TERM PAPER OF MGT 512

TOPIC:-Reverse Mentoring:
A way to excellence

Submitted To
Miss Chanjyot Kaur
Submitted By

Lucky Thakur
B.tech MBA ECE
(Hons.)
Roll no. RA67B1A28
 Regd no.
7460070066

INDEX:

1. Acknowledgement
2. Mentoring
a. Types
b. Why Mentoring
3. Reverse Mentoring
a. Introduction
b. Benefits
c. Requirements
d. Limitations
e. Methodology
 Acknowledgement
First and foremost I thank my teacher Miss Chanjyot kaur who has assigned
me this term paper to bring out my creative capabilities.
I would like to acknowledge the assistance provided to me by the library
staff of Lovely Professional University, Phagwara.
My heartfelt gratitude to my friends,roommates etc. for helping me to
complete my work in time.
 Mentoring:
Introduction
Mentoring is derived from a Greek word meaning long term, permanent. It's a relationship
between an adult, experienced, a learned, role model, or mentor, to the protégés to offer
support guidance and assistance as he undergoes difficult situations, faces new challenges
or new work. A mentor has knowledge and experience in an area and shares it with the
person being mentored.

Build incredible project teams by mentoring. Develop a mentoring approach that enhances
project team results or improves individual performance. Practice mentoring skills of
teaching, coaching, and counseling. Identify the project leader core competencies
underlying the desired performance. Increase the eleven core competencies in the practice
of project leadership. Recognize and diagnose project management performance for
project teams and individuals. Locate the performance variance within the project process,
resource control, metrics, leadership, or in results. Mentoring offers an alternative way to
grow project management skills. Over a year, we enhance specific project management
skills of all people in a targeted organization. At the same time, we grow mentoring skills
of a group of six to eight individuals. The mentoring skills include helping individuals,
project teams, and the organization. Bi-monthly half-day workshops train the mentors and
improve project management skill sets. We leave the mentors with the responsibility to
continue enhancing project management performance.

MENTORING:
"Mentoring is to support and encourage
people to manage their own learning in order
that they may maximise their potential,
develop their skills, improve their
performance and become the person they want
to be."
Types of Mentoring
1.Natural mentoring - Natural mentoring occurs through friendship, collegiality,
teaching, coaching, and counseling

2. Planned mentoring -Planned mentoring occurs through structured programs in

which mentors and protégées are selected and matched through formal processes.

Why Mentoring
Mentoring can be considered as important for career-building. Mentors can help new
managers to learn the processes in complex organizations. They provide them the
guidance as to how to tackle the problems that come on their way while performing
and supports protégés during times of personal or social stress and provides guidance
for decision making..

Mentors help in the development of the careers of protégés, while providing them the
critical points, strategies and guidelines. This helps the protégés to go higher in the
ladder of success and helps the mentors to build up their own position and rapport in
the organization.

Mentoring programs helps in serving the three broad purposes:

• Educational or academic mentoring -- helps protégés in improving their

academics.
• Career mentoring -- helps protégés in developing the necessary skills to enter
into career or to continue on a career path.
• Personal development mentoring -- supports protégés during times of personal
growth and development and in stressful situation and provides guidance for
decision making.

The roles of the mentor vary, depending upon the student's level of experience and
competency:

1. Novice - The mentor is a naive participant with little or no context for understanding
the learning activities. In this case the protégées take the opportunity to do the ground
work, research, make network and develop strategies which are shared with the mentor for
the instructions. The mentors gains the basic understanding of the knowledge of the
protégés, what the protégés knows and what he doesn't know.

2. Experienced – The protégés with some experience should be entrusted with more
responsibility for contributing constructively for the organization. The mentor watches the
work efforts and keeps a track on the learning needs of the protégés. He evaluates the
protégés knowledge and list down the areas of weakness.

3. The Accomplish Person – The protégé has capability but can still be further refined
and developed with additional mentoring. The role of the mentor is more passive. The
mentor can guide the protégé by probing and playing the role of a curious friend,
identifying what has been missed and what has to be enhanced.

There are certain qualities of a mentor which makes him to gain reputation and
makes him effective:

1. The good mentor is committed to the role of mentoring.

2. The good mentor is a model of continuous learning
3. The good mentor is accepting of the beginning teacher.
4. The good mentor communicates hope and optimism.

