Recorded Webinar

DEI Dynamics: The Interplay of Mentoring, Coaching, and Reverse Mentoring

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Azure Rooths: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you find yourself in the world. Welcome. We are so excited for you to be here with us today for our webinar, DEI Dynamics, The Interplay of Mentoring, Coaching, and Reverse Mentoring. My name is Azure Rooths and I bring you greetings from Northern Virginia.

[00:00:22] Azure Rooths: We have an amazing panel with us today. And I am beyond excited.

[00:00:32] Azure Rooths: I'd like to introduce you to our sponsors. First, allow me to introduce MentorClick, where employee mentoring is made easy. They are guiding enterprises worldwide to increase engagement, development, and retention. MentorClick is able to deliver award winning results because they launch and match purpose driven programs and engage and measure individual development.[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Azure Rooths: Welcome. If you would please welcome them in the chat. Thank you so very much for being here today. Next, our second sponsor is PILOT, which was founded to help everyone feel powerful at work. We show participants how to use reflection, solicit and accept feedback, advocate for themselves. and take effective actions in their organization.

[00:01:23] Azure Rooths: This is done through four methods of learning. Technology enabled group coaching, individual reflective activities, scaled mentoring, and one on one future focus management feedback sessions. Welcome, PILOT.

[00:01:39] Azure Rooths: It is my pleasure to introduce you to Patrice. Welcome, Patrice. She has a passion for helping people realize their potential, which is what led her to develop a career in coaching. She enjoys fitness, nutrition, and nature, as well as bringing a well balanced [00:02:00] approach to her clients. Her foundation is steeped in finance and commercial business, and she has held senior positions across British Airways, Royal Mail, PLC, and Virgin Atlantic, which has led her to embark upon her stance of supporting reverse mentoring.

[00:02:20] Azure Rooths: Next up is Ben Brooks. Inspired by his successful business and executive coaching practice, Ben saw an opportunity to democratize executive coaching and founded PILOT. Among other leadership management roles, Ben has served on the board of directors for Outserve SLDN, The organization that spearheaded the successful efforts to end the Department of Defense's discriminatory don't ask, don't tell policy.

[00:02:51] Azure Rooths: And he co founded the LGBT Employee Resource Group at his management consulting firm. Unexpectedly [00:03:00] let go of his long held aspiration to climb the corporate ladder, and instead, he chose to fly his own plane.

[00:03:08] Azure Rooths: And our final panelist that I would like to introduce you today, last but not least, is Jen. Hi, Jen. How are you? I'm great. Super excited to be here. Thanks. Excellent. Jen is passionate about helping everyone gain opportunities to reach their full potential through access to high impact mentoring experiences.

[00:03:32] Azure Rooths: With over 20 years of experience in talent development, training and design, she has authored two books which emerged as a result of her expertise in mentoring. Thank you all so very much for being here. We are ready to jump in. Are you ready?

[00:03:50] Azure Rooths: All right, so we're going to start with our very first poll.

[00:03:55] Azure Rooths: To all of our participants today, here is the question. We'd like to [00:04:00] know your style a little bit more before we go any further. Which DEI method are you currently using? Would you say that you're focusing on coaching, mentoring, reverse mentoring, or none of the above?

[00:04:16] Azure Rooths: Panelists, get ready. Okay.

[00:04:25] Azure Rooths: So, the majority of participants that we have in the room, 60 percent say mentoring is number one. Coming up closely behind, we have coaching. Ugh, none of the above. And the truth of the matter, reverse mentoring is at the bottom. Which is okay. I believe we're right where we need to be because that information is going to help inform our practice.

[00:04:56] Azure Rooths: I think we should start right here. When we [00:05:00] think about mentoring, reverse mentoring and coaching, what are they? What aren't they? How would you define it? Defend it? And why is it necessary? Jenn, let's start with you.

[00:05:14] Jenn Labin: Yeah I'm happy to start. That's, that's a big question, but I will, I'll start with, I think, two important parts that I think about when we're saying, well, what is this thing that's mentoring?

[00:05:26] Jenn Labin: And 60 percent of you are already doing some version of that, which is amazing. So first I'll say that there's the idea of, being a mentor to someone or being mentored by someone. And we define that kind of mentoring as a learning relationship built on mutual trust and respect with the purpose of either upskilling, career development, leadership development.

[00:05:52] Jenn Labin: It could also be for building connection, building community. And within that mentoring [00:06:00] relationship mentors are going to typically act as allies, advocates, and advisors to their mentoring partners or mentees. Not everyone likes the word mentees. And they they're also going to provide guidance.

[00:06:13] Jenn Labin: They're going to listen. They're going to ask really great questions. They're going to share their resources and they're going to share their networks. And that's how we think about mentoring relationships. But I also think it's important to point out that the term mentoring is super flexible.

[00:06:32] Jenn Labin: For example, when we're working with companies to design, launch, manage, and measure their mentoring programs, now, that term often includes all of these different approaches. That includes, coaching, Sponsorship, Peer Mentoring, Reverse Mentoring, and even programs that support employee resource groups.

[00:06:52] Jenn Labin: For our conversation today, I know that we're typically going to be using mentoring to mean those relationships, but I always want to point out that it's a [00:07:00] really agile label for really most kinds of relationship based employee development initiatives.

[00:07:08] Azure Rooths: Thanks so much for your perspective, Jen. What about you, Patrice?

[00:07:12] Azure Rooths: How would you define it and how would you defend it? Why is it necessary?

