By Elizabeth Bonner

“Learning is experience. Everything else is information.” ~Albert Einstein

This quote from Einstein makes me reflect on those high school and university graduates venturing out into the world with a solid foundation of knowledge and the will to apply it. On a personal note, it takes me back in time and reminds me of the great mentors who lent their time and energies to my own development; in so many ways, my ‘true learning’ came from those experiences more than the knowledge itself.

In my role with BC HRMA’s Professional Mentoring Program (PMP), this serves as a backdrop whenever I consider what contributes to the successes of our program’s participants – for mentor and mentee alike.

So I ask…what makes a great mentor? What defines success?

In his book on organizational leadership, Good to Great, Jim Collins and his team of researchers reviewed close to 6,000 articles on successful businesses to determine what the elements of success were. In his summary he identified tiered leadership as one of the principles, with level 5 being the top. Collins states:

“My hypothesis is that there are two categories of people: those who have the seed of level 5 and those who do not. The first category consists of people who could never in a million years bring themselves to subjugate their egotistic needs to the greater ambition of building something larger and more lasting than themselves. The second category…consists of those who have potential to evolve to Level 5…the capacity resides within them – self-reflection, conscious personal development, a mentor, a great teacher, a Level 5 boss…they begin to develop.” 1

I believe that we are well on our way to moving towards a ‘world without egos’; this becomes more apparent to me each time I put out a request to our members to become involved in the PMP. While we never lack for mentees, whenever we are short on mentors, I am amazed by the response a simple appeal garners.

Patricia Gibb, CHRP, who makes her home and business in Victoria, BC knows very well that organizational needs can be served by effective mentoring. She began a mentoring relationship with her mentee, Meg Burrows, CHRP, in 2008 and acknowledges that it take time to know one another, especially when the participants are from different organizations. Initially, the two met a couple of times a month for an hour or so. After that initial investment, the relationship and its value to both simply blossomed. The two have maintained a relationship long after the formal mentoring program ended.

Five years later, the two continue to meet and offer benefits to each other. “I love to learn,” says Gibb. “Through mentoring, I get to hear and feel different perspectives on some of the challenges I faced early in my career. It keeps me young and sharp.” In 2009, she recalls with pride driving Burrows to Vancouver to attend her Rising Star judging and helping her navigate the “metropolis”. Burrows subsequently went on to receive the BC HMA Rising Star Award that year.

Like Gibb, the majority of the mentors in the PMP, 66 per cent, cite the ability to ‘give back’ to the HR community and their profession (with the added benefit of the ‘reverse mentoring’ that takes place give) as their primary reason for participating in the program.

The notion of goodness coming from within is, not surprisingly, one of the traits that we ascribe to true leaders: “those who attribute success to other than themselves and are ambitious not for themselves but for the greater good. As such, they set up their successors – for instance, their protégés – for even greater success in the next generation. These are the attributes of good mentoring”.

So how does this tie into what is happening within organizations today? How do they get from ‘good to great’? The subjects of leadership, succession planning, and mentoring arise for consideration. In BC HRMA’s 2012 HR Trends Survey, 39 per cent of the HR practitioners who responded indicated that increasing leadership capability is a challenge that will have the biggest impact on their departments for the coming year. Effective succession planning requires the development of a series of feeder groups to fuel key positions. Herein, mentoring can play a key role to ensure an organization has the committed talent required to take it to future greatness!

If you would like to learn more about the Professional Mentoring Program at BC HRMA and how you can become involved as a mentor, to give back to your community please refer to our website or contact me at mentor@bchrma.org.

“The benefits to an organization that has an internal mentoring program are enormous – It’s not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare.” Unknown

Elizabeth Bonner is BC HRMA’s professional mentoring program manager and member relations manager for Greater Vancouver.

PeopleTalk Summer 2012