Katy Dickinson

SEED Mentoring Autumn Event

The SEED worldwide mentoring program held its regular autumn event yesterday. I think the talks and tours went very well and comments so far have been enthusiastic. We welcomed about 50 participants, with the majority joining remotely.

Speakers and activities for the event included:

• Christine Bucklin,
  Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategic Planning
  speaking on "Harnessing Serendipity"
• Hal Stern,
  Vice President, Global Systems Engineering, Global Sales and Services
  (and 14-time SEED Mentor)
  speaking on "Tribes, Couplings, and Value"
• Sun's CTO Greg Papadopoulos and Sun Fellow Jim Mitchell joined us for lunch in the Java Java Cafe (in Sun's Menlo Park, California, campus)
• Tours were given of
  Sun Labs (featuring Gilda Garreton, Poorna Udupi, Stephen Uhler),
  the Enterprise Technology Center (featuring Rob Snevely),
  the Executive Briefing Center

Event photos:

Images Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 12:12PM Oct 22, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[0]

Best Selling Mentoring Report (sortof...)

At the end of August 2009, Sun Labs published a technical report about Sun Microsystems' mentoring programs: "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon, available free at: http://research.sun.com/spotlight/2009/2009-08-28_TR-2009-185.html.

314 Downloads

This week, I was very pleased to learn that there have already been 314 downloads, a best seller by technical report standards. OK, the report is free and 314 is hardly the tens of millions of books Dan Brown can sell writing about cryptography, symbols, and conspiracy theories; however, it is a solid and satisfying start. 314 downloads is in addition to the 90 paper reports we handed out from Sun's table at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC09) earlier this month. After so much effort, I am glad to know that someone is actually reading it (or downloading it, anyway). Hooray!

Report Overview

Sun Microsystems has benefited from a long-term successful culture of mentoring, especially in its worldwide engineering divisions. About 7,300 mentoring pairs have participated in one of Sun’s formal mentoring programs since 1996. Sun has developed several internal formal world-wide mentoring programs in which mentoring pairs focus on a business problem or goal of the mentee. To create this report, the authors analyzed Sun’s 1996-2009 mentoring program data, Sun-wide data, plus information from a Gartner report on Sun mentoring which focused on the ROI of Sun’s mentoring programs.

Mentoring is near the top of most lists of tools that are effective at promoting professional development and advancement in industry. As a business method, mentoring works well generally and also is particularly valuable to women and minorities.

Mentoring has paid off for Sun in increased productivity, efficiency, and greater satisfaction among participants. This report presents what Sun did and how Sun did it to allow others to take advantage of the company’s extensive and successful experience with this remarkably effective and versatile business method. So far as is known, this report is unique: no other company has published a long-term detailed analysis about its corporate mentoring program.

3 Authors

Helen generously took Tanya and me out to the new and impressive Rosewood Sand Hill Hotel for lunch to celebrate our publication and so that we could all sign report copies to give with thanks to our program sponsors. The pink drink in the picture is the Madera restaurant's "House Made Prickly Pear Lemonade" - very pretty and refreshing!

Images Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 06:04PM Oct 16, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[0]

SEED Mentoring's Autumn Event

The SEED worldwide mentoring program will hold its regular autumn event on 21 October 2009. Since the Sun-Oracle transition is taking longer than expected to complete, we are keeping up with business as usual as best we can.

Speakers and activities for the event will include:

• Christine Bucklin,
  Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategic Planning
• Hal Stern,
  Vice President, Global Systems Engineering, Global Sales and Services
  (and 14-time SEED Mentor)
• Tours of
  Sun Labs (featuring Gilda Garreton, Poorna Udupi, Stephen Uhler),
  the Enterprise Technology Center (featuring Rob Snevely),
  the Executive Briefing Center
• We may have a SEED dinner that night if there is enough interest

26 are registered to participate so far, less than usual for this event, about half of whom will join by video or conference call. We have reserved large video conference rooms in both Menlo Park, California, and Burlington, Massachusetts. I hope to see more registrations this week!

Posted at 10:26AM Oct 13, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[0]

2-Page "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009" Report Overview

We have just created a two-page overview handout about the new "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009" technical report from Sun Labs. This handout and copies of the report will be available at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC09) which starts next week in Tucson, Arizona. Sun is a Platinum Sponsor of the Hopper Conference. It starts out:

"Overview

Sun Microsystems has benefited from a long-term successful culture of mentoring, especially in its worldwide engineering divisions. About 7,300 mentoring pairs have participated in one of Sun’s formal mentoring programs since 1996. Sun has developed several internal formal world-wide mentoring programs in which mentoring pairs focus on a business problem or goal of the mentee. To create this report, the authors analyzed Sun’s 1996-2009 mentoring program data, Sun-wide data, plus information from a Gartner report on Sun mentoring which focused on the ROI of Sun’s mentoring programs.

Mentoring has paid off for Sun in increased productivity, efficiency, and greater satisfaction among participants. This report presents what Sun did and how Sun did it to allow others to take advantage of the company’s extensive and successful experience with this remarkably effective and versatile business method. So far as is known, this report is unique: no other company has published a long-term detailed analysis about its corporate mentoring program."

Also included in the two-page handout are the first five conclusions, plus expert mentoring advice from the report (Best and Worst Practices). Sheri Kaneshiro took this picture of the three report authors:

Katy Dickinson (middle),
Tanya Jankot (right), and
Helen Gracon (left).

Image Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson and Sheri Kaneshiro

Posted at 12:36PM Sep 23, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[0]

"Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009" Published Today

Publication
I hope you will want to read "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", the newest Sun Laboratories Technical Report by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon, published this morning. You can see the spotlight announcement on Sun Labs' public home page at http://research.sun.com.

The abstract and report link are on http://research.sun.com/techrep/2009/abstract-185.html,
Report # TR-2009-185

Announcement
August 28, 2009- Sun Microsystems has benefited from a long-term successful culture of mentoring, especially in its worldwide engineering divisions. About 7,300 mentoring pairs have participated in one of Sun's formal mentoring programs since 1996. Sun has developed several internal formal worldwide mentoring programs, three of which are still offered. To create this report, the authors analyzed Sun's 1996-2009 mentoring program data, plus Sunwide data, plus information from a Gartner report on Sun mentoring which focused on the ROI of Sun's mentoring programs.

Mentoring has paid off for Sun in increased productivity, efficiency, and greater satisfaction among participants. This report presents what Sun did and how Sun did it to allow others to take advantage of the company's extensive and successful experience with this remarkably effective and versatile business method. So far as is known, this report is unique: no other company has published a long-term detailed analysis about its corporate mentoring program.

Abstract
This paper provides a summary of mentoring information, best practices, metrics, and recommendations developed during 1996-2009 by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun provides network computing infrastructure solutions that include computer systems, software, storage and services. The company has a strong corporate culture that values and promotes mentoring. Sun has offered several internally-developed formal mentoring programs, including:

• SEED (Sun Engineering Enrichment & Development),
  Katy Dickinson has been SEED's Director since 2001
• Mentoring@Sun, managed by Helen Gracon since 1996
• New Sun Vice Presidents, managed by Helen Gracon since 2004

Mentoring increases effectiveness and efficiency to achieve business results by doing real work, real time. Developing a corporate culture of mentoring is a good way to establish a network of communication across organizational silos, promote a wide variety of talents, and broaden the diversity of ideas and innovation available to the company. The ROI on Sun mentoring has been calculated to be 1,000% or greater.

Mentoring is near the top of most lists of tools that are effective at promoting professional development and advancement in industry. As a business method, mentoring works well generally and also is particularly valuable to women and minorities. These benefits are of special interest to engineering companies and are in addition to more objective productivity measures of mentoring success such as increased performance ratings, higher retention, and more promotions. SEED has been sponsored since 2001 by Dr. Greg Papadopoulos, Sun's Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development.

The home page for SEED is http://research.sun.com/SEED.

Posted at 02:06PM Aug 28, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

"Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009" Technical Report

28 August 2009 Update
Please read "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", the newest Sun Laboratories Technical Report by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon. The abstract and report link are on http://research.sun.com/techrep/2009/abstract-185.html, Report # TR-2009-185

Lately I have spent most of my time writing, revising, and editing the soon-to-be-published 107-page-long Sun Labs Technical Report titled "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009". Tanya Jankot, Helen Gracon, and I pooled our knowledge about all of Sun's mentoring programs and the 7,300 mentoring pairs with whom we have worked. Thanks to the many who helped in collecting the information and reviewing the document.

Sample SEED Data

• 93% of mentees who sent in quarterly reports thought meetings with their mentor were worthwhile.
• SEED mentees received 1-Superior performance ratings at an average annual rate of 40%, twice that of the general Sun employee population.
• SEED mentees were promoted at an average annual rate of 33%, more than twice that of the general Sun employee population rate.
• Promotions fell by 38% during the 2007-2009 Economic Bust period.
• Men and women mentees report the same program satisfaction (90% average), regardless of their mentor's gender.
• SEED (and Mentoring@Sun) mentoring pairs who work at a distance have for many years reported the same satisfaction level as those working locally; however, mentors and mentees both report that working at a distance is more time consuming.

Abstract

This paper provides a summary of mentoring information, best practices, metrics, and recommendations developed during 1996- 2009 by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun provides network computing infrastructure solutions that include computer systems, software, storage and services. The company has a strong corporate culture that values and promotes mentoring. Sun has offered several internally-developed formal mentoring programs, including:

• SEED (Sun Engineering Enrichment & Development),
  Katy Dickinson has been SEED's Director since 2001
• Mentoring@Sun, managed by Helen Gracon since 1996
• New Sun Vice Presidents, managed by Helen Gracon since 2004

Mentoring increases effectiveness and efficiency to achieve business results by doing real work, real time. Developing a corporate culture of mentoring is a good way to establish a network of communication across organizational silos, promote a wide variety of talents, and broaden the diversity of ideas and innovation available to the company. The ROI on Sun mentoring has been calculated to be 1,000% or greater.

Mentoring is near the top of most lists of tools that are effective at promoting professional development and advancement in industry. As a business method, mentoring works well generally and also is particularly valuable to women and minorities. These benefits are of special interest to engineering companies and are in addition to more objective productivity measures of mentoring success such as increased performance ratings, higher retention, and more promotions. SEED has been sponsored since 2001 by Dr. Greg Papadopoulos, Sun's Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development.

Table of Contents

The report includes the following sections, some of which were published in earlier drafts in this blog:

1. Introduction
2. Summary of Sun's Mentoring Programs
3. Mentoring in Engineering and Computer Science
4. Formal vs. Informal Mentoring
5. Internal or External Mentoring Program?
6. Mentor Selection Systems
7. Picking Your Mentor, Picking Your Mentee
8. Best Practices for Mentors
9. Mentoring Program Web Tools and Process
10. Mentoring in Good Times and Bad
11. Sun Mentoring: 1996 to 2009 - Conclusions

These sections are followed by 33 pages of appendices, including an extensive set of metrics charts on selection rates, executive participation, demographics, satisfaction, performance, promotions, attrition, meeting length and frequency, etc.

Cross-posted from my new blog at http://katysblog.wordpress.com

Posted at 07:09PM Aug 14, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[1]

Mentoring in Good Times and Bad

28 August 2009 Update
Please read "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", the newest Sun Laboratories Technical Report by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon. The abstract and report link are on http://research.sun.com/techrep/2009/abstract-185.html, Report # TR-2009-185

This text was originally published on 24 July 2009. It was modified on 14 August 2009 based on a re-analysis of the data prepared for the Sun Labs "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009" Technical Report. The major change was to convert the "Comparing Boom, Between, and Bust" numbers from per-year to a 3-year analysis to show changes over time.

