Unfazed Under Fire Podcast

Transformative Journeys in Executive Mentorship with Missy Chicre

• David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy • Season 2 • Episode 3

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Imagine the impact that a dedicated mentor can have on an executive's journey to leadership excellence. This is the very ethos that Missy Chicre and her company, Menttium, bring to life through their mission.  Our engaging conversation focuses on the transformative nature of mentoring in the professional realm. With a career spanning from change management to Latin American studies to spearheading diversity and inclusion, Missy imparts her profound insights into how mentoring can be the cornerstone of individual resilience and gender equity in the workplace.

Together, we navigate the depths of how mentoring intertwines with leadership development, unraveling the rich layers of mentor-mentee relationships. Menttium's pioneering approach challenges the conventional, advocating for a mentee-driven experience that's carefully guided by mentors. Through our discussion, you'll learn how the organization's programs harmonize with a company's talent management strategies, and how they're not just about climbing the corporate ladder but also about enhancing the ladder itself. The anticipation builds as Missy shares an upcoming offering set to redefine mentoring in 2024, a testament to Menttium's commitment to continuous innovation in nurturing the leaders of tomorrow.

As our conversation comes to a close, the spotlight shifts to the empowerment of women in leadership roles and the indispensable role of allyship in creating an inclusive workspace. Reflecting on the post-lockdown world, we explore how mentoring serves as a bridge, reconnecting individuals and healing the social fabric frayed by isolation. Missy shares her vision for a mentor-rich culture that upholds the power of authentic relationships and keeps pace with the ever-evolving societal landscape. Tune in for a heartfelt sign-off where the power of possibility resonates, leaving us with a lasting impression of the undeniable impact that mentoring can have on our personal and professional lives.

Missy’s contact information:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/missy-chicre/

 Menttium’s website: www.menttium.com

Unfazed Under Fire Podcast - Host: David Craig Utts, Leadership Alchemist

Access to all our platforms:
https://www.unfazedunderfirepodcast.online

Intro:

Welcome to Unfazed Under Fire, a podcast that supports executives to deepen their impact in resiliency in an increasingly chaotic and uncertain world. Your mission facilitates the growth of enlightened leaders who build empowering, high-performing cultures that unify great talent and turn profound visions into reality. Now, tuning into your needs, here's your host and moderator, seasoned executive coach and the resilient leadership guy, David Craig Utts.

David Craig Utts:

Hello and welcome back to Unfazed Under Fire. I'm David Craig Utts, The Resilient Leadership Guy, your host and moderator for the show. This show aims to support executives in strengthening their impact and resilience in the face of today's increasingly uncertain, disruptive and chaotic world. Our stand on this show is that human beings have all the resourcefulness they need within them to rise to the biggest challenges we're facing, and to do so with grace. The first step to tapping into this inner resourcefulness that is our birthright to claim, by the way comes by recognizing, leading and living our inside-out journeys. This means that an executive genuinely deserves to have a positive impact on leading others. They first must gain some level of self-mastery over themselves or with themselves, and once they gain such mastery, it sets the stage for powerfully leading others, and without that self-mastery, leading can be a very confusing and ineffective endeavor. Also, we've gotten great feedback on the show, and one of the ways you can help us out is by sharing this show with other executives in your network. Our following is growing and we'd appreciate your support to get these important conversations out to others interested in furthering their impact as leaders. On today's show, I'm really pleased to be joined by Missy Chicre, the CEO of Menttium, and the focus of Menttium is on enriching lives and strengthening organizations through innovative mentoring experiences. As an executive coach, I always encourage my clients to find mentors who have been there and done that, because it saves so much time and headaches and, in the best of world, mentors and coaches can work together to help executives have impact faster Now.

