Creating a Gift Culture

In their article, "Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams," in Harvard Business Review, Lynda Gratton and Tamara Erickson encourage leaders to "ensure that mentoring and coaching become embedded in their own routine behavior - and throughout the company."

In their research, Gratton and Erickson "looked at both formal mentoring processes, with clear roles and responsibilities, and less formal processes, where mentoring was integrated into everyday activities.  It turned out that while both types were important, the latter was more likely to increase collaborative behavior.  Daily coaching helps establish a cooperative 'gift culture' in place of a more transactional 'tit-for-tat' culture.

"At Nokia informal mentoring begins as soon as someone steps into a new job.  Typically, within a few days, the employee's manager will sit down and list all the people in the organization...it would be useful for the employee to meet...It is then standard for the newcomer to actively set up meetings with people on this list....The gift of time - in the form of hours spent on coaching and building networks - is seen as crucial to the collaborative culture at Nokia."

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