Mentorship Is a Business Issue. Here's Why.

In this series, professionals thank those who helped them reach where they are today. Read the posts here, then write your own. Use #ThankYourMentor and @mention your mentor when sharing.

In my life, I've been lucky to have had amazing mentors at almost every stage – people whose examples still guide me today. My first mentor was my father, who gave me a moral compass that has been valuable throughout my career. His simple words “never forget who you are, or where you came from” — and the way he lived those words every day — have helped me tackle some of my most pressing challenges in both business and life.

Years later, Senator Jack Danforth, one of my first bosses in Washington, taught me about the power of listening, the power of empathy, the importance of inclusiveness, and how to empower everyone around you. These two — and so many others like them — left a permanent stamp on who I am and who I've become.

In our lives, we all get plenty of advice, and probably give a lot too.  But how many of us really get — or give — the necessary support to back it up? I was fortunate. My mentors showed me that a good mentor is both an advisor and a supporter. They didn't just set a good example — they cared enough to make a difference. And that’s why I believe so strongly in paying it forward.

The research backs it up. As we found in a recent joint white paper with MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, young people with mentors are much more likely to be successful in school, to be prepared for careers, and to become leaders in their companies and communities.

Unfortunately, one out of every three Americans still reaches age 19 without ever having a positive mentoring relationship. That’s something we can and should change — and an area where business can play a lead role.

Yes, it’s morally right to help out those who face long odds in reaching their potential, simply because no one helped them realize they had any. But it’s also the smart thing to do. If we can help even a fraction of these young people imagine and achieve the possibilities before them, it will benefit our businesses, our economy, and our country as a whole.

Make no mistake, this is a business issue. And in my experience, there are three ways that a company can get the most — and give the most — with a strong mentoring program:

1. Mentor to build a stronger talent pipeline.

For businesses to succeed, it’s critical to recruit and develop top talent. That means, more than ever before, it’s up to us to ensure that the young people in our communities have every possible opportunity to reach their full potential.

The problem is that many students live in places where, culturally, the infrastructure for college just doesn’t exist. Many young people still don’t have family members or friends who went to college, so they don’t consider it.  For those who do consider it, they don’t know how to access resources like SAT prep courses, or how best to apply to college, or how to get scholarships.

That’s why EY started a program called College MAP (Mentoring for Access and Persistence) to help young people get started on the right foot into life. Our people connect with high school juniors and seniors and help them come up with lists of schools to apply to. Then we work one-on-one on their essays, applications, and scholarships.

One of these young people was Michael, a high school senior in New York City. After being paired with an EY mentor, Michael said that the program “opened my eyes to the unlimited untouched resources around me.” Together with his mentor, Michael worked to carefully write and revise his college applications and essays — and this fall, he’ll become the first person from his family to attend college.

Michael is just one success of many. Since this program started, more than 1,100 students have participated — and 97 percent of these College MAP graduates have been accepted into a two-year or four-year college.

Mentoring is also a great way to develop a more diverse talent pool. That’s the idea behind Discover EY, a program where young people from diverse backgrounds learn more about career opportunities in our field. These students have often never met someone who worked in accounting or professional services. They may not know how rewarding that path can be — and probably can’t imagine it for themselves.

That’s why it’s so important to broaden the way these young people imagine their opportunities. With Discover EY, we cover travel expenses to bring students to the event, where we provide mentors, leadership seminars, and relationships with EY professionals — many of whom come from backgrounds just like theirs.

This is the ninth year of the Discover EY program — and we have a record number of participants. Even more exciting, nearly three-quarters of them have either already accepted or are expected to receive an EY internship offer.

 2. Remember that mentoring should be a two-way street.

Mentoring is a crucial part of career development within an organization as well. When companies include mentoring programs as part of formal training for new hires, it helps demonstrate a pathway to success — and that helps new hires reach for their full potential right from the start.

That’s incredibly valuable – and not just for the mentees. Often, the mentor finds the experience useful as well. Mentoring requires you to take the time to reflect on your past experiences, and in the process you often discover useful lessons for yourself, too. Sometimes you realize the logic behind something you’ve been doing automatically for years.  Sometimes you question it.

This is something I’ve noticed in so many of the organizations I’ve been part of, in business and government alike. People who sign up to become mentors become stronger, more inclusive, more thoughtful leaders. In that way, they strengthen their organizations today – and position it to become even stronger tomorrow.

3. Build the mentoring program that only you can create.

The key to a successful mentoring program is to zero in on your organizations’ unique strengths, and then translate them into a unique way to help lift young people up. You need to ask: What can we offer that no one else can?

In practice, that means the way GE designs a mentorship program should be different from the way the Ritz-Carlton does it. And in fact, these two organizations offer great examples of what’s possible here.

The Ritz-Carlton has a terrific mentoring program where students can come and learn a huge range of valuable life skills — which come up all the time in the hospitality industry. Young people can learn more about everything from food preparation with gourmet chefs, to financial literacy with the accounting department, to customer service with the front desk staff.

GE, on the other hand, works to leverage its considerable strategic planning expertise to supplement its mentoring program. As employees mentor students individually, they also work to support the educators around that student. They identify broader areas for improvement, and then work to address them by using their own Six Sigma problem-solving skills. In this way, they support individual young people, while also promoting systemic improvement to reach even more.

Across our country today, young people are entering adulthood with no one to guide them. That’s not good for them, not good for our businesses, and ominous for our country’s future. Business can and should step up to make a difference — and closing the mentoring gap is a good start.

Think about the mentors that helped point you in the right direction. Now it’s our turn to pay it forward.