David Craig Utts:

Missy's background is very impressive and it's clear she's had a life full of astounding achievements. She started her career for Accenture as a change management consultant and consultant spent three years at Betbuy as a diversity inclusion manager. She moved then to Cargill for six years and starting in global diversity and inclusion, and her role evolved back to change management. In December 2017, she was attracted to go to become VP of client value at Menttium, which is a woman-owned company that has been around for 30 years, and over the course of the next six years, Missy rose in the organization and eventually became their CEO, and has been in that seat for the last year.

David Craig Utts:

She's also bilingual, in English and Spanish. Both are undergraduate and graduate studies. We're in Latin American languages, literature and linguistics, and in her spare time, she sits on the board of directors of Twin Cities Rock that focuses on supporting families and children with celiac disease, and she's also a member of a number of women's leadership networks, including chief Minneapolis St Paul Business Journal, biz Women Leadership and women business leaders of the US healthcare industry. Yet she's gone beyond simply being involved in these networking communities by rolling up her sleeves and supporting women leaders, and this has been demonstrated in a couple of powerful examples.

David Craig Utts:

When she was at Cargill, she launched and led a working woman's network to help working mothers navigate career and motherhood, and, as somebody who works with a lot of women leaders and coaching, I know this is a key issue that they face in their work. She has also designed and launched a pilot program at Menttium in 2020 dedicated to women mentoring men and executives, with the goal of engaging men as allies in gender equity. We're definitely going to touch on that today. I love that, missy. I'm really honored to have you on the show today and appreciate you spending some of your valuable time with us.

Missy Chicre:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited for our discussion today.

David Craig Utts:

Yeah, Well, I want to start out by connecting some dots here, because you've had a very everybody has their, their securitist route. They walk through in their career and where they started and following their passions. And you started in Latin American studies and literature and linguistics, which is wow, right there, that's a lot right there. So you became, you know, involved in change management and then diversity and leading diversity and inclusion initiatives. You're also a powerful woman leader who's you know, out there making a difference in many different ways in her community. So I'd like to have you just kind of weave this journey a little bit together for me share how this road led you to the seat you're in today and how it's informed your leadership style.

Missy Chicre:

That's a great question and it's really fun to reflect on the journey, and I always tell people to open themselves up to possibility. I love the art of possibility by Bacchandar. I talk about it all the time Beautiful book.

Missy Chicre:

Because when we open ourselves up to what is possible versus only what is right in front of us, it's amazing the doors that open and the path that can be in front of us, that is usually one that ends up being unpredictable. We could talk a lot about the jungle gym versus the ladder, but truly it's very interesting for me now, looking back and, you know, having the view of hindsight, to say, okay, how does this all fit together and how did I end up here? But I think the kind of red thread through everything is a passion for people, for culture, for understanding kind of what makes people tick, what do they do that excites them, how do you help people unlock their potential? And a curiosity for people, traditions, language, culture. So you're right, I started down this path of Spanish, latin American studies, latin American literature and actually pursued a master's degree in Hispanic literature, thinking I was going to do a PhD and become a professor.

Missy Chicre:

So had this sort of long stint in academia and at the same time was still doing internships in the business world. I sort of had one foot in academia, one foot in the business world and when I completed the master's it was one of those moments of okay, I need to make some decisions here, because, committing to a PhD in Hispanic literature, you want to be pretty sure that that's the path.

David Craig Utts:

Yeah, you want to be sure.

Missy Chicre:

Exactly. So I really was excited about what was possible in the business world and again looking at some of those transferable skills, even though my background is liberal arts humanities. And so that is when I made the decision to pursue my business career and I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do. So I thought I'll go become a consultant and I got to work with Accenture and it was amazing training for everything that has come afterward, because I started out in change management consulting and it was all about understanding how do you create transformational change in organizations. A lot of that is understanding impacts to people. How do you help people grow? How do you help people be the best version of themselves? How do you help people navigate change and manage change in their organizations?