Sun Mentoring Programs

Sun has offered several internally-developed formal mentoring programs since 1992, three of which are still available:

• SEED, for which I have been the Director since 2001.
  SEED has four subgroups: Recent Hires, including New College Hires (2001), Established Staff (2002), PreSEED (2008), and special pilot terms for specific geographies, professional areas, or new acquisitions (2005-2009)
• Mentoring@Sun, managed by Helen Gracon since 1996
  This program includes both open enrollment and intact work groups
• New Sun Vice Presidents' Mentoring , managed by Helen Gracon since 2004

Recently, Helen started reporting to me, so we are taking advantage of our pooled knowledge by creating this mentoring series. Tanya Jankot (SEED's Applications Engineer), Helen Gracon, and I have been analyzing our mentoring program data, ably supported by our Sun Human Resources team, including Sy Dimitroff, and Matt Artz. Because much of the data we are using is private and confidential, we are limited to what we can publish.

Mentoring and the Economy

One question we wanted to answer was: "Is mentoring success tied to the larger economy?" How much of the very positive metrics that we see in mentoring programs for promotion, higher ratings, retention, satisfaction, etc. are because a rising tide lifting all boats? That is: does mentoring make a big difference in spite of general economic improvements benefiting all participants? Fortunately, we have a great deal of internal-to-Sun data we can analyze about our mentoring program participants. Also, Mentoring@Sun was the subject of a formal research study...

Gartner on Mentoring@Sun

The Mentoring@Sun study is:
"Case Study: Workforce Analytics at Sun" by James Holincheck,
Gartner Research ID #G00142776, Publication Date: 27 October 2006.

For this study, Helen worked with Capital Analytics, pulling data from 1998-2001 about 95 mentor-mentee pairs who participated in the Mentoring@Sun program in 1999. (The data was collected for one year before the Mentoring@Sun terms and for two years after.) All were in one of four intact workgroups. Three of the groups studied were in Sun Engineering and one was in Sun's Worldwide Operations. The 95 pairs were compared against almost 1,500 members of a control group of Sun staff (taken from the same business groups). The data were analyzed in 2002 and published by Gartner in 2006.

Tanya and Helen and I reviewed the 1998-2001 data and 2002 analysis, then checked back with Dr. W. Boyce Byerly (Chief Scientist and CTO of Capital Analytics, who worked on the original study) with questions for this report. We found some differences in operational definitions. For example, in Gartner Figure 3, the labels of Administrators (8.5% change in salary grade), and Engineers (6.2% in salary grade) are switched. The Sun group called "Administrators" in Gartner's report were actually salaried (exempt, senior grade) Engineers, so their 8.5% change in pay grade makes more sense. Those called "Engineers" in the Gartner report were really Sun salaried non-technical staff. However, since the switched labels were used consistently, the numbers and analysis are still valid, but not the conclusions. Another operational definition which did not match Sun's standard usage has to do with high performance. In the Gartner report, the "high performers" were those who had the highest salary before the beginning of the mentoring program. Sun uses "high performer" or "high potential" to mean staff who routinely get Superior annual performance ratings. Again, the operational definition was consistent so we were able to compare the data.

Gartner's positive findings were in the areas of change in salary, promotion, and retention. Gartner also had a negative finding:

"...investing in a mentoring program for high performers does not yield as significant a return as might be assumed. Rather, the better investment for Sun would be to spend the money on lower performers to help them raise their level of performance."

This last finding is similar to the analysis of an excellent Harvard Business Review report called "Let's Hear It for B Players" (by Thomas J. Delong, Vineeta Vijayaraghavan, Jun 01, 2003. Prod. #: R0306F-PDF-ENG). Because B players make up the great majority of employees: 80% of a company (as opposed to the top 10% of star A players, and the bottom 10% of incompetent C players), providing them with mentoring has a similarly larger benefit. This HBR article was one of the inspirations which lead to the creation of Sun's popular PreSEED mentoring group in 2008, because, as Delong and Vijayaraghavan wrote:

"Like all prize-winning supporting actors, B players bring depth and stability to the companies they work for, slowly but surely improving both corporate performance and organizational resilience.... They will never garner the most revenue or the biggest clients, but they also will be less likely to embarass the company or flunk out.... these players inevitably end up being the backbone of the organization."

Other Sources

In addition to the external-to-Sun Gartner report, we used a Sun-internal report prepared by SEED's former Program Manager Justin Yang. In "1996 - 2000 Engineering New College Hire Data Summary", Justin Yang analyzed information from 485 new college hires with the title Member of the Technical Staff (MTS-1 through MTS-4 seniority levels). In 2002, I asked Justin to prepare this report so that we would have a baseline against which to compare future performance of the then-newly-created SEED mentoring program.

For boom and bust cycle date ranges, I referred to Wikipedia articles such as: "List of recessions in the United States" and "Dot-com bubble". I also checked on Sun's history using The Motley Fool - Sun Microsystems, Inc. (JAVA) and the Sun Microsystems - Annual Report Archive.

The data in the Gartner report were pulled during the "dot-com bubble" of 1998-2001, as was most of the data in Justin Yang's report. The information in these two reports was clearly collected during boom times. The worldwide recession (which started in 2007) represents a bust time for the Silicon Valley in general and for Sun Microsystems in particular.

Calculating ROI for Mentoring

Calculating Return on Investment (ROI) for mentoring is dependent on assumptions and variables used. In 2002, Capital Analytics used the following formula to calculate the return on $695/person paid to SunU for the 95 mentor-mentee pairs in the 1999 Mentoring@Sun program.

(Return - Cost) / Cost

Dr. W. Boyce Byerly confirmed that Capital Analytics found 1,000% ROI, for Sun mentoring, using their most conservative measures of job and salary grade improvement. Their analysis methods are published in the 2004 paper on ProCourse ROI software "Measuring the True Business Impact of Training", available on http://www.procourse.com.

Mentoring@Sun is offered at a per-participant charge by SunU (the former name for Sun Learning Services). The SEED program is offered for free to participants (program costs were covered by the Chief Technologist's Office). This difference in how the program costs were covered probably does not effect the ROI.

Some of the assumptions used in this ROI calculation may be controversial:

• Compensation paid to employees reflects their value to the company.
• A dollar increase in compensation reflects a dollar increase in value to the company.
• Higher compensation in the years after mentoring program participation is reflective of that participation.
• The company will recognize improvement in value, and increase compensation accordingly.

Triple Creek is a mentoring service company which was not involved in the 1998-2001 Sun case study but has published an interesting analysis using the well-known 2006 report by Gartner. In Triple Creek's 2007 paper "Mentoring's Impact on MENTORS / Doubling the ROI of Mentoring", an ROI of 1,500% to 1,710% was calculated.

Analyzing Different Groups Over Ten Plus Years

Since there are many variables, what we present here is more a broad indication of patterns than a targeted scientific study. There are a variety of mentoring terms (or individual groups) represented:

• Some were Sun-wide terms but others were limited to Sun Engineering.
• Some terms were for senior or high-potential staff but others available to anyone who could get management approval (self selection).
• Some terms were created through open enrollment, others included intact workgroups, many were selected by competitive application.
• Most terms were sponsored by an executive. Greg Papadopoulos (Sun's Chief Technology Officer and Executive VP of Research and Development) sponsored over thirty terms. Karen Rohde (Senior VP of Human Resources and Sun's Chief Talent Officer) and Bob Worrall (Senior VP of IT Operations and Chief Information Officer) each sponsored five terms.
• All of the staff who took the mentoring programs worked for Sun Microsystems as regular employees (not interns, contractors, or temporary staff) for at least some of the time from 1996-2009.

Sun's mentoring programs are voluntary: the mentees and mentors may be encouraged to participate by their managers or peers but the programs are not remedial (not for people on a required performance improvement plan, for example). People join a mentoring program for different reasons. Three common reasons to join are:

• They are curious and want to learn.
• They are ambitious and motivated to improve their career.
• They are stuck personally or professionally and want to develop a new way to proceed.

Read the entry on Formal vs. Informal Mentoring to learn more about why a participant might choose one type of mentoring over another.

For some measures, we have more specifics than others, for example:

• Gender
  All the terms included mixed gender mentor-mentee pairs.
  --- SEED has an average 20% female mentee participation, and 15% female mentor participation, 2001-2009. This reflects the lower percentage of women in Engineering than in Sun overall. SEED's range is 0% to 30% women mentees per term. The Recent Hire and Established Staff SEED mentees had the highest percentage of women (22%) while the special pilot programs were much lower (17%). Since 2001, women and non-US staff have taken advantage of SEED at a consistently higher rate than their representation in Engineering overall.
  --- Mentoring@Sun included Engineering and non-Engineering staff but gender data were not collected for all terms. The Mentoring@Sun range is 5% to 75% women mentees per term, reflecting the higher percentage of women in Sun overall than in just Engineering.
• Distance
  In most terms, the majority of pairs were working at a distance (in different cities, states, or countries) rather than local to each other.
  --- SEED had 88% mentor-mentee pairs working at a distance, 2005-2008
  --- Mentoring@Sun had about 75% mentor-mentee pairs working at a distance, 2005-2008
• Satisfaction
  We do not have complete metrics in all time ranges for all three mentoring programs. What we have:
  --- SEED has quarterly satisfaction ratings from 775 mentees averaging 90% (2004-2008). In addition, 93% of SEED mentees reported that meetings with their mentor were worthwhile. 83% of mentors believe their Mentee's participation in the SEED program made them more valuable to Sun (from 330 mentor reports). 88% of mentors said they wanted to be a SEED mentor again.
  --- In the New VPs program, almost all participants rated program as effective or very effective and agreed to mentor a new VP by the end of the program. Almost all mentors and mentees report recommending the New VP Program to their peers.
  --- We do not have consistent satisfaction measures for the largest of the three programs, Mentoring@Sun, but the reports we do have are very enthusiastic.

Sun's mentoring programs are different in numbers of mentors and mentees:

• Mentoring@Sun: about 6,000 mentees and 4,500 mentors (1996-2009)
• New Vice Presidents: 138 mentees and 87 mentors (2004-2009)
• SEED: 1,162 mentees and 474 mentors (2001-2009)

There is overlap and duplication between the mentors in the three programs (these are very generous people!). Also, about 25% of current SEED mentors were originally SEED mentees. The totals for these three mentoring programs are about 7,300 mentees and 5,000 mentors.

We decided to focus on three measures for which we have the most information:

• Attrition (higher voluntary termination, opposite of retention, lower numbers are better)
• Compensation (salary increases, pay raises, higher numbers are better)
• Promotion (increase in job seniority or salary grade, higher numbers are better)

In context, these three metrics can be compared between the various sets of mentoring program information without being distorting or misleading. "Context" includes understanding larger population patterns than just those in the area of research:

• These numbers may or may not be representative of overall patterns. For example: because we do not know exactly how many new college graduates Sun hired 1996-2000, we cannot say what percentage of that population is represented by the 485 Members of the Technical staff in Justin Yang's report. However, we do have some contextual glimpses. In the year 2000, we estimate there were over 500 new college graduates hired in all of Sun. So, for 2000, Justin Yang's report covers roughly 1/5 of the population of all new college graduates hired.
• The three metrics do not stand alone; they interact with each other and other measures and are tied to many factors having little to do with mentoring.
• New College Hires (such as those in Justin Yang's report) seem to be a special case. For example: his report showed that there is a higher retention rate for more recently hired staff. Promotion is tied to retention: if New College Hires are promoted, they are more likely to stay. The more recent hires were promoted more quickly.

Comparing Boom to Bust

We used the three measures of Attrition, Compensation, and Promotion during three time periods:

• Boom (1998-2001)
• Between (2002-2006)
• Bust (2007-2009)

Based on the results shown in the table below, the following conclusions can be drawn about the performance of participants in Sun's mentoring programs:

1. Attrition went down after the Boom period and then went down again during the Bust.
2. Pay raises (Compensation) went up substantially after the Boom period, and continued high during the Between and Bust periods. However, raises fell slightly during the Bust (although Bust period raises were still higher than during the Boom period).
3. Promotions went up substantially after the Boom period. Promotions fell by 38% during the Bust period but were still much higher than during the Boom period.