Mentors:
Mentoring skills for this program include: teaching, coaching, counseling, sponsoring, and
facilitating. Mentoring improves existing or embryonic knowledge, skills, or attitudes.
Mentoring is not installing new or different knowledge or skills.
Mentors will be able to: mentor individuals, mentor project teams, and mentor the project
organization. The mentors would be able to analyze projects, project processes, project
management processes, and project management skills for opportunities to improve
project delivery.

Tips for Mentoring Excellence

Mentoring Tip 1

Long distance mentoring communication often gets accomplished in sound bites – a quick
email, a fax, or very short conversation. At other points, longer conversations or
exchanges take place. Knowing which to use and when is advantageous. It is also
important to monitor communication that takes place. Do you. . .

 Actively listen?
 Checkout assumptions about what is going on periodically?
  Share thoughts and feelings authentically?
 Maintain sensitivity about mentee's personal and learning needs?
 Discuss accountability and follow up regularly?
 Reflect on the learning taking place?

Focus on mentee learning goals?

Mentoring Tip 2

Establishing a meaningful human connection and building the relationship are the
foundation for building effective long distance mentoring partnerships. Seven tips for
success:

 Invest time and effort in setting a climate for learning.

 Be sensitive to the day to day needs of your mentee.
 Identify and use multiple venues for communication.
 Set a regular contact schedule but be flexible.
 Check frequently on the effectiveness of communication.
 Make sure that communication results in meaningful learning.

Share information and resources - but never as a substitute for personal interaction

Mentoring Tip 3

The heart of the mentoring relationship is the learning that takes place during the course of
the relationship. Keeping a journal or log is one way to add depth to your learning.

 Set aside time regularly to write about your experiences. As you describe your
learning, consider what happened and what was really going on.
 Don't get bogged down in detail. Capture a brief description and note some
specifics, enough so that when you review this later on, you will be able to recall
this learning experience clearly. Note your feelings at the time. That is, how were
you reacting and feeling at the time?
 Remember that whatever it is that you experience or stimulates your thinking will
help you better understand your own behavior. Note these mental machinations
along with frustrations, learnings, curiosities, and "magic moments."

If you get stuck write anything even if it is that you have no thoughts. Reflect on why that
is so at this particular time. You may find that all you needed was a starting point and the
rest will follow.

Mentoring Tip 4
The old year is out and the new year is in. You've completed last year's mentoring
relationship and evaluated what it is you've learned from it. Now is the perfect time to
formulate learning goals for your own development. Consider the area do you want to
target for your own development. Who will be your learning partner on your 2001
mentoring odyssey?

Mentoring Tip 5

Some mentoring partnerships end with successful completion of learning goals. Some do
not for a host of reasons. Even unproductive or unsatisfactory mentoring relationships can
benefit from having a good closure experience. The key to successful closure is being
prepared with an exit strategy. A good exit strategy has five components:

 A learning conclusion (processing of the learning that went on in the relationship

while working toward achievement of learning goals)
 A process for integrating what was learned (a conversation focusing on how to
apply the learning and taking it to the next level)
 A meaningful way of celebrating success (collaboratively planning a mutually
satisfying way to celebrate successful achievement of goals, or a particular
accomplishment)
 A conversation focusing on redefining the relationship (talking about how the
relationship is to continue, whether it moves from professional mentoring
relationship to colleague, friendship, or ceases to exist at all)

Mentoring Tip 6

The kind of mentoring relationship you select should be guided in part by knowledge of
how you learn best. Before choosing a mentor, consider group mentoring. If you thrive on
having multiple opportunities for learning simultaneously, you may want to establish a
personal board of directors for yourself. If a one-to-one mentoring relationship is more
compatible with your style, there are also multiple options to consider in addition to the
traditional mentoring relationship - for example, peer mentoring and reverse mentoring.

Mentoring Tip 7

Mentoring provides benefits for mentors as well as mentees. It can expand your energy,
stimulate more informed action, result in more job satisfaction and carry over into your
personal and professional relationships. Before you begin take time to assess your skills.
What development areas might you need to work on? Use mentoring as an opportunity to
develop your skill repertoire. Find a mentoring partner who can challenge your thinking,
ask tough questions, and listen well.

