7 Tips for Building Mentoring to Develop Employees and Raise Engagement

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7 Tips for Building Mentoring to Develop Employees and Raise Engagement

When I decided I wanted to write a book, I was utterly terrified and baffled. Where do I start?

Thankfully, I’d learned years ago that I do not have to go it alone with new challenges: I called on a trusted mentor. Elaine Biech has written or edited more than 50 books. She knows about this thing! I’m grateful for the amazing insights Elaine shared with me to guide my book publishing process. I couldn't have done it as quickly or as well without her mentoring support.

Have you had a mentor or mentored someone? I actually devoted a whole chapter in Employee Development on a Shoestring to the idea that mentoring can be a wonderful tool to develop employees. It is also an amazing employee engagement booster. In this post, I’ll share some of the highlights with you about what mentoring is and why it’s helpful, who is the ideal candidate for this kind of relationship, and seven tips for creating a strong mentoring program and/or building a great mentoring relationships which will increase both learning and engagement in your organization, department, team, or even just yourself.

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YES! We should ditch performance appraisals!

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YES! We should ditch performance appraisals!

There’s a tide of supporting evidence rising for why we should really ditch performance appraisals as we know them. Over the past year, I’ve been lucky to work with two different large clients to help them do just that. Here’s what I’ve learned so far from the research, preparation, and roll-outs of these huge cultural changes:

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Three Great New Leadership Books

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Three Great New Leadership Books

I’m happy to share three new leadership books with you that are launching in the coming days. Each brings a unique and helpful perspective to ease the work of leaders and create new opportunities for developing leadership skills: Leaders Open Doors by Bill Treasurer, Overworked and Overwhelmed: The Mindfulness Alternative by Scott Eblin, and The Discomfort Zone by Marcia Reynolds. Here's my short review of each - go get all three!

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The 3 Secrets of Motivating and Inspiring Others

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The 3 Secrets of Motivating and Inspiring Others

Motivating others - that's a tough one, right? In this post, I share the three secrets to motivating and inspiring others. Hint: none of these secrets involve spending more money! Here are some of the key findings from scientific research about what is highly motivating to most of today's knowledge workers and how to apply these insights to your daily leadership efforts.

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What the FFF? Or, how to avoid triggering Fight, Flight, or Freeze responses in others

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What the FFF? Or, how to avoid triggering Fight, Flight, or Freeze responses in others

Our brains are wired to avoid threats and to react to perceived threats by Fight, Flight, or Freeze: fighting them, fleeing from them, or sometimes freezing from the shock of them. This threat response is not limited just to physical danger and has been shown to occur in social and work settings. In this post, I explain the science behind these threat responses and show you how to avoid triggering this kind of social threat response and get more rational, better quality, and less disruptive responses to your work interactions.

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Do you have the right mindset for effective feedback?

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Do you have the right mindset for effective feedback?

Giving and receiving feedback can sometimes backfire - we've all experienced it. One of the 'tricks' to giving and receiving feedback effectively starts BEFORE you even open your mouth or begin the conversation: it starts with your mindset and the context of the relationship between the feedback conversation partners. In my latest vlog (video blog), I help you recognize both the right mindset and the proper context for giving feedback in a way that's better received.

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3.5 Ideas for Building Trust (even if it’s virtual)

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3.5 Ideas for Building Trust (even if it’s virtual)

Trust is a tricky subject. It comes up a lot in my conversations with leaders and teams because it is extremely complex and there are lots of obstacles in the way of building trust. I just put the final touches on a full-day workshop solely on this subject for one of my clients, and thought I’d share 3.5 great ideas that may help you increase your ability to generate and sustain trust with others.

