Many multinational mentoring programmes are at risk because employers fail to think strategically, adapt their approach to local cultures, or offer participants adequate cross-cultural training beforehand.
These were the key messages emerging from contributions to the multinational mentoring stream in the European Mentoring & Coaching Council’s (EMCC) first ever mentoring e-conference on 16-18 January.
David Clutterbuck, co-founder of the EMCC, said many organisations fail to change. “One of the mistakes I have seen commonly is for the headquarters of a multinational to assume that what works [fits] culturally in the home country is the right way to do it everywhere else. This cultural imperialism often leads to conflict and the abandonment of very effective local programmes.”
Adina Tarry, director of Rich Answers International, who has lived and worked in seven countries, and works with multinationals, said she has never seen a cross-cultural competence development programme precede mentoring, for example. She said businesses have a limited understanding of what cross-cultural experience, awareness, competency and sensitisation are, and do not appreciate that specific preparation is needed.
“Sadly, such training is lacking. My point is that such capability needs to be built before we engage in any other next step. This is the only way the next step is likely to be done really well and yield the benefits it is designed to bring.”
She said it’s necessary “to do a cross-cultural ‘Nemawashi’ for mentors and mentees, before the actual mentoring (or any other activity) in a cross-cultural setting, so that the mentoring work takes healthy roots.” ‘Nemawashi’, in Japanese, means laying the foundations before the main change action, to ensure the change is successful.
Ines O’Donovan, director of Alamundo, said she was surprised when her own research carried out last year showed very few multinational organisations run multinational mentoring programmes from a strategic point of view. “Given that, it is not astonishing that companies don’t think about developing cultural competencies before a mentoring programme. A lot of them don’t even think about training mentors and mentees, which could be seen as a basic ingredient for running a successful mentoring programme.”
Other streams included: How to meet expectations in CSR-related programmes; how to recruit powerful mentors, and how to finance mentor programmes.
For more on the conference, go to: http://mentoring2013.emccconference.org
Coaching at Work, volume 8, issue 2