Missy Chicre:

So I was on that path and change management for a few years, worked on some really excellent projects, and that was really how I got into HR, because I started in change management and really sort of the people business, if you will, and change management became such a strong foundation for everything I would do next, because that is when I then shifted into diversity, equity and inclusion work, which I believe is all about change management. How do you change cultures. How do you transform culture? How do you create transformative experiences for people?

Missy Chicre:

So I was able to take the passion for language, culture, difference, then take the change management mindset and frameworks and apply that in the diversity, equity and inclusion space. So that was very exciting work. There were some really fascinating experiences early on. I mean, we're talking now, 2008, quite a long time ago and we were doing some pretty transformative things at the time at Best Buy in the deep space, one of which was leading an immersion and immersive training in Memphis where we would bring intact teams through the National Civil Rights Museum and do a three-day intensive diversity, equity and inclusion training experience. So you kind of see now conducting the dots without background in language linguistics, all of that and how it has really sort of defined the next steps, even though the path ended up being very different than what I initially thought. I then moved on to Cargill and I was able to really take global diversity, equity and inclusion to a new level because it was on a global scale.

Missy Chicre:

And my first role was working with businesses and functions in Latin America, so that was a pretty incredible opportunity.

Missy Chicre:

It was such a blend of my skills and passions Perfect Fanners, speakers, diversity experience, large organization and I was able to travel quite a bit through Latin America and work with a variety of business and functional leaders on diversity action planning. So that was really fascinating and just incredible experiences. I went to Honduras, I went to Argentina, I went to Brazil. It was a really incredible experience and so eye-opening to really look at what does diversity, equity and inclusion mean in these different contexts. You have to have the cultural context to overlay what you're doing in that space. So it was really fascinating. And as all of this was happening, I also became a mom in 2010. So I was navigating.

David Craig Utts:

That's some change management right there.

Missy Chicre:

Yeah, exactly, navigating career and motherhood, career aspirations with time and space to be a mom. And I came to a bit of a crossroads during my time. I was growing, you know, kind of all these things I wanted on paper right in terms of my next role and growing and career success and really trying to figure out how do I navigate this so that I can do all the things I want to do well and have the time and space to do them. So it was during that time that I started to feel some of the tension, have a little bit of that existential crisis about you know, who am I, what do I want to do with my life, how do I, you know, kind of manage the demands and pressures of my professional aspirations with being a mom? And you know, we'll get to this a little later in discussion about mentoring and how that has played a role for me. But I made some pretty big decisions that felt really risky at the time during my career, like I took a leave of absence, I went back to a role that was a lower level because of making decisions at that time of like really knowing my values and my value chain and what I needed in those moments, so I won't go too far into that right now. We can come back to it. But it was really during that stage of my life and career that I really discovered my passion for being a voice for women and working mothers. I'd always been passionate in the DEI space. Of course it's been so much of my career there, but it was through my own personal experiences that I was able to really hone in on my values, my mission, the contributions I wanted to make, and started doing a lot of work in my free time, so to speak, around working with working mothers. And simultaneously, how do you create workplace cultures where working parents, working moms, working parents can thrive so fast forward?

Missy Chicre:

Stepped into other roles outside of the DEI space for a while in employee engagement, performance management, kind of got pulled back into change management. And then I came to another crossroads where I was just thinking about what impact do I want to make? Where do I see myself going with my career? How do I take my personal passions and convictions and turn that into my full-time job, so to speak?

Missy Chicre:

I had another child, so I had a five-year-old and a newborn at the time and again took another risk and decided to, you know, walk away from an awesome career and organization because I needed some time and space to really think about what was possible. So I took a short career break and I started having coffees with people. I respected people who were doing work in spaces I wanted to be in. And one coffee led to another, led me to Lynn Sontag, who's the owner of Menttium and my predecessor, and you know we met. We had coffee where she was trying to grow the business, where I had a skill set, an interest, with very serendipitous timing, and she created a role for me to join Menttium in 2017.

