It’s taken a while, but formal mentoring initiatives (at least those for adults) continue to move toward competency-based mentee development.

The Mentoring Group sees this as a very positive trend and one more component of structure that helps formal mentoring succeed.

A competency domain lists areas of knowledge, performance skills, and attitudes possessed by persons deemed competent or effective in a particular role. Numerous corporations such as SBC Communications, Hewlett Packard, and Agilent Technologies develop such domains in connection with the corporations' core values, performance reviews, job descriptions, and leadership assessment centers. Now competency domains are used as resources in many mentoring initiatives.

Value of Competency Domains

Competency domains provide a good launching pad for mentoring-mediated development. These models or ways of looking at competence give mentors and mentees specifics to address. No longer is a field, topic, or area of expertise too huge or daunting. Such competency domains enable measurement because they provide targets for evaluation studies of mentees progress.

In addition, domains are useful in a mentor-mentee recruitment process. You can use all or some items from your organization’s domain as part of participants program applications. Have prospective mentors check their strengths and mentees indicate where they want help.

Mentees generally struggle with what they want to develop. Many delay the decision (“Something will hit me once I spend time with my mentor.”) Others choose something vague (“to be a better leader” . . . “to go into management”). Mentors and mentees spend a lot of time fishing around for an area on which to work. If your organization has an official competency domain, mentees can review it and choose one to three of their desired competencies to turn into goals. Pairs save start-up time as they get right to work, and mentees get double mileage (mentoring focus and growth in areas on which they’re evaluated for other purposes).

Choosing Your Domain

Should you create a new competency domain or use one already developed and validated by your or another organization? Creating a valid, comprehensive domain that stands up to scrutiny is a huge task. If you possibly can, use the domain already adopted by your or another reputable organization, especially if the document you select is based on credible research.

Experts who create domains use a variety of methods. The most rigorous ones observe large numbers of “competent people” for a long period of time and then carefully analyze and identify the competencies these individuals demonstrate. (They might also observe persons who fail and determine what “incompetence” looks like.) For example, during World War II, Dr. John Flanagan observed and interviewed top pilots to determine exactly what they knew, did, and felt in order to carry out their demanding duties. He used his “Critical Incident Technique” to identify thousands of actual incidents, which in turn led to an extensive competency domain used to screen pilot candidates and create training for those selected. A more common, less rigorous, approach involves asking top experts for their opinions on competencies needed in order to be successful in a particular job or role.

If your organization already has a competency domain for management development or other purpose, try to use it for the mentoring initiative. If you don’t have an existing domain or don’t have the time and resources to create one, consider getting permission to use a domain identified by industry leaders such as the Center for Creative Leadership (www.ccl.org) or MindGarden (www.mindgarden.com). Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits are really seven personal competency areas. Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner’s Leadership Challenge (and the related assessment tool published by Pfeiffer/Wiley) contain five leadership practices or competency areas. Contact copyright owners to purchase copies or request rights to use their resources in your mentoring initiative.

For our own training purposes, The Mentoring Group created a Sample Leadership Competency Domain based primarily on polling of experts. The four competency areas include: intrapersonal (e.g., managing own time and energy), interpersonal (e.g., selling one’s ideas to others), managerial (accepting responsibility for mistakes of staff), and technical expertise (e.g., demonstrating computer literacy). It’s not perfect, but it’s a good talking tool that mentors and mentees can use as they explore possible goals.

Likely Challenges

It’s a huge task to name every competency (or at least the most critical competencies) a “successful” performer must possess. How will you define success? How can you be certain that people actually need these competencies and not others in order to succeed in your organization (and in their personal lives, if your mentoring initiative encourages participants to tackle that domain)? In addition, it’s hard to write all the statements at the same level of specificity. (For example, are “managing complex projects” and “listening actively” equal in difficulty?) You’ll have difficulty deciding if something is a skill or a behavior. People even argue about whether a competency should be an infinitive (“to show resilience”) or a gerund (“showing resilience”). These may not be earth-shaking issues for you but they can cause a planning group to debate for hours and even stall.

Some mentors and mentees think they have to stick to the “official list” when they might better choose an area not included. Conversely, some free spirits balk at choosing from a list, even when it makes sense to select at least one item as a start. Even though well-written competency statements help greatly, pairs may still struggle with the subjective task of measuring growth in the mentees, but also in the mentors.

Competency domains are very good resources for adult-to-adult mentoring partnerships. Encourage participants to consider the sample(s) you provide as at least one of their resources. For more ideas, check our Products and Archive.