Circumstances which may help in understanding these conclusions:

1. SEED mentoring program performance numbers may show more success because the program is focused on selecting high potential future engineering leaders, who are then given additional support to help them succeed. The success of the individual participants is due to their own capabilities and hard work (plus available opportunities and good management!). Increased success of the participants as a group may be attributable in part to the SEED program.
2. The SEED mentees included senior and junior Engineering staff. However, when Tanya Jankot ran the numbers for just the junior staff (Recent Hires and PreSEEDs) in SEED, the results were only slightly different than for overall SEED performance.
3. The four Mentoring@Sun groups in the 2002 Capital Analytics study were intact work groups, three from Engineering and one from Worldwide Operations. Some support staff were included in the work groups. The Capital Analytics control group was taken from the same work areas.
4. As described above, Engineering New College Hires seem to be a special case, especially in terms of their promotion and retention patterns; however, since SEED includes a Recent Hire group which includes some New College Hires, their patterns are important.

The question we wanted to answer was: "Is mentoring success tied to the larger economy?" Based on these analyses, in the case of the Sun mentoring programs, it seems that success is only loosely tied to the performance of the larger economy. The Bust period caused both Compensation and Promotion numbers to fall but both remained substantially higher than during the Boom period. Participants in Sun's mentoring programs outperformed control groups and participants show remarkable success in all measures.

.
Series

Other entries in this continuing series on mentoring:

• Best Practices for Mentors (14 July 2009)
• Mentoring in Engineering and Computer Science (13 July 2009)
• Mentoring Program Web Tools and Process (11 July 2009)
• Picking Your Mentor, Picking Your Mentee (6 July 2009)
• Mentor Selection Systems (2 July 2009)
• Internal or External Mentoring Program? (30 June 2009)
• Formal vs. Informal Mentoring (12 February 2009)

For more about SEED, the Sun Engineering worldwide mentoring program, see SEED's home page at http://research.sun.com/SEED.

Posted at 11:46AM Jul 24, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Best Practices for Mentors

28 August 2009 Update
Please read "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", the newest Sun Laboratories Technical Report by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon. The abstract and report link are on http://research.sun.com/techrep/2009/abstract-185.html, Report # TR-2009-185

By its nature, mentoring is an personal experience, even when the topics discussed are professional. Each mentoring experience will be different; however, what follows are some best practices which have proven useful for a wide variety of mentors in SEED, the Sun Engineering worldwide mentoring program. The focus here is on what the mentor can do. For information on best practices for mentoring programs, see topics in the series list, below.

Some context to establish credibility...
After all, anyone can say theirs is the best practice!
SEED has been the mentoring and leadership grooming program for Sun Engineering worldwide since 2001. Almost 1,200 pairs have participated. SEED is proud to maintain an average 90% satisfaction rating reported quarterly, year-after-year.
A Recent Recommendation: From Karen Rohde, SEED Mentor, Senior Vice President Human Resources, and Sun's Chief Talent Officer (used with permission):

Date: 	Fri, 10 Jul 2009

Katy,

Your SEED mentoring program has been a "bench mark" for other mentoring 
programs at Sun.  It has been a key component in increasing Sun's overall 
engineering strength and capability -- resulting in significant positive 
impact for Sun.

Thanks for sharing the information and the articles.  This is great work 
and deserves external recognition as well.

...Congratulations on such great work!

Regards,

Karen

Mentoring Isn't Rocket Science

Mary Artibee was a SEED mentee before she became a four-time SEED mentor. Before leaving Sun, Mary was a Senior Staff Engineer in Software, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her mentees were in Colorado (USA), Russia, India, and China. A year ago, I asked Mary to give a SEED presentation about what she had learned about mentoring. Mary's "Mentoring Isn't Rocket Science" talk provided a succinct overview of some of the best advice I have heard from many experienced mentors (used with permission):

Worst Practices
(or How To Dis-serve Your Mentee)


No time, no time... --- Cancel at the last minute because something really important comes up --- Come late, leave early --- Oops, I forgot --- Why bother to schedule meetings	Did you say something? --- I'm the ME in MENTOR --- When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it --- If it worked for me, it'll work for you
Everything you do is wrong --- Why in the world did you do that? --- Well, if you can't explain it, I can't help you --- Just do what I say and don't ask questions	No explanations necessary --- Surely you can learn by osmosis --- No need to share this since it was sent to an email group --- If everyone knew about these resources, who'd need me?
So as I told your manager... --- Confidentiality, what confidentiality? --- I didn't think you'd mind my sharing...	Did you want to get something out of this? --- Goals? goals? we don't need no stinkin' goals... --- Did I say I'd do that? --- Your satisfaction is not my problem


Best Practices
(or There's More to Mentoring than Meets the Eye)


The Fine Art of Effective Listening --- Two ears, one mouth... (from Epictetus: "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak") --- Patience: problems can be more complex than you think --- Sounding board, not “bored” --- When remote, acknowledge frequently (paraphrase, clarify)	Advise and Catalyze --- Not just one answer: It's recognizing and weighing options --- Share problem-solving skills and let the mentee find the solution --- Discuss the impacts of taking various actions
Flexibility (the Mentoring Asana) --- Respect mentee's choice to do what's right for their situation --- Accommodate changes in topics and goals --- Life happens – reschedule, don't disengage (deadlines, holidays, illnesses)	Objective Support --- Provide timely constructive feedback as a disinterested third party --- Be a safe harbor for venting; be a trustworthy confidant --- Evaluate progress and adjust goals --- Encourage getting outside comfort zone (reward risk-taking; learn thru failure)
Share Yourself, Be Committed --- Meet regularly – It's not mentoring if it doesn't actually happen --- Meet in person whenever possible --- Have an open door --- Provide the connect between their goals and the company's goals --- Connect mentee with your network, engage in theirs --- Share your passion and have a passion for sharing	.

A Peek into Mentoring

One way to take a peek into successful mentoring relationships to see how they really work is to read blogs. From time-to-time, a SEED mentor or mentor blogger is inspired to document something notable about her mentoring experience. I search out these fascinating personal snapshots because each blog post offers an immediacy and freshness of expression that I never get in quarterly feedback reports!

Here are some of my favorite blog posts on mentoring experiences:

• "This past month, I asked my former graduate adviser if I could have permission to launch and run a new program — a mentoring workshop series to help students and alumni to get their work published in a professional journal, magazine, or presented at a conference ... and he said "yes". So we start next Thursday, with a panel of 7 speakers, and 20 participants. It's not a class. There's no grade. I won't get paid. But this is my one small step — this is my walk on the moon."
  From This is my one small step; this is my walk on the moon 30 May 2008 blog - in "Musings on design & other stuff, jen's place" by Jennifer McGinn (who also wrote an excellent six-part blog series called "Things I tell my mentees")
  Jennifer McGinn was a SEED mentee, and also a two-time SEED mentor


• "Mentors get as much out of the relationship as the mentees. It seems rather odd. Here you are supposed to be giving great advice to someone who is spending their time listening to you, trying to gain knowledge and to further their careers, and it boomerangs. Yep, that's right. It happened today to me."
  From A Swift Kick 10 September 2007 blog - in "Susan's Blog: Seeing is..." by Susan Miller
  Susan Miller was a SEED mentor and manager of SEED mentees


• "Our mentoring relationship comprises a phone call every couple of weeks and face-to-face meetings if we ever end up in the same city at the same time. I have to admit, I was pretty intimidated the first time I called Radia - she is not exactly a shrinking violet - but we seemed to hit it off and have spent several hours - well - chatting, basically."
  From Chatting with Radia 23 March 2007 blog - in "Superpatterns" by Pat Patterson
  Pat Patterson was a SEED mentee, and also a two-time SEED mentor


• "Here's what I got out of that relationship...
  - Introductions to people I never would have met unless I walked up and introduced myself....
  - Respect by association. People thought that because I hung around with my mentor, I must be pretty sharp too....
  - A champion who did some awesome PR for me. My goal today is to try to live up to the reputation she built for me."
  From I'm not sure what I would get out of a mentor relationship... 5 February 2007 blog - in "The Downtown Diner" by Melanie Parsons Gao
  Melanie Parsons Gao was a SEED mentee and manager of SEED mentees


• "I was inspired by the Technology and Courage paper by Ivan Sutherland. I decided I'd like to try to increase my knowledge in an area I've just started getting interested in - electronics and hardware design. I want to combine this with fun projects, that I can share at a later date with my son as he grows up... As electronics and hardware project construction were new to me, my primary goal was to try to be self sufficient in constructing new simple circuits by the end of the six month mentoring period."
  From Playing with LEGO at Sun - Mentoring Projects 16 June 2004 blog - in "Rich Burridge's Weblog" by Rich Burridge
  Rich Burridge was a SEED mentee, and also a SEED mentor

Priority Best Practices

At lunch today, Tanya Jankot, Helen Gracon, and I (three mentoring geeks) discussed best practices for mentors. We could not add anything to Mary Artibee's excellent list but we did come up with our top priorities:

1. Confidentiality
   Mentors and mentees should keep their discussions confidential. If either wants to pass on information or impressions from their discussions to anyone, they should check with the other party before doing so.


2. Commitment of time
   The mentor should respond promptly to the mentee, and make their mentoring time a priority. SEED recommends that mentoring pairs spend one to two hours together every two weeks.


3. Listening and Passion
   To teach and inspire, the mentor needs to listen to the mentee and share their passions.

.
Series

Information is from my experience since 2001 managing Sun's SEED Engineering-wide world-wide mentoring program. Other entries in this continuing series:

• Mentoring in Engineering and Computer Science (13 July 2009)
• Mentoring Program Web Tools and Process (11 July 2009)
• Picking Your Mentor, Picking Your Mentee (6 July 2009)
• Mentor Selection Systems (2 July 2009)
• Internal or External Mentoring Program? (30 June 2009)
• Formal vs. Informal Mentoring (12 February 2009)

For more about SEED, see the program home page at http://research.sun.com/SEED.

Posted at 02:34PM Jul 14, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[1]

Mentoring in Engineering and Computer Science

28 August 2009 Update
Please read "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", the newest Sun Laboratories Technical Report by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon. The abstract and report link are on http://research.sun.com/techrep/2009/abstract-185.html, Report # TR-2009-185

This section was also published as an article in the Anita Borg Institute Newsletter of 13 July 2009.

The Particular Value of Mentoring to Engineering and Computer Science

Mentoring is near the top of most lists of tools which are effective at promoting professional development and advancement. As a business method, mentoring seems to work well generally but to be particularly valuable to women and minorities. In my own experience as Director of Sun Microsystems' SEED Engineering-wide worldwide mentoring program since 2001, women and non-US staff have taken advantage of SEED at a consistently higher rate than their representation in Engineering overall. Developing a corporate culture of mentoring can be a good way to establish a network of communication across organizational silos, promote a wide variety of talents, and broaden the diversity of ideas and innovation available to the company. These benefits are of special interest to Engineering companies and are in addition to more objective productivity measures of mentoring success such as increased satisfaction, high retention, more promotions, and higher performance ratings. From Bit by Bit: Catalyst's Guide to Advancing Women in High Tech Companies (pp.6-7, "Use Mentoring and Networks to Win", 2003):

"Although more women see lack of access to mentors and networks as a barrier to women's advancement, both men and women roundtable participants identified mentoring and networking as key strategies for developing and advancing all talented employees ...However, in general, people tend to feel more comfortable mentoring and networking with those like themselves. Outsiders to the organizational culture by gender, race, or other demographic characteristics, are then less likely to be included in those activities. ...The design and implementation of a formal mentoring program or the creation of a women's networking group are extremely useful and help to create a climate where people feel valued and comfortable with others different from themselves. Such programs are especially important in the high tech industry, where companies tend to be relatively young, decentralized, and career paths are not clearly defined. ...Women and men roundtable participants agreed on the importance of mentoring in which more senior and experienced employees provide ongoing advice about career decisions, insight about the political environment, and introductions into professional networks to less experienced colleagues."

