Janssen Pharmaceutica has a strong belief in the power of mentoring. The Board Mentoring Program is a unique program, where all board members committed to be the mentor of a senior woman. This program resulted in key learning outcomes for the mentees, and is a building stone in a broad approach to create a diversity culture.
The Business Case for Creating a Mentoring Culture
Our Credo is our guiding principle. It helps us focus on growth for the long term. It’s a constant reminder of our ethical principles and our responsibility to invest in people. Johnson and Johnson’s (J&J) growth objectives are very ambitious - in spite of tough competition - we want to stay one of the top health care companies in the world. One of the major consequences of our growth plan for the next 5 years is that we will need new senior leaders — no less than 500 if we want to meet our growth goals. This is more than a doubling of the existing numbers.
In the meantime the environment and marketplace are changing rapidly, and this is probably the main driver to install mentoring. Our company is more and more becoming a global organization, competing in the global marketplace, ”Time to market” is essential, a broad understanding and collaboration across business units are crucial. We have several examples of successful breakthrough medicines which are the result of combining the expertise of people across business segments. This gives us a unique position among major pharmaceutical companies. It’s one of the burning issues.
We are used to an ad-hoc, event driven talent management approach. The need for a more structured approach is greater than ever. We need to share talent in order to develop it, aiming at creating a robust and diverse pipeline of future leaders. The J&J top leadership launched its leadership and growth’ agenda, talent management being one of the major pillars with 4 building blocks: acquiring, assessing, developing and rewarding/compensating talent.
Another important concern of Johnson & Johnson is to achieve diversity. At Janssen Pharmaceutica the first focus is on gender diversity. It’s part of Our Credo to “create equal opportunity for those qualified, and it's part of our business case since our customers are very diversified and mostly women’ J&J’s Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) is the driving force to support gender diversity. Its mission is to strengthen the leadership of J&J by creating the right environment for women to achieve their highest potential. A lot of people are actively involved: WLI taskforces focusing on different topics (e.g. internal & external networking. development & mentoring. gender-friendly HR) and WLI-champions (man/woman pairs who translate the WLI-mission and activities in their own business unit, and also communicate issues bottom-up).
For women having a mentor can be a great opportunity for growth and visibility. Mentoring can also create a greater understanding between men and women. Both can gain valuable insights from the other gender when it comes to topics like: career strategies, company politics, building networks, team management, handling conflicts, or balancing work and personal life. Mentoring can help women in breaking the “glass ceiling”...
The Power of Mentoring
Mentoring has an important place in developing talent. There’s a broad spectrum of possible development actions: performance management and coaching, on-the- job experience (stretch assignments, job rotations...), education & training. To us mentoring is special in the sense that it happens in a non-hierarchical relationship, focusing on longer-term development goals. A mentor preferably is a leader from another division, site or J&J company. We have mentoring in different forms: company- or self-driven, mentor groups and programs with aspects of reverse mentoring.
For us this difference between a coach and a mentor is crucial. Without this distinction, it would be difficult to build a successful mentoring culture. Mentoring gives an extra dimension, a balance in an often short term business-oriented environment. Because your mentor is not your boss, you can take a “time-out; take distance of your objectives and ‘busyness’ of every day, to create the mental space to reflect on development.
The mentor is in most cases a person with more experience in the organization or in a context (business unit, function. etc.) of interest to the mentee. Mentoring is not about bringing in external theories from (expensive) consultants, but about sharing knowledge that has been built from within, tailor-made to the history challenges, people and culture of the organization. In business schools students learn strategic thinking in theory in a mentoring relationship mentor and mentee explore and develop strategies that fit their own internal and external environment. Mentees can ask the why-question behind important strategic decisions, and by this take a leadership role and drive change. Possible career paths within the organization can be explored. Mentors share about the path they took and the barriers they had to overcome, so that mentees find their way more easily. In the meantime the mentors, senior people who rarely engage in traditional learning methods, are challenged in their own thinking and get new impulses.
The fact that the mentor is not the mentee’s boss has also the indirect consequence that people broaden their network. In the end this will facilitate talent transfers across businesses - and that is beginning to happen already. This is crucial in a knowledge- and science-based company like ours.
A Unique Program: WLI Board Mentoring Program
Focus on long-term talent management is not always easy to sell. What helps us in convincing people of the added value of mentoring is that we have involved top management in the WLI board mentoring program. It’s the result of a decision taken in our Site Management Board: all board members committed to be the mentor of a senior female executive (who were appointed by their own board member).
This program has characteristics that are important to us - it’s across business units; it’s about talent management for the longer term; and it’s about building the agility with regard to change.
And it’s surely a unique program: 17 board members (all male but one) in a strong — concrete — personal commitment towards gender diversity. Some of them were mentors for the first time in their career.
Program Goals
We set the following goals for this program:
Overall,
Program Steps
Nominating: We asked each board member to nominate within his own business unit 1 female executive of director level or above, or with growth potential to director level, who at this moment could benefit from being mentored in this program. The mentees were informed, and were all surprised and proud to be nominated.
Setting Learning Goals: We stimulated each mentee to pass through a phase of reflection on learning goals. They filled in an intake form with questions like:
We also provided mentees with our ”Global leadership profile”(GLP), the J&J competency model for leaders in our organization and asked them to identify their development goals for the mentoring relationship within the GLP
Matching: To our board mentors we asked to indicate which areas of the GLP were for them personally as a mentor, areas of expertise and experience?
Taking into account both the areas of development indicated by the mentees and the areas of expertise indicated by the mentors, HR did the matching (cross-business).
Kicking Off: In a short session with mentors & men- tees the program was formally kicked-off. Our CEO and executive sponsor opened the session, and set a clear example.
Information on business context & program goals was given, but also vely practical information & guidelines like:
In an interactive way, mentors and mentees reflected on their possible contribution to the success of a mentoring session. Then mentor- mentee couples sat together for the first time, exploring mutual expectations from the mentoring program, and agreeing on practicalities like frequency — duration - place of sessions. Finally they picked an actual date for the first meeting. The session was closed with an informal drink. The ice was broken, the program kicked-off.
Building Skills: All good mentoring relationships have a "gap" in experience, where the mentee can learn from the mentor. The challenge in this particular program is that the gap may become too big: there’s not only a gap in gender, but also in business unit, hierarchy, and often also in generation. The mentee might get ”overwhelmed” by the mentor, and take on a passive role. The mentor might feel too little challenge, and loose interest and commitment. Another pitfall is that the male behavior can become the norm, or that male solutions may not always be the best solution for women. For these reasons, but also because for us in all mentoring relationships mentees are in the driving seat, we focus on strengthening them in their role.
The first step to do so was a half-day mentees workshop right after the kick-off. The mentees mutually share their expectations and learning goals for this mentoring relationship, question and challenge each other on this, and by this make goals more focused and tangible. After this exercise, they are better prepared to share these goals with their mentor in their first mentoring session.
In a mentoring relationship very specific communication skills are required, which are different from day to day skills. This also needs practicing. A key skill for men tees is giving process feedback. Executive mentors often tend to give instant solutions, instead of exploring options together with the mentee, listening and challenging their thinking. When mentees feel that they are not getting what they want, they have to express this and actively influence the situation to get what they want. They learn to ask open questions, step out of their comfort zone, and be open to learning.
Sharing Experiences: Every month the mentees came together in an intervision session to share experiences and learn from each other. Dialogue among the mentees focused on what is going well, how I make this happen, what topics 1 can further explore with my mentor, what I can do to further deepen the relationship. These are all key questions where other mentees may have new experiences or insights. It’s also a forum where women are “amongst themselves, where they openly express doubts or discuss male ways of thinking versus female identity. They encourage each other to make this a topic in the mentoring relationship.
During the intervision sessions the network between the mentees grows stronger. In this way, mentoring and networking go hand in hand. For HR the intervision sessions are ways to keep a "finger on the pulse", for the mentees its new energy to keep the mentoring motor turning.
Program Outcome
Personal & Professional Development Effects: Using a self-assessment questionnaire we measured success in the domain of personal learning. All mentees said this mentoring relationship was an opportunity in their career. They reported growth in several areas of the GLP-profile, especially in the following areas:
Strategic thinking was a learning goal on the agenda of almost every mentee before they stepped into this mentoring experience. Self-awareness & adaptability was an outspoken yet unintentional effect.
Also the following effects were outspoken:
The last effect is crucial for the retention of talent. In the area of professional advancement we observed the following fact: 50% of the mentees made a substantial career step (vertical or horizontal) during the mentoring period. Of course there would have been professional moves without this mentoring program. However, all mentees felt supported by their mentor challenging their aspirations, and advising in making the right career decision.
