S.T.E.E.R Framework | Mentorship simplified
In this blog, I will provide a simple and effective framework that simplifies mentorship for young managers.
Mentorship is another management style which managers can use to help the team members to learn, grow and up-skill.
Mentorship management style also helps in building a high performing team.
To help young managers adopt mentorship management style, introducing STEER framework. This framework will help to simplify the mentorship by giving a structure to the whole process.
What is S.T.E.E.R framework?
It is a 5-step process and it stands for Set, Train, Execute, Evaluate and Reward.
Let’s look at each step in detail.
▸ S - Set
The first step in mentoring is setting expectations and identifying goals. Based on the mentee and the area of growth, the expectations related to goals, action items should be discussed and agreed.
When you are setting expectations and identifying goals, keep the following in mind.
- Duration of each goal should be discussed and agreed.
- Expectation related to extra time that mentee has to devote or number of trainings to complete etc. should be agreed.
- Also agree that the steps that mentors take are in good faith for the mentee. It is important for mentee to understand and accept this fact.
- Challenges that could be faced due to sick leaves, vacations, holidays should be considered in the planning.
- The expectations related to all personal and professional commitments should be set.
- Setting the cadence for group trainings, 1on1 sessions, external trainings should be discussed and agreed.
The Set step in the framework will guide the rest of stages in the required direction. So, spend as much as time as possible in this step to make sure the right expectations and goals are set.
As you move ahead in the process, if you or the mentee feels, things are not going in the right direction, revisiting the Set step will help to realign the expectations.
▸ T - Train
In Train step, a mentor should start providing session on the concepts or skills that are needed for the mentee.
In this step, the mentor shares personal experiences, tutorials, scenarios that are all related to goals agreed.
The mentor also talks about the strengths and weakness about the mentee and provide the required knowledge for improving on the areas that are needed.
The mentors should keep the following during this step.
- Don’t create information overload situation. Try to be as concise as possible.
- By simplifying the information as much as possible, will help the mentee to adopt it in next steps.
- Avoid too many reschedule of sessions. When you agree on cadence in the Set step, try to adhere it. If the session keeps getting rescheduled, then the mentee will loose track on what was taught in previous sessions and starts loosing interest.
- Have a tracker of the session that must be completed before moving to the next steps. This will help to check the progress.
▸ E - Execute
In this step, the mentee starts working on the goals that were agreed in the Set step. The mentee should use the knowledge from the Train step while working towards achieving the goals.
A good practice before mentee starts working on goals, is to add milestones. This will help to track better.
While mentee is working on the goals, as a mentor keep a constant eye on details to make sure the mentee stays in the right path.
▸ E - Evaluate
Evaluating the progress regularly will help to keep the pace in check and also to make sure the mentee is going in the right direction.
As a mentor, don’t let the mentee go alone; follow through out the execution process of a goal. Note that you are equally responsible for the mentee to succeed.
So, as a mentor, perform health check of the steps taken by the mentee towards achieving goals.
During evaluation, you can provide feedback on what has gone right and what can improved or corrected. The regular feedback will help the mentee to correct the mistakes and learn from it.
Also, in this step, if you and the mentee feel that things are not going in the right direction, then go back to step#1 (Set) to reorganise yourself and reset the expectations and goals.
Evaluation step is an important step as it will help to steer the progress to the right direction. Without evaluation mentee can deviate from what has been agreed and end up in not achieving the goals with satisfactory results.
▸ R - Reward
During mentoring celebrating small wins and rewarding your mentee will help to keep the morale always high.
During mentorship there will be times when the mentee will feel lost, frustrated due to low progress. These times will be hard on mentee. So rewards on small wins will help to boost the morale.
Rewards should be given at the right time. Don’t make it a habit of celebrating every single win. Do it when there are logical closures. If it becomes too obvious, then the effect of reward will be lost.
Conclusion
Mentorship management style will help you to get your team members or mentees aspirations fulfilled.
The STEER framework will help you to simplify the process of mentorship and effectively help the team members.
Being a mentor will help you also to achieve your goals in terms of building a strong team, up-skilling them, create learning and growth opportunities.
Mentoring team members will also help you to evaluate where you stand as a mentor and how you can become better to help other team members.
Mentorship management style will help you and your team members or mentee to reach higher levels, so use STEER framework to make it as effective as possible.
Happy management!