Why Engineering Mentoring?

I was asked recently what makes SEED an Engineering mentoring program. That is, how is mentoring different in Engineering and Computer Science than in other professional areas? To expand my understanding, I consulted with Helen Gracon, who has run mentoring programs throughout Sun, for Marketing, Information Technology Operations, Sales, Human Resources, Finance, Legal and Service as well as for Sun Engineering.

The mechanism of a mentoring program is about the same regardless of the professional area which is using it. Key mentoring program elements (Process, Training and Educational Materials, Management and Web Tools, and Staff) should be able to support a wide variety of participants.

The seniority and number of the participants are more important differentiators in picking a mentor selection system than is the profession of the group which is to use it. Specifically, a Demonstrated Accomplishment mentor selection system will be more appropriate and effective for executive staff than a Self-identified Competency system. (What I call a Self-identified Competency selection system, Peg Boyle Single and Carol Muller of MentorNet call "Bi-directional Matching". See "When Email and Mentoring Unite" in Creating Mentoring and Coaching Programs from the ASTD In Action Series, by Phillips and Stomei, 2001.) However, a Self-identified Competency system can scale to support a much larger group than a Demonstrated Accomplishment system. For more on this, read my blog on Mentor Selection Systems (2 July 2009).

So, if the mentoring program mechanism is about the same, what is different about mentoring in an Engineering group, compared to a Marketing group in the same company? To be effective, program sponsorship, priorities and goals, scope, training focus, and management style should be appropriate to the professional area the mentoring program is supporting. Using my own SEED program as an example of a long-term successful Engineering mentoring program:

• Program Sponsorship:
  SEED mentees all work for Sun in Engineering and Computer Science and the program has been sponsored by Dr. Greg Papadopoulos, Sun's Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development since it was rolled out in 2001. If SEED had an executive sponsor in Human Resources or Marketing, it would lack credibility with many Engineers. Greg is a successful, respected thought leader and role model. His visible, active, and specific endorsement encourages participation and gives even the most conservative Engineer permission to stretch themselves into considering mentoring. Greg clearly has skin in the game.
  
  For example, on 15 October 2008, Jonathan Schwartz (Sun's CEO and President) and Greg distributed a brief video on Sun's internal home page. During their discussion, Jonathan asked Greg what advice he would offer a newly hired Engineer or technologist at Sun. Greg's first recommendation was that such a new technologist seek out the senior Engineers (Distinguished Engineers and Principal Engineers) as masters of their craft, then work with them as mentors through a mentoring program such as CTO's SEED.


• Priorities and Goals:
  SEED's program priorities are:
  
  1. Increase the value, satisfaction, and retention of program Participants and their Mentors.
  2. Build Sun's Engineering community by making and strengthening connections between its members and with the rest of Sun.
  3. Work to balance the diversity of Participants in terms of demographics, professional area, and geographic location.
  
  The context of the Engineering community is key here. It bounds the SEED program and defines its organizational character. Compare this to the Mentoring@Sun program, started in 1992 as a general Sun-wide mentoring program. The SEED program was developed by Sun in 2001 to address Engineering organization needs that were not met by Mentoring@Sun. That is, SEED is an internal mentoring and leadership growth program designed to meet the needs of a key professional area, running in parallel with a more general internal program. Both SEED and Mentoring@Sun are very effective at making connections between organizational silos, what Helen calls cross-pollinating. For more on this, read my blog entry Internal or External Mentoring Program? (30 June 2009).


• Scope:
  SEED mentors can be from any part of Sun so long as they are at principal-level or above in seniority. SEED mentees, however, must all be working in Engineering, which is defined as:
  
  "Hardware and software engineering positions where the primary job purpose is to perform engineering research, design, and development activities resulting in innovative Sun products for external customers. Also included are staff positions providing strategic support to engineering research, design, and development activities."
  
  Again, the Engineering professional context provides specific program boundaries: only these positions are included, others are not. (This would sound like inappropriate exclusivity if Engineering did not make up about half of Sun's employees.)


• Training Focus:
  Each mentoring program should provide training that helps the pairs feel comfortable from the start and work well together for the entire term. Training is particularly important in special cases, such as when mentor and mentee work in different professional areas (Microelectronics and Finance, for example), have a wide gap in their relative experience or seniority (such as a Senior Director mentoring a recent college hire Member of the Technical Staff), are working at a distance (for over half of SEED mentoring pairs, the mentor and mentee work in different cities, states, or countries), or come from very different cultures.
  SEED offers two hours of individual training by phone for each mentoring pair. Using a standard set of materials (Helen and I update these annually), pair training is tailored to their strengths and challenge areas. The geek personality is common enough that our mentoring training materials have a special section for Engineering.
  Engineers are professional problem solvers who are usually very smart analytical logical thinkers. Sometimes it can be a stretch for them to see the other person's point of view. Many of them do not suffer fools. Mentoring training for extreme geeks may focus on teaching how to disagree agreeably (using tactful phrases) and learning when problem solving may not be what is needed or wanted by their mentoring partner.


• Management Style:
  Managing an Engineering mentoring program requires communicating well and maintaining trust with Engineers. SEED is a prestigious leadership grooming program, so the decision of which applicants get accepted can be controversial. The selection system must be fair and seen to be fair. Selection criteria for SEED are based on the values of the Engineering community (such as: demonstrated technical excellence, creativity, leadership, holding patents, publishing papers, earning an excellent letter of recommendation by an executive, etc.) Many of SEED's selection criteria are also reflected in job promotion criteria for Engineering staff. Sun Engineering has an egalitarian open door culture which values data-driven decisions and a transparent management style. While respecting confidentiality, SEED routinely makes a great deal of program information available to Sun Engineering. SEED program participants regularly contribute suggestions on how to improve the program and its web tools.

. What is the Geek Personality?

A brief digression into the personal and social context of Engineers since this has such a strong influence on mentoring in Engineering...

While Sun Engineering staff include a very broad range of personality types, there are some unusual concentrations. SEED mentoring training includes a section on Myers-Briggs style personality types. This provides a good context and vocabulary for mentoring pairs to discuss differences and commonalities and promote mutual understanding. (We skip this section of training for staff who think the use of personality types is Psychology black magic.) Sun used to offer personality assessments as part of its regular career coaching benefit. In 2002, I used a survey to collect information from 143 Sun Engineering staff about their formally assessed personality type. While not a statistically valid sample, it is nonetheless interesting:

• 59% of the Sun Engineering staff reported that they had been assessed as I (introvert)
  About 50% of the US population are I (introvert)
• 66% of the Sun Engineering staff reported that they were NT (intuitive thinkers)
  About 10% of the US population are NT (intuitive thinkers)

(Yes, this does mean that Engineers are abnormal, statistically at least).

Introverts have been defined as "people who find other people tiring" (see "Caring for Your Introvert" by Jonathan Rauch, The Atlantic, March 2003). A t-shirt popular with Engineers says "You read my t-shirt. That's enough social interaction for one day." (see Think Geek T-shirt). SEED works hard to make its communications comfortable for an introverted group. For example, we lay out the expected interactions and always allow the participants to engage at their own comfort level.

One analysis of downside to being an introvert is that:

"In our extrovertist society, being outgoing is considered normal and therefore desirable, a mark of happiness, confidence, leadership. Extroverts are seen as bighearted, vibrant, warm, empathic. 'People person' is a compliment. Introverts are described with words like 'guarded,' 'loner,' 'reserved,' 'taciturn,' 'self-contained, private' - narrow, ungenerous words, words that suggest emotional parsimony and smallness of personality. Female introverts, I suspect, must suffer especially. In certain circles, particularly in the Midwest, a man can still sometimes get away with being what they used to call a strong and silent type; introverted women, lacking that alternative, are even more likely than men to be perceived as timid, withdrawn, haughty."
(Ibid, 2003 article by Jonathan Rauch)

For more on Social Context, Gender, and Mentoring, see my blog entry Picking Your Mentor, Picking Your Mentee.

Finding Mentors for Engineering

Since 2001, I have matched almost 1,200 mentoring pairs; 70% of the mentors were executives (Directors, Vice Presidents, Principal Engineers, Fellows, etc.). SEED gets an average of 90% participant satisfaction rating on its quarterly reports, year after year. What do these executive mentors look for in mentees? Why do so many find SEED to be such a satisfying program? Most of the questions mentors ask when I contact them about working with a potential mentee are structural: availability, time commitment required to participate, potential areas of difficulty (like being in the same management chain or speaking different primary languages), and physical or time zone proximity are common questions. Along with those are asked more substantive questions about intellectual common ground, interests, and personal compatibility. Somewhere in this mix, almost all potential mentors ask something like "Why me? What does this person want to know that I am uniquely able to teach?" (For more on mentor questions and preferences, read my 6 July 2009 blog entry Picking Your Mentor, Picking Your Mentee).

Notice that relatively few questions are about the topic or professional area to be discussed. SEED Mentors have served from all areas of Engineering worldwide, plus Operations, Sales, Service, Legal, Information Technology, Finance, Human Resources, and Marketing. Most of the non-Engineering staff were recruited as SEED mentors at the specific request of a mentee who asked to learn from them. I originally recruited the General Counsel as a mentor because a Software Engineer wanted to learn more from the lawyer's success as a business leader. (He enjoyed the experience and has served as a mentor five times since.) I recruited a Finance Vice President because a Systems Program Manager wanted a mentor who really understood financial planning, revenue and cost management. Sun Microsystems is an Engineering-driven company, so most non-Engineering staff are eager to help (as well as extend their own connections in Engineering).

I have observed that the more experienced or senior a mentor is, the more willing they are to discuss a very broad range of topics. It is usually the more junior mentors who question their breadth of ability or the value of their experience outside of their immediate area of professional expertise. The mentors who seem to get the most out of their SEED experience are the executives. One Software Vice President told me that his hour with his mentee was his vacation, the only time all week when he knew the answers. A different Software Vice President told Helen that he always looked forward to meeting with his mentee: it was his only non-confrontational meeting. This positive experience is reflected in SEED's metrics for repeat mentor participation:

• 48% of the total 460+ potential mentors on SEED's current list have been mentors more than once. This includes principal-level senior staff plus executives.
  (This does not count their service in Mentoring@Sun or other Sun mentoring programs.)
  65% of those repeat mentors are executives.
• 54% of all of the executives who have ever been SEED mentors have mentored more than once.
  45 executives have have served as a SEED mentor five or more times.
  4 Sun executives have mentored ten or more times with SEED.

A Marketing Vice President wrote in evaluation of his sixth SEED mentoring experience: "This continues to be a great program and I get a lot out of it -- possibly more than the mentees."

Series

Information is from my experience since 2001 managing Sun's SEED Engineering-wide world-wide mentoring program, and from the Mentoring@Sun general mentoring program, and the mentoring program for new Sun Vice Presidents managed by Helen Gracon since 1996. Helen Gracon also provides training for SEED. This is part of a continuing series on mentoring programs. Other entries in this series:

• Mentoring Program Web Tools and Process (11 July 2009)
• Picking Your Mentor, Picking Your Mentee (6 July 2009)
• Mentor Selection Systems (2 July 2009)
• Internal or External Mentoring Program? (30 June 2009)
• Formal vs. Informal Mentoring (12 February 2009)

For more about SEED, see the program home page at http://research.sun.com/SEED.