These quantitative results were shared and celebrated in an informal closing session. Testimonials from both mentors and mentees confirmed that our pilot was clearly a success!
Strengthening a Diversity Culture: “The door of my mentor will always stay open” is a strong belief of our mentees, What used to be a natural bather caused by difference in hierarchy, business unit, age or gender, is now an open door: an invitation to stay in touch in a more informal and friendly way. There’s clearly more openness and respect from both sides.
Of course mentoring is only one focus area in our gender diversity action plan, We also create awareness, stimulate networking, educate people leaders, guard gender neutrality of HR-processes, set metrics for progress... There’s also a lot of work done in the domain of work/life balance. Gradually: all this results in a culture that’s more open to diversity when there’s a high level job opening, people leaders spontaneously check whether the ob advertisement Is appealing to both men and women. Selection teams are diverse and want to have a choice of candidates of both genders. Women become more visible: they are more often nominated for leadership programs, or identified as successors in succession planning...
As a result, the number of women at higher levels in the organization (director level and above) is slowly increasing: from 10 % in 2001 to 16 % in 2005. Change is taking place, but like all cultural change this takes time!
Our organization now feels ready to broaden diversity to other aspects. We are working on a strategy for a more age-conscious working environment, and opportunities for labor handicapped persons.
Creating a Mentoring Culture: We now use this success experience to set an example to other levels in the organization, and to further embed mentoring into our culture and leadership thinking. A major mentoring program for young emerging talent is about to start.
Some of the mentees at their turn have taken on the role of a mentor, thus following the example set by the board, and contributing actively to our leadership pipeline. Based on our satisfaction with the results of our initial program, we have decided to organize a second WLI Board Mentoring program. All board members take up this new mentoring role, and new mentors joined them.
Authors’ Reflection
Johnson & Johnson is a broadly based, global health care company. The more than 200 operating companies employ approximately 122,000 men and women in 57 countries. Johnson & Johnson’s major challenge is to build a strong leadership pipeline. According to the Global Leadership Profile, Johnson & Johnson’s leaders are strategic thinkers, inspiring leaders, collaborating across the local and global organization. These types of strategic competences, tailor- made for Johnson & Johnson, are not necessarily learnt in external MBA or business schools. These learning often come from the observations and lessons learned by our own senior leaders and, through their sharing, add the necessary extra dimension to support the readiness of our next generation of leaders.
Mentoring is a means to make explicit all the knowledge and experience that otherwise would have stayed implicit and unshared. It’s a profound way of communicating across functions-levels-business units, as well as, gender - age - race. It challenges peoples’ way of thinking and being. It pulls down barriers and reinforces diversity: Although mentoring relationships can grow spontaneously where junior people seek the advice of more senior leaders, there are cases where junior leaders require a certain amount of formal support, especially in taking the first step to approach a more senior person outside of their natural network.
For the Board Mentoring Program described in this case, two groups joined forces to give solid support:
Together, their function is to create awareness on diversity and mentoring, provide general guidelines for the program, act as a mediator in matching, develop the necessary skills, and do the follow-up and evaluation of the process. In this intervention I was able to leverage several of my roles: Manager, Organization Development leader of the Women’s Leadership Initiative taskforce on mentoring and development and my involvement in gender diversity.
The program benefits from using both internal consultants and external facilitators. Being an internal consultant, without doubt, contributes to the success of this program, especially when it comes to matching successful mentoring pairs, and keeping a finger on the pulse on a continuous basis.
External facilitators are most successful with the mentees. The mentee is always in the driver seat of a mentoring relationship. Our main challenge therefore, is to support the mentee in taking a firm grip on the steering wheel, and to continuously go one step further in trust building and mutual sharing with the mentor. This takes courage and inspiration. Bringing mentees together on a regular basis, in a learning circle with an external facilitator, has proven to be a driving force in this aspect.
In this way a formal framework created by internal and external consultants builds to the success of this mentoring program.
My mentee helps me to keep my feet on the ground. Being a board member poses a risk of getting isolated from the daily practices in your organization.
-Mentor
Although I was hesitant at the start, I very much enjoyed the sharing of ideas: it opens up your own mind...
-Mentee
Author Bios
Hilde Willems
Mieke Smet