Mentoring 2.0.

December 9th, 2010

Developmental Networks at Work.

Professor of Organizational Behavior Kathy E. Kram, The Shipley Professor of Management, recently received the 2010 Everett Hughes Award for Outstanding Career Research from the National Academy of Management. At our invitation, she submitted an excerpt from a piece submitted to the Wall Street Journal, which ran March 2010. Her co-author was Monica C. Higgins, Professor of Education, Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Alert to climbers, strivers, and those seeking higher rank. The personal, one-to-one, mentor-to-protege approach is no longer touted as the holy grail of career advancement, professional development, or satisfaction in contemporary work settings.

With today’s fast-changing technology and increasingly global, multicultural, and team-based work environments, no single mentor could possibly provide the guidance, exposure, and opportunities that are so essential to effectively managing current job challenges and preparing for future leadership roles. Nor is assigning formal mentors to high-potential employees the solution to building a high performance, learning organization.

Our recent research shows that creating and cultivating a developmental network is a far better approach to ensuring ongoing learning and growth. A developmental network is that group of individuals who have a genuine interest in your development and are uniquely qualified to assist you in a critical aspect of your learning and professional growth. The individuals who make up your developmental network may or may not know one another, and they may span several departments, organizations, and geographies.

Note we are not referring here to your entire network. Rather, a developmental network is that sub-network of people, a small group of about five people to whom you turn for mentoring support in your everyday life at work, a group you might think of as your personal board of directors.

The point here is that these individuals have been enlisted by you to provide the mentoring functions that will enable you to take the next step forward, whatever that may be.

Developmental networks provide information, access, and emotional support, all or at least some of which may be important to you. Having a network of high-quality relationships characterized by mutual learning and trust is essential to doing one’s current job and preparing for future opportunities.

The fundamental nature of mentoring has been transformed from one-to-one, stable, hierarchical relationships to a wide variety of developmental relationships with peers, seniors, juniors, family members, and friends (due to regular restructuring, downsizing, and strategic repositioning that are now so common).

A developmental network is that sub-network of people to whom you turn for mentoring support in your everyday life at work.

In addition, given the steep learning curves that characterize most global markets, individuals must constantly acquire new knowledge and skills. Even those who are experienced and have served as traditional mentors find themselves in need of learning from those who have the latest technological knowledge and skills. Thus, juniors and seniors are often co-learners.

Perhaps more so than ever before, peers can learn from one another in one-on-one and group settings where complementary knowledge and skills, as well as shared challenges, can be a source of learning and problem-solving for all present.

How to Build Your Developmental Network.

The keys to building a developmental network involve a bit of work, but it’s worthwhile. First, knowing yourself well, including your personal goals, strengths and weaknesses, and relational skills, can be tremendously useful to others who are trying to help you. Only with this self-awareness will you be able to figure out to whom to turn for developmental support.

Part of your self-knowledge should include an assessment of your relational skills, such as your propensity to reach out for help; your ability to identify potential developers; your capacity to initiate conversation with individuals who don’t know you; and your openness to sharing your own experiences, inviting feedback, and establishing a connection of mutual trust and respect with one another.

Whether it’s balance, promotion, or change that you seek in your career, there are different kinds of advice and coaching that you will want to seek.

Second is to know your career context. Think of this as an opportunity audit. Knowing yourself is one half of the equation. The other is knowing the opportunity structure for where you want to go.

Whether it’s achieving balance, promotion, or change that you seek in your career, there are different kinds of advice and coaching that you will want to seek. The more prepared you are about who and what you need, the more thoughtful and potentially rewarding your developmental network will be.

Individuals who want to change firms or industries run the risk of not having an accurate understanding of the context and job characteristics of their desired positions. Without the benefit of knowing one or more individuals who are already working in the new job, organization, or industry, it’s quite likely that your assumptions about the move may be faulty or at best incomplete.

Third, enlist potential developers. You should approach prospective developers with a sense of how they might benefit from an active association with you. Having a clear sense of these possibilities will make it easier for you to empathize, ask relevant questions, and disclose information about yourself as you ask for guidance that will facilitate meaningful connections and, in turn, mutual learning and development.

Fourth, regularly reassess your developmental network. As we compare networks of successful executives in our research, it is clear that as one’s career unfolds, the ideal developmental network changes as well. Always be thinking of who may be able to help in your next step.

Fifth, develop others and your organization as you develop yourself. High-quality mentoring is characterized by mutual learning. Consider your developmental network a critical tool for developing others, your organization, and yourself.

If you are discerning about the value of your current developmental network and take action to strengthen its value to you, you will at the same time create opportunities for those you enlist to enhance their own developmental networks. Ultimately, these networks can be leveraged to serve organizational performance and development as well. It’s a win-win proposition for you and for your organization.