[00:07:18] Patrice Gordon: Mentorship or reverse mentoring? Mentorship. Yes, your area of specialty. So reverse mentoring is where, in my viewpoint and my definition, is where we have a senior leader who is mentored by someone who is underrepresented within the organization.

[00:07:36] Patrice Gordon: And the underrepresentation, in my view, comes from the form of protected characteristics. So race, gender, ethnicity, disability, veteran status, just to name a few. I love the fact that our conversation today is around the interplay between all of the different interventions because reverse mentoring may not always be appropriate to have within an organization, especially if it's not psychologically safe to [00:08:00] do so.

[00:08:01] Patrice Gordon: But the real breakthrough that I find with reverse mentoring is where we have seen we, we need to break down some of the barriers with some of the leaders senior leadership groups, and it. For me, it's the only intervention where senior leaders are unable to delegate that responsibility, but they really have to lean into it personally and really live and breathe that growth mindset that they implore on from a sales and operations perspective, perhaps, but definitely on an emotive perspective.

[00:08:29] Patrice Gordon: So I defend it by saying that it's very important intervention, but the environment has to be psychologically safe in order to do so. If it's not, then I wouldn't recommend we do it.

[00:08:39] Azure Rooths: I love that. I love the leaning into it. So Ben, when you think about coaching, how would you define and defend it and why is it important for people to lean into coaching?

[00:08:50] Ben Brooks: Yeah, this is a great conversation. And I put a question in the chat. So as I'm sharing, we had most people have 25 percent of you had none on the poll. But 75 percent of you have [00:09:00] something. I'm curious how far that something is reaching because DEI is going to be part of the conversation and reach ties to inclusion.

[00:09:08] Ben Brooks: So if you've got a rough percentage, if you've got a mentoring program that gets to 10 percent of your people, great. If you've got a coaching program that gets to 5 percent of your people, just would love to get some benchmarks of just rough, no matter what the program is, how, what percentage of your employees are getting access or using it.

[00:09:23] Ben Brooks: Now Azure, to your question around coaching, we often confuse coaching, the verb, with coach, the noun. I'm a coach, I'm a person, I'm a, that, and we think of coaching as a person, and we think of it as this one to one thing, which it can be. But fundamentally, coaching is about helping people get what they want.

[00:09:42] Ben Brooks: have a better sense of themselves, right? And to, , help facilitate their own thinking and their own actions and their own behaviors. Coaching is not telling people what to do. Coaching is not saying, I did it this way, therefore you should do it this way. Right. And those can be useful times.

[00:09:58] Ben Brooks: They're very credible. People can do [00:10:00] that. But, sometimes a coach doesn't know anything about the person's maybe industry or functional role, but they are an expert in helping to cultivate potential out of someone. But coaching the verb could be in a one to one dynamic. It could be in a group situation.

[00:10:18] Ben Brooks: And typically it's on a recurring basis. If you talk to someone one time. You got an advisory chat, right? Or you got a motivation, but coaching is a little like, working with a personal trainer. It's this continuous process with a drumbeat that helps people focus on themselves.

[00:10:38] Azure Rooths: I love that perspective, helping people get to what they want. So as we weaved that together, recognizing that mentoring, coaching, and reverse mentoring are all strategic interventions. Why is it important that we have them? Ben, let me hear from you first.

[00:10:59] Ben Brooks: [00:11:00] I'm seeing it in the chat, 10%, 25%, 5%, you know, so 8%, there's a difference between what's offered and who takes it up and who participates in mentoring, reverse mentoring or coaching.

[00:11:12] Ben Brooks: And so a lot of the conversation too, is that many organizations have really good offerings, but the adoption isn't there. And whether it's mentoring, reverse mentoring, or coaching, you really need to like, make sure that people want it and to make it compelling in these metrics.

[00:11:26] Ben Brooks: But Azure, can you repeat the question? I was making another point and I lost it there,

[00:11:29] Azure Rooths: absolutely. So, recognizing that mentoring, coaching, and reverse mentoring are all strategic interventions, right? Why is it important that we have them.

[00:11:40] Ben Brooks: Well, it's hard to be an adult. It's hard to navigate a changing world that's in turmoil that has, all sorts of different challenges.

[00:11:50] Ben Brooks: It's hard to figure out what we want or what we need or to feel is. Patrica, it's psychologically safe, or as Jen mentioned, to feel, supported. Right? [00:12:00] And so I think that part of these interventions, there's functional or technical training that we, a lot of organizations give, here's how to use our piece of software.

[00:12:07] Ben Brooks: Here's how to use the equipment, or here's how to, do the financials or a process or you know how to board an aircraft, right? Patrice, you know, you and so there's functional training. But this, these interventions are around developing people and their potential. And, from a DEI perspective, the, the place you were born in the lat, the latitude longitude point on the map can have a lot to do with how you see the world.

[00:12:31] Ben Brooks: Right? The culture, the family, maybe the faith, the geography, the socioeconomic, other demographics, and not everybody knows some of the rules of the game of being an effective professional, how to manage up, how to advocate for yourself, how to handle things when you're upset, or if someone does something that maybe is hurtful, or how to state your ambition or define goals or manage your time.

[00:12:57] Ben Brooks: And so part of leveling the playing field from an [00:13:00] equity perspective. is having these sort of unwritten rules of the game become more transparent through mentoring, reverse mentoring, and coaching. All three can do that. And so that's also where we need to invest in future and emerging leaders, because they often don't know, they think they just need to quote unquote, do their job.

[00:13:18] Ben Brooks: But, advancing your career, fulfilling your potential requires more than it meets expectations against your job requirements or your job post, which a lot of people just don't understand that they are in charge of their own career and their own happiness and satisfaction. And you may have a different version.

[00:13:35] Ben Brooks: You may not want to be promoted or be a manager. You may not want to stay in the industry you're in. You may not want to, you may need more flexibility like that, but only each individual knows that for themselves. And so through these three interventions, it's a way to pull out and to recognize what those things are and to empower people to take it on.

[00:13:54] Azure Rooths: Love that. Patrice, what's your lens? I heard Ben talk a lot about emotional intelligence [00:14:00] strategically. Why would you have these interventions?

[00:14:03] Patrice Gordon: To follow on from what Ben said, completely echo that Ben. I was at Bloomberg last night. I've just been at Investec today in London, and yesterday was with graduates who were coming in.

[00:14:13] Patrice Gordon: So it was talking about how to prepare the next generation for corporates, and mentorship is the key piece there, because for them coaching is not really going to help, because they need to understand the rules of the game. So the unwritten rules, and that's what mentorship helps you to do. And then today was with Investec, and we were talking more about and so there's different times, any intervention, there's different appropriate times for you to use that.

[00:14:39] Patrice Gordon: And so throughout all of our careers, I think we've benefited from each of those interventions. And if one had been replaced with another, at a certain point in time, it wouldn't have been appropriate. So from a strategic perspective, it's about need and it's about what problem are you trying to solve?

[00:14:55] Patrice Gordon: What is the problem? what's the development need that you have and which is the appropriate [00:15:00] intervention to meet you at the point that you're at that point in time.

[00:15:03] Azure Rooths: Love that, Patrice. Jen, I'm going to pose the same to you. Strategically, why would you have these interventions?

[00:15:12] Jenn Labin: Okay I have spent more than 20 years devoting my career to try and help as many employees as I can help them find ways to reach their full potential and beyond any doubt.

[00:15:25] Jenn Labin: Mentoring, and I'm going to use that as the umbrella term again. Mentoring is the most powerful tool that we have. for that for employee development. Our company, MentorClick, has done some extensive research at the value of mentoring. And we're talking about strategically, well, 92 percent of the Fortune 500 use mentoring as a primary strategy for employee engagement and retention.

[00:15:49] Jenn Labin: So we know that strategically, it is impactful and beneficial at that level. Another example, one of our client [00:16:00] companies, LabCorp, actually their reverse mentoring program, which has won awards, it directly led to 50%, a 50 percent promotion rate for their participants. which are primarily junior level associates coming from diverse backgrounds.

[00:16:19] Jenn Labin: So strategically, those are some really important proof points to show why mentoring initiatives are so valuable, so impactful. And. I think it goes down to that individual level as well. There's a really popular framework out there called the 70 20 10 model. I'm curious if anyone in chat has heard about this or uses it.

[00:16:40] Jenn Labin: It was created by the Center for Creative Leadership, CCL, and it helps explain why mentoring but also coaching and reverse mentoring, I'll keep underscoring that, are so impactful. First, I have to say, 702010, it's been around for ages, I know, but it continues to prove out as a [00:17:00] really great guideline for how we think about learning approaches.

[00:17:04] Jenn Labin: So, in a simple way the 702010 framework comes down to the idea that only 10 percent of what we learn comes from structured experiences such as trainings and webinars. Yes, like this one. According to that same framework, 20 percent of our learning that learning potential comes in the form of learning from others, which is where mentoring and coaching are technically listed.

[00:17:29] Jenn Labin: And the remaining 70 percent is labeled as learning from experiences. Now hold on, because at first I know some of you are going to start that Google search for ideas of learning from experience, but put the brakes on that for a second and do a little bit of a thought experiment with me, okay? And this is something I really like sharing with some of the organizations we work with.

[00:17:50] Jenn Labin: So imagine how a mentoring relationship usually works. We're going to meet, we're going to discuss some ideas, maybe you have some takeaways to try out, [00:18:00] and you spend the next few weeks. Trying out those ideas. Maybe they work, maybe they don't, and then you gotta iterate. Maybe you try again and we come back together in a month or so.

[00:18:11] Jenn Labin: We debrief how it went and maybe we come up with some more ideas for next time. Now that illustrates how mentoring is actually. not just leveraging learning from others, but it's actually learning from experience as well. So that means that mentoring, reverse mentoring and coaching are the only approaches we have that can actually access up to 90 percent of our potential for learning and development.

[00:18:37] Jenn Labin: It is far and away the most powerful tool we have in our toolkit.

[00:18:45] Azure Rooths: Jen, thank you so much for sharing that. And there are a number of people who are sharing in the chat. We have the link that someone was so kind enough to share, but the 70 20 10 model sounds like an amazing game [00:19:00] changer. Before we move forward to that to our next question, Ben, we have a question in the chat that Just seems to fit right here.

[00:19:06] Azure Rooths: How do you see the importance of having certified coaches in the implementation of coaching based strategy for growth and development?

[00:19:16] Ben Brooks: There's a lot of different coaching certifications out there, and I'm not here to represent any 1 particular 1, but I do think that sometimes we will turn, we want to turn our managers into coaches or executives into coaches.

[00:19:27] Ben Brooks: And, I'm of the belief that that's great to have coaching skills. But when you control someone's compensation, or whether they keep their roll back to Patrice's point around safety, psychological safety, which is a really important point you can use coaching skills, but you're not necessarily a coach.

[00:19:43] Ben Brooks: Coaches has a more independent role, right? And this is where it can be complicated because like internal mentoring can be great because you know the environment. But at the same time, there can be like loyalties and politics and confidentiality, right? There, you have to just navigate and have commitments on both sides, right?

[00:19:59] Ben Brooks: Mentor [00:20:00] and mentee or protege as well as coach and coachee, right? About what's shared and what's not. And so certifications are one way to, have a stamp of quality. Or credential or training, but I would say that I wouldn't rely on that alone, right? Because you typically want to think, because different coaches work in different ways.

[00:20:19] Ben Brooks: It's, it's a little you know, the coaching, you go to 10 different coaches, you're going to get 10, maybe very different methods or ways to do it. There's not one way to do it. And so I think that that's a part of it. And I think that's where it's, you know, and for mentors and reverse mentors too, just because someone has experience.

[00:20:35] Ben Brooks: in a domain or in a thing doesn't mean they know how to share that with others. And so I know that that's where there's a lot of enablement that you want to have with folks. Because if you're like, Oh, you should be a coach. And someone goes in and they think that they're a football coach, or they think they're Ted Lassa, or they think they're someone else.

[00:20:52] Ben Brooks: Right. And they're just like trying to tell an inspiring story that may not like our caricature of what we think a coach is or what we [00:21:00] think a mentor is, what we think a reverse mentor is probably maybe a little miscalibrated with the actual role, which may be a little bit more subtle, maybe a little bit more in the background.

[00:21:08] Ben Brooks: Maybe I'll probably a lot more listening than talking. We tend to, say a lot. And so that's a part of it because you really want the growth to happen with the person you're targeting one of these interventions towards.

[00:21:18] Azure Rooths: Well said, right? Because ultimately coaching is helping people get what they want.

[00:21:25] Azure Rooths: Tying it back to our topic today, DI Dynamics, when we speak of reverse mentoring, mentoring and coaching, which populations are targeted for each of these? Patrice, let's start with you.

[00:21:38] Patrice Gordon: So, for reverse mentoring, as I touched on in the kind of description, for me it's underrepresented individuals. My background and my intention with reverse mentoring is to ensure that people who have voices in the organization that need to be amplified.

[00:21:54] Patrice Gordon: They have the opportunity to be heard, to be listened to and to be known that their viewpoints are [00:22:00] valued. So for me, it is individuals who are underrepresented through the senior ranks within the organization. And that's particularly important because ultimately, That means that if they're not represented policies, changes, business decisions that are made may not necessarily take their viewpoints, opinions and impacts on those individuals into account.

[00:22:22] Patrice Gordon: So that's why I would focus reverse mentoring. The reverse mentoring population, I would use underrepresented individuals, and that will obviously change across organizations, across countries, across industries, et cetera, but really trying to amplify those underrepresented voices.

[00:22:39] Azure Rooths: Thank you, Patrice.

[00:22:40] Azure Rooths: What about you, Jen? Which populations would you target?

[00:22:44] Jenn Labin: All of them. But so I think both Ben and Patrice have made this point, I think, and it depends on when it comes to mentoring programs within an organization, it depends on where the talent needs are of the organization.

[00:22:59] Jenn Labin: [00:23:00] Because mentoring can be really implemented in a variety of ways, depending on purpose and population. If the talent needs are around representation, then then putting putting programs in place to make sure that we have women in leadership programs, or we're supporting employee resource groups that LabCorp program I referenced earlier, where the junior associates We're able to have access and participate.

[00:23:29] Jenn Labin: That was important. I focus a lot right now on neurodiversity. Making sure that that programs that participants have access to programs where they can build relationships in which they can be comfortable, they can seek out a mentoring relationship that works for them and in the area that they're focused on.

[00:23:48] Jenn Labin: It just is going to depend. Are we looking at retention? Are we going to look at engagement? Are we looking at supporting employees with unique dimensions or dimensions of uniqueness? So. It's all of the [00:24:00] above. And one more piece here is that I know that there's sometimes a concern that we hear from our program leads around to use phrases, we hear double dipping or stealing from other programs, right?

[00:24:13] Jenn Labin: If we have this program for this population, that means that we, they can't participate in this program over here. We can't have mentoring and coaching. Can we? Absolutely. We all have different needs from a learning, from a development standpoint, from a community and connection standpoint. For based on our roles, based on our experience, based on where our career trajectory and based on our identities and our backgrounds.

[00:24:41] Jenn Labin: So yes, you can have multiple programs, you can have multiple approaches, and it's wonderful for people to have access to those, to more than one opportunity.

[00:24:51] Azure Rooths: Jen, you said so many things that jumped out to me. Underrepresented populations, women, dimensions of uniqueness, community connection, learning and [00:25:00] development.

[00:25:00] Azure Rooths: There's a question in the chat that I think would be wonderful to just tack on to the bottom of everything that you just said. Do you think that the success of a mentor or coach is directly related to his or her age more than the experience that they've had? Can you connect that to mentoring?

[00:25:17] Jenn Labin: I'm gonna say no, full stop.

[00:25:20] Jenn Labin: Age is not an indicator of success at all. I think that we all have something to learn from everyone we come in contact with, everyone we meet. You may not really enjoy your interaction, but that doesn't mean that you don't have something you can learn from them. Not to not to overstep, but, reverse mentoring is a great example of that reverse mentoring. The idea has been around for a long time, but it was implemented poorly for so long. And part of the reason was because we assumed that age was a factor and that how can these senior executives [00:26:00] learn from junior employees what did they know, right?

[00:26:04] Jenn Labin: And so discounting or overly crediting someone because of age I think is inaccurate. Experience is way more important. Learning, acknowledging and respecting differences is way more important. We're going to learn more from people who are different from us than we are from people who we have a lot of overlap in our experience.