By Katy Dickinson
Director, Business Process Architecture
Chief Technologist's Office & Sun Labs, Sun Microsystems

Posted at 10:21AM Jul 13, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[1]

Mentoring Program Web Tools and Process

28 August 2009 Update
Please read "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", the newest Sun Laboratories Technical Report by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon. The abstract and report link are on http://research.sun.com/techrep/2009/abstract-185.html, Report # TR-2009-185

Web tool design is a technical art which requires an unusual combination of software programming, usability engineering, and program management skills. As Director of Sun Microsystems' SEED Engineering-wide worldwide mentoring program since 2001 (and the program's Process Architect), I have been gifted with two talented staff members who can do this work. Tanya Jankot has been SEED's Applications Engineer since 2003. Before Tanya, Justin Yang held the position of SEED Program Manager for two years.

SEED developed its own set of tools for mentoring program and information management. These tools have not been "productized". Why not use an external-to-Sun set of web tools? For the answer, read my 30 June 2009 blog Internal or External Mentoring Program?

Tools and Process Overview

The original SEED program was based on a year-long need analysis and program design in 2000 by a team mostly made up of Sun Human Resources (HR) and Engineering staff. The process itself was created on-the-fly during the first pilot term in 2001. The SEED mentoring program has expanded to a much larger audience in recent years and SEED's web tools have developed and been redesigned accordingly. In the program's first year, 2001-2002, there was just one term. In 2008-2009, there have been 12 overlapping terms in four groups (Recent Hires, Established Staff, PreSEED, and special pilots).

Since the SEED team and I were creating a new mentoring system essentially from scratch in the 2001 pilot term, our guidelines for process and tool development were:

1. Keep it simple
2. Check in with customers and stakeholders frequently
3. Only include the minimum:
   question the need for each step before it goes in, and again at every review, and again before publication
4. Let the process define the web tools
5. Assume that process and tool users will have access to only the most basic web resources and performance
6. Collect and analyze data routinely and make decisions based on those data

These guidelines have continued to serve SEED well. We also kept using the concept of a "pilot" to expand the program. In pilot terms, the rules, process, and/or scope are somewhat different from the regular SEED program. The Established Staff group was created in 2002 and the PreSEED program was created in 2008 using pilot programs; both have been very popular offerings. A pilot allows us to put something imperfect out there to see what works. Sometimes pilots fail (for example, the SEED-2 or SEED Alumni term in 2007 only attracted ten participants).

SEED now has two major formal processes, for participant selection, and for mentor selection. These processes are published in full detail for the use of Sun internal program participants. Flow charts are also publicly available at "SEED: Sun engineering enrichment & development" Research Disclosure Database Number 482013, defensive publication in Research Disclosure, Published in June 2004, Electronic Publication Date : 17 May 2004 (5 pages, PDF format).

In November 2008, Tanya created and gave an internal-to-Sun presentation on developing simple web technologies using the SEED tools as examples. Her presentation was created to educate other Sun project teams and web teams. The information following about SEED web tools is derived from Tanya's presentation. Her overview statements about the SEED's current web tools:

• The technology was built to model SEED mentoring processes which were already designed and pilot tested (we tried to fit the tools into the existing work flow rather than build processes around the tools).
• The tools have evolved with the program: need for greater automation to allow scaling, new requirements as the program expanded across geographical areas regions, organizations, etc.
• SEED relies on existing Sun corporate data systems as much as possible, only gathering additional information not already available elsewhere.

More specific details follow about SEED's web tools and the technology and process behind them. Screen shots and other confidential data have been removed from Tanya's original presentation material.

Developing Simple Web Technologies for the SEED Mentoring Program

Tools Behind the Program

• The systems supporting the SEED program have evolved with it over time. They currently include:
  - A system to manage each term's application process. Details are in Term Application Materials and Term Application Management, below.
  - A system to support the mentor matching process. Details are in Mentor Request Management, below.
  - An archive of program applicants, participants, mentors, etc. which enables long-term program management and metrics. Details are in SEED Program Database, below.
  - Applications to support regular program activities, such as regular quarterly feedback reports and bi-annual events for mentees, mentors, and the mentee's managers.
• Tool development goals:
  - Ensure the integrity and confidentiality of applicant and participant data.
  - Increase the ease-of-use for program participants and SEED staff.
  - Increase program efficiency and quality of data available to the SEED team, extend the number of participants, raise the value of participant experience, and justify their trust in the program

Simple Technologies

• "SAMP" (Solaris, Apache, MySQL, and Perl & PHP)
• htaccess and Sun confidential employee records access authentication
• Queries to the Sun confidential employee records system
• Email
• Other technologies available within Sun and Sun Labs, such as a name auto-suggest widget and a survey tool.
• And still making use of old-fashioned static web pages

.
Term Application Materials

• SEED terms have an application period, usually lasting two to three weeks, with firm deadlines.
• htaccess and Sun confidential employee records access are used for authentication
• In addition to submitting a completed application form, applicants must also submit their resume, their manager must submit a letter of recommendation, and in some cases they must also secure additional letters of recommendation from Sun executives. All materials are submitted through web-based forms.
• Design considerations
  - Applicants are located worldwide.
  --- Application materials need to be as clear and simple as possible because for many employees, English is not their primary language.
  --- Applications must be functional on all Sun systems and locations. This includes Sun hardware with Solaris software, Sun Ray systems, experimental systems, as well as a variety of Macs, laptops, and PCs.
  - Application materials must reflect Sun's organizational structure and HR policies in an understandable way. Many applicants are new to Sun and are not familiar with its organization or policies.
  --- Divisions, organizations
  --- Job Codes, titles
  - Manager and executive recommendation letters are submitted confidentially but are a required part of an application. A secure mechanism is needed for applicants to view the status of their application but not the details of all materials.
  - In order to ensure that all materials are submitted correctly and not "lost" (i.e., a recommendation letter is submitted against an incorrect applicant SunID), Sun confidential employee records system lookup, email confirmations, and SQL audits of the database are used.
  - Each term's application materials are stored in a separate database for easy management. Key applicant data that needs to be tracked long-term is loaded into the SEED archive database at the end of the application period.

.
Term Application Management (SEED Team Website)

• A central website used by the SEED program staff to efficiently track the status of applicants and their materials.
• At the end of the term application period, key applicant data is verified against Sun's Human Resources records.
• Used by SEED's executive selection committee to review each applicant thoroughly.
• Tool goals
  - Present useful summary data in a small amount of space.
  - Accurately reflect the status and materials received for each applicant.
  - Allow a complete review of each applicant's submitted materials.
  - Make information easy to find to answer questions from applicants, participants, managers, and mentors quickly and accurately.
  - Print in a useable format.

.
Mentor Request Management

• Upon acceptance to the program, all participants are required to submit a 10-name "Mentor Wish List" of mentors they would like to work with.
• At the close of the mentor request period and receipt of all wish lists, the SEED program staff begins the mentor match process. For each participant, the goal is to match them with the highest priority eligible mentor from their Mentor Wish List.
• A decision is made in each case where more than one Participant requests the same potential mentor. In SEED's current terms, 80 mentees prepared 10-name lists, which resulted in 387 unique mentor requests. There were 10 potential mentors with multiple 1st Priority requests and 39 mentors who were requested by 5 or more mentees. This is a common problem: as many as twenty-two(!) potential mentees in one term have requested the same mentor. The primary basis for this decision is the priority order on the Mentor Wish List provided by the Participant. The Participant's seniority (number of years at Sun) may be used as a tiebreaker, with the more senior Participant getting preference.
• Tool Requirements
  - For each mentor requested, both name and SunID are required to be entered due to variations in name entry and frequent errors in entering SunIDs.
  - A name auto-suggest widget has been very useful in creating cleaner submissions.
  - The Mentor Request form includes a validation step in order to check for known conflicts in the SEED Potential Mentors list.

.
SEED Program Database

• The SEED program database drives the long-term management of the program.
• It allows us to track past applicants, participants, and mentors, as well as manage our list of 450+ Potential Mentors: mentors who have volunteered to work with program participants.
• These records allow for regular metrics analysis of the program, currently done annually. Automated metrics tracking is a goal that is in progress.
• Challenges
  - Maintaining the data so it is meaningful over time. For example, divisional organizational changes (reorg) make it difficult to summarize the number of participants we have had from each organization over the life of the program.
  - Keeping the mentor records up-to-date: removing broken links, updating titles in a timely way.
  - We need to maintain records of all program mentors, participants, and applicants, even after they have left Sun.

Conclusions

• The systems and tools that support SEED have evolved with the program over time. They are not a single unified system, but being modular are easy to modify or extend when changes are required.
• Using the technologies that are available and used by others allows you to be more efficient: learning from their work, and sharing components when possible.

Series

This is part of a continuing series on mentoring programs. Information is to answer frequently asked questions, based on my experience since 2001 managing Sun's SEED Engineering-wide world-wide mentoring program. Other entries in this series:

• Picking Your Mentor, Picking Your Mentee (6 July 2009)
• Mentor Selection Systems (2 July 2009)
• Internal or External Mentoring Program? (30 June 2009)
• Formal vs. Informal Mentoring (12 February 2009)

For more about SEED, see the program home page at http://research.sun.com/SEED.

Posted at 07:31PM Jul 11, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Picking Your Mentor, Picking Your Mentee

28 August 2009 Update
Please read "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", the newest Sun Laboratories Technical Report by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon. The abstract and report link are on http://research.sun.com/techrep/2009/abstract-185.html, Report # TR-2009-185

Information in this entry is taken from my experience since 2001 managing Sun's SEED Engineering-wide world-wide mentoring program. This is part of a continuing series on mentoring programs, answering some of the questions I am most frequently asked. Other entries in this series:

• Mentor Selection Systems (2 July 2009)
• Internal or External Mentoring Program? (30 June 2009)
• Formal vs. Informal Mentoring (12 February 2009)

Using a Formal, Structured Approach

This entry speaks to would-be-mentees as well as to potential mentors on how to pick their mentoring partner. Both are addressed here so mentor and mentee can see the whole picture. Specific mentor matching systems are covered in Mentor Selection Systems.

In general, I recommend a formal, structured approach like that we use in the SEED program, because I have seen this approach work in almost 1,200 matches, 70% of which were with an executive mentor. You can learn more about SEED by reading the blog entries listed above. Also, flow charts of how SEED's process works are available at "SEED: Sun engineering enrichment & development" Research Disclosure Database Number 482013, defensive publication in Research Disclosure, Published in June 2004, Electronic Publication Date : 17 May 2004 (5 pages, PDF format).

"That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way." - Doris Lessing (2007 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1919-now)

For the Mentee: Start with a Mentor Wish List and Learning Goals

Before the mentor matching cycle starts, each SEED mentee is asked to prepare a 10 name Mentor Wish List which is prioritized and includes a reason why the mentee would prefer to work with each mentor included. Three learning goals are also part of the SEED Mentor Wish List.