Mentoring Tip 8
Mentoring requires no less than careful preparation of the mentoring partners. When self-
preparation is ignored, more often than not, the results are dissatisfaction with the outcome
or derailment of the relationship. To get your relationship to a good start, you will want to:

 Reflect on your purpose.

 Be clear about your own goals and objectives.
 Consider what it is you are willing to contribute to the relationship.
 Be willing to candidly share your needs, expectations and limits.
 Identify the characteristics you are looking for in a mentor or protégé.
 Gauge interest and compatibility.
 Continuously work at establishing, building and maintaining a relationship

Reverse Mentoring:
Introduction:
This role reversal is being labeled “reverse mentoring.” Twenty-somethings are finding
that when they introduce a boss to valuable career tools through reverse mentoring, they
often gain a career counselor in return. “Reverse mentoring is a fabulous tool for helping a
manager or leader learn how younger people are using technology or experiencing a
company, and for the younger person to see what is possible for their future,” says Dr.
Lois Zachary, president of Phoenix-based Leadership Development Services and author of
Creating a Mentoring Culture. Having studied various forms of mentoring, Zachary has
found “reverse mentoring is most commonly seen in those companies that make the
biggest investment in their employees and encourage an open flow of ideas between all
levels of the organization.” Although this concept isn’t new, the recent boom of
personalized and integrated technologies sparked a resurgence of the trend. “We’re going
to see this mentoring format continue to grow,” says Paul Hagner, associate program
director for the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. Hagner set up a formal reverse
mentoring program at the University of Hartford five years ago that is still expanding and
evolving. Like many reverse-mentoring programs around the country, Hartford’s serves as
a cost-effective way to improve a staff’s technology skills. Michele Troy,
an assistant professor of technology, learned how to infuse radio essays into her class
curriculum with a student’s help through Hartford’s program. Students later told her that
using technology caused them to put more effort and time into assignments. “There’s no
way I could have done this on my own,” Troy says. Junior employees may not realize how
grateful co-workers are when they receive help with technology snafus, or how much they
can get in return for serving as a mentor for someone older. First-year teacher Lauren
Murphy serves as an unofficial technology troubleshooter at her west suburban middle
school where most of her colleagues are already tenured. “I’m learning so much from
everyone around me that I hadn’t even realized they were learning from me as well,” she
says. Murphy cautions against letting the new position of authority go to your head.
“Never let your ego get ahead of you,” she says. “You have to remember your place. Just
because you’re the mentor in this situation, you don’t want to make someone
uncomfortable and lose the opportunity to gain a mentor back.” Stransky understood that
thinking. “I had to make sure I wasn’t overstepping my boundaries,” he says. “It can be an
awkward position to teach someone who has 20 years of experience on you that you really
respect. You have to be sure you approach it comfortably, but respectfully.

Reverse-mentoring relationships traditionally focus on technology issues, especially in

formal programs like Hartford’s or the program at the University of Pennsylvania’s
Wharton School. Wharton’s program pairs the school’s MBA students with business
leaders from around the country. Although the program originally focused on expanding
executives’ understanding of technology, the program has since developed into a way for
executives to learn about connecting with a younger generation. “We have changed the
program dramatically because mentoring itself is constantly evolving,” says Dr. Jerry
Wind, academic director and founder of the Wharton Fellow Program. Reverse mentoring
can also involve discussions providing insight into how younger employees like to be
managed or how an organization and its policies are viewed by young people.

REVERSE MENTORING:
The concept of a senior person learning new & latest concepts from a fairly young &
junior person is REVERSE MENTORING
While traditional mentoring focuses on passing knowledge from professional to up-and-
coming stars, Reverse Mentoring feeds expertise up the corporate world.

Thus under Reverse Mentoring, “a younger or less experienced Executive helps a more
senior manager gain insight into areas, such as computers and changing IT technology,
changing mindsets & expectations of the younger generation, new business concepts,
thinking out of the box etc.”

WHY PARTICIPATE IN REVERSE MENTORING

WHAT IT DOES FOR

Seniors or Mentees “ The reverse mentoring sessions are extra-ordinarily valuable. They
have made us a better leader and more in touch with today’s workplace” says a senior
executive from GE.

