This season’s #1 selling book at Barnes & Noble offers some invaluable lessons for mentoring leaders.

Here’s how it works. With your purchase of Elf on the Shelf comes your own stuffed doll – The Elf – that joins your family. Your Elf sits on a shelf every day and watches over you. Then each night your Elf makes a quick visit to the North Pole to give Santa the scoop on all the good and the bad he observed that day Then he rushes back to your house, ready for the next day’s observing duties.

 Here are 5 lessons from the Elf on the Shelf that we can apply to make our own mentoring programs as popular.

1.       Set the Rules at the Beginning.

Here are the Elf on the Shelf rules. You cannot touch the Elf or he will lose his powers. The Elf arrives after Thanksgiving and leaves right after Christmas. You can talk to the Elf and share your holiday wishes, but he will not talk back to you. His job is just to listen and observe. He will leave every night to report back to Santa and when he returns he will be in a new location in your house for you to find.

Similarly in mentoring programs, people just want to know how to win. Rules of engagement do just that. Whether we are talking about the Elf or the Mentors and Protégés, when we set rules for engaging, people know how to win. Want to make your mentoring program effective? Tell people the rules at the beginning and remind them regularly.

2.       Let the Kids Name the Elf.

Every family names their Elf. This small act of participation leverages the concept of the IKEA effect. We are more attached to the ideas that we create and less attached to ideas that other people create (aka the Not-Invented-Here bias). Kids are more attached to their Elf because they participated in creating him – they named him.

Similarly in mentoring programs, people support that which they help create. Participants in your programs are more inclined to support their mentoring relationships if they participated in creating them. Give them the opportunity to choose their Mentor or Protégé from a pool and they will be more attached to them.

 3.       The Elf Triggers the Spotlight Effect.

The spotlight effect occurs when we think that people are closely watching us to see what we do. And when we think people are fixated on us, we conform to what we think those people expect of us. The Elf is like a spotlight. Kids know that the Elf is fixated on them, so they conform to what they think the Elf expects of them.

Similarly, Mentoring triggers the spotlight effect. Knowing Mentors are watching, Protégés conform to what they think Mentors expect of them. Just like the Elf, without even opening their mouths, Mentors influence the behaviors of their Protégés.

4.       The Elf Creates Accountability

In order for the Elf to influence good behavior, kids must believe that the Elf is reporting back to Santa. This creates accountability. With the Elf hanging around on the shelf, they can’t just tell Santa that they’ve been good. They have to be good because the Elf is holding them accountable. That drives desirable actions and behaviors.

Similarly in our mentoring programs, we must leverage accountability to influence the same desirable actions and behaviors in our participants. The best structured mentoring programs require Mentors and Protégés to complete deliverables and engage the Protégés’ managers in the process. That structure creates accountability.

5.       Call it Magic

The Elf doesn’t explain exactly how he leaves the shelf and gets to the North Pole every night to talk with Santa. Does he fly? How long does it take? Is there a line of Elves waiting to talk with Santa or does he log his report into a computer somewhere?  Can he use an iPad or a smartphone? How does he get through your locked doors and back into the house? So many questions left unanswered because…no kid ever cares about them. They just call it magic because they are focused on the outcome – lots of presents from Santa. They couldn’t care less how the Elf delivers the information to the big guy.

The problem with mentoring programs is that people want to deconstruct them before they commit to participating. How long? How does it work? Is it worth it? Why should I do it? How much time is required? What is expected of me? What will we talk about? What is required of me? What is the commitment? How will I know if it works?

Wow. No suspended belief in magic!

What if, as the creator of mentoring, you sprinkled a little magic on your program? Painted it with charm and peppered it with anticipation? If you focused people on the outcome of mentoring and the magic of the mentoring process to influence transformations, perhaps they’d stop analyzing every detail before they actually started to play.

I am a self-proclaimed, fair-weather reality show watcher – I only like to see the finales.

I am also a self-proclaimed mentoring sleuth. I look for the influence of mentoring in any successful endeavor when others don’t see, get it, or mislabel it as something else.

Tuesday night afforded me a perfect opportunity to engage in both.

It was the finale of the reality show, The Biggest Loser. And there I sat like a spellbound, season-committed groupie, rapt to the impressive metamorphosis of each person. And rarely disappointed, I discovered the show’s 2-hour season highlights rippled with evidence of mentoring in action.

The show, in its 12th season, sequesters 15 contestants on a ranch for 13 weeks to lose weight under the supervision of three trainers: Bob Harper, Dolvett Quince, and Anna Kournikova.

But calling them “Trainers” shortchanges their contributions while also shortchanging the influence of mentoring.  There is no way 15 categorically obese individuals successfully shed almost a ton of fat in 3 months with mere training.

Trainers train us to do a task, such as using the appropriate weights to build muscle or choosing healthy foods.

But Bob, Dolvett, and Anna didn’t just train these people to lose weight. They helped them to transform their lives as well as their bodies.

Only mentoring can do that.
Let’s define “mentoring,” as the word tends to conjure up images of Obi Wan Kenobi from Star Wars in 1977. Mentoring occurs whenever one person contributes to the growth, development, and success of another by teaching, advising, observing, sharing, guiding, and connecting.  The other person then takes those contributions and accelerates his/her success.

Bob, Dolvett, and Anna taught the contestants how to eat differently, trained them to work out strategically and become healthy, and even forced them to deal with their psychological barriers that were imprisoning them to this lifestyle.  They proffered advice and wisdom about what has worked and hasn’t for them personally and for past contestants. They shared their observations in each workout – sometimes even getting in the contestants’ faces to scream about the resistance and resignation they were observing. They journeyed with the contestants, guiding them through setbacks and failure. They connected them to doctors, nutritionists, and resources to create an at-home healthy lifestyle. And they cheered their successes, large and small.

In turn, the contestants absorbed all of those lessons, wisdom, advice, guidance, connections, and observations. And like true Protégés, they used it all to accelerate their own success to transformation.

Training alone never creates that kind of result. Only mentoring does.

Without the influence of mentoring, John Rhode would never have shed 220 pounds to be crowned Season 12′s Biggest Loser.

People just want to win. In fact, we hate to lose so much that we’ll avoid activities and opportunities that might possibly make us lose.

Want to engage people in your mentoring program, help them win. It’s that simple.

What is it about losing?

People see themselves as winners, not losers. And we’ll go out of our way to avoid feeling like a loser. What makes us feel like a loser? Any situation where we’re afraid of flailing or failing.

In the world of behavioral economics, this is called “Loss Aversion.” According to this cognitive bias, when we perceive that we are about to lose, we get irrational with fear which manifests in our procrastination, excuses, hiding, defending, and running.

 Why would people feel threatened to lose in a mentoring program?

Imagine that you’re launching a mentoring program. You need Mentors. But your company has never offered a mentoring program and your Mentor candidates have never been involved in one, and they don’t know how to do it right. Secretly, they are afraid they’re going to fail. So, they claim to be “too busy to participate.” Or theyll ‘hemandhaw’ at your request and then procrastinate with the application, and fling a myriad of excuses as to why they didn’t complete the forms or show up to the kick-off.

 How do you help people win at mentoring?

By showing them how easy it is to succeed and still make a difference. By making it super easy to get involved, get started, get connected, be effective, and cross the finish line with a mentoring win.

 You can also do this by training people on how to be great at mentoring.

 Who should you train?

Everyone. Mentors, Protégés, Managers, and Mentoring Leaders (including you!)

 Why do you need to train Protégés?

Think about it – when in life were we taught how to be mentored? Protégés need training on how to receive the mentoring just as much as Mentors need training on how to give it.

And why train the Mangers?

The Manager is at risk of losing as well. From her perspective, she might feel like she is being left out. And she might fear that the Mentor will point out her mistakes, or equally upsetting, be a better leader for the Protégé.

Now if you train the Manager on how to contribute, you will create a different outcome. The Manager will feel included in the process, will support the relationship, and will know how to win.

What are you training people to do?

2 things:

1. Win at your program.

2. Win at mentoring.

How do you train people?

People learn in many different ways so you need to offer them different types of training. Some people learn by reading, others by listening, others by observing, and others by experiencing. Consider each as you develop your training.

 How often should you train people?

At the beginning, the middle, and the end.

The beginning is obvious. Get them started in the right direction.

But why the middle?

Because people need to experience mentoring in order to get the training.

And why the end?

Because you want your participants coming back for more. It takes a lot more energy to acquire new mentoring constituents than to keep the current ones. Train them at the end and you’ll acknowledge their win. They’ll come back for more.

 Training elevates the importance of mentoring.

When you train your participants, you are communicating the critical role they serve in the success of the mentoring relationship and the mentoring program. Doing so speaks volumes.

Andy’s voiced disdain for mentoring
In a recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek, former Chairman and CEO of Intel, Andy Grove pans mentoring programs as being a “charade.” He chastises HR for mandating something that should come naturally and for making something simple totally complex and counterproductive. His final blow: “you routinize mentoring, you screw it up!”

Andy’s secret love for mentoring
Interestingly, in the same article, Andy describes the various working relationships (instead of calling them “mentoring,”) that he encouraged, contributed to, and benefited from throughout his tenure as founder and CEO of Intel. In fact, he unpretentiously takes credit for molding Paul Otellini and Renee James, Intel’s future CEO and VP of Software, respectively. Call it what he will, but Andy was unmistakably mentoring the future leaders of Intel.

Andy’s own mandated mentoring
Andy goes on to share how as CEO he leveraged his position to impart his leadership wisdom on others – he called it “teaching manners.” Just another form of Andy’s mentoring in disguise. At the same time, he encouraged an Intel program whereby “Technical Assistants” teach senior executives about things they need to know – marketing, brands, the Internet, competition, etc. Essentially Andy was engaging in and promoting “reverse mentoring,” and doing so in a routinized, structured, and mandated manner!

Shaking up Andy’s definition of “mentoring”
Admittedly, Andy cringes at the word “mentoring.” Conceivably his definition of mentoring is just stale or even warped, perhaps conjuring up memories of missed expectations in the past. By embracing a broader definition of the word “mentoring,” Andy would see that the teaching he encouraged (and even dictated), the wisdom he imparted, and the careers he encouraged, were all just forms of mentoring.

But what about Andy’s disdain for structure and routine?
Let’s face it. When a CEO says “listen to my advice,” his people listen. When a CEO says, “teach me something new,” her people teach. Of course, Andy didn’t need a structured mentoring program. He had access to everyone in the company. And because of his position as the leader, everyone obliged his requests for sharing wisdom both directions. But not everyone in the organization wields such power and influence.

For everyone else, there are mentoring programs
Mentoring programs provide the access and the foundation upon which such manner-teaching and wisdom-imparting can flourish. People claim they don’t know how to mentor or be mentored. A great mentoring program teaches people the how. People claim they don’t have the time. An effective mentoring program helps people to prioritize it. People claim they don’t know who to mentor or be mentored by. A smart mentoring program creates small communities in the organization, ensuring that people are connected in order to strategically drive their goals and the organization’s goals.

Thank you Andy Grove
By writing about mentoring as a missed opportunity, Andy has successfully mentored us on mentoring. Thank you Andy Grove for impacting your wisdom on us about the most cost-effective tools organizations have to evolve their workforces.