Now comes the tricky part: what should you get mentoring for?

One of the difficult parts of entering a new mentoring partnership – especially for first-time mentees – can be deciding what exactly to invest a mentoring relationship toward. On one hand, it’s great to have a partner committed to your development. On the other hand, it’s hard to know where to start.

There is no question that building a new relationship takes time. Here are a few ideas to get you going until you begin to hit your stride:

Present Business Situation

This should be an obvious first choice. How is your functional area performing? What are the problems and opportunities? What excites you? What keeps you up at night? What can you do to improve things? These would all be great topics to discuss with your mentor.

Individual Development Plan

Your IDP should include both short-term and long-term career goals as well as development areas you plan to focus on to achieve those goals. Invite your mentor to evaluate and provide input on your goals, your plan and your progress.

Leadership Capability

Your leadership experience or future potential may have played a key role in being able to participate in a mentoring relationship. Many mentoring programs are built on this premise and designed to facilitate and accelerate future growth. Talk with your mentor about your leadership opportunities. Ask how your mentor got where she is and what adjustments she made along the way.

Assessment Results

If you’ve never completed a leadership assessment, consider inviting your mentor to go through one with you. You might consider a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or DiSC personality assessment. StrengthsFinder is another popular assessment. Take the opportunity to compare your results with your mentor, discuss similarities and differences and consider how to use them to build a strong connection. Also make sure to consider the development ideas that are included with the reports.

Program Materials

If you are taking part in a formal mentoring program, don’t neglect to read through any program materials you receive, especially at the outset of the partnership. They will probably include helpful tips about structure, focus and scheduling interactions. And don’t be afraid to reach out to the program coordinator for more resources.

Follow a Peer’s Example

One of the big mistakes of mentoring is doing it alone. Many of the best ideas come from the experiences of others. So take the opportunity to reach out to other mentors and mentees – either from your program or elsewhere – and ask how they schedule their interactions, what they talk about and what they’re learning.

Your Own Intuition

Don’t ignore your own intuition in spite of the structure your program may provide. If there is something you’d like to discuss, brainstorm or explore, make sure to add the item to your agenda. Don’t be afraid of “getting it wrong.” Sometimes, you just need to put the program aside and go with the thing on your mind right now.

Mentoring is a terrific investment in future talent. Don’t treat a mentoring opportunity lightly! Remember, successful leaders don’t arrive on their own – and neither will you. If you keep it up, pretty soon you will be the one sharing your wisdom with tomorrow’s top talent.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

What is a Development Library?

A development library is simply a collection of organizational suggested or sponsored developmental experiences that employees can choose from as they consider their own development plans.  When you go to an actual library, you browse the shelves until you find one (or several) book that meets your reading objective.  It’s the same principle with a development library.  But instead of going to a physical location, a development library is available to employees as a published list or (even better) a searchable online tool.

What is a “Developmental Experience?”

One of the key components of an Individual Development Plan is the section on development activities.  These are the individual “experiences” an employee will engage in to increase development according to his or her objectives.  A developmental experience is any experience significant to growth, whether it takes place within the responsibilities of a job, outside a normal role, or completely extracurricular.  Development experiences generally focus on non-technical professional skills that complement traditional job-specific training initiatives.  Examples could include leading a new project, supporting a project on another team (or a joint team), doing a rotational assignment, attending a seminar, joining a professional association or networking group, completing a new certification, becoming a board member for a non-profit in your industry, or reading a book.  Like I mentioned in the last post, the options for development activities are limited only by an employee’s creativity, resourcefulness, or in some cases, organizational resources.  Creating a development library simply allows organizations to provide a broad and strategic menu of developmental options.

How to Build a Development Library

So how would you go about building a development library for your organization?  Here are some specific steps you can take:

Baseline off your high performers.  If you are starting from scratch, one great place to start is with the high performers in your organization.  Interview them to determine what developmental experiences they’ve had over the course of their careers (or entire lives) that significantly enhanced their performance ability.  From this list, determine which activities you would like the organization to sponsor for all employees and include them in the development library.  (Hint: you may also baseline off high performers from outside your organization).

Consider the organization’s competency model.  Many organizations have some type of competency model for the entire enterprise – or at least for some of the divisions, such as leadership, communication, collaboration, planning, etc.  If your organization has a competency model, include developmental opportunities for each competency or skill.

Utilize existing organizational resources. If your organization already has developmental learning courses or development programs (such as a job share or rotational program), include these in the development library, even if some of them will require special budget or approvals.

Include multiple levels of effort.  There is quite a bit of difference between doing a six month rotational assignment and simply reading a book.  But each can provide a meaningful developmental experience in it’s own right. Don’t discriminate based on effort level.  Include all developmental experiences the organization has to offer regardless of level of effort.