BENEFITS:
• Improves decision making as it brings a lot of associated inputs in terms of feeling of
employees, new development around the industry, best practices etc. and create more
tightly knit relationship with juniors. So it serves as an element of Decision Support
System.
• Reverse mentoring helps senior executives learn new areas as computers, technology,
culture and other highly focused technical areas.
• Senior employees learn new skills and competencies that boost their job performance
and motivate them to work better.
• It is a part of natural evolution of learning as business in the digital age requires more
than a pulse and a briefcase.
→Subordinates or Mentors
“Having a direct line of communication with the senior executive is invaluable” which is
the most important feature of this relationship.
• It opens a direct opportunity to gain a great deal of confidence.
• It helps in gaining insights and wisdom that could otherwise take years to obtain.
• It is a tool for opening the channels of communication and knowledge sharing.
• It helps junior employees face critical situations along with the seniors which otherwise
would have not faced being young & junior. There is no substitute to experience. The
young ones greatly benefit from the treasure of experience of seniors and their calm and
poise.

→In Organization
Reverse mentoring is very beneficial for organizations whether it is done formally or
informally. It attracts the many possible gains-
• Increased level of expertise and productivity by providing assistance, guidance &
informal skill for the mentees.
• Reduced turnover and Increase in Loyalty.
• 1-to-1 relationship acquired helps foster a feeling of caring and support through testing
times.
• Development of managerial talent. A young employee can provide skills and knowledge
about new technologies which normally would not be provided to the mentee or if
provided it would be very expensive and time consuming.
• Increase the mentor’s skill of communication, problem solving and resource
management which could be beneficial to the organization in the long run.
• Saves time and money spent on training activities.
• Helps seniors to understand the aspirations and feeling of young ones and culture fitness
in the organization. It proves beneficial in many staffing decisions such as hiring,
induction, training, placement etc.
• It also facilitates resourcing the energy and enthusiasm of the young ones in the
organization and having perfect fusion of their individual goals with those of the
organization’s.

HOW TO MAKE REVERSE MENTORING:

Principles behind Reverse Mentoring
Setting up a successful Reverse Mentoring program requires a great deal of effort and
planning. Without a solid foundation, it is likely to encounter more than a few bumps and
participants are likely to receive plenty of mental bruises. As the relationship involved is a
very delicate one.

5 Step Reverse Mentoring program-

1- Developing a structured program: Either, assign mentoring pairs or, let participants find
mentors/mentees they feel they will be comfortable with. What’s important is to develop a
set of goals, objectives and ground rules.
2- Make the program a priority: Participants must understand the importance of a reverse
mentoring program and block time which mentors & mentees would spend with each
other so that seniors do not miss those sessions due to their busy schedule.
3- Screen the members: Being young doesn’t automatically make a person an authority on
what’s “COOL”. Mentors must have patience and temperament to work with senior
executives as the seniors may be reluctant to open up with someone so junior.
4- Provide proper training: Mentor must learn what’s important and how to show patience
and the mentee has to check his or her ego at the door, otherwise the whole reverse
mentoring program may fall.
5- Solicit feedback and make necessary changes: Reverse mentoring can require
CORRECTION. By surveying participants it’s possible to identify strengths and
weaknesses and make the adjustment necessary to achieve success.

What is required for Successful Reverse Mentoring?

Both, the mentor and the mentees , must have certain qualities and attributes. Both the
parties have their share of responsibilities which when fulfilled can make a reverse
mentoring program successful. Following are the must have qualities for a mentor and his
partner in a Reverse Mentoring Program:-

GOOD MENTORS
• Listen and Understand
• Challenge and Stimulate learning
• Teach by example
• Introduce to new technologies
• Patient
• Restricted advice

GOOD MENTEES
• Listen
• Act on advice
• Show commitment
• Ask for feedback
• Open-minded
• Willing to change
• Act pro-actively

By developing these qualities the success of the reverse mentoring program can be
ensured. But it requires a lot of motivation as both the parties must understand the
importance of implementing this program.
Junior executives must understand that senior executives are much more wise and
experienced and this program should maintain the ego of the senior executives intact.