David Craig Utts:

That's beautifully said. I mean I, life is just so magical in many, so many ways, and it's like there's something about life that I found it happens all by itself, without any Involvement on my part, and most of it happens that way if I just show up. However, it is about showing up and leaning in, and I also love you, know. You were just really shared. You know kind of what happened for you as you became you, you, you. It's a big. It's a transition that leaders make at some point from more of a reacting to life To claiming and being a co-creator with life, if you will, and then in development of your mission statement.

David Craig Utts:

I'm sure there's a lot to that whole process and because I went to it too, it isn't didn't happen like a straight line. You know it was constantly asking deeper questions and answers wouldn't come. And then you're writing and generally you're going to workshops, you're talking to friends, but something happens that awakens and you realize I want to take Dislife and see what I can do with it. Right that I've been given and and it isn't you so much you had this clear direction you had, but what you did is kind of what you're doing now. You went out, the people that you could talk to that knew right and or we're just interesting people and began to exploring, and that led to when you're at today, which is beautifully said, and I want to give you some time now to just talk about mentium right, we, you know, you know what is, what is, how do you, what do you, what's your mission and what kind of services do you provide and who are your primary clients?

Missy Chicre:

Yeah, great question. So, menttium, you shared briefly our mission statement and the intro there. Our mission is to enrich lives and strengthen organizations through innovative mentoring experiences. We have been around for more than three decades. We're a proud women owned women run business and we do all things mentoring. Mentoring is our core competency. We have been leaders in the space for a long time and we have seen firsthand the transformative power of mentoring to yield both individual and organizational outcomes. And we partner with organizations across industries of all sizes and we partner with them to develop, engage and retain their key talent through mentoring.

David Craig Utts:

So you work at you know what? What levels in the organization Do you typically work with all levels? Do you tend to focus A lot of your work in a particular level? Where is it that you apply this work?

Missy Chicre:

Yeah, good question. So we have a variety of different mentoring offerings, mentoring Experiences, some of which are cross company mentoring experiences and which our Clients are nominating, identifying key talent within their organizations, and then we match them with an external mentor from our mentium network for a 12 month partnership experience. And so for our cross company programs, we have programs that are geared towards what I would call mid-level talent and then we have programs that are geared more towards senior leader executive, that are good, that are good my demise and have some unique elements for, you know, a leader who's at that stage in their career. We also provide consulting services. So for those organizations that want to design, develop and implement internal mentoring programs, we also help organizations do that and that is really customized.

Missy Chicre:

And we work through a process of design with those clients to really determine what are you trying to achieve through mentoring, what are the outcomes you're looking for, and then, through that Consultative process, we're able to design a program that works for them. And so, depending on where the organization is looking at, you know, kind of using this mentoring lever in leadership development, the audience could be, you know, different stages of career. Sometimes there is an element of focusing on a specific talent segment to align, whether overall human capital goals or diversity, equity and inclusion goals. So that's really customized. And then, you know, maybe I'll plug a little teaser here around a new offering we're working on for 2024 and so exciting are you know that?

David Craig Utts:

That's a very full service suite of mentoring offerings that offers value in a number of ways. So it's like it sounds like you work with, like the high potential, kind of mid-range, and then the senior executive

Missy Chicre:

Yeah, I would say our niche is certainly key talent, and that looks different, as you know, across different Different.

Missy Chicre:

Different organizations has different what is that talent management process look like? How are you assessing your talent? You know our approach at Menttium is very much mentee driven and mentor-philosophy criteria. So the relationship, the goals are driven by the mentee and we have a process by which we help them articulate that and get input from others. And the other thing I would say in terms of our philosophy and footprint on mentoring is we are not remedial meeting. We're not trying to fix anyone through mentoring. We are mentoring for those individuals who have strong potential, who can grow into bigger, broader leadership roles, and the mentoring experience is really intended to accelerate and enhance their leadership capacity so that they can grow into and live up to their full potential and then go back into their organizations and Take on key leadership roles.

