More than solutions
Your mentoring group shouldn’t solely serve as a problem-solver though. You should also adopt a classroom atmosphere to learn about new ideas and discuss opportunities. For example, eight of Mazzella’s 12 meetings a year are planned around an expert speaker who presents a topic for discussion.
Before scheduling guests, Mazzella surveys his group members to gauge their interest in various topics, ranging from work-life balance to financial management to search engine optimization.
In addition to the nationally recognized speakers from Vistage’s bank, he also invites local experts — a more feasible option for start-up groups that aren’t internationally backed. Even if local experts can’t make it to a meeting, encourage your group members to contact the expert if they need help in that certain area of expertise.
Schultz and other Vistage members often leave those meetings with pages full of notes and heads full of ideas. The facilitator should follow up with each member individually to make sure they aren’t overwhelmed or tempted to implement everything at once.
“Part of my job is to help them set some priorities and decide,” Mazzella says. “‘You took away a half-dozen things that you’d like to add. What is really the most important? What’s going to have the greatest impact?’”
Have them keep their notes from previous meetings or at least a list of ideas they’d like to eventually consider. As they knock priorities off that list, you can keep track of what to tackle next.
“A lot of the learning that takes place is osmosis,” Mazzella says. “Over time, this helps individual members. Now when they’re faced with an issue, they can just recall speaker information or another member’s issue.”
Also provide an opportunity for the members themselves to present information. About once a year, encourage everyone to conduct a business review, recapping the company’s progress through the past year and laying out its vision for the future. Some may just share trends and key indicators, and others may open all their financial details to the group. Besides just reminding members of the group’s confidentiality agreement, return financial papers to the respective speakers so no private information leaves the room.
Sometimes, mentors don’t need advice or even new ideas. They might already know what they need to do but lack the confidence to proceed.
“Very often, it’s just hearing other people say, ‘You’re on track. Do that. That’s the right thing. We agree,’” Mazzella says.
That affirmation means more among CEOs than it may if it were coming from your management team underneath you.
“A CEO needs those strokes,” Schultz says. “I don’t need acknowledgment by the employees, but I’ve just got to make sure that other people are saying this is a best practice.”
If done right, the mentoring process should equip leaders to consider every side of an issue each time they encounter one, not train them to automatically unload their problems on others and expect answers. That development aspect is key to any group mentoring.
“It’s not just one-to-one coaching. That’s a piece of it,” Mazzella says. “Then it’s the group interaction with a facilitator. They’re learning from each other, and they’re mentoring one another.”
How to reach: Vistage International, www.vistage.com; Spectrum Surgical Instruments Corp., (800) 444-5644 or
www.spectrumsurgical.com