Most Important Key for Successful Implementation of

Reverse Mentoring
It includes:-
• Training the mentor to be patient and restricting his or her advice to relevant topics only.
• Privacy and confidentiality are also important for senior’s who don’t wish to be seen as
depending on the TIPS from the employees with less experience.

Limitations of Reverse Mentoring

“The idea of reverse mentoring is good, but should be used Judiciously”
• Senior executives may not like taking advice from executives who are juniors to them.
• It is not present formally, therefore, little Reverse Mentoring is found in organizations.
• Reverse Mentoring programs may wither if they lack clear and adequate goals.
• If not handled properly it can ruin the work atmosphere and discipline in the
organization.

METHODOLOGY:
To better understand my topic I studied the following case.
From this I will got the idea about my topic:
From Teacher to Student
All my ministry training implied that the major compensation for growing old in this
calling was the fact that I finally got to be in charge. In one sense that happened: the Baby
Boomers—my tribe—now represent about 60 percent of American senior pastors. It is our
watch, our time to be the experts and the authority figures. But authorities on what?
Things are changing so quickly that some futurists estimate a typical member of the 21st
century workforce will need to accumulate knowledge roughly equivalent to a Masters
degree every seven years just to keep up. Similarly, the instincts that made us effective in
pWorld and eWorld settings may have little to do with how the natives of iWorld and
xWorld hear the gospel. A 20-year-old who thinks in the visual terms of YouTube videos
may be unimpressed with the sermon outlines that impressed pWorld audiences.
The corporate world recognized years ago that its leaders were slowly losing touch both
with technology and the markets they wanted to reach. Former General Electric CEO Jack
Welch noted that "e-business knowledge is generally inversely proportional to both age
and rank in the organization." The solution of companies like GE and Proctor and Gamble
was not to fire these seasoned professionals but to pair them with much younger
employees who could instruct them on the customs of the new worlds.
Welch implemented this strategy by assigning 1,000 GE executives to 1,000 younger
workers not as their mentors, but as their mentees.
The corporate example parallels the experience of the American church in some important
ways. Middle-aged leaders like me naturally tend to drift away from the front edge of the
culture we want to reach, because we are simply citizens of another time.
In private, many Christian leaders have confessed to me how obsolete they feel. It's as if
someone changed all the rules without telling them. When they look over the crowd on
Sunday morning, they may see a lot of people, but the absence of the younger ones—and
the lost ones—haunts them.

Reverse mentoring offers a way to reconnect ministry with culture and subcultures for
several specific reasons:

1. It will break me. The first time I go to a much younger person and say the four dreaded
words, "I don't get it," something inside me changes. This exercise, which I think of as a
spiritual discipline, is both the cause and the effect of a kind of humility that serves
Christian leaders well (see 1 Peter 5:5-6). The sense of entitlement that comes with
thinking of ourselves as an authority figure can put us on a trajectory to irrelevance.
Being tutored by someone like Jody is a powerful therapy for this affliction. I still
remember the laughter that erupted when I asked a group of young pastors why they
would want to send text messages. God used them to humble me as they taught what was
so natural for them. Reverse-mentoring relationships can offer an opportunity to practice a
lifelong discipline of cultivated humility.

2. It will change me. The young are ready to teach us much more than how to repair
broken MP3 players. Technology is only an example of the kind of influence they can
have. In fact, they may not know how much they know until our questions begin to bring
it out of them.
I frequently ask young adults what kind of music they like. These days their response is
often, "I like everything." When I press for details they describe an iPod packed with the
two or three best songs by a variety of artists. These choices could be dismissed as just the
result of having an iPod. But further inquiry reveals that they have a "highlight reel" view
of life that assumes the ability to skim off the best and leave the rest.

3. It will energize me. Being the student of younger leaders has been the best and happiest
part of my ministry over the last half decade. They have proven themselves to be
available, honest and respectful. In fact, the more ignorance I confess, the more respectful
they become, because they have seen so few older leaders willing to admit any type of
need. Involvement in this form of relationship often leads to mutual mentoring. In fact, I
have done more conventional mentoring out of reverse mentoring than any other way.
References:
http://www.leadservs.com/mentoringtips.htm