David Craig Utts:

Yeah, I say I have had to constantly educate my clients that coaching is not about fixing, it's about working with your best to make them better, and it sounds like you have a similar philosophy that there was, that there is. You're. You're trying to reach in and help those individuals that that are, you know, either diamonds in the rough, or they're really high potentials, or their executives that are cooking in all cylinders, and it just helps them be more effective in their roles. What would you say Is why does how is mentoring such an essential tool and, let's say, leadership development, for example? How, what, what about? Mentoring makes it part of the toolkit that you think is so valuable?

Missy Chicre:

Yeah, I really like your framing around the toolkit because with leadership development, you know it's not one size fits all and there isn't one approach or one and done, and so I really see mentoring as an enabler and I see mentoring as one tool in the toolbox, kind of one lever to pull around leadership development. And I think there's a few things about mentoring that make it actually really critical, especially in today's environment in terms of how do you develop your leaders to lead in the current context, which is so nuanced and so complex. A couple things I always like to call out when I think about mentoring and you know, kind of the mentee and philosophy on mentoring is One the power of emotional or psychological safety. By having a mentee and mentor in this very safe psychological space. It's amazing the vulnerability and authenticity that mentee and mentor can bring to the relationship. And that's what you really need to maximize a mentoring partnership experience. You need people to be able to talk about the real deal things without the filters, without the worry Of having this safe space to focus on what they need to focus on. The other thing that I always talk about with the mentoring relationships is the opportunity to bring the outside in. You know, we all get sort of stuck and mired in our organizational cultures because that's just the way it is and over time it makes it difficult to look at things through a different lens. So by having a mentor, especially if you have an external mentor, that brings an opportunity to bring a totally different and fresh perspective which leads to a creativity and innovation. In this current environment especially, I always say mentoring brings hope, stability and inspiration. I know that might sound fluffy to some and I can give you the stats of the data on the hard line ROI stats.

Missy Chicre:

I really believe in a couple of things. One, the power of authentic human connection. I always talk about the fact that here at Menttium we are human-centered mentoring. I know that sounds paradoxical because of course it's mentoring and it's people and while we leverage technology and it's important in order to allow us to do some of what we do, our matching process is very much human-centered and we actually have a team of people who interview the Menti's and mentors who do the matching. It's a very nuanced process where we actually get to know people. Overall right, we always say this is whole-person mentoring. So, yes, there's a career focus, absolutely, but we get to know people holistically and their stage of life and career, so that we can identify the best mentor match. So when we talk about mentoring in general, like why is it so important? Hope, stability and inspiration we all need that more than ever.

Missy Chicre:

Absolutely amen, yeah, leaders need psychological safety to focus on their goals and development. They need someone in their corner. A mentor advises. A mentor guides. A mentor could be a cheerleader. Sometimes A mentor can be sort of that tough love person. Sometimes A mentor can share their guidance from what they've already been through. We're talking about seasoned business leaders being matched with leaders. So they're in it, they get it, They've navigated through some of the hard stuff and now they have the benefit of sharing their learning. And the results that we see, I think, speak for themselves and some of the data we collect around what we call the ROM, or return on mentoring 93% of Menti's come back.

Missy Chicre:

Yes, the ROI. That's good. They are more engaged. 95% are more likely to stay with their organizations. 94% are stronger in their confidence, which is huge for leaders, big deal. 96% are ready for career progression coming out of a mentoring experience. So, in terms of the business benefit, in addition to the individual benefit, mentoring can be a really powerful lever in your leadership development toolkit for your key talent.

David Craig Utts:

And the other thing about this, as we talk about the Menti's but the mentors get something from this too, right? So you talk a little bit about what mentors get from the experience of mentoring.

