Best Places Guest Blog: QLI’s Six Fundamentals to a Strong Mentoring Program

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This is a guest post by Dr. Kim Hoogeveen, founder of Quality Living, Inc. (QLI), the nation’s largest specialized care provider for people with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries. QLI has been honored as the Best Place To Work in Omaha every time it has participated—an impressive record, especially in an industry not known for producing high-performance cultures.

QLI’s culture serves as strong evidence that a healthy culture leads to hard business outcomes: a turnover rate one-fifth the industry average, remarkable customer satisfaction, and healthy financial returns.

Dr. Hoogeveen is no longer involved in QLI’s day-to-day operations, but the culture he embedded there continues to thrive. As part of our ongoing effort to shine a light on the practices of our Best Places To Work honorees, Dr. Hoogeveen shared a bit about QLI’s unique mentoring program.

-Phil Haussler

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The unique culture at QLI has been built on what we refer to as our Seven Principles of Leadership^©, principles that lie at the core of our extensive leadership program, MindSet^®.

Principle Three assures all staff members that their company will work diligently to see that they become more successful at work and in life. One part of living up to that commitment at QLI is how we operate our structured mentoring program. (Note that we distinguish this from spontaneous mentoring opportunities that occur every day throughout our company. Here we are considering a systematic process we operate to facilitate employee growth.)

Several elements are necessary for the implementation of a successful, structured mentoring program. The MindSet approach used at QLI is a complex process that involves what we believe to be high-level leadership insights. It requires an investment of time and effort to both learn and to implement our approach, but we believe the payback to our company is significant in many regards and are surprised that few companies seem to be invested in such a process.

A few of the core fundamentals include:

1. You must identify individuals who have the prerequisite willingness and skill sets to serve as an effective mentor. Unfortunately, some who lack the skills will eagerly express a willingness to serve. Avoid the temptation to allow them to mentor; instead first offer to teach them how to grow a mentee. At QLI, we often see the benefit of using MindSet to first train the trainers.
2. Good mentor programs have the ability to identify those who are ready and eager to grow. At QLI, we use MindSet concepts to find those individuals who will benefit from this opportunity. It is important to note that many who will benefit the most are unlikely to initiate their participation in such a program; you will often need to recruit them to the opportunity!
3. There are many learning techniques a mentor can use to help a mentee grow and develop. It is often helpful to make sure mentors consider all of the available teaching methods to maximize the impact of their mentoring relationship. Again, this requires both initial training and ongoing support for your mentors.
4. Mentoring is not a structured friendship; it is a relationship that is established to accelerate the growth of one of the parties. As such, develop well-defined learning goals for the mentoring experience. It is often helpful to have input on these goals from others in the company who know the potential of the mentee AND the strengths of the mentor. The clearer objectives are stipulated; the more effective both parties can be in the relationship.
5. Good mentors see themselves as conductors—not single teachers. This means good mentors will utilize the knowledge and experience of others to help develop their mentees.
6. Mentoring relationships should be for a defined amount of time—a time period that can be extended if progress is still being made and both parties feel it is worthwhile to continue. But having an end date helps the parties focus their time and gives each a graceful way to disengage. Structured mentoring relationships should stop when objectives have been met or when additional meetings seem nonproductive. If a mentoring session ever feels like it is awkward to find a topic and the meeting is only being held because it was on the schedule, it is time to call it good and end the mentoring relationship.

Great companies are populated by employees who are happier and more committed to their company because they have the all-too-rare opportunity to be part of an organization that is genuinely committed to their success. There are literally scores of things a company must do to deliver on that objective, but a high quality, structured mentoring program is a very good place to start.

*To learn more about Dr. Hoogeveen’s approach to mentoring or his broader leadership framework, MindSet, visit www.mindset360.com.