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Rediff.com Business Companies gain when young executives tutor their bosses!

Companies gain when young executives tutor

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February 10, 2016 18:13 IST

More and more companies are warming up to the idea of reverse mentoring.
t might be un-Indian to flip the traditional
roles of mentor and mentee, but with reverse
mentoring, companies in India are learning to
do just that as young executives in their
twenties tutor senior executives and
department heads in workplace technology
and social media.

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Though not exactly a new trend, reverse

mentoring took time to catch on in India Inc.
So what gains have companies made from it
and what challenges do they face in India?
More importantly, how significant is reverse mentoring as a strategy that puts the onus on
millennials, who form the young workforce today but will be at the helm in a couple of
decades?
Peyush Bansal, founder and CEO at Lenskart, feels younger workers may not have the
professional experience of their potential mentees, but "their understanding of new media and
technology is vast, native and adaptive".
On lessons from this practice, he says: "Reverse mentoring provides senior executives with the
opportunity to assimilate knowledge from a different generation. One outcome is that the
organisation becomes a self-learning organisation, but the biggest outcome is that we have a
very engaged workforce across levels."
Tackling challenges, Bansal believes, depend on processes and methodologies that an
organisation adopts.

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"Taking time to determine which team members are best suited to work with each other is also
important - mentors should not be chosen just because they're young and mentees should be
vetted for their openness to learning. The meetings between mentors and mentees should be
structured, with ground rules (for instance, is communication through Skype allowed or
should all meetings be in person?) and parameters (determining whether learning how to use a
particular platform, such as Wikipedia, is a constructive use of time and valuable skill for the

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mentee) in place from the outset."

He adds reverse mentoring in a structured manner is strategically advantageous. It means an

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organisation has confidence in the younger workforce, it generates cross-learning and there is
a free flow of innovative ideas and thoughts.
Christopher Abraham, head of Dubai campus, SP Jain School of Global Management, says, "
Reverse mentoring can be included within existing mentorship programmes. The key focus
should be on matching employees of different generations and to encourage all involved to

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regularly exchange ideas and challenge each other."

DP Singh, vice-president and HR head-India/South Asia at IBM, says, "The power of
mentoring and reverse mentoring is an essential cog in the learning wheel of a senior
executive. I have been personally mentored by very young people. Recent examples include
social media and understanding the LGBT community. This has been a win-win situation

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where senior executives become well-informed and young employees get a wider exposure
through interactions."
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Reverse mentoring is slowly becoming hygiene after a quiet entry. As you embrace it, here is a
list of dos and donts that you need to follow to reap the benefits from this initiative
Dos
Work together to come up with new ideas: Reverse mentoring makes you more creative,
especially about ways to reach younger consumers or market a product online
Make it a two-way street: Engaging with a younger mentor enriches your daily experience
on the job and increases the sense of a shared dialogue in office
Connect to technology faster: Broadening your sources of information to include online

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databases and social media applications lets you stay in the loop
Look beyond the ordinary, regular: A younger person can introduce you to newer
audiences, trendy thinkers and ideas that you might have missed
Donts
Dont let the tail wag the dog: Get as much tactical feedback as possible from your young
advisor, but be wary about letting a reverse mentor dictate work strategies
Stay within the parameter of work: The under-30 crowd might be hip to tech trends, but
they don't always understand how to use social media in a business context
Don't ignore privacy and confidentiality issues: If you dont, your mentor might end up
blurting out to the world some of your personal information, pictures or even trade secrets
Dont let your mentor persuade you to take unnecessary risks: in this post-Lehman
Brothers world, sometimes you need to say no
Singh cites an example where reverse mentoring allows a team of handpicked young people to
be part of a shadow board.

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"As a part of this programme, a similar situation is given to the young employees and the
senior leaders to analyse how differently they would deal with it. It helps bring out the
innovative approach taken by youngsters to solve a problem, and aims to cause better
understanding between the top leaders and young employees."

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IBM has a large millennial workforce and it has taken initiatives to endure this group reverse
mentors executives to become more socially networked and digitally skilled.
Singh says an inclusive culture at IBM has helped it adapt to reverse mentoring.
"Time invested in any mentoring relationship is a key to success and with the busy schedules of
senior executives, this becomes a challenge. We understand that skills are the new currency,
and IBMers leverage self-development opportunities such as reverse mentoring to continually
acquire new skills."
Employers need robust, nuanced talent strategies and analytics to better understand
employees as individuals to make the most of their skills, Singh says.
On the strategic impact of reverse mentoring, he therefore feels that "a present-day millennial
who has worked with a leader who is open to learning and feedback would inevitably take on
that competency and act as a catalyst for change. They, too, would inculcate the same
behaviour in their teams".
But there are hindrances - and much of that comes from who we are as a society. HR and
business strategy professional Jappreet Sethi, points out that in India, we have a strictly
hierarchical society.
"We are the only country in the world that has a concept of the Hindu undivided family, where
you have a karta (manager) of the house. That has psychologically remained in our society. We
are not very open as a country to learning anything from anybody junior."
He explains that the number of years of experience is valued in traditional companies while
curricula in schools and colleges remained largely the same for years before the advent of the
internet.
People who had read more books and attended more conferences were generally considered
more literate.
But today, kids are seen as being "smarter" because they are using new technology and know
new things better.
"Smart leaders, even those who are more than 50, want summer interns because they can look
at things without polished eyeballs," points out Sethi.
He says that in India "traditional" industries have been slow to adopt the idea of reverse
mentoring, though they are slowly waking up to its potential.
Even in start-ups, which are primarily young ventures, a lot of co-founders are learning from
their juniors, notes Sethi, who is a co-founder of YoStartups.
Going by his experience, Abraham concludeS that reverse mentoring may not replace
traditional programmes entirely, but "senior executives will certainly get disruptive thinking
and fresh ideas from an organisation's rising stars and increase connectivity, communication
and collaboration to enhance organisational success."
Five lessons
Christopher Abraham
Many forward-thinking organisations including ANZ, Telstra, Cisco, Proctor & Gamble and
Time Warner have embraced this non-traditional concept and are reaping discernible benefits.
Catching on to this global trend, many Indian corporations, including Bharti Airtel, are
exploring the possibilities of this growing phenomenon of getting millennials to mentor
seniors.
Why millennials? Because they are more enterprising, more tech-savvy and more
collaborative.
Planning and executing a proper reverse mentoring programme would need to carefully

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consider the following key factors to ensure success:

The most critical component of a successful reverse mentoring programme is setting the
expectations of everyone involved by clearly defining goals and consistently measuring them.
All the stakeholders involved need total agreement on the process and outcomes and
communicate regularly to iron out any ambiguities.
In a typical reverse mentoring relationship, it should be clearly understood that both parties
act as mentor and mentee to each other and both exhibit the willingness to learn.
Reverse mentoring can be designed to benefit all if it is consciously embedded as art of the
company culture and meticulously built over time.
Trust and transparency have to be the ultimate hallmark in such a relationship, where both
parties trust each other and are open with their thoughts and feelings.
When the above factors are carefully adhered to in a reverse mentoring programme, both
parties are able to overcome differences in communication styles, coming from differing
generations, and are also open to seeing different situations and challenges from different
perspectives.
Christopher Abraham is Head of Dubai campus, SP Jain School of Global
Management.
Ritwik Sharma
Source:

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a boss becomes obsolete too fast.

by chanakya maurya (View MyPage) on Feb 10, 2016 07:35 PM
If he concentrates on bossing rather than getting himself or herself updated 24x7x365 through his own people who
are better and more updated versions always ready to adapt to newer challenges the business confronts on an
almost hourly basis.
The bosses must feel proud to be propelled by the more powerful engines of the juniors.
Their egos can rest in the deep freeze.
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