Missy Chicre:

Yes, no, you're absolutely right. And we talk a lot about the bi-directional nature of a Menti mentor partnership experience, because the mentors also get a safe space and they also get to bring the outside in and hear a different perspective. So for an executive or senior leader being able to have this space in relationship with a Menti, they can then bring learnings back to their teaching, back to their organization, to help them be more effective leaders, to look at things differently and creatively. And then you also have the benefit of honing your mentoring skills, because mentoring is a muscle you have to build. You know, we always say it's different than leading, it's different than managing, it's different than coaching, and so, building that mentoring muscle, you can then apply that into your other relationships.

David Craig Utts:

Absolutely.

Missy Chicre:

It's really, really powerful. And then for the mentors too. You know, a lot of people arrive at a stage of life and career where they want to be forward, they want to help others. I mean, I've heard time and time again from people I never had a formal mentor. Throughout my entire career I never had a formal mentor and so for leaders to say this is how I can take my learnings, my insights, my journey and help another person unlock their potential as a result of it, that is really powerful in terms of, you know, people making a contribution that's bigger than themselves. So we hear from our mentors time and time again, I mean almost on a daily basis. I hear I get just as much out of this relationship as the mentee and it is so powerful for the mentors. And we just have such an amazing network of leaders who mentor with us, who truly have passion, excitement and really are invested in developing the next generation of leaders.

David Craig Utts:

Yeah, and I find that one of the things that's a sign that somebody's stepping into leadership and of course, mentorship is part of that is that they get great fulfillment out of developing people. In fact, it's probably and most of my best leaders' top priority list is the ability to mold and shape and develop other people. So if you're picking, if you're getting mentors that are senior leaders, that are really good leaders, that makes a whole lot of sense to me In every event I go to, every conference, you know there's always a question about mentoring.

Missy Chicre:

You know how have mentors shaped you in your life and you know most people have a story of an informal at least, or formal mentor who shaped them. You know who was really critical in their development and in their journey. So I hear that whenever I go to any kind of event or speaking, engagement or conference, there's always a question about mentors and people always have very inspirational stories about how mentors have positively impacted them.

David Craig Utts:

Right, well, you just foreshadowed my next question. I would like you to share one of your favorite stories, either personally or from your organization. However, you want to do that of a mentoring relationship and how it had impact on both parties in a positive way.

Missy Chicre:

If you want to share a story, yeah, I have so many examples, but there are, I'm sure you have hundreds of them.

Missy Chicre:

Yes, I'll share two personal ones because I think it's really important for people to hear the personal stories right about how this matters and how it makes a difference and, in my case too, some of the implications you know around gender equity and gender parity and as a woman navigating career and motherhood and all of these things. So the first example I'll share is a mentor who helped me at a really critical stage. I mentioned earlier working through a stage in my career where you know I was growing and sort of on paper all these things were happening right that I aspire to professionally and my daughter at the time was a toddler and so I was navigating time and space for motherhood and just managing pressure, travel, expectations everywhere, work and home. And it was a very difficult period, again more of like that existential crisis of who am I? What am I really capable of? Am I capable of all the things I thought I was capable of? A little of that imposter syndrome, kind of sneaking in.

Missy Chicre:

And really losing confidence, frankly, around what I thought I could achieve and what I thought I could do. And at the time, someone I knew she was not my mentor yet, but this was the critical moment when she would become a mentor she stepped in and I was also at a stage of life and career where I was really afraid to speak up about what I was going through. And now, when I mentor younger women, I hear this all the time because we write these stories in our head. Right, people see me as an achiever, as highly motivated, as highly driven, and I was so afraid to admit what I was going through and what I was feeling because I didn't want people to think I wasn't driven or that I wasn't interested or that I couldn't handle it. So I was writing all these stories in my mind.

Missy Chicre:

And it was when this leader reached out to me and said let's talk. And it was really eye-opening for me because it allowed me to reframe and I was at the point where I was ready to resign. I had resigned, I thought it was either or, and I'd always seen myself as a career person, very ambitious professionally. So I was really struggling with these decisions and some of the implications of them, and she opened the door to have an authentic conversation and to have the emotional safety to open up, and what that did for me in that moment is one. I learned about her journey.

