Measuring Mentoring Effectiveness

In 2006, I was in a meeting with senior US military leaders and the question came up of how they were measuring the effectiveness of their efforts in working with the Host Nation. The commanding officer asked the question, “How are we measuring their progress and success?”
There was an obvious silence in the room and then the responses started coming from the gathered staff and key principles. Basically, the response was “we don’t have time to measure their effectiveness because there is so much work that we have to do to get things done!”

The commanding officer then said, “we can’t do everything for them, but we can’t let them fail.” His guidance was to develop methods to measure their performance and their effectiveness over time to ensure they were progressing to the point that they could sustain and transition themselves to full ownership of their future, without constant involvement by US military personnel. This is basically the prime directive in all of our contracts!

Sadly, based on the many survey comments we have received over the past three years, we are still seeing limited measuring of effectiveness, often because of the demand by the US military personnel to accomplish their mission today so that they can leave tomorrow. The problem is that without standards that demonstrate effective progress there will be a constant “reinvention of the wheel” by US elements. It then becomes a waiting game with the Host Nation so that they can go back to doing what they have always done, doing things the same way and obtaining the same end-results.

Our mentoring goal has always been to help our mentored partners become self-sufficient and fully capable of performing their assigned functional tasks. This is accomplished by helping our mentored partners learn new skills or enhance current skills to become more efficient and effective. Without the personal involvement of our mentored partners in identifying necessary functional skills, developing organizations and implementing processes and procedures there is no change or progress toward sustainment or transition.

Determining the effectiveness of our mentoring is found in a consistent, continuous review of mentored partner capabilities. Some of the tools that we use to measure that effectiveness are the periodic, 60-day, 7-month and 12-month surveys. These provide immediate feedback of the mentoring situation on the ground. The survey’s are heavily weighted toward the mentor’s perception of mentored partner capabilities.

Other measures are found in the mentoring process of; assessing, planning, actioning and evaluation from the start of our mentoring effort, through completion. Another tool is the MASK inventory that assess and evaluates the mentor and the mentored partner’s motivation, ability, support and knowledge. This provides essential details on attitude and aptitude in the mentoring process. And finally, feedback from the field mentors to the program managers, on a regular basis helps us to assure we understand the nature of the mission and the specific requirements for contract completion.

These tools for measuring mentoring effectiveness are based on the primary elements of mentoring with our mentored partners; mentoring readiness, establishment of goals and outcomes; defining roles and communicating. By accomplishing these elements of successful mentoring we are also being able to measure progress, effectiveness and identification of areas that need work.

As Lewis Carroll wrote in this classic phrase: “One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don't know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn't matter.”

Mentoring helps determine the road to take, so that we can effectively mentor and then help measure our mentored partner’s future.