Sir Richard Branson is a big believer in the power of mentoring, believing its impact “cannot be underestimated” and that the direction reverse mentoring is heading in is “brilliant” because it “drives inclusion and helps everyone feel like they belong”. This is in a LinkedIn post from a year ago in which he specifically namechecks Patrice Gordon, who launched Virgin Atlantic’s reverse mentoring programme.
Since Branson said this, Gordon has quickly gained the reputation for being the ‘face’ of reverse mentoring and has delivered a TED talk on the topic, as well as written a book, Reverse Mentoring: Removing Barriers and Building Belonging in the Workplace.
We caught up with her to find out more about reverse mentoring and how it can drive inclusion and belonging.
How do you define reverse mentoring?
It’s where senior leaders are mentored by people who are under-represented, and that can be any way, in shape or form, from gender and age to ethnicity and disability.
Is grabbing a coffee with someone you want to learn from and asking them for their thoughts defined as reverse mentoring?
That would be defined as a ‘mentoring moment’. It’s not a mentor relationship, or programme.
Generally, if a leader has something specific they would like an answer about, which requires little emotional energy, I think there’s nothing wrong with saying they’d like to hear their viewpoint on it.
However, if leaders are trying to get a deep and insightful answer from someone that they don’t know, when they haven’t built up any psychological safety, I wouldn’t advise this. Why would a mentor feel safe enough to answer those questions for you when you are a senior leader and there’s a power imbalance?
A less senior employee is hardly likely to say ‘I don’t want to have a coffee with you’ to a senior leader.
Also, if you’re just trying to tick a box to say ‘yes, I spoke to one of my Gen Z members of staff’ then that is not really going to lead to valuable insight.
When was it that you started having this passion for reverse mentoring?
I was a reverse mentor in 2018 for the CEO of Virgin Atlantic, Craig Kreeger. He was interested in how we could get more black women into senior leadership roles. My journey was unique as I was one of the very few within the leadership team.
For me it was the first time that I was invited into the room as a black woman, on top of the skill set I brought. Before that, I was always in the room because of my skills – which is how it should be – but this was about someone being genuinely interested in my story, with the intention of making it easier for other people like me in future.
Why do you think reverse mentoring is so powerful?
Reverse mentoring is the only leadership intervention that leaders can’t delegate. Everything else they can. They can say ‘I’ll be a sponsor for that programme’, for example, but then get someone else to actually go off and do the work. They can’t do that with reverse mentoring.
I felt like it was transformative for me. Craig found it was transformative for him, too.
So it’s true buy-in from leadership, which we’re always hearing is so fundamental to success in this area. Did you feel that you were getting his buy-in in a deeper way?
Yes, for me it was about being able to have a real conversation with the CEO about my experience, and him genuinely being interested in how he can make a difference and make the organisation a lot more inclusive.
Then, our conversation drove other conversations between leaders, where they also shared their viewpoints and experiences to the point where Sir Richard Branson became aware and interested. This led to an internal project we set up, where I was the lead mentor, in 2019.
What approach from the senior leader do you think is necessary for success?
For Craig, it was that he had genuine curiosity for someone who, on the surface, appeared to be quite different to him.
As humans we have a natural tendency to want to be around people who are like us because, as per Darwinism, it’s safer for us. That’s why people hire people who are more like them, and that’s why leadership teams are the way that they are.
For reverse mentoring to work, senior leaders must actively engage in it. They have to put themselves in the hot seat, so to speak. They have to be vulnerable and courageous, and they have to dig deep to understand their potential biases.
When you are in that position, face to face with difference, it’s really difficult for you to ignore that difference. You can’t help but develop empathy for someone who is different to you.
I guess for some / many leaders the idea of being vulnerable and saying or doing the wrong thing could be offputting?
That’s why reverse mentoring works is because it’s a safely constructed program which allows leaders and mentors to go through this relationship with guardrails.
Part of the work that I do is around providing the guardrails and training, and being a coach to leaders. I am an inbetween so I can answer some of the leaders’ questions so, by the time they have those conversations with their mentor, they’re doing it from an informed place.