Missy Chicre:

So she was an executive in the company, so I had made all kinds of assumptions about how she had gotten there, and when we started talking, she shared with me that her career journey was not a ladder. She had taken career breaks, she had worked part-time and she shared with me some of the things that she went through in her own journey and it gave me the space to really talk about what I was going through and to open myself up to. There's different ways to get there and there are some experiences that are a moment in time and decisions you make you know, when you're 25, are probably different than what you're going to make at 35 and 45 and so on. And so she really gave me the space to kind of come to terms of what I was feeling and grappling with was okay, like it was okay, and it didn't say less about me or change who I was. And then she also reframed it and through that I was able to take a short leave of absence, take some time to reflect about what I wanted, to get a little bit away from the stressors, and then I went back to the organization in a different role.

Missy Chicre:

But if she hadn't reached out to me, that all would have sort of culminated in a very different type of experience. So I am forever grateful to her, susan Beese, for becoming my mentor in that moment and someone who I still you know in my respect, have a relationship with. I am so forever grateful to her because I learned a lot through that process and it really demonstrated, when you reach out to people and you genuinely work and you create space for them to work through their experiences, their struggles, their challenges. She had no idea in that moment right, how much she helped me and how much of an impact she had on me and honestly, I wouldn't be where I am today without her.

David Craig Utts:

Yeah, a beautiful story, yeah, and it's like, so you're pointing to mentorship is like sometimes you think of it as being technical relationship how do you build relationships, how do you maneuver through politics but it's like you're sharing a story where it's really human to human connection to. Here's my experience, which ended up being a catalyst for you to take that time off to go and engage the possible you know, and begin to explore what's possible, and without that conversation you may have gotten there some other way, but you don't know, and that was that particular. That was such an important catalyst for you.

Missy Chicre:

I appreciate you sharing that what you just said reminded me of. I just read a book, the Midnight Library, and the focus of it is on your life can turn out a million different ways, depending on each of those decisions you've made along the way, and how one decision, one action can completely change the trajectory, and so it's a really interesting sort of philosophical discussion, right To go back and think about those decisions and those pivot points and then how it has really shaped the course of your life and career, and I would say you know. The second example, really briefly, would be currently with Lynn Sontag, my predecessor, who's been with Menttium for a very long time Long time, you know, was the CEO for many, many years and bringing me to Menttium. She saw something in me, and I think that is so critical.

Missy Chicre:

When you have people in your corner and they see your potential, and then they not only see it but they create the opportunities in this phase for you to grow into and live up to your full potential. That's when the magic happens, right. That's why I'm sitting in the CEO seat right now here at Menttium. She saw something in me and she created opportunities for me to grow, flourish, thrive, and she mentored me along the way and she's still mentoring me right. So how you set people up for success and how you mentor people through those critical moments and critical times to feel like you're not alone and to feel like you're set up for success and have a guide with you, that's so powerful.

David Craig Utts:

Yeah, it's invaluable. Well, just to shift us a little bit, those are great stories inside of Foundation, for this is, which is, what do organizations have to keep and consider when they're integrating mentorship into the organization and their development strategy? What are the key things you tell organizations? Here's if you do this, you're setting yourself up for success. Here's some potential challenges you may face and how you can overcome those. What would you say to that?

Missy Chicre:

Yeah, you know it goes back to a little bit what we were talking about earlier with how you look at a suite of leadership development offerings and even a suite of mentoring offerings, because people need different things at different stages and it isn't one size fits all, it's not one and done, certainly, and we don't have a blueprint right now for what we're navigating in our world and workplaces as leaders and individuals. So what I would say is it's always, you know sort of best practice to integrate whatever approach you're going to take to mentoring into your talent management strategies. So not having some mentoring initiative off separate. But how are you integrating this into talent management, how you're assessing your talent, how you're readying your talent for the future, how you're aligning mentoring experiