High-potential employees are paired, openly, with mentors who share leadership's view of where the company is going, so the next generation learns the strategy from people who believe in it.
Borderline: whether this move is justified depends on the situation, and only the person in it can judge.
An example
With a third of the marketing budget moving to direct-to-consumer sales, the chief strategy officer of a beverage company wanted the next generation of brand leaders to understand the shift from the inside. She paired the twenty-four people in the high-potential cohort with leaders of the direct-to-consumer program and told the cohort at the kickoff that the pairings were chosen for that reason. Each member could also pick a second mentor from anywhere in the company. At the end of the year each wrote a one-page critique of the strategy for the executive team. Two of the critiques changed the subscription pricing. A year later, most of the cohort were running brand teams that had adopted the new model.
Why it works
When the career benefits of mentoring arrive along with the mentor's view, adopting the view is easy: it comes ready-made, endorsed, and with the debt of the mentor's time. Alternative views start to look naive, and disagreeing with a benefactor carries a personal cost. Openness about the purpose, a second mentor of the mentee's choosing, and an invitation to critique keep that pull from becoming a trap: the mentee knows what the pairing is for and has somewhere else to test it. It works best on early-career people still forming their professional identity.
The thinking behind it
Robert B. Cialdini Cialdini's Influence (1984) describes reciprocity and commitment: people feel obliged to repay what others give them, and small early agreements make larger later ones easier. A mentor's time and advocacy are gifts that create an obligation, and adopting the mentor's view is one way to repay it. Openness about why pairings were made, and a second mentor, give mentees a way to repay the gift without surrendering their judgment.
Pierre Bourdieu Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice (1972) describes how those who control recognition hold a quiet power over those who seek it. Mentors who advocate in calibration control a form of recognition early-career employees badly want. That is why calibration must stay tied to evidence about work, so that recognition does not become payment for agreement.
When it fits
Leaders whose strategy needs carriers in the next generation are the ones this suits, provided they have mentors able to explain it and its weaknesses and control or influence over the mentoring program. It needs a willingness to say openly why the pairings were made.
How to use it well
Say at the start why each pairing was made.
- Pick mentors who can argue the strategy and also admit where it is weak.
- Offer every mentee a second mentor of their own choosing.
- Ask mentees for a written critique and show that critiques can change things.
- Keep calibration and promotion decisions on evidence about work.
- Watch whether mentees' views converge entirely, and widen the program if they do.
Brief mentors on the purpose too. A mentor who knows the program values honest critique will invite it, and one who thinks the job is recruitment will discourage it.
What it costs and where it backfires
A program built around one view breeds a monoculture, and people outside it may see it as partisan. Mentees who come to disagree may feel they are letting their mentors down. Using mentoring to collect personal information on dissenters, or penalizing mentees who disagree, is the point where it becomes concealment and retaliation.
When it is used on you
Find a second mentor from another part of the company when mentor pairings follow faction lines and mentees start repeating their mentors' positions word for word. Before adopting a view on a contested question, write down the strongest case for the other side, and keep gratitude for the help separate from agreement with the views.