In the summer, I received a standard email, a request for an offer to start up a mentoring programme for about 20 people in a company. The deadline for submitting an offer was 7 days away. The request was enigmatic. The message was signed at the bottom by the contact person, and there was a telephone number. It was the middle of the summer holidays. I called. A very young person picked up the phone. He was open and willing to talk. (50) I thanked him for the request and began asking questions.

• Has any mentoring programme ever been run in the company before?
• What are the goals of the programme?
• Who is to be the mentor, and who will choose them and how?
• What is their level of knowledge and experience?

My interlocutor said that, unfortunately, he wasn’t actually able to answer any questions. I asked him where the idea about mentoring had come from and who I should speak with. He told me it was part of the company’s global programme, that it was already up and running in a prepared format outside Poland, and that an order had come from headquarters to their department – not HR, but Inclusion and Diversity – to implement such a programme. He was very friendly and open. (48) I told him it would be very difficult for me to submit any offer without even knowing the basic parameters of the programme. He promised to get in touch with his colleagues from the department and call back within a few days.

After hearing nothing for a week, I called again – I deliberately ruled out email communication on the premise that at this stage it wouldn’t help build up a relationship. The young man answered at once, apologised, and asked me to be patient for a few more days because “my colleague who’s responsible for the programme is on leave”. 

After another week, the phone rang. David’s colleague, Iga, asked for a meeting on Zoom, to be attended by her whole team and at which she hoped “I’ll hear answers to all our questions”. Three days later, there we were on Zoom. Me on one side, and four very young people on the other. I felt a bit dejected. We introduced ourselves, I proposed we address each other informally, and asked how much time we have. We had 30 minutes. Iga quickly took the helm. She said that in fact all she knew was that they had to get a mentoring programme going by the autumn of this year, that such programmes were already functioning in other countries, that it had its own format, and in principle all they expected was training for mentors. I asked if they could send me more information on how it works in Holland or Germany – but they said they couldn’t. Ok. I asked if I could tell them how I implement programmes in companies and what standards such work can meet. They agreed. Using Powerpoint, I explained the particular stages of implementing a process, from setting organisational and developmental goals for both the mentee and the mentor, to how to identify and qualify those willing to be a mentor or mentee, to the role of application questionnaires and communicating the intra-organisational rules of the mentoring programme (with particular emphasis on confidentiality and that a mentor cannot be a mentee’s superior), to the system for training mentors and mentees… At that moment our time ran out – which I announced, and asked, “What next?” Iga quickly answered that I could continue if I wished. So I also spoke about the rules of the process, EMCC standards, the ethical code, etc. I said that if I were to take responsibility for the process and its effects we’d have to ensure that the mentors have the possibility of intervision and supervision, as well as training during the process. 

I explained the role of those processes from the point of view of the mentor, but also of the mentee and the whole process within the organisation. Finally, I mentioned the need to evaluate the programme at the end and to hold a final meeting for all participants with a presentation of results, some kind of speech, and a celebration.

I had the impression this was quite a mouthful for them. “That’s something,” David said at the end. “We had no idea. We thought this was a pretty banal thing, we’d take care of it ourselves. But here it looks like not necessarily”.

“Could you write it all up and send it to us?” Iga asked. “Kind of idiot sheets, and if you could immediately give us a programme max and minimum that you could handle to meet at least the basic standards.”

I agreed, but asked them to first send me what they expected from the programme: the goals to be achieved in the context of the whole company and the programme participants. “Without that I won’t lift a finger,” I said. 

“Okay, but we haven’t got much time, ‘cause the company expects the first training to start in September,” Iga put in. I said I understood, but couldn’t send an offer on something unspecified, and certainly couldn’t calibrate the programme. I promised them that if I got their goals in three days, I’d send a full offer with options within a week. That’s how we left it.

After that meeting, I had no idea what direction the talks were going in. But I knew there were several conditions without which I wouldn’t want to run the programme:  total trust between the mentor and mentee; no subordination between mentor and mentee; free will on both sides to take part in the programme; compulsory training for all mentors, including practical exercises; training for the mentees; at least two group supervisions during the process; and a final evaluation based on an anonymous questionnaire for the mentors and mentees. 

