The importance of mentoring in the digital age
Our research tells us that mentoring is very important to Generation Y. They are desperate for mentors in the workplace and it is a role that they expect their managers to take on.
Why is mentoring so important to this generation? I can think of at least two possible explanations:
- They are used to a much more hands-on relationship with their parents than previous generations had. Parents of Gen Y are much more inclined to be closely involved with all aspects of their children’s lives and decisions. This creates a need for on-tap mentoring style relationships with important older people
- The huge amount of information available to them at anyone time via the internet means that having significant relationships with people who can guide them becomes much more important than it otherwise would. Malcolm Gladwell’s explanation of this phenomena makes a lot of sense.
Managers were not traditionally taught the skills of mentoring. I would argue that this has always been an important skill of a good leader. Now I would argue it is absolutely essential.
Sally
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Sally, I’m intrigued by your point (and Gladwell’s) about mentoring. It’s an immediately attractive thought, but leaves me wondering how it works in practice. Aren’t the mentors equally overwhelmed by the eruption of information? The quality of personal relationships may well be crucially important for staying sane, but how exactly does it help to make better decisions?
I’m inclined to think that, in the face of the information tidal wave, it may rather be the wisdom of crowds (rather than individual mentors), prediction markets and trend spotting via social media that will give us a better and faster guide to which way the wind is blowing in terms of technology uptake, management thinking and practices, organisation design and so on.
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:26 am
Andrew, hi. You make a good point. I think both are important ie the ‘wisdom of crowds’ and the mentor. The very act of talking things through with another person can help someone who is in information overload. As you say, the mentor is undoubtedly subjected to the same eruption of information as anyone else, the mentoring process is useful to them too. Thinking and talking things through with another person is a great process for clarifying and understanding. My experience of a good mentor is that they help you to see the wood for the trees.
August 16th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
This is very insightful. It is meaningful, stretching and challenging conversations that move us forward; my experience is that Gen Y seek out multiple mentors as they recognise the value in bringing a diversity of opinions to solve challenging issues. We make this happen by plugging ourselves into networks across the globe on mediums such as FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Mentoring is often dismissed as unproductive coffee chatting with Senior People who could be doing more valuable things with their time. This is not what the new generation is about. We’d rather have several 15 minute chats or 2 line text messages from influential people that will guide us into a better decision.