“Social capital has been another casualty of the crisis,” says Andy Haldane, Chief Economist at the Bank of England. In his October speech, he describes how our working relationships have suffered this year because our ability to cultivate and grow them has been inhibited by remote working. My own clients have confirmed that while productivity and output from meetings have improved, there’s now a noticeable dearth of the nuanced, implicit or peripheral information gleaned from the time in-between meetings. Not only is information being lost, so are the meaningful connections that occur between people present in the same space. This all comprises social capital, whose dwindling stocks are causing concern to Haldane, leaders and numerous affected individuals.
Over months of limited interactions, many of us have run down our own stock of social capital, and for younger professionals it has been very difficult to build any up. Without it, this group is at a serious disadvantage in their careers because they have lost opportunities normally taken for granted. They can’t easily learn from watching role models in action nor can they spontaneously demonstrate their talents, grab opportunities to influence others or try out something new and receive in-the-moment verbal or non-verbal feedback.
The problem is not only manifest at an individual level. For organisations, the trust that enables dynamic and creative engagement has become eroded. For salespeople, creative teams and others that rely on meeting new people, developing customer intimacy and innovating for complex needs, the virtual conference is a poor substitute for what Eddie Obeng called “meatspace” (i.e. in-person reality).
Within organisations, the loss of in-person contact is a potential nightmare for corporate cultures, hitherto nurtured by meetings and events, social gatherings, celebrations and ceremonies. While some may be cynical about such group events, there is no doubt that when you’re alone at your kitchen table, there is far less resonance to the recognition and thanks conveyed to you via the screen and cut away from with a click of the mouse. Motivation, meaning and purpose at work are the big questions haunting those isolated from colleagues and cubicles, from communal kitchens and water coolers.
What can firms do to prevent erosion of social capital among their workforce?
You may have noticed decreasing engagement when it comes to the group stretching sessions provided (online), or the random coffee-meetings (online), or the team drinks (online). That’s because these are nice but not fully relevant to the business of discussing business. Doing the daily business is one thing, taking a break from it is another, but the opportunity to talk about the business – the hot issues that affect you personally, even emotionally – is just as important.
I’m sure there are many answers to the question, but because of my work as a people and leadership developer I’m a keen advocate of Micro-mentoring.
The micro-mentoring concept (my version, anyhow) promotes informal, relatively spontaneous conversations as and when needed between a mentee and an ad hoc mentor. This extends and varies the classic mentoring approach, which is a 1-1 relationship with formally arranged sessions over an agreed time-frame. The micro version does not need a formal mentoring relationship to be in place, only that mentees and mentors are on a shared register, and mentors have agreed that they may be contacted by any of the mentees who wish to request a short conversation. The mentees need to have a question or a specific goal that they wish to discuss – it is not a general chat or ‘catch-up’. The mentees can request time with any of the mentors; the mentors offer a choice of time-slots. Mentors can come off the register if they have too many requests and cannot manage the time. Any or all mid to senior level staff can be potential mentors, and reverse mentoring could also be catered for.
HR or Diversity & Inclusion might want to ensure principles and boundaries are established up front, so that everyone is clear on the purpose and practice of micro-mentoring. An initial training session should communicate these, and might include training on the specific communication skills that are suited to mentoring.
Here’s a template for action – I’d love to hear your thoughts on how it could be improved.
Proposed template for setting up micro-mentoring in an organisation:
1. List all those who would be happy to act as micro-mentors. Share.
2. List all those who would like to be able to request micro-mentoring. Share.
3. Establish the parameters for mentoring conversations to all those concerned:
a. A clear question or goal for each conversation.
b. An appropriate default level of confidentiality to be assumed, as in the kitchen at work, for example. This can be varied by agreement.
c. A maximum time-limit per call e.g. 15 minutes.
d. Clear understanding of what a mentor does and does not provide.
4. The protocol for setting up a mentoring conversation.
5. Offer some training for mentors, to cover core skills, maintaining boundaries and handling tricky issues.
6. On-going support via a Slack channel or forum, with pre-reading, articles of interest and peer, HR or supervisor support.
Training mentors on their communication skills is highly valuable for an organisation. We see mid-level and senior managers gain the flexibility to shift from task-oriented or directive approaches to focus instead on listening well, asking open questions, attending fully to the other person in the conversation and learning to hold back from automatically downloading advice and solutions.
Indeed, training mentors in communication can be an excellent proxy for some aspects of leadership development. The opportunity for mid-level and senior staff to consider confidentiality, ethics, handling tricky conversations and feedback is also extremely valuable.
I believe micro-mentoring is a relevant, cheap and timely way to help maintain and develop working relationships. There are benefits for all those involved, not least for the organisation itself.