Also, if it’s sensitive, they can have that challenging conversation with me before they choose to have it with the mentor.
What practical tips do you have for employers thinking of starting a reverse mentoring programme?
Whoever is leading on the programme has to make sure they have a network to be able to support it; it can’t just be a standalone project which isn’t linked to any kind of objective or roadmap. Otherwise, the mentors are going to wonder, how does this fit into the overall picture?
Also, spend time at the beginning setting out what the objectives are and why it’s important. Then get people to apply to take part because it’s important that it is not forced participation. Ensure participants commit to training sessions and preparing for the mentoring sessions. It’s a lot of work, so leaders in particular need to be aware of that and be prepared to make time for it. If they’re not then don’t waste their, and everyone else’s, time.
Any advice for senior leaders on the first session?
I always tell leaders to enter into the relationship being prepared to be more vulnerable than the mentor. That means sharing their story. It doesn’t mean talk about titles or promotions – it means talking on a personal level.
For example, once psychological safety has been established, a leader might open a conversation with something like ‘I have a team that’s only men and I’m trying to hire more women and I want to know, is there anything about my behaviour that might be encouraging only men to join the team?’
Things get interesting when there’s that level of honesty.
I also advise leaders to introduce the mentor to the other team members so the mentor can shadow and feedback on meetings. I also encourage mentors to speak to team members in private, too.
What are some of the challenges with reverse mentoring?
Ensuring that there is a plan to implement the learnings from the program and not just use it as a listening exercise.
There is a temptation for leaders to not want to say anything about the programme until it is complete. The programmes that work really well and have great engagement are those where the communication is open, the why, how it is going, and next steps. People like to be bought into the process, this makes it stronger and gains engagement as the programme develops.
For the 4th stage of psychological safety, “Challenger Safety”, this is where true innovation can happen. You can’t just drive right into this space, though, and some leaders are keen to “get to the point” forcing challenges before people feel really safe to do so. This can end badly… for both parties. So, take the time to build a genuine relationship and trust will come and then challenge can happen naturally.
It sounds like so many aspects of society could benefit from reverse mentoring in terms of living and working with difference better?
Yes! We can’t change as a society until we open up our minds to people who are different to us.
It’s very rare that you sit down and have a conversation with someone and you can’t find one thing that you have in common with each other. We are more similar than we are dissimilar, but there are so many misperceptions, or preconceived ideas, that prevent us from seeing that.
You’ve said that good line managers have been instrumental in your career success and developing your confidence. What can we do about the amount of managers today that feel under so much pressure and on the edge of burnout?
Managers are under pressure, but they’re also under-trained as well. And we have a trend where many individual contributors are being promoted into line managers and they have the job expertise but have not necessarily managed people before.
But what can employers do about that?
Individual contributors who want to move up in the organisation have to have the right track for them to be able to do so. If the only track is to become a people manager, then that’s what you’re going to do, because that’s the only way that you can move up.
It’s important for leaders within organisations to really recognise what leadership behaviour versus individual contributor behaviour is, and put structures in place to be able to accommodate each.
The challenge right now is structures are becoming hierarchically flatter and, therefore, opportunities to do things that are outside the normal range are much more difficult.
If organisations want their teams to be happy, they can’t keep on promoting individual contributors into management and leadership roles, because they’re going to lose their people.
Employers need to allow for some flexibility to really grow their workforce for the future. If they don’t, then people are going to leave and go to other organisations which allow them to operate or contribute in the way that they want to. (To see how one organisation is tackling this challenge, see this case study on AtkinsRealis).
I’m guessing, particularly, that the people leaving will be the younger generations?
Very much so.
One of the big challenges with work currently is that we are all scheduled to the hilt. There is no space in our diaries. It’s packed with meetings. And it’s got worse after the pandemic. This means that the actual ‘work’ we need to do is done before hours or after hours, so there isn’t that space to be able to explore.
Gen Z individuals, in particular that I’m speaking to, are finding this challenging because they don’t have headspace to do things off script and they’re not senior enough to manage their time as they please.
That’s why things like Google’s “20% Project” [which allows employees to spend up to 20% of their work time on personal projects to encourage innovation and creativity] are good.
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