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A cool tool to lighten your leadership workload AND develop your employees

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A cool tool to lighten your leadership workload AND develop your employees
One of the common pitfalls of leaders I described in my last blog post is the Responsibility Virus. In this post I will share a great tool with you that should help you not only lighten up your own workload (whoa, that would have been enough, right?!) but actually help you develop your employees and create some real ‘bench strength’ on your team. Sound good? Read on!
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Employee Development Done Right: ASTD Interviews Halelly Azulay

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Employee Development Done Right: ASTD Interviews Halelly Azulay
Listen to a short and upbeat interview by ASTD's Ann Parker in which Halelly Azulay discusses why employee development is as important as ever even in the current workplace climate, how to ensure employee development strategies are beneficial to both the employee and the organization, and how to implement good employee development strategies in your organization.
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3 Keys to Communication Success

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3 Keys to Communication Success

Our daily lives offer endless communication challenges. Dealing with family and friends, clients and team members, and service providers, among others, has become a bit like walking a minefield. Here are three keys that can really make a difference in the quality of your interactions with others. Leverage human nature by applying simple techniques and avoiding common pitfalls to make your daily communication more effective.

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The "STS Formula" for giving positive feedback and appreciation

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Thankful.jpg

It was very nice to see TalentGrow's annual gift featured in this guest post on WordOfMouth.org by our friend and colleague Jeremy Epstein, VP of Marketing and Social Navigator at Sprinklr. It just shows that when you give thoughtful, meaningful, authentic gifts, it really resonates with the people who receive them.

The same is true with positive recognition and appreciation; in my opinion, it is the most influential tool in any leader's toolkit. When you say "thank you" or "job well-done" to a staff member, peer, supervisor, client, associate or friend, it has a lasting positive effect, often with a multiplier effect rippling off of it.

Let's face it: NO ONE has ever felt TOO appreciated. Period.

Halelly's "STS Formula" for positive feedback and appreciation

Here's the simple formula that is guaranteed to work to make people feel truly appreciated:

  1. Be Specific. Describe in as much detail as possible WHAT you appreciated and WHY.While "Thank you" and "Good job" are way better than nothing, they don't really describe the behavior you appreciated and want to recognize. Here's a little secret: what gets appreciated, gets repeated. Don't you want to let the person know what behavior to repeat?
  2. Be Timely. Articulate your appreciation (whether orally or in writing) as closely to the occurrence of the appreciated behavior as possible. Otherwise, not only will the person possibly forget what they did, but they may not feel your appreciation is as authentic or heart-felt as it should be. I mean, "thank you so much for helping me that time two months ago" just doesn't have as much of a positive impact as "thanks for your help yesterday" does.
  3. Be sincere. People can read (and smell) 'fake' from a mile away. Humans are astute observers of nuanced body language signals that convey incongruence. And, when faced with a mismatch between the words and the way they were conveyed, we almost always trust the visual and vocal cues as the 'true message'. If you're giving appreciation as a 'management technique' or because you 'have to', not because you're truly appreciative, the receiver will pick this up and your positive feedback will have the OPPOSITE effect - it will create distrust and disgruntlement. The bottom line: if you can't find a way to sincerely feel thankful, it's best you don't give thanks. 

Take the "STS Challenge"

In the next week, look for opportunities to 'catch' people doing things right, and for things you can appreciate about them, and provide Specific, Timely, and Sincere appreciation. It can be as simple as a spoken appreciation face-to-face or by phone, a thank you card, or a symbolic gift. Then, come back and report about your experience and reactions in the comments below. I can't wait to hear about it!

Image: my modification of a photo by Flickr Creative Commons user Claudio.Ar

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You Might Also Like These Posts:

[Vlog]: 10 conversations every leader should have with every employee

The Top 10 Conversations Every Leader Should Have with Every Employee

The 3 Secrets of Motivating and Inspiring Others

7 Tips for Building Mentoring to Develop Employees and Raise Engagement

What do leadership and driving a car have in common? [vlog]

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What do leadership and driving a car have in common? [vlog]

Have you ever learned new skills, and felt overwhelmed and intimidated? Did you feel unnatural and uncomfortable as you tried out your new skills? If you're like most, you might have even had doubts that you could really perform those new skills and a strong urge to revert back to your tried-and-true old habits.

In the vlog (video blog) below I share a useful analogy that likens the experience of learning any new skills to learning to drive a car for the first time. Please watch it here:

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