Formal vs. Informal Mentoring

One of the common questions I am asked when speaking about the
SEED Engineering mentoring
program is about formal versus informal mentoring.
I have managed Sun Engineering’s worldwide mentoring program since
2001 for executive sponsor

Greg Papadopoulos, Sun’s Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice
President of Research and Development.

In eight years, SEED has developed into a formal system with published processes,
metrics, and web tools. However, as in most companies, Sun staff also benefit
from many informal mentoring relationships. I estimate that there are
at least three times the number of untracked informal mentoring pairs as there
are pairs in Sun’s formal mentoring programs, of which SEED is only one.

Whether the mentee is a junior Engineer just out of the university looking
to learn basics from someone one or two grades above them, or an
already-accomplished technical star who wants to learn even more
working with a world-class master of their craft, mentoring is a key tool.
In as much as the experience, scope of understanding, and perspective
of the mentor informs, inspires, and strengthens the mentoring experience,
benefiting from the most senior mentor available is particularly important.
I am biased in favor of formal mentoring programs because in SEED
I have seen that a formal program can make the wisdom of executive
mentors more available longer-term to a larger and more diverse group of mentees.

Style and Focus are the two main benefits of
a formal mentoring program.

Style
By Style, I mean the personal manner, preferences, and comfort in communicating
between the mentor and the mentee. Even in professional or corporate circumstances,
mentoring requires a personal relationship and commitment that can be harder
to initiate and maintain in an informal environment, particularly when the
mentor is much more senior than the mentee (as is the case in most SEED
relationships).

For the mentee:
Some people are very comfortable with selling themselves, for example, they
are confident enough to call up a potential mentor and just ask
for time. Others find this approach too confrontational, or they may be
too modest or private to approach a senior or very accomplished person
in this way. Gender and cultural issues come into this as well: for example,
a woman who wants to be mentored by a senior man may be concerned about how
he would interpret a direct request, or in a strongly hierarchical culture, a
junior staff member may feel it is not their place to ask for mentoring from
someone outside of their management (or they are rightly concerned about how
their management would respond to their making such a direct request).
A formal mentoring program can be of great value to someone who is not
comfortable selling themselves cold to a potential mentor. Knowing that their
own manager has formally approved their participation in mentoring (that this
professional development program is part of their “day job”) is empowering.

For the mentor:
Some potential mentors are comfortable being approached by junior staff
asking for mentoring but others may find such a request offensively direct
(inappropriate, pushy or arrogant). Also, the more senior a person is, the
more valuable their time is. In particular, senior executives need to make
the best use they can of their very limited time. SEED is run for the convenience
of the mentors and is set up to make it as comfortable as possible for executives
to participate. An executive may get too many requests for informal mentoring
to evaluate the benefit and circumstances of each one, so they end up rejecting
all, or just spending a little time with each, or only accepting requests from
people they already know. Also, the executive may never have been a mentor and
are not sure how to proceed (and they don’t feel comfortable
admitting this). A formal program which includes training may get them
started, to the advantage of their mentee, the company as a whole,
and their own understanding. By evaluating and validating potential
mentees in advance, a formal mentoring program can save time and avoid
mismatches as well as avoiding the awkward or embarassing situation of
a potential mentor rejecting or discouraging promising junior staff
members because of lack of time.

In a program such as SEED, all mentor-mentee matches are made privately.
That is, the mentee submits to SEED a prioritized wish list of potential mentors
with whom they would like to work. The SEED program staff act as matchmakers
or brokers. SEED provides the available potential mentors with
validated background information on the potential mentee (that is, information
that the potential mentor can trust) and asks if they want to consider a
mentoring relationship for six months. The mentee does not
know which of the potential mentors on their wish list was contacted. Potential mentors are given space and time to consider the possibilities of a mentoring partnership without risk of offending the potential mentee or interfering with
future communications with them or their manager.

Focus

In the SEED formal mentoring program, the mentee’s manager advocates for
their staff member to enter the program. The manager also makes an
explicit time commitment for their staff member to be in the program.
That up-front awareness highlights the mentee’s strengths and often means that the
manager has a better focus, understanding, and value of their staff member.
Informal mentoring usually does not require
this kind of commitment or focus on the part of the mentee’s manager.
Once the mentee enters the program, their new mentor (who for over 70%
of SEED participants is an executive) also gains a greater appreciation and
understanding of the mentee’s work.

