Mentoring program aims to encourage diversity

  • Published
  • By Amber Baillie
  • Air Force Academy Public Affairs
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  Twenty-six Academy employees attended a coach mentoring core course on Monday as part of the 2012 Academy Mentoring Program to achieve personal and professional growth, network across the Academy and exchange knowledge and expertise with others.

Faculty and staff consisting of civilians, officers and enlisted individuals participated in interactive exercises and discussions to develop a mentoring plan between mentors and mentees and sign an agreement to commit to the program for the next ten months.

"I've been here for 20 months now and I have been looking forward to this moment," said Academy Chief Diversity Officer Dr. Adis Vila, head of the program. "I believe that it is only through mentoring that people have an opportunity to succeed in organizations."

Vila said the 26 participants were hand-picked for the pilot program out of 4,000 permanent party members at the Academy.

"We will be measuring the program's success to see if there is growth among the participants," Vila said. "We may not have an opportunity to do this again. It will be up to the participants' expertise, experience and what they get out of it that will be key to our ability to keep it going."

Vila said one of the main reasons she wanted to institute a mentoring program was due to the Military Leadership Diversity Commission report issued in March 2011.

"Researchers found that women were leaving the Air Force at a faster pace than men in the Air Force," Vila said. "That doesn't mean we aren't losing good men also but I figured if we were going to have a professional development opportunity like this, I wanted it to be open to men as well as women and include civilians, officers and enlisted. It's important for this program to be inclusive and my hope is that participants will learn how to work with people who may be different than themselves."

Tamra Gauthier, a trainer and management analyst from the Department of Veterans Affairs, facilitated the course.

"We had a mix of people that ranged from Airmen to colonels, to civilians and high-graded faculty," said Gauthier. "You tend to get the formality and respect the rank, and automatically there is a barrier. Our focus was getting people to talk, feel comfortable and eliminate that barrier."

The training consisted of mentor and mentee sessions where participants practiced direct communication, created goals and scheduled a time to meet with one another.
Gauthier focused on the core competencies of the GROW model, which includes good feedback, powerful questions, active deep listening, direct communication, trust, presence and personal mastery.

"The GROW model is a blueprint for the mentoring process," Gauthier said. "The model asks, 'What is your goal?' and 'What is your current reality?' When you set a goal, you need to look at your circumstances, whether at work or at home and see if they allow you to pursue that goal."

Laurie Carroll, a mentor in the program and chief of the Academy's Manpower, Organization and Resources Division, said she used a similar approach as the model in previous mentoring situations and found it to be very effective.

"It's an easy way to remember and focus on the four key parts of an effective mentoring conversation,' Carroll said. "I will find it helpful and use it in the future."

Rachael Clark, a mentee in the program and economics instructor in the Academy's Department of Economics and Geosciences, said she looks forward to receiving professional wisdom from her mentor.

"I'm looking forward to getting to know my mentor more and learning about my career field," Clark said. "I'm pretty junior in my career field, so it's nice to get to learn from my mentor, who has been in the field for many years."

Gauthier said compatibility between the mentor and mentee is essential.

"If it's not working well or a mentor is lacking in one area of expertise, that's where the mentee can network and go to someone else who may be an expert in that area," Gauthier said. "At the training, I saw relationships really start to develop and others crossing over between areas of interest and different offices."

The program will run Aug. 2012 to June 2013. Two mentors from the Center for Character and Leadership Development attended the training to observe and see if there were components within the program they could take to the Cadet Wing.

"We don't want the formal part of this program to be limited to just the training session," Vila said. "A lot of activities will be designed for this group in mind because we want there to be actual opportunities for development throughout the program."