• Why 10 names?
  I have run mentoring terms in which we asked for 5 names but it wasn't enough: I ended up going back to the mentee for more potential mentor names too many times. I have also run terms in which we asked mentees for 15 names but since each name represents serious thought and research and we very rarely ended up needing all 15, we cut it down. In practice, 10 potential mentor names seems the right number. In the current group I am matching of 80 mentees (just 14 still unmatched), I have only had to go back to 2 so far for additional names.
• Why prioritize potential mentors?
  First, to get the mentee-to-be to think seriously about who they want their mentor to be by forcing a ranked comparison. It takes time and mature consideration to work through all of this. Creating the Mentor Wish List is probably the hardest part of the SEED program; however, that advance thinking contributes to a more successful mentoring partnership.
  Second, to help the program staff decide when there are duplicate requests for the same mentor. In SEED's current terms, 80 mentees prepared 10-name lists, which resulted in 387 unique mentor requests. There were 10 potential mentors with multiple 1st Priority requests and 39 mentors who were requested by 5 or more mentees. When a mentor is requested by more than one mentee, SEED's primary basis for picking one mentee over the other is the priority order. The mentee's seniority (number of years at Sun) may be used as a tiebreaker, with the more senior mentee getting preference.
• Why require mentees to write reasons for preference?
  This is to answer the #1 question asked by potential mentors: "Why me? What does this person want to know that I am uniquely able to teach?" That is, before they make any decision, potential mentors (especially executives whose time is particularly valuable) want to gauge the mentee's motivation and seriousness. They want to see if spending six months with this mentee is a good use of time.
  SEED sends each potential mentor an email including the potential mentee's resume, 3 learning goals, plus reasons for preference. We offer additional information (the application form and letters of recommendation) but most matches are made based on the first email plus a pre-match conversation between the potential mentor and potential mentee. Very often, the potential mentee's own words in their preference statement makes the match. Some mentees think to save time by providing the same reason for preference for all of their potential mentors. Mentor Wish Lists are returned for revision when this happens. Reasons for preference should be as unique as the mentors themselves.
• Why require learning goals?
  The mentee's three learning goals give the potential mentor an idea of initial topics for discussion (where their conversations will begin). This helps the potential mentor evaluate whether they can help the mentee. The SEED Engineering mentoring program takes a long-term view and does not have a preference for one kind of learning over another. That is, the mentoring partnership learning does not have to have anything to do with the mentee's current job. Some people want to learn to be better technical managers, others want to know how to get their ideas to customers faster. Many want to improve their soft skills: public presentation or speaking, negotiating, conflict management, and coaching. Still others want to improve their work and family balance and still have a great career. More general and broader learning goals usually work better than specific or very technical goals. Extremely specific goals or requests to work on a particular project with the mentor often discourage even the most accomplished mentor and make the mentee very difficult to match. Three examples of 3 broad learning goals:
  
  1. Learn more about how to lead a virtual team.
  2. Learn how to communicate with my management team.
  3. Learn how to communicate better with customers.
  
  1. To be engaged intellectually with senior peers.
  2. To apply my analytical skills and interests to a new and interesting area.
  3. To increase my own motivation.
  
  1. Diversify my knowledge by learning from individuals in other business units at Sun.
  2. How to take on more responsibility and enhance my visibility at Sun.
  3. Improve my understanding of corporate expectations from a technical leader and improve my leadership skills.

For the Mentee: Who Goes on Your Mentor List?

Potential Mentors should be included on a Mentor Wish List primarily because of their accomplishments, experience, personality, capabilities, or skills. For more on this "Demonstrated Accomplishment" selection system, see Mentor Selection Systems.

Alice: "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. "I don't much care where -" said Alice. "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat. Alice in Wonderland, 1865, by Lewis Carroll

The focus of mentoring in the SEED program is long-term professional and technical development. It is not appropriate for a mentee to request a mentor with the sole aim of being hired into a specific job, securing project funding, or gaining a particular political advantage.

Social Context, Gender, and Mentoring

In addition to Demonstrated Accomplishments, many mentees seek a mentor who shares their social or personal context in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, shared language, nationality, or other demographics. These characteristics may properly be part of why a particular mentor is requested; however, in my experience these characteristics by themselves do not provide enough commonality for six months of discussions, so no one of them will be successful as the sole reason for preference. When SEED receives a Mentor Wish List containing inappropriately simplistic reasons for preference like "He is a very successful Chinese in Sun" or "Female Mentor in a top role in an organization", that list is returned to the potential mentee for expansion.

However, these social and personal characteristics can be very important in professional life and are appropriate topics for some mentor-mentee discussions. Gender in particular may have an influence on how mentors and mentees respond to mentoring programs. Women and non-US staff have taken advantage of the SEED program at a consistently higher rate than their representation in Engineering overall. The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University, prepared an excellent study in 2008 called Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-Level Women in Technology (by Caroline Simard, Andrea Davies Henderson, Shannon K. Gilmartin, Londa Schiebinger, and Telle Whitney) which reported:

"Women at the mid level are more likely to rate the availability of mentors and mentoring programs as important to retention than are men (48.7% versus 36.2%). (The gender difference on this item is especially wide at the entry level, where 60.6% of technical women point to a need for to mentoring programs, compared to 39.1% of men.)"

As reported in SEED's "5 Years of Mentoring by the Numbers" (by Katy Dickinson, presented at the October 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing, 30 pages, PDF format), based on SEED's data since 2001, there are three consistent gender patterns with regard to mentor matching in Sun Engineering:

• More male mentors are requested by both male and female mentees overall.
• Female mentors seem more willing than male mentors to accept a mentee, regardless of gender.
• Female mentees request twice as many female mentors on their Mentor Wish Lists as do male mentees.

Some questions this has raised:

• "Is there a substantive difference in reported satisfaction between mentees with male mentors and those with female mentors?"
  One of the opinions (often a seemingly-unquestioned assumption) I often hear from managers of other mentoring programs is that women exclusively want and benefit from having mentors who are also women. While the SEED Engineering mentoring program's data show that female mentees have a strong preference for female mentors, it also shows that men and women mentees report the same program satisfaction (90% average), regardless of their mentor's gender. That is, SEED's data over many years show that there is no real difference in reported satisfaction. The sample size of female mentees is smaller than the sample of males (this is Engineering, after all); however, there is no pattern of satisfaction difference.
• "What is the downside to special mentoring programs for women?"
  As Dr. Ellen Spertus wrote in "Why are There so Few Female Computer Scientists?" (MIT AI lab Technical Report 1315, August 1991):
  "While there is a need for affirmative action programs, they have large negative effects that must be considered. Even if a program does not entail lower standards for women, doubts are cast on a woman's qualifications in a society that already mistrusts them. Programs with lower qualifications may be a tactical mistake (in addition to being unjust) because people may be put in situations for which they are not qualified, giving them less overall success and self-confidence than they would have had otherwise. These negative effects should be weighed when considering implementing an affirmative action program."

For the Mentee: Researching Potential Mentors

A good background search by the mentee will result in more detail and understanding of the potential mentor, also resulting in a more convincing reason for preference. Many times, the mentee's explanation convinces the potential mentor to consider them seriously. Sometimes, it makes the match. Mentees should not confuse researching mentors with asking someone to be their mentor: these are two different steps.

Mentor Research Steps:

1. The mentee should start by thinking about mentoring relationships she has already had (personal, academic, or professional) and ask herself: What would I do the same or differently? Do I want a mentor who is similar or different? She should also think about what she wants to learn from another mentoring relationship: what need or gap do she want to fill in her accomplishments, experience, personality, capabilities, or skills? Are there patterns of behavior or performance feedback to be considered?
2. The mentee's second step in researching potential mentors should be to ask her supervisor or manager for support and advice. The manager knows the mentee and has a professional stake in the mentee's success. Also, the mentee should ask for advice from other people who know her well - taking advantage of their experience, wisdom, and networks.
3. A general search for background on the potential mentor using a web search engine is the next step. In particular, the mentee should look for professional profiles on web communities such as LinkedIn or Plaxo (rather than the more social communities such as Facebook). Many Directors and Principal Engineers will have executive profiles prepared by their company. Most Vice Presidents will have such a page. The web home page of potential mentors' professional or academic organizations may also be a fruitful source of information. Groups such as Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE offer biographies of award winners, office holders, etc.
4. In searching for mentors, it may help the mentee to go through a list of leaders or executives in her professional or academic area to pick out the people who have titles the mentee wants for herself someday. The mentee should pick out names of people who are already far down the career path in which she has an interest. This is like doing research for a university paper - hunting for leads, backtracking, looking for key words, hunting again. Mentees should expect to spend many hours developing a good Mentor Wish List.
5. The mentee's manager can provide perspective by checking the Wish List after it is complete, before the mentee goes into the mentor matching cycle.

"Where the ultimate goal is the search of truth, no matter how a man's plans are frustrated the issue is never injurious and often better then anticipated." - Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

For the Mentor: Deciding to Become a Mentor

Since the mentee drives the relationship, the mentor is usually in the position of deciding whether to accept a specific mentoring proposal, rather than having to seek out a mentee. Common questions from mentors include:

Why become a mentor?

In their own words:

• One SEED mentor who had turned down several mentee requests wrote when he did accept someone: "I've been struggling with this however I've (finally) decided that I want to do it. I've asked other people for help along these lines so I guess it's time for me to give a little back."
• A Vice President-Fellow mentor who had already served in several SEED terms wrote in his first email to his new mentoring partner: "I look forward to our mentor-mentee relationship. This will be a good experience for both of us. I will learn some and you will learn some, it is up to us to make the most out of it."
• A Distinguished Engineer wrote in his quarterly report: "This is a very worthwhile program that I'm pleased to be able to participate in. In the two times I've participated as a mentor I've gotten at least as much out of the experience as the mentee."
• A Vice President wrote in evaluation of his 6th SEED mentoring experience: "This continues to be a great program and I get a lot out of it -- possibly more than the mentees."
• A Software Staff Engineer wrote about his 2nd SEED mentorship: "Love the SEED program. Low cost to shareholders, high value to shareholders."
• A Distinguished Engineer who is an 11-time mentor wrote: "SEED is a great opportunity for both Mentor and Mentee. It opens both personal and technical doors by providing a 1-1 context outside of normal work requirements."
• In addition to giving personal and professional satisfaction, becoming a mentor can help expand understanding and experience. Mentoring may also specifically support professional development in organizations where leadership is one of the criteria for evaluating promotion potential.

"What do mentors do?"

Working in parallel with the mentee's manager (and communicating with the manager as appropriate while respecting confidentiality), the mentor recommends training and experiences, makes introductions, provides continuing advice, assistance and support, and evaluates progress. Some mentors may discuss or work together on projects with mentees. Mentors may also be asked to support the development of the mentee's "soft" skills such as public presentation/speaking, negotiating, conflict management, and coaching.

"What do mentors look for in mentees?"

• The mentor should be interested in at least some of the same work areas, problems, or projects as the mentee. However, working in the same broad professional area (software, microelectronics, sales, etc.) may or may not be an advantage to a mentoring pair. There have been very successful mentoring partners who shared a technical focus but were in very different areas. Sometimes having a different specialty can be a real advantage because there is more to talk about and learn.
• Personal compatibility and commonality (with both the mentee and their manager with whom the mentor may need to communicate from time to time).
• Physical proximity or time zone proximity may or may not be important. Proximity may mean that the mentor and mentee have offices near each other or that one of them can travel for an in-person visit from time to time. However, while face-to-face meetings are valuable, they are not always possible. A great deal can be accomplished over the phone and by email. For many years, the majority of SEED mentor-mentee pairs have worked at a distance (in difference cities, states, or countries). In a global workforce, potential mentees may work in an area where there are few or no senior Engineering staff available to mentor them. In their case, being mentored "at a distance" is their only choice.
  
  In their own words:
  
  In April 2003, a mentor wrote in his quarterly report: "...the impact one can make by being a mentor in a non-US Geo is considerably high, as per my personal experience. I derived a lot of satisfaction and good perspective during this mentoring program. Also, this Mentoring program made me to think about some issues affecting the local engineering center, and we are working towards addressing these issues."
  
  In July 2009, a mentee working in Japan spontaneously wrote an evaluation of his relationship with his mentor (who works in Israel): "I cannot thank more for his effort he put into this program, his frankness and openness as well as shared knowledge not only regards to the professional life but also the personal life. ... Though my goal was slightly different at the beginning of the term, learning from someone who is ahead in professional life, while managing his work-life balance provide me a new perspective. Managing balance is still challenging for me, but sharing simular experience about family from different point of view was and continue to be helpful for myself. Visiting the differences in each others' culture starting from the calendar was, for me an exotic experience and continue to be interesting one. I am looking forward to continuing our relationship."