Metrics:

In the SEED program, we regularly collect and evaluate a number
of program performance and success metrics:

• Satisfaction (of mentee, mentor, and mentee’s manager)
• Participation (number of applicants, number of managers who have had more
  than one direct report in the program, number of mentees returning as
  mentors, number of mentors who return term after term, etc.)
• Diversity (demographic, geographic, professional)
• Promotion Rate (compared to Sun overall and Sun Engineering)
• Annual Performance Evaluation (percentage of Superior ratings, compared to Sun overall and Sun Engineering)
• Retention (voluntary and involuntary)

These metrics enable us to understand how program participants and Sun as
a whole benefit from SEED. Because of the nature of informal mentoring,
such metrics are difficult to collect, particularly in an active work environment.
This makes improvement and valuation of informal mentoring almost impossible:
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.

How it works:

In a formal mentoring program such as SEED, those seeking to become a
mentee must submit an application form, resume, and letters of recommendation
by their manager and others who think highly of them. Their direct manager
and others spend a significant amount of time preparing the initial recommendations,
and often follow up by advising the program participant on mentor
wish list selections. When it is time for annual evaluation (or, unfortunately
in these difficult economic times, lay off decisions), it can be
very much to the advantage of the SEED participant that their management
has seriously considered their capabilities and value. The SEED program has a proven track record of strong diversity, very high satisfaction, high regard by management, and high retention. SEED participants as a group earn more promotions and higher performance ratings than Sun overall. Individual experiences will vary.

You can see flow charts of how this process works at

“SEED: Sun engineering enrichment & development”
Research Disclosure Database Number 482013, defensive publication in Research Disclosure, Published in June 2004, Electronic Publication Date : 17 May 2004
(5 pages, PDF format)

This special and positive focus by their management on the SEED program
applicant entering the program is often enhanced by the work of the mentoring
pair once the SEED term gets going. Most SEED mentee and mentor pairs report
talking about the following topics:

• Regular projects/work
• Joint special projects
• Setting goals (short/long term)
• Finding the best path to success
• Homework from Mentor: people to contact,
  reading material, etc.
• Industry current events/trends in technology
• Sun strategy/products/current events
• Soft skills development (negotiating, public speaking,
  conflict management, etc.)
• Career development
• Personal development

By spending six or more months focused on these topics in discussion with
a talented executive or senior staff member, SEED participants usually improve
their value to Sun. In the quarterly feedback reports, mentees report that
participation in the SEED program positively influenced the following:

• Greater understanding of Sun’s overall architecture, strategy, or business direction
• Better career direction
• Broader network of contacts (peer or executive)
• Increased visibility, within or outside work group

Another aspect of Focus is geographic proximity. For years, 70% or more
of SEED mentoring pairs have worked at a distance, that is, the mentor and
mentee are based in different cities, states, or countries. It is harder to
make and maintain informal mentoring connections when the mentor and mentee are
not local to each other. In a global workforce, potential mentees may work
in an area where there are few or no senior staff available to mentor them.
In their case, being mentored at a distance is their only choice.
If only informal mentoring is available, promising staff who do not work
at headquarters or at other large sites may not get mentored. A formal
mentoring program allows potential mentors to focus on a broader group
of potential mentees, not just those staff who work near them.

Informal Mentoring

Despite my bias in favor of formal mentoring, I do see some ways in which
informal mentoring has advantages:

• Informal mentoring has the advantage of a quick startup (no application
  forms) and less overhead in managing the relationship.
• Informal mentoring may be more appropriate for peer mentoring in which
  hierarchy is less of an issue.
• Informal mentoring may work better than formal mentoring for short-term
  task-based learning (“how do I do this?”) if that is the goal
  (as opposed to long-term professional growth and change).
• Informal mentoring is less expensive to provide because program staff, tools,
  tracking and communication are not needed. However, this benefit must be
  balanced against the long-term cost to the organization of not taking
  full advantage of executive mentoring capabilities available through
  formal mentoring.
• Because informal mentoring requires no administration, it scales
  – that is, many more can participate.

Mentoring of any kind (formal or informal) may not be the best solution
for remedial learning, needed by staff members who are not meeting management
expectations. Informal mentoring shares a key place with formal mentoring:
both are important tools for professional development. An individual who
wants to see what mentoring can do (as either a mentee or mentor) may get a
better start within the structure of a formal program. An organization which
wants to build or nurture a mentoring culture should plan to encourage the
use of both formal and informal mentoring.