[00:26:25] Jenn Labin: That was a long answer. Sorry, but I'm going to say from my perspective, categorically, no.

[00:26:29] Azure Rooths: Categorically, no. Ben, what's your perspective? Speaking of mentoring, reverse mentoring, coaching, which populations are targeted for each of these? What's your perspective?

[00:26:41] Ben Brooks: So I want to mention one thing Lute put in the comments about what advice about avoiding confusion between the different offerings.

[00:26:48] Ben Brooks: And we actually have sort of a place that we've helped to create for customers that shows that and how to do that. So I'm happy to give anyone that template. You just have to email my colleague Layton [00:27:00] [email protected], and we can give you that template. But in terms of who you give it to, you will always have more demand for development than you have dollars or people or resources, right?

[00:27:09] Ben Brooks: Okay. Mentoring by its very nature always has more mentees than mentors. Typically, you don't have an abundance of mentors. You have an abundance of people that want to be mentored. And so I think you have to be very thoughtful and have the data in your organization drive this because it can get very political and emotive.

[00:27:26] Ben Brooks: Why are we giving to this person or this person or whatever? I'm here at the National Minority Supplier Development Conference here in the United States, in Baltimore, and talk to organizations, Shell Energy or BMW or, different, CVS Health and Walgreens and Mondelēz, each one of those companies has a different goal.

[00:27:44] Ben Brooks: Regarding talent development because they have different business models are in different geographies and is often very much a factor in that of underrepresented demographics where they're not, say, quote, unquote, we're not doing as well with, Latino population or Hispanic population or [00:28:00] people that are with 3 years of service that are female.

[00:28:02] Ben Brooks: So oftentimes your engagement surveys, your exit interviews, your turnover data. Even business performance can guide where you give that. One of the things that I'm personally, this is a Ben Brooks personal opinion here. You think of an organizational hierarchy like a pyramid, right? And you've got, your C suite and you go further.

[00:28:19] Ben Brooks: Typically, top talent interventions go to the top five or 10%. It's a little like when you're on the airplane, there's a few first class seats and a bunch of people are in coach, right? So what our point of view is, is you want to get these things earlier to people earlier in their careers. But you have to find ways to do that more affordably, or virtually, or that requires less time, because, working with a one on one coach.

[00:28:44] Ben Brooks: It could be a 20 or $30,000 investment for a top coach. And even a more junior coach, you're talking five, $10,000, that's a lot of expense for a single person. So when you can leverage platforms and methods and [00:29:00] books and programs, like all of us here are often represent, then you can be more thoughtful about how you give that to you.

[00:29:05] Ben Brooks: But in particular, you want to invest just like if you had money to put in the stock market, you want to invest where you think that there's potential. And sometimes you have your, you have things that you think are, Oh my gosh, this is a sure, but this is Apple or Amazon. I'm going to buy into that.

[00:29:19] Ben Brooks: I'm really, I know, but sometimes you have, you allocate a little bit of your portfolio for that. What there's often called the diamonds in the rough, right? The high potentials that have, but they haven't quite demonstrated it yet. And maybe they just need a little bit more. Nestle, one of our customers, the head of DEI there calls it high potentials on the bubble is her term.

[00:29:37] Ben Brooks: They're like right on the bubble. They like they're going to almost be there. So you want to take a bet on some folks as well, because it can often take someone who you thought was just sort of average and make them extraordinary when you invest in them.

[00:29:51] Ben Brooks: Jen, there's something else you wanted to share?

[00:29:53] Jenn Labin: Yeah so you said something in there that I thought I just really need to get to make [00:30:00] sure that this point is heard. You talked about like that investment cost, right? And so making sure that we are, that companies are making sure that investment is going to the most effective places.

[00:30:14] Jenn Labin: Yeah, a really great coach. Uh, professional coach. There's going to be a price tag associated with that. A really effective mentoring program or the right reverse mentoring program set up the right way to be successful. Those are all going to have price tags associated with them. And do your research because the initial sticker value isn't the takeaway, right?

[00:30:37] Jenn Labin: It's what are the results out of that? So I'm hoping I'm not going to get in trouble with my team here, but I'm going to throw a statistic out that I didn't have right next to me. But we often look at ROI for mentoring programs, for example. And and one of our. One of our case studies that we point to is the Clorox companies and what they found was a 19 times return on investment.[00:31:00]

[00:31:00] Jenn Labin: So what they found is the retention of those employees resulted in savings 19 times the cost of that investment. of what they spent on their mentoring programs. That's direct for the technology as well as indirect for the the FTE. That investment was certainly made back multiple times.

[00:31:21] Jenn Labin: So, yes, you want to invest in people and you want to make sure that you're investing in the right places, but look at the kind of end results as much as you're looking at that initial investment.

[00:31:32] Azure Rooths: And I love that. And I want to take about 30 seconds and go off script, but still on script, right?

[00:31:38] Azure Rooths: So Ben, Patrice, are there any stats, right? Because companies want ROI. What does the data say about coaching, about reverse mentoring, about mentoring? Is there anything that pops out to you that you just feel that our participants need to know why it works? Thank you. [00:32:00]

[00:32:01] Ben Brooks: Patrice, do you want to start?

[00:32:03] Patrice Gordon: Yes. So I think actually MentalClick has some amazing research in this realm.

[00:32:08] Patrice Gordon: So we know that 92 percent of the S& P 500 have reversement, have mentoring programs overall. And then there's a subsection of that, which proves that those organizations that have a culture embedded in kind of development have a higher level of productivity. So their results are higher. So there's quite a few stats around it with the backup to support us in saying that those organizations who invest in their people have higher overall performance. One of the business cases that I refer to really often is IBM. So IBM have invested in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging for over a hundred years. They have been at the forefront of that, that charge and they continue to innovate and invest in that as we go through and their results, the fact that they've been named as like the top organization from a number of sources [00:33:00] has really been steeped in the fact that not only do they employ and invest in these interventions from, for people from across the spectrum, but particularly underrepresented individuals. And that is clearly aligned with the fact that they are industry leading in the areas that they are, and they have less layoffs than other organizations that are within that as well.

[00:33:21] Patrice Gordon: So I think IBM is a really good example for me. The other example that I use really frequently is Estee Lauder. So from a real FMCG perspective, reverse mentoring. So Fabrizio, who's the CEO over the past five plus years, he has been a massive advocate for reverse mentoring. And you've really been able to see in all the subsections of his products where you've got a frontline, very young from an age perspective and usually female perspective, because his products are mostly aimed towards females.

[00:33:54] Patrice Gordon: You really see the impact of them being able to cut through some of that hierarchy and make changes and [00:34:00] suggestions that otherwise would take like months to be able to get through to the top, right, to get through to the C suite. So there's some real great examples with Estee Lauder from a product perspective of them being able to implement things and change things really quickly because of a reverse mentoring relationship because those barriers have been removed and they've got direct access to power.

[00:34:19] Azure Rooths: Thanks so much for that perspective, Patrice. Ben, I want to pivot just a little bit. How can we weave these strategies together to support DEI focused initiatives?

[00:34:30] Ben Brooks: Well, I think that it ties what we're just building off of, which is the business case and the ROI and showing the value, right? Because the theory of the case makes sense.

[00:34:39] Ben Brooks: Oh, yeah, we should invest in our people. Oh, yeah, we should put money behind DEI things. Oh, yeah, we should have talent things. Makes sense, right? But when companies are in hard times Learning and development, training, talent, DEI is a place that gets cut. And, if you Google why we're, why mentoring programs fail, I think there's a couple, like there's a hundred thousand results.

[00:34:59] Ben Brooks: It's like [00:35:00] insane, because while a lot of companies invest, a lot of times it doesn't work out if you don't have the right partner or make the right investments to do it properly. And so it's a little like medicine. It works if you administer it correctly. And coaching being similar and, really the way that, CFOs look at, their P& L and their balance sheet and everything else, but the P& L in particular is they're like, Where is this?

[00:35:20] Ben Brooks: Is this helping us to make more money because we're more efficient, provide our quality, or is it helping us to save cost? Right? Because we keep people and don't have turnover cost and training and recruiting and other things like that. And so we really look with a lot of our customers at, employees intent to stay and extending the runway and tenure.

[00:35:38] Ben Brooks: You often don't get peak performance gusto at some research. that, you get peak performance out of an employee in their third year. So if you have people that are churning before they get to three years, they haven't even reached their full potential without talent investment in them. So extending their runway by them seeing a longer tenure at the organization is one of the ways that we compare people in the PILOT [00:36:00] program at, let's say, S& P Global or at MetLife or some of these companies that we work against.

[00:36:06] Ben Brooks: Similar demographic populations that are not in the program. And we typically see that people have a higher intent to stay, but a lot of that's rooted in their manager relationship. Because we really focus on managers helping with the development process and people have said in HR for ages, people join organizations and leave managers and we always think, oh, we got to make the manager better.

[00:36:24] Ben Brooks: Well, yes, we DEI perspective. A lot of folks don't understand the manager relationship, right? And some people, I, I had a dear friend that I grew up with and he immigrated from Taiwan and his experience culturally he shared with me was elders are to be respected but you're a little afraid of them. So he wasn't like, making this relationship with his manager and saying, Hey, why don't we get a beer or what's going on in your life?

[00:36:52] Ben Brooks: Or, and his manager, he's in an industry of financial services that they, not to be fraternized or just to be friends, but needed to know him personally. And so [00:37:00] part of these interventions on DEI is teaching employees how to create those connections, how to state their ambition. We had someone at, a person of color at one of our customers who's been, long service employee and he'd just been putting his head down waiting to get promoted and he had a different opportunity that he wanted to pursue in the company and through our program he finally spoke up to his boss and his boss was shocked.

[00:37:22] Ben Brooks: He said, I had no idea and this guy's been waiting for three years, and the boss had no idea and the, and then they started talking. He's well, I think you'd need to do this, this, and this before I'd be able to do that. And he said, no, I have. He's like, oh, you have. And so they, and so then he, got the receipts as he called it, laid it out.

[00:37:38] Ben Brooks: The boss said, this is exactly what I need. The boss went and got him promoted and he ended up, getting this new opportunity. But it was about that partnership that had to be fostered and cultivated rather than avoided or feared or something else. And so that's where I think the DEI implications, there's a big part we think about inclusion and the organization at large.

[00:37:57] Ben Brooks: But sometimes inclusion is a one to one relationship, [00:38:00] or on just your immediate team, and part of it we have our own work to do to include ourselves and to share more about ourselves, to advocate for ourselves, and so that's where I really think there are big, powerful DEI implications that aren't about, having to carry the emotional labor of changing the entire culture of the organization to be more inclusive of X demographic or what, or population.

[00:38:22] Ben Brooks: But it's saying, Hey, me, particularly me, my shade of this, or my view of this, or my, through my prism, this is what I need, or here's how I work. That's often where we see really breakthrough results.

[00:38:33] Azure Rooths: That's powerful. I love the concept of extending the runway as a strategy. Jen, how would you speak to this? How can we weave these strategies to support DEI focused initiatives?