• Availability (if the mentor is a senior executive or a manager with a large staff, she will have less time).
• Potential conflicts of interest or areas of discomfort with the mentee or the mentee's manager (for example, it may be a problem if the mentor and mentor are in the same management chain, or if there are close personal relationships). Mentor and mentee should talk about these potential conflict areas before being matched.

Common questions mentors report thinking about when deciding whether to accept a particular Mentee include:

1. Why me? What does this person want to know that I am uniquely able to teach?
   Potential mentors (especially executives whose time is particularly valuable) want to gauge the mentee's motivation and seriousness. They want to see if spending six months with this mentee is a good use of time.
2. Do I already know the mentee who has requested me (or know of them, or know their manager)?
   That is, is there a prior connection or knowledge? The prior connection may allow the mentoring partnership to start sooner and at a deeper level, or the history between the mentor and mentee may slow or prohibit the development of a partnership. In any case, it needs to be thought through.
3. Is there a line reporting relationship?
   It may be a problem if the mentor and mentor are in the same management chain.
4. What is my availability during the mentoring term?
   Most mentors take mentoring very seriously and want to be sure they have the time to do a good job as a mentor. If the potential mentor has just taken a big new job or has irreducibly large personal or professional time commitments, she probably will not accept a mentee until her schedule is lighter.
5. Can I effectively partner "at a distance"?
   Mentoring across distance and time zones may be a skill that the potential mentor needs to develop. SEED mentoring pairs who work at a distance have for many years report the same satisfaction level as those working locally; however, mentors and mentees both report that working at a distance is more time consuming.

Circumstances mentors have identified as being important when considering a mentee include a mix of:

1. Mentor's availability when asked (almost always the #1 consideration)
2. How well the potential mentor's and mentee's schedules match (and their flexibility to accomodate each other's schedules)
3. Mentee's accomplishments, experience, seniority
4. Mentee's capabilities, skills, potential
5. Common intellectual or professional interests
6. Personal compatibility or common ground (including linguistic abilities: whether the mentor and mentee share a common language)
7. Physical, geographic, or time zone proximity

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." - John F. Kennedy (35th U.S. President, 1917-1963)

Photos are from Wikipedia

Posted at 04:39PM Jul 06, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[1]

Mentor Selection Systems

28 August 2009 Update
Please read "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", the newest Sun Laboratories Technical Report by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon. The abstract and report link are on http://research.sun.com/techrep/2009/abstract-185.html, Report # TR-2009-185

Information in this entry is taken from my experience since 2001 managing Sun's SEED Engineering-wide world-wide mentoring program, and also from the Mentoring@Sun general mentoring program and new Vice President program managed by Helen Gracon. This is part of a continuing series on mentoring programs, answering some of the questions I am most frequently asked. Other entries in this series:

• Internal or External Mentoring Program? (30 June 2009)
• Formal vs. Informal Mentoring (12 February 2009)

Mentor Selection Systems

I have seen four kinds of formal mentor selection systems:

1. Mentee evaluates potential mentors' Demonstrated Accomplishments, experience, personality, capabilities, and skills, then creates a prioritized list of preferred mentors (SEED calls this a "Mentor Wish List"). Mentoring program staff approaches mentors on behalf of mentees.
2. Mentor and mentee each use Self-identified Competency lists to indicate strengths and weaknesses. Mentoring program matches based on list compatibility. Mentees are given two mentors to contact. Mentoring@Sun uses this system.
3. A combination of the two options above.
4. Assignment of mentors by management.

This entry will discuss formal systems using Self-identified Competency vesus those using Demonstrated Accomplishment for mentor selection.

Cognitive Bias

I am going to take a small detour to introduce the concept of cognitive bias, specifically the Dunning-Kruger effect humorously described by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, (then both of Cornell University) in their much-cited and entertaining paper "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own. Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments." (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999, Vol. 77, No.6. 1121-1134). Two findings from that paper which are pertinent to mentor selection are:

• "the incompetent will tend to grossly overestimate their skills and abilities"
• "participants in the top quartile tended to underestimate their ability and test performance relative to their peers"

Kruger and Dunning quote Charles Darwin (1871): "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." That is, people are often bad at knowing what they are good at.

I recommend reading this paper not only to understand cognitive bias but also to enjoy passages such as:

• "...knowledge about the domain does not necessarily translate into competence in the domain, one can become acutely — even painfully — aware of the limits of one's ability. In golf, for instance, one can know all about the fine points of course management, club selection, and effective 'swing thoughts,' but one's incompetence will become sorely obvious when, after watching one's more able partner drive the ball 250 yards down the fairway, one proceeds to hit one's own ball 150 yards down the fairway, 50 yards to the right, and onto the hood of that 1993 Ford Taurus."
• "In sum, we present this article as an exploration into why people tend to hold overly optimistic and miscalibrated views about themselves. ...Although we feel we have done a competent job in making a strong case for this analysis, studying it empirically, and drawing out relevant implications, our thesis leaves us with one haunting worry that we cannot vanquish. That worry is that this article may contain faulty logic, methodological errors, or poor communication. Let us assure our readers that to the extent this article is imperfect, it is not a sin we have committed knowingly."

Self-identified Competency Systems

Cognitive bias is important because most mentor selection systems rely on Self-identified Competency lists. In a Self-identified Competency System, mentors and mentees are presented with lists of competencies. Each picks competencies that they think they have. The system then proposes mentor-mentee pairings based on comparing list selections. (What I call a Self-identified Competency selection system, Peg Boyle Single and Carol Muller of MentorNet call "Bi-directional Matching". See "When Email and Mentoring Unite" in Creating Mentoring and Coaching Programs from the ASTD In Action Series, by Phillips and Stomei, 2001.)

Competency lists vary widely depending on the context and goals of the mentoring program but examples include:

• Negotiation
• Customer Focus
• Building Trust
• Listening Effectively
• Strategic Decision Making
• Selling the Vision
• Building Successful and Effective Dispersed Teams
• Technology Impact Assessment
• Working Across Cultures
• Network Design and Architecture

Those using a Self-identified Competency Selection System should be aware of cognitive bias as it may get in the way of finding a good match. That is, both the mentee and potential mentor will probably not be objective in assessing strengths and weaknesses (competencies), so the match may be based on a false compatibility evaluation. However, the seemingly-objective way in which the match was made (how can you go wrong picking from a list?) may mask selection errors until they are demonstrated in experience, frustrating both mentor and mentee.

An inappropriate mentor selection system may mask errors.

Competency lists can be used to control the scope of learning in a mentoring program. So, if a Vice President wants to direct her organization to learn more about working with virtual or dispersed teams, she could pick a list of competencies which had to do with that skill area, thus encouraging mentor and mentee to discuss the desired topic. This may limit the scope of discussions (which can be good or bad, depending on what the program sponsor and participants are looking for). Controlling competency scope will also limit which mentors are considered (or available). Some mentees and mentors will find the preferred discussion topic too simplistic and may either break off their relationship or ignore the sponsor-preferred topic limitations.

When the competencies are specific to a particular job or profession, a Self-identified Competency Selection system works best when the mentor and mentee share a professional context and interpret the competency lists similarly. For example, if both mentor and mentee are in Information Technology Operations, they will understand the competency "Identity Services" to mean "experience with the design and implementation of a multi-level identity/authorization strategy" but someone in Marketing Communications would probably interpret "Identity Services" very differently. The professional context may also be one of seniority. If the mentor and mentee are both Vice Presidents, they are likely to share an interpretation at a higher organizational level, which is less likely if the mentor is a Vice President and the mentee is a junior Engineer. Shared context is less important when the competencies are soft skills, such as negotiating, public speaking, conflict management, etc.

Demonstrated Accomplishments and SEED

SEED is one example of a mentoring system which relies on Demonstrated Accomplishments for mentor selection. About 70% of SEED mentors are executives. A different mentoring program, run by Helen Gracon out of the Sun Learning Services group for new Sun Vice Presidents, also uses Demonstrated Accomplishments for mentor selection. Both programs are regularly given 90% or higher satisfaction ratings by participants.

The SEED program maintains a list of Potential SEED Mentors (over 450 now). The list includes the name, job title, division, and city/state/country of each potential mentor, plus links to biographical information such as SEED mentoring history and evaluation, personal web pages, blogs, executive profiles, LinkedIn profiles, resumes, etc.

The SEED program has an open list of potential mentors: any senior Sun Engineer or executive is eligible. SEED participants are not limited to the choices on the Potential SEED Mentors list. About a third of the mentors in most terms are new to SEED and were not originally on the Potential SEED Mentors list. The SEED program welcomes Mentors from both the business and technical tracks: Distinguished Engineers, Principal Engineers, Sun Fellows, Senior Staff Engineers, Directors and Vice Presidents of Engineering, and other senior engineers and executives from any area of Sun are all welcome as Mentors. Potential mentors must be at least principal level; the great majority are at executive level (Director or Vice President or equivalent). SEED Mentors have served from all areas of Engineering worldwide, plus Operations, Sales, Service, Legal, Information Technology, Finance, Human Resources, and Marketing. In creating their Mentor Wish List, each SEED participant needs to make two hard decisions:

1. What they want to learn
2. Who has already accomplished the kind of things they want to do
   (that is, who is already down the path that they see themselves walking)

The SEED Engineering mentoring program takes a long-term view and does not have a preference for one kind of learning over another. That is, the mentoring partnership learning does not have to have anything to do with the participant's current job. Some people want to learn to be better technical managers, others want to know how to get their ideas to customers faster. Many want to improve their soft skills: public presentation or speaking, negotiating, conflict management, and coaching. Still others want to improve their work and family balance and still have a great career. It takes time and mature consideration to work through all of this. Creating the Mentor Wish List is probably the hardest part of the SEED program.

Selecting a mentor based on their Demonstrated Accomplishments is more obviously subjective and time consuming than selection based on Self-identified Competencies. However, in my experience with SEED, there are fewer mis-matches and greater diversity in matched pairs using Demonstrated Accomplishments. Diversity in SEED terms includes demographic, geographic, professional variety. That is, if the mentee feels free to discuss a very broad range of topics, and has an open list of mentors from which to select, communication is encouraged across organizational, professional, geographic, and demographic silos.

Mentoring can effectively create bridges between professional silos.

Demonstrated Accomplishment vs. Self-identified Competency Selection Systems

Given the disadvantages of a Self-identified Competency Selection System, why would a mentoring program use this option? In short, such a system is relatively easy to automate so it is faster and can support a much larger participant group. That is, it scales: the start-up time is shorter and the administrative overhead is less. There will be more mis-matches but that risk is acceptable in some mentoring programs. For example, if the program is being offered to a large group of junior staff whose potential mentors are just one or two seniority levels above them, the consequences of a mis-match are relatively low. Mentoring@Sun has used a Self-identified Competency Selection System for many successful years.

On the other hand, if the mentees are drawn from a smaller group of high potential, highly promotable, high value staff who will mostly be matched with executive mentors (as is the case with SEED), or are solely from the executive ranks (as is the case in Sun's new Vice President mentoring program), the consequences from a mis-match are much greater. When the great majority of the mentors are executives, mis-matches are too expensive in terms of wasted time and potential damage to staff and program reputation. A Demonstrated Accomplishment system requires a "high touch" approach consistent with the best way to work with most executives whose time is both limited and valuable. Some program aspects can be automated (such as mentee and mentor application, and match tracking) but the development of each mentee's potential mentor list is research-intensive and most communications are personal.

A Demonstrated Accomplishment system also needs a very senior mentoring program staff member to act as a broker or matchmaker. The broker needs to be a good communicator to help make a great match. It helps if the broker is well known and has a good reputation so that potential mentors will respond promptly and provide an opportunity for the broker to tell them about the mentee who has requested them. Getting an executive to respond to the first email or even pick up the phone can sometimes be the greatest challenge in making a match.

Images Copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson

Posted at 01:13PM Jul 02, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[2]

Internal or External Mentoring Program?

