Reverse Mentoring

Jack Welch is generally credited with creating reverse mentoring a decade ago when he directed his top 500 managers to get a technologically savvy junior employee to teach them how to use the internet. 

The idea was that the junior person would be the senior person’s mentor.  What happened, of course, was that the junior technology mentor also received mentoring from the senior leader on things like business terminology and industry practices.

Global Novations has been working with companies on what we call Reciprocal Value Relationship (RVR) Mentoring for more than 15 years.  In our view, both the mentor and protégé in any mentoring relationship should learn from each other.  So RVR and reverse mentoring are different ways of talking about a similar thing – reciprocity and mutual growth through mentoring.

The popularity of Reverse Mentoring is on the rise and has been featured online in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Fox Business among others this year.  Reverse mentoring has become a hot topic in high tech and traditional corporations alike. Technology and social networking are changing so rapidly that Gen Ys are more likely to be up-to-date than their Baby-Boomer (or even Gen X) leaders. 

As Alan Webber, co-founder of Fast Company, said: “It’s a situation where the old fogies in an organization realize that by the time you’re in your forties or fifties, you’re not in touch with the future the same way as the young twenty-something’s.  They come with fresh eyes, open minds, and instant links to the technology of our future.”

It only makes sense to leverage this rich resource.  Executives learn to navigate social media but they also benefit from access to the new ideas brewing at lower levels in the organization.  Conversations that start with understanding how social media works can end with ways to use social media to more effectively recruit talent or attract customers.

The reciprocity factor doesn’t just benefit leaders; it also benefits younger employees and the organization.  Employees under the age of 30 tend to be highly motivated by having access and visibility to senior leaders.  The result is higher morale and reduced turnover among younger employees, who gain insight about managing the business and get glimpses of the view from the top.  And motivated employees are less likely to leave. 

Because they get a more holistic view of the organization, younger employees may also look internally first when they are ready for a new job or promotion.  As a result of reciprocal mentoring, they may better understand how their knowledge and skills can fit into other parts of the business.

Reverse mentoring is working so well for all stakeholders that some organizations are taking it global. They’re using Skype and videoconferencing for global reverse mentoring.  Said differently, this is technology enabled technology coaching.

An additional benefit of reverse mentoring that hasn’t gotten a lot of press is the diversity factor.  Gen Ys are a diverse bunch – usually much more diverse than the C-Suite leaders in most companies.  As a result, leaders may have the opportunity to develop Familiarity, Comfort, and Trust® with people who are different from themselves in gender, culture, worldview, and many other ways, in addition to generation. 

A future benefit of reverse mentoring could well be the ability to retain and advance a more diverse workforce.  This in turn may finally move the needle on the elusive goal of diverse representation above entry level.