Mentoring relationships should be 'safe space' if they are going to work

Missy Chicre readily admits she would not be running the corporate mentoring program Menttium without the people who helped her along the way.

Mentors "guided me both through successes but also through hard moments and provided for me a vision of what is possible," said Chicre, who was promoted from senior vice president of sales to CEO last month.

Chicre worked in change management and diversity jobs at Accenture, Best Buy and Cargill, where she founded the Working Mothers' Network.

"That time is when I discovered my passion and purpose around developing and advancing women, especially working mothers," Chicre said.

As she figured out what her next step would be, she set up networking meetings. One led her to Lynn Sontag, Menttium's former CEO who created a role for Chicre at the company in 2017.

Menttium, with headquarters in Richfield, operates globally and offers cross-company mentoring programs, matching mentees in client organizations with external mentors for a 12-month partnership, Chicre said. Menttium also serves as consultant, partnering with companies that want to launch internal mentoring programs.

The company started with the goal of helping women break the glass ceiling when few were in senior leadership roles, Chicre said. It since has expanded to offer programs for men and a diversity, equity and inclusion program, Momentum, which focuses on cross-company mentoring for professionals of color.

Chicre answered questions about mentoring. The interview is edited for clarity and length.

Q: How does Menttium connect mentors and mentees?

A: It's art and science. Our secret sauce is the matching. The reason we do it so well is because we continue to keep a human-centered mentoring approach. While we leverage technology, we have a team of people who do the matching. We're able to hone in on the nuances of a person's life and career, the things they're looking for. We look at who is the mentor who can best help this mentee rise to his or her full potential, achieve their goals and then go out in the world and their workplace and thrive.

Q: What goes in to being a good mentor?

A: One of the things we talk about in our mentoring partnerships is the importance of emotional or psychological safety. Creating trust and rapport with a mentee early on is critical. How is a mentor going to create that emotionally safe space so a mentee and a mentor can both be vulnerable, transparent and authentic? We want mentors to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly because there's so much learning from those things that were hard or those challenges they faced.

Q: Why should someone consider being a mentor?

A: Being a mentor creates that opportunity for hearing from a totally different lens and perspective, which is really beneficial. The fulfillment of seeing another person grow and develop and reach their goals, really helping someone authentically rise to their full potential. We always hear from our mentors that they get just as much or more out of the partnership as the mentee because there is so much learning on both sides.

Q: When should someone seek out a mentor?

A: People can benefit from a mentor at any stage of their career, though the mentoring might look different. I recommend that people look for informal mentors, in their organization, their friend group, in their community. When it comes to more formal partnerships like the programs we offer, it is important to have clear development goals. We have a process to help them set goals for the partnership so that there are clear outcomes. We want this to be outcome-based mentoring.

Q: Why does mentoring matter now?

A: This VUCA [vulnerability, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity] world, whatever acronym you want to use, is a complex world. Having a safe space to be in a mentoring partnership not only provides growth, development and support, it also provides hope and stability. I think we all need that more than ever in this very challenging world we live in.

Todd Nelson is a freelance writer in Lake Elmo. His e-mail is todd_nelson@mac.com.