28 August 2009 Update
Please read "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", the newest Sun Laboratories Technical Report by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon. The abstract and report link are on http://research.sun.com/techrep/2009/abstract-185.html, Report # TR-2009-185

I mostly write about the SEED Engineering-wide world-wide mentoring program I have managed and designed since 2001. However, Sun has always offered other mentoring programs, many of them managed by Helen Gracon. Sun has had a strong culture and tradition of mentoring, both inside and outside of Engineering, for most of its 27 years. Helen and I have collaborated for many years revising and extending the training materials we use jointly. In true Sun distributed management style, Helen reports to me for the purposes of providing training for SEED while independently managing the Mentoring at Sun (or Mentoring@Sun) program offered internally by Sun Learning Services (SLS).

Series:
This is part of a continuing series on mentoring programs, answering some of the questions I am most frequently asked. For the first entry, see my blog Formal vs. Informal Mentoring. I hope this series will be of interest to those who are starting or currently managing mentoring programs, as well as to mentors and mentees.

Background:
SEED was designed in 2000 by a team that included both Engineering and Human Resources (HR) staff. Since 2001, SEED has been sponsored by Chief Technology Officer Greg Papadopoulos and has reported to him. However, since it started in 1992, Mentoring@Sun has moved from SunU (under HR), to the Software product group, to its current home in SLS. Helen has worked with Mentoring@Sun since 1996.

The top business imperatives that led to the creation of SEED in 2000 were:

1. Identify and enrich the experience of those who can reasonably be expected to rise to the top of Sun Engineering's individual contributor or management ranks
2. Engender the value of mentoring systemically across Sun Engineering.
3. Build the Engineering community by making and strengthening connections between its members and with the rest of Sun. (Getting people outside of their professional and organizational silos...).
4. Improve the retention of key Engineering staff.
5. Promote and increase the diversity of Engineering leadership in the areas of demographics, professional area, and geographic location.

Benchmarking compares and measures processes and performance.

Benchmarking:
During our time running mentoring programs, Helen and I have learned about many successful ways of mentoring both inside of Sun and more generally. Helen and I are often contacted with questions by other companies with internal programs, companies offering mentoring as a product for sale, non-profit organizations, and academic administrators or faculty. We compare notes and benchmark not only with each other but with external-to-Sun professionals who run mentoring programs.

"Benchmarking" implies comparison and measurement of one system, process, or product and its performance against another. Benchmarking assumes that there is a standard for excellence or set of best practices against which to compare. In mentoring, each program must be tailored to the organization it serves. SEED has been called an industry best practice program but, as we have found each time we have extended SEED into a new area of service, even the best practices must be optimized for particular circumstances.

In addition to collecting information about other mentoring programs, Helen and I also transfer it to others. An example: In 2006, I set up a Grace Hopper Celebration panel called "Mentoring by the Numbers: Research and results drive mentoring programs that last" featuring Carol Muller (founder of MentorNet) and Mary Jean Harrold (who created a technical infrastructure for women faculty at Georgia Tech) in addition to myself. (If you want to know more: the National Center for Women & Information Technology or NCWIT published Practices papers on MentorNet, SEED, and the Georgia Tech mentoring programs.) Also in 2006, Carol Gorski (former Sun HR Director) and I gave a presentation called "5 Years of Mentoring by the Numbers" at the TechLeaders Workshop associated with the Hopper Conference.

Internal or External Mentoring Program?

I am often contacted by companies researching alternatives after they have had a poor experience with an external mentoring company. In short: internal mentoring programs have a longer and costlier startup time but will probably be less expensive and more effective in the long run. External programs have a lower startup time and cost but are likely to be more expensive long term.

Mentoring programs are either internal (developed and managed inside of a company, university, or other institution), external, or a combination of the two. SEED and Mentoring@Sun are examples of internal corporate mentoring programs. Mentor Resources is an example of an external company of good reputation which sells its mentoring process as a service or product. Some organizations combine the two, starting off with an external program as a boost to developing their internal program.

Key areas to compare when deciding on whether to have an internal or external program are: Cost (Startup and Maintenance) and Ownership and Control. Specifically:

Cost (Startup and Maintenance)

• The cost of any mentoring program must be balanced by its benefits if the program is to continue in use. SEED's priorities are:
  
  1. Increase the value, satisfaction, and retention of program Participants and their Mentors.
  2. Build Sun's Engineering community by making and strengthening connections between its members and with the rest of Sun.
  3. Work to balance the diversity of Participants in terms of demographics, professional area, and geographic location.
  
  Since 2001, the SEED program has a proven track record of strong diversity, very high satisfaction, high regard by management, and high retention. SEED participants as a group earn more promotions and higher performance ratings than Sun overall.
• Internal mentoring programs cost more to start up because the organization has to think through what is wanted, and then develop key program elements: Process, Training and Educational Materials, Management and Web Tools, and Staff. For example: SEED's development took a design team, a marketing team, a metrics team, and a content team working for a year. After the kick off, many of those original team members continued to participate in the program as mentors or team members. One Distinguished Engineer on the design team went on to be a five-time SEED mentor. That is, SEED's design process created both the program itself and the personal and organizational buy-in to make it successful. SEED was set up to be a long-term program.
• Once an internal program is running, there is little ongoing cost other than staffing (and the mentoring pair's time). Internal program costs can be managed to match company requirements, going up in good times (for example, paying for travel for mentoring pairs working at a distance who may not otherwise meet) or turned way down if company circumstances so require.
• External mentoring companies offer expertise, plus existing processes and tools - all needed for success and all taking years to develop. Externally provided mentoring programs are cheaper and easier to start. However, costs may be much higher than anticipated and contracted payments may be substantial (and continue as long as the program is used). Bringing in an outside group may also require significant internal marketing for the program to succeed.
• In costing out any mentoring program, consider what internal support staff are required. Privacy and confidentiality laws and practices will limit information access of an external company so Human Resources support will be required whether the program is internal or external. Also, communications require insider information, so a program manager (possibly plus administrative staff) may have to be assigned whether the program is internal or external.
• Mentoring@Sun started with an externally provided program but Sun's experience was so poor that Helen was hired to turn it into a more effective internal mentoring program. A second external company was later tried, with similar negative results.
• The SEED program was developed by Sun to address Engineering organization needs unmet by Mentoring@Sun. That is, SEED is an internal mentoring and leadership growth program designed to meet the needs of a key professional area, running in parallel with a more general internal program.
• The cost of any mentoring program may be offset by reduced cost in other areas. For example, the SEED program has improved retention (reducing staff replacement costs) and SEED participants as a group earn more promotions and higher performance ratings than Sun overall (measures of improved productivity). Diversity programs may also benefit from being associated with mentoring. For example, Women and non-US staff have for many years taken advantage of the SEED program at a consistently higher rate than their representation in Engineering.

SEED is Sun Engineering's worldwide mentoring and leadership growth program, running in parallel with the more general mentoring program called Mentoring@Sun

Ownership and Control

• Strength in a mentoring culture develops over time. The program may start off small (SEED had just 32 participants in its first term in 2001) but will grow as mentors, mentees, and managers experience good value. SEED now runs eleven overlapping terms annually with up to fifty pairs per term. Over time, mentoring experience can be written into staff development goals and become part of expectations for leadership growth. SEED was started as a new college hire mentoring program supporting just two Sun divisions. It now offers four kinds of terms (new hires, established staff, PreSEED junior staff, and special pilots) and supports Sun Engineering staff working in Software, Systems, Microelectronics, Storage, Services, Sales, Labs, Operations and all other Engineering professional areas worldwide.
• Mentoring programs benefit from recommendations by happy mentees, mentors, or managers. Managers and participants may return as mentors. 25% of those on SEED's potential mentors list were program mentees before they signed up as mentors. Participants develop a feeling of ownership: program completion becomes a matter of pride. I see SEED references on resumes, in blogs, and in promotion justification statements.
• Another benefit of program ownership is flexibility and the opportunity to tailor mentoring practices to the culture and information of the organization. With an internal program, the company keeps and controls its competency and knowledge of the program. The company can integrate an internal program into its staff development goals and it can make internal/private information (such as annual performance review scores) part of the program.

Posted at 05:49PM Jun 30, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Mentoring Reminders

We are two and a half weeks into the mentor matching cycle for the SEED and PreSEED mentoring terms. Both terms formally started today and will run for the next six months. 58% of the 80 participants (mentees and mentees-to-be) are already matched with their new mentors. This is the time of each cycle when the mentees start to get frustrated waiting for their new mentors.

For me, there is a balance between nudging potential mentors (emails with subjects like "Last Chance" and "Any news?" and "Please Reply!") or deciding to give up and go to the next lower priority name on the participant's Mentor Wish List. I have to be careful about going on: twice already in the last two weeks a mentor contacted me long after their deadline and asked to work with the mentee.

I just sent out nine more emails either reminding potential mentors to get back to me or asking a new potential mentor to review the resume and other information of a participant who has expressed interest in learning from them. In a normal term, 80% of the participants will be matched with one of their top four mentor choices. However, that does mean that 20% will not. Nobody wants to be in that second category.

This term, 387 unique mentors were requested on Wish Lists. There were ten mentors who had more than one participant who asked for them at #1 priority. There were 39 mentors who had five or more participants ask for them. The most potential mentors I have contacted for one participant so far this term is six. However, that potential mentor seems to be seriously interested in the match. Another participant about whom I have only contacted three potential mentors is nonetheless on #10 out of his ten name Mentor Wish List. If #10 is not a good fit, I will go back to the participant for more names.

The participant (potential mentee) is not kept informed of each step in the match process. They do not know which potential mentor from the Wish List is contacted. Potential mentors need to have space and time to consider the possibilities of a mentoring partnership without risk of offending the potential mentee or interfering with future communications with them or their manager.

Everyone does gets matched eventually...

Posted at 11:06PM Jun 15, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

37 Mentoring Pairs Matched for SEED and PreSEED

About two weeks ago, I started the mentor matching cycle for Sun's Global Sales and Service (GSS) SEED term and a PreSEED mentoring term. As of now, 37 out of 80 participants have been matched with mentors (46%). There were quite a few potential mentors who delayed replies until they got home from last week's JavaOne conference. Both terms will run 15 June - 15 December 2009.

PreSEED participants are limited to "principal level" mentors (just below executive level). The 26 new PreSEED mentors have titles like Senior Staff Engineer, Manager, and Senior Program Manager. The 11 SEED mentors matched so far have titles like Senior Director, Vice President, and Distinguished Engineer.

Most of the mentees in both terms are based outside of the USA. The mentor and mentee often work at great distances from each other. So far, in addition to pairs who are both in the USA, we have pairs working from:

1. Bangalore, India and Tokyo, Japan
2. Brush Prairie WA, USA and Sale, UK
3. Burlington, MA USA and Velizy, France
4. Camberley UK and Ratingen, Germany
5. Hamburg, Germany and McLean VA, USA
6. Hong Kong and Chengdu, China
7. Kirchheim-heimstetten, Germany and Zaventem, Belgium
8. London and Camberley UK
9. Menlo Park CA, USA and Bangalore, India
10. Menlo Park CA, USA and Beijing, China
11. Menlo Park CA, USA and Madrid, Spain
12. Montbonnot Saint Martin, France and Padova, Italy
13. Prague, Czech Republic and Madrid, Spain
14. Prague and Prague, Czech Republic
15. Santa Clara CA, USA and Budapest, Hungary
16. Santa Clara CA, USA and Gothenberg, Sweden
17. Santa Clara CA, USA and Rome, Italy
18. Somerset NJ, USA and Oslo, Norway

Quarterly SEED satisfaction reports over many years have shown no statistical difference between working locally and at a distance. The average program satisfaction reported tops 90%.

Posted at 02:31PM Jun 10, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |