Bill Gates has a mentor, so should you and your people.  Mentors are more than upgraded coaches.  Mentors are people who share knowledge and experience with their mentees

Watch the video below to learn how mentors and mentees can work together successfully. 

Mentoring Partnerships that Work

At IBM the corporate mentoring program crosses generations and allows both mentor and mentee to share knowledge.   Seasoned managers are partnered with Gen Y associates to create a blend of the best of both worlds.  

Senior managers are able to share their industry experience and the Gen Y associates share their knowledge of today's technology.  This enables the company to extract the tacit knowledge which is a corporate asset and share it across generations of employees.

Junior Employees Mentor Senior Staff

At Edelman, a Chicago based Public Relations firm, baby boomer Janet Cabot, age 56 and central region president, is partnered with 23 year old Ashley Spohn to learn about online networking. 

As organizations focus on strengthening their online presence, they find that the best consultants are already on staff.  They are the 20 somethings who have grown up with the tools and use them extensively.   Putting these two groups together enables organizations to produce a lot of magic.  It also increases the trust between coworkers.

Reverse Mentoring

Many companies have found that this reverse mentoring pays off in relationship building, breaking down silos, and increased productivity.  As older workers learn the new online tools and integrate them into their workload, generational differences meld into a surprisingly seamless relationship. 

As senior staff gain expert guides to the online community building tools, they also learn how to manage their young employees.   The payoff then, is is a high trust environment with well adjusted multi-generational teams, better relationships and higher creativity.

Does your company have a cross generational mentoring program? If yes, please share how it's working.  If no, would you like to have a one?  Your comments are welcome.    I'd love to hear from you.