomfortable in the moment, as they're being stretched, but they love the finish line.
Companies must develop and invest in these people.
The Mentorship Model
If any team is going to thrive, they need to learn from the best.
They need to expose themselves to Subject Matter Experts in their area of expertise but also other areas to broaden their knowledge base.
Here's how it works:
Step 1: Hirer / Grow compassionate leaders.
Without great leaders, you can't have great mentors.
Everything starts with building an incredible leadership team.
Step 2: Identify employees who need mentorship.
These are the new hires, role players, and grow players discussed earlier.
Invest in the people who will put the investment of time and money to good use.
Step 3: Assign company mentors (not their direct managers).
Direct managers can serve as mentors, but it's better to develop mentorship outside of the day-to-day activities which management requires.
Instead, find mentors several steps ahead and in different roles so employees are exposed to knowledge that's harder to access in their current positions.
Step 4: Schedule regular conversations with company Subject Matter Experts.
A mentor is useless if their knowledge isn't being dripped into other people's minds.
It's also not conducive to add more work to the mentor's schedule. So make it easy to schedule, but make sure mentorships conversations are happening regularly.
It can be as simple as scheduling a regular meeting on the mentor and mentees calendar with the purpose of the meeting and a loose agenda.
Step 5: Schedule ongoing cross-training.
Team members don't just need mentorship; they need a better understanding of how all the pieces work together.
An example is my sales team can have incredible skills, but if they don't have business acumen, financial knowledge, and a lack of understanding about supply chain and logistics, all they'll be is transactional inventory pushers.
Cross-training builds well-rounded institutional knowledge:
Step 6: Trap institutional knowledge.
Leadership must develop simple systems to ensure critical information is trapped inside the company.
This happens by:
Retaining the best people
Mentoring future leaders
Constantly updating Standard Operating Procedures and best practices
Recording all training and coaching sessions for future use
Developing an FAQ log
Step 7: Assign quarterly skill development.
People need to regularly develop their skills to make good future mentors.
This all happens as an employee follows the circle of knowledge:
Novice (to the company) -> Trained -> Mentee -> Skilled -> Executer -> Mentor
They must establish quarterly skill development that will fuel the company, team, and personal goals.
A great mentorship model reduces a lot of risk for a company and creates immense opportunities for people willing to learn and grow.
Invest in your mentorship model.
