The Innovator & the Mentor/ Protégé

Formalized but unstructured.

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An early advocate of mentoring was Willis H. Carrier. He invented air conditioning (1902) and received more than 80 patents for the conditioning of air. The United States Patent Office issued him a patent in 1906 titled “Apparatus for Treating Air” and in 1939 he invented the first system for the air conditioning of skyscraper office buildings.

Undoubtedly, his advocacy of mentoring helped obtain the ideas necessary to make the Carrier Corporation, with 43,000 employees, one of the most successful companies in the world today.

A mentor is someone who guides a less experienced person through the corporate culture. The less experienced person is the protégé; someone who can offer new ideas to the company once the validation of the mentor is added.

A mentor is important for innovation because the protégé will be challenging the status quo with new ideas, and the mentor’s greater status in the organization adds validation to an idea that might otherwise have been lost.

This system should be formalized but unstructured and voluntary. This is extremely important if this is to work effectively because both persons must be involved in this to mutual benefit. A voluntary relationship allows the relationship to develop into one of trust, a necessary feature for this to succeed.

The mentor volunteers to help the protégé and sees their success as part of their own self-actualization and therefore they have a psychological interest in helping, nurturing, and developing the protégé.

Both parties will receive benefit from the relationship, because the relationship is voluntary, and either person can back out. This assures the most effective process in place for the company. Many companies fail here by forcing the relationship. Formal acceptance of this system by the company will automatically increase communication, as people attempt to create beneficial associations.

According to learning theory, feedback is essential to efficient thinking. Both the mentor and the protégé act as a “sounding board,” bouncing ideas off each other. They also use the constant feedback from each other to make continual reassessment of their ideas. The respect, openness, and trust they develop for each other allows for this effective exchange of ideas.

The mentor helps fit the ideas of the protégé to the core vision of the business, and while doing this they stimulate and develop their own understanding and knowledge of every topic discussed. This system therefore also helps to create new ideas in the mind of the mentor.

Phil Collins is a singer, songwriter, and record producer, and he played drums and sang with the rock group Genesis. He said “in learning you will teach and in teaching you will learn.”