[00:38:44] Jenn Labin: I think weaving them together is the right kind of mindset here because obviously there's no simple one and done fix. Otherwise, you know, we'd all be, we'd all be done already. Right? I think that many, [00:39:00] many, if not most companies out there when they think we really need to address DEI, we know that this is something where we need to invest. The 1st place they go is training and and that's unfortunate because there was an HBR study that showed that. DEI training alone not only didn't, but it actually did more harm than creative benefits.

[00:39:26] Jenn Labin: At the same time in that study, mentoring experiences proved to be the single most impactful initiative or approach when it came to increasing representation across the organization. I say that because mentoring, as I've said many times, can incorporate lots of different purposes and populations.

[00:39:47] Jenn Labin: It certainly can be part of uh, if there are training opportunities, if there are learning modules there are stretch assignments, if there are focus groups there's lots of different approaches that can be used, [00:40:00] but mentoring, coaching, reverse mentoring and sponsorship programs all need to be considered as a part of the strategy as part of that fabric in order to make sure that people are building those communities.

[00:40:12] Jenn Labin: They're building those connections. They, uh, we're getting access to everyone. And it isn't reliant on who you know, or how well you network, or, any of those kinds of historical kind of factors. It, it needs to be part of the overall strategy, I think.

[00:40:32] Azure Rooths: Thank you. What about you, Patrice?

[00:40:37] Patrice Gordon: Sorry, I was just echoing in the comments there. I completely agree with what both Ben and Jen said, and I had said ultimately, at some times, I come into organizations and it's the lead up to it. So what is the, what's the problem that we're trying to solve? Is this intervention appropriate?

[00:40:54] Patrice Gordon: How accountable are the leaders or the program leads willing to be for the [00:41:00] outcomes of the program? because ultimately where kind of the stop starts happen and the outcomes aren't really what expect is expected is because something has failed in that process. Something has failed in the onboarding process.

[00:41:11] Patrice Gordon: Something has failed in terms of us having those difficult conversations up front in terms of what the expectations and the outcomes could be. And then, and also people get very impatient around when the results will come. Some of the studies that has just said, this is not an immediate, okay, three months later, we've done the we've done mentoring, coaching, et cetera.

[00:41:30] Patrice Gordon: What's the result? But that's always what everyone's super keen on understanding. But this is, it takes time to plant seeds and for things to grow. And it's that mentality around, what if you train someone and they leave? But what if you don't train someone and they stay? I mean, that's even worse, right?

[00:41:45] Patrice Gordon: Because you've got people in the organization who are underperforming. And there's this whole, when we look at the the Gallup survey around connection at work and how people are quietly quitting. That quiet quitting 59 percent of individuals are that's actually really dangerous [00:42:00] bunch of people because they're not actually saying they're quietly quitting their behavior is just telling you, you're not investing them, you're not really sure where their heads at and their productivity is like less than 50%.

[00:42:09] Patrice Gordon: So we've got bodies in seats, so to speak, but actually the organization is actually much more ineffective because they're not as productive. And so that's where it's really important to understand what is the problem that you're trying to solve? And is this intervention going to, how is it going to help?

[00:42:24] Patrice Gordon: And how are we going to hold everyone to account for it? And I think these things are really important. the softer side, and this is exactly what, all leadership is moving into now, that emotional intelligence, that softer side, where it's not, can you sell this? Can you be more effective from an operations perspective?

[00:42:38] Patrice Gordon: Do our people feel connected? Do, is there a trajectory for individuals who are not the standard? Do people feel as though they are valued within the organization? All of these kind of softer questions that we're now asking has a different form of measurement, and that is the form of measurement of connection on your employee engagement survey, [00:43:00] on promotions, on attrition.

[00:43:02] Patrice Gordon: These are the things that we're looking at, which are very costly for organizations actually, but you're just unable you, the way you measure it is slightly different to yourselves and your costs, your hard costs, right? So when someone leaves and they're really good, how much does it cost when they leave?

[00:43:16] Patrice Gordon: And in the U. S. you have. much more flexible labor laws than we do in the UK. Standard for the UK is probably like three to six months three months if you're in a senior position, six months if you're super senior. But ultimately that means there's a bit of time to replace and replenish people who are leaving.

[00:43:32] Patrice Gordon: But actually in the States it's even worse, right? Because someone could leave, say they're leaving today and be gone tomorrow. So all of that knowledge that you have, that you've invested in an organization and individuals could be gone just like that. Handover. etc. Trying to get someone back up to speed.

[00:43:47] Patrice Gordon: As Ben said, it takes three years for someone to perform at their optimal level. Can you afford not to do this is the question.

[00:43:56] Azure Rooths: What an just an amazing perspective. So [00:44:00] today's title was DEI Dynamics, The Interplay of Mentoring, Coaching and Reverse Coaching. We created this webinar with some pretty big promises.

[00:44:08] Azure Rooths: We promised that our attendees would develop an appropriate talent development strategy. We wanted to share the dynamics between each method and advocate for investing in DEI focused talent development initiatives. With that, I would like to ask each of you to share what are the next steps in connection with the big promise in 60 seconds or less.

[00:44:34] Azure Rooths: Patrice, what do people do next? What's the one thing they need to take away from you today that's gonna work?

[00:44:45] Patrice Gordon: Aside from getting Ben's roadmap in terms of figuring out which intervention is the appropriate thing to use at that time, once you've figured out what that intervention is I hope that reverse mentoring and what is one of them but ultimately, You know, it's, someone's just asked, I think JP's asked a question [00:45:00] in the chat around where, what is the ground ready?

