Peer Mentors: Trust Us, You Need Them.
Last week, we talked about inviting others into your development in the form of mentorships. When you hear “mentorship,” what probably comes to mind is a relationship between two people in different career stages. This is a valuable and essential type of mentorship, but it’s not the only one; peer mentors offer a network of support based on diverse lived experience. In other words, they’re in the same boat as you, but they’ve traversed different seas.
Earlier this year, a customer approached us about training Customer Success Managers to better engage with their clients. The program design centers on asking great questions, but we took the opportunity to bake in methodology for building an interdependent network among peers. When CSMs engage with unique client challenges, they are empowered to troubleshoot with each other, rather than escalating each issue to their boss. Our training can provide the knowledge, but the true value of the peer-to-peer network is that it’s sustainable and will continue to support CSMs long after the training has been completed. The structures you build around peer interdependence must make it easy and expected. In turn, these structures reinforce other positive things, like bonding, trust and respect.
What makes a system like this possible with this client is the culture they’ve worked hard to establish; it reflects the expectation that employees aren’t expected to know everything all the time, and that asking for help isn’t something to be ashamed of.
Intentional peer mentoring can help extract tacit knowledge among team members—the experience gained by doing that can’t quite be explained in SOPs and employee handbooks. One of the coolest outcomes of this is sometimes that the quiet, unassuming person on your team can fall into the role of a mentor somewhat unexpectedly. The most knowledgeable people on your team who’ve built a body of expertise in things (even niche things!) that are relevant to the team now have an opportunity to teach them. Something as simple as a Slack channel dedicated to peer problem-solving can act as a safe zone for colleagues to crowdsource solutions.
If you’re a leader, peer mentorship can be just as critical for you as it is for your employees. Gone are the days of CEOs following formulaic strategies to success; the age of information and constantly evolving technology make having all the answers impossible—not to mention the chaotic scramble to adapt to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. There’s a saying: “The best golfers in the world can’t see their own backswing.”
A similar model to the aforementioned could be easily followed for leadership cohorts. For example, CEO roundtable groups offer the chance to connect with other leaders, learn from their successes and failures, and see your own issues from the perspective of others who aren’t as personally connected and invested as you. It’s important that these meetings are mediated by a facilitator and are structured—two key factors that differentiate them from a mere networking opportunity.
What kind of peer mentorship program is working at your company? We geek out over this kind of stuff at Stone House, so if you ever want to chat about it, feel free to send us a message.