Highlight high-priority opportunities.  If your organization is currently promoting certain development programs or initiatives, make these highly visible in the development library.

Address developmental gaps.  If your organization is weak in any particular areas, make sure to include several developmental experiences that would address those gaps.

Solicit employee input.  Collect employee feedback on the effectiveness of the developmental experiences they engage in.  Ask for their input on how to make them better, as well as what new ones to add.

Organize the list.  Organize all the development activities according to competency, level of effort, or any other criteria that makes the most sense for your organization.  That way employees can easily search for the experiences they are seeking.

Improve continually.  A development library should be a living tool.  Keep adding developmental experiences that appear to be helpful.  If existing ones don’t prove effective, remove them.

What development experiences contributed the most to your present performance ability?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

So what makes the IDP so special? In this post I’ll explain what an IDP is, why it’s so important, and then share some steps showing how to complete one. At the bottom of the post I’ll include a link to an IDP template you can use for yourself or your team.

What is an IDP?

An IDP is three things. First, it is simply a plan to develop or grow strategically in a professional setting (although you may certainly use one for personal growth as well). It is completed by the employee (sometimes in collaboration with a supervisor, career coach, or HR representative). Second, an IDP is not the same as a performance plan, although the two do complement each other. A performance plan highlights the objectives and results that must be achieved as a part of an employee’s inherent job responsibilities. An individual development plan highlights the growth an employee pre-plans during a period of time. Performance plans may be identical for some (or all) the members of a team whereas IDPs will probably be unique. Third, an IDP is a living plan. It changes over time as growth occurs.

Why is an IDP Important?

In his book The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, John Maxwell says that experience is a hard teacher because the test is given first and the lesson is given afterward. But unless you are intentional about evaluating the experience, there’s a good chance of missing out on the lesson!  That’s what an IDP does. Think of performance as the “test” and development as the “lesson.” An IDP makes the lesson intentional by pre-planning for it. Without a plan for development, effectiveness is evaluated on a pass/fail basis of performance outcomes. An IDP should raise performance results over time as individual capacity increases. IDPs also allow employees and organizations to communicate and reach consensus on what constitutes a developmental win.

What should be included in an IDP?

Most organizations using IDPs customize them to some extent, but below are some elements you can usually expect to see on any IDP:

Career Goal. A career goal is the next destination you’d like to attain in your career. It’s the next thing you are working toward. It could be the next promotion, an entirely new position, or increased capability in the same position. Or it could be additional responsibility outside of your role to supplement the work you already do. Having a career goal informs the rest of the IDP elements. I suggest considering both short-term (1-2 years) and medium-term (2-5 years) career goals.

Objectives. A development objective is simply an area you identify for growth which will move you closer to your career goal. It could focus on a strength or skill in which you are already capable and wish to excel. Or it may focus on a weakness (or “opportunity for development”) that threatens your competence or is seen as a liability. It could be hard or soft, technical or non-technical. Or it could be acquiring knowledge you don’t currently have but will need to succeed in the future.

Activities. Once you’ve identified your career goal and objectives, you’re ready to identify and commit to the developmental activities that will meet your objectives. The options are limited only by your creativity, resourcefulness, and in some cases, organizational resources. Your activities may be within your role, outside your role, or completely extracurricular. Some examples from all three could include leading a new project, supporting a project on another team (or a joint team), doing a rotational assignment, attending a seminar, joining a professional association or networking group, completing a new certification, becoming a board member for a non-profit in your industry, or reading a book. The key point to remember with development activities is to make them measurable. In other words, specify how you will know when you have completed them.

Timelines. Timelines need to be attached to each developmental activity. If one of your activities is to work on a special project, that project (or your involvement with it) should have an end date. This may seem like the simplest element of the IDP, but it’s one of the most crucial. Besides having a timeline for each activity, each IDP should have its own time period (bi-annual, or annual are most common).

Support needed. This section allows you to identify the support you need in terms of budget, time, approval, or collaboration. There is a big difference between doing a six month rotational assignment and reading a book in terms of all the above. Will your development activities be done on company time or personal time? Will they qualify for learning budget or come out of pocket? If any organizational resources are invested, it’s likely someone will have to approve the activity. While it may not be mandatory, some collaborative support may be welcome as well, such as input from a supervisor, a coach, or a subject matter expert.

Regardless of whether your organization requires the use of IDPs or not, it’s hard to ignore their value as a growth tool. Many of us have an idea where we’d like our career to go but lack a written plan preparing for it ahead of time. Vince Lombardi gave some great advice to this point by pointing out that the will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win.

If you’d like to see a sample template of an IDP, you may download one here.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.