I received information on the programme goals within two days, and prepared and calibrated an offer on that basis. I made three versions: maximum, with an option for certifying the mentors, where the training would be in accordance with the EQA Mentor Foundation course; expanded, without certification; and minimum, containing training for mentors and mentees, two supervisions and a final evaluation.

Ten days later, the client called and said they had approval for the maximum programme, in which we were given complete control over the process, the applications and putting pairs together. The issue of certification would be left up to willing mentors, for whom we were to run supplementary sessions just after the end of the programme. We worked out the details of the schedule, the contact persons from the client’s side and the coordinator from my side. The client also wanted us to take care of writing a letter introducing the programme and encouraging people to take part. I didn’t want to agree to that, for I thought it should come from the client, though I did offer to consult on the content. (79, 80, 104) I felt that the number of people volunteering for the programme would be a kind of measure of the amount of trust employees had in the company, and would show how much the programme was meeting actual needs.

The client expected about 10 responses from people wanting to become mentors (together we drew up threshold criteria for potential candidates) and about 20 from willing mentees. The results exceeded our expectations. There were almost 30 candidates for mentor and almost 50 for mentee. I was glad that in the application form I’d included a declaration for wanting to work with more than one mentee; that is, I was pleased, but on the other hand I had to double-check the programme assumptions in terms of the schedule and costs. Another difficulty was that the client had also sent the invitation to employees in other parts of Central & Eastern Europe, which meant the training would have to be in English, something we hadn’t foreseen in the initial offer.

I proposed renegotiating the schedule and contract in three aspects. We needed a second workshop for the mentors (there couldn’t be 30 people in one workshop because we wouldn’t be able to see how everyone was doing the exercises or given adequate feedback), so I suggested we divide the mentors into two workshops, of which one would be in English. I also asked for more time to prepare (for the trainers, and for the materials, handouts, etc. to be translated), and for more time to go through the process of forming and verifying pairs. The client agreed to the schedule change, but didn’t want any change in the price, arguing that everything had already gone through their internal procedure, the budget was booked, and changing it now would take too much time, and might not happen anyway.

I stated that the conditions and scope of the order had changed diametrically, and so the change in price was absolutely justified. But the client didn’t want to agree, still relying on the same bureaucratic argument. I asked who in the organisation had the authority to change the procedure so we could get things done in time. “The chairman,” I heard. So I proposed we organise a meeting with the chairman.

I saw looks of great surprise on the faces of these young employees. “What do you have to do to get in touch with the chairman?” I asked. “Well… you have to call his assistant,” Iga said. “So let’s do it now, why wait?” I volunteered. “After all, we’re all interested in getting this solved quickly so our programme can go forward,” I added, “and it’s just one phone call. I’ll speak with the chairman.” (104, 103, 112, 97)

After a moment’s hesitation, Iga made the call, and it turned out the chairman was available to speak. He turned out to be a very friendly, open person. With the others, I described the programme and the problem that had arisen from our unexpected ‘success’. The chairman asked us to send him an outline of the programme and promised to get back by that same evening. My partners from the client’s side were all taken aback – this was the first personal contact they’d ever had with the chairman, I later learned.

In the evening, I got a call from Iga. “Piotr, I have good news – two things, in fact. The chairman approved everything. He also said he wants to be a mentor in the programme, can you imagine? He said he took part in something like that in France, but when he saw our outline it’s really professional and he wants to be part of it – in the training, too.”

This was a great moment. We signed the contract. At present, we’ve completed all the trainings, and in January we’re holding the first supervision for the mentors. From their reports, it seems the pairs were well-chosen and the work is going full steam ahead. Moreover, the results of the training evaluations show that the participants rate the sessions very highly for being informative, practical, useful, and extremely well run by competent trainers. 

In my opinion, the success of this project rests on the trust I was able to instil in my client. That trust resulted from the fact that, from the very beginning, I focused on identifying the client’s needs and listening, but also clearly stated my own conditions and priorities. Educating the client had a large part to play here; I didn’t assume that ‘the customer is always right’. Respect and openness from me, and from the client’s team, enabled us to quickly become one team. 

I also think that my responsiveness and meeting deadlines were important here – as was direct communication, during which I learned the language of my client and explained the process in a way they could understand. I also set clear limits, and explained why I was doing so, at the same time understanding the client’s perspective.