[00:45:03] Patrice Gordon: How do you know when the ground is ready for reverse mentoring? And I always say you're going to do more harm than good if you implement reverse mentoring in an environment, which is not safe. So my one takeaway would be, investigate reverse mentoring. I think it is a really effective tool, but really if it's not the appropriate time to do it, really look into how do you create more of a psychologically safe and a welcoming environment so that at one point you can do that.

[00:45:27] Patrice Gordon: Because for me, it's that safety and security for people who are underrepresented within an organization and then feeling they can bring more of themselves to work. So investigate, look at the principles and then hopefully. through looking at some of the points in my book, you'll be able to see like where some of the gaps are and then really lean into some of those gaps to see if you can get the ground to be more fertile to welcome reverse mentoring in.

[00:45:51] Azure Rooths: So beautifully stated. Thank you, Patrice. Ben, what about you?

[00:45:55] Ben Brooks: Drew Collins in the chat made a great point around an iterative approach and [00:46:00] meaning you don't have it all figured out at once, right? And striving, sometimes HR is we came from origins of payroll and compliance and personnel management and labor contracts that have to be perfect.

[00:46:10] Ben Brooks: right? But in development, in learning, coaching, mentor, all this, it can be imperfect. You have to be a learner, which allows us to sometimes start smaller. Our customers often call it a pilot PILOT. So you may have 10, 000 employees, but you need to demonstrate and show the ROI that this works, right?

[00:46:27] Ben Brooks: You may leverage MentorClick, and you may give it to just a certain division within your company and try it out, right? So I think sometimes starting small means you can start faster, because the sooner you start, then you start learning as an organization what works. So you have to be very entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial and creative, because what I see happens all the time, your HMO could get burnt out and DEI people, they're trying to change the whole culture, boil the ocean, right?

[00:46:52] Ben Brooks: This huge enterprise wide thing, and then it's like years of planning, and then there's reorgs and pauses and this and that. And the ones that are the most satisfied [00:47:00] are clever and scrappy and the zig and the zag. And they say, you know what, we've got, this women in engineering program that needs some more juice.

[00:47:07] Ben Brooks: Let's take one of these interventions to an existing population or structure, our ERG leaders, our talent review, and our high posts. They plug into something that's already there. And then they add something like reverse mentoring or mentoring or group coaching, and they add it to the mix. That'd be my best advice is don't try to boil the ocean, start small and not because you're trading on ambition or your commitment to let's say DEI, it's actually because you want to plant, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, right?

[00:47:36] Ben Brooks: The second best time is now. You don't want to delay some of these things, because you're going to make a real world impact on human beings, which makes a huge difference. You're also going to start to have the organization get a taste to get their palate for what's possible when you invest in people.

[00:47:54] Azure Rooths: Phenomenal. Don't boil the ocean. Jen, what do people need to take away?

[00:47:59] Jenn Labin: [00:48:00] I think know that these are all achievable and measurable approaches to developing talent. We're talking about mentoring, coaching. We're talking about DEI in, in a historical lens. These things have all been squishy, right?

[00:48:17] Jenn Labin: They're the right thing to do. But that is not. the only truth today. These ideas are measurable. We can measure retention. We can measure ROI. We can measure representation. And so I think that after you implement Patrice's and Ben's advice or takeaways, the next thing is to really understand what changes are you looking for?

[00:48:40] Jenn Labin: What's the purpose of these initiatives? How will success be measured? And then how will you ensure progress is sustainable from that? And and all of that I think comes down to actually something Ben said a few minutes ago, which is finding the right partner. Someone said earlier, making sure mentors can see benefit.

[00:48:59] Jenn Labin: We [00:49:00] know MentorCook has looked at lots of data to find that mentors benefit as much, if not more Then mentees from participating in those mentoring relationships. So mentor numbers, retention numbers actually go up even more significantly than mentees in many cases. So work with the right partners because they can help make sure that hard data, that objective data and value is there and is measurable and it's achievable for you and your organization.

[00:49:29] Azure Rooths: Thank you so very much for sharing that Jen. It's very important that we have people who are going to take something away and put it into practice immediately.

[00:49:40] Azure Rooths: So I want to begin to wrap up by saying thank you to PILOT and to Ben. If you're interested in an upcoming webinar hosted by PILOT, we'll be discussing learning and development, building leaders in a landscape of disruption and uncertainty on October [00:50:00] 26th at 2 p. m. Eastern Standard Time. You can see all the upcoming webinars on our website, pilot.coach, under the resources tab. Also, if you'd like to learn more, you can book a demo using the link below.

[00:50:16] Azure Rooths: As we move forward, I want to say thank you to MentorClick, who provide award winning technology powered, powering award winning results. You'll see the slide being shared there, and our producer will also share the link to their website. And then finally, I'd like to say thank you to Jen, the author of Mentoring Programs That Work. You can utilize the QR code or order a copy of the book, .

[00:50:47] Azure Rooths: And then a special thank you to you, Patrice, author of Reverse Mentoring, Removing Barriers and Build, Building Belonging in the Workplace. You can scan the QR code to order a copy [00:51:00] or click in the link below. You can also reach out to Patrice for leadership consultancy, reverse mentoring and coach support .

[00:51:09] Azure Rooths: And finally, we want to say thank you so very much for joining us today. We hope that you make the most of the rest of your day.

[00:51:18] Azure Rooths: On behalf of myself, my amazing team, Ben, thank you for being here. Patrice, always a pleasure. Jen, thank you so very much. We hope you all have a wonderful day. Take [00:52:00] care.