Reverse mentoring

There’s plenty for older generations to learn from their younger counterparts, but some people resist this.

Mentoring used to mean older colleagues guiding younger workers up the career ladder. But the earliest adopters of new technologies are often young people, and so big names like Microsoft, Roche and Atkins have embraced reverse mentoring; harnessing young people to close knowledge gaps within organisations. Other benefits include promoting inclusion, increasing discussion across peer groups, and empowering future leaders. In 2014, Estée Lauder implemented a reverse mentoring programme to help attract elusive millennials to its brand. By 2017, 300 “pairs” were in place and a millennial-oriented new product line had been launched.

But how feasible is this in African nations that are culturally ageist; where young people grow up believing that elder means wiser? Africa is home to all 10 of the world’s youngest populations, with technological know-how concentrated at the bottom. But age should be respected: last month a young Nigerian air traveller was criticised for asking a prominent octogenarian writer to move out of the window seat he had reserved. 

“It is only sensible to promote reverse mentoring to facilitate bottom-to-top skill transfer and eliminate potential redundancy on the continent,” says Dr Macaulay Babajide Milton, a lecturer at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria. But implementation must be gradual. “In typical African culture, elders are generally regarded as custodians of knowledge. The act of learning from a younger person is often perceived as degrading and shameful, and cultural behaviours do not disappear overnight.”

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Image credit: Piero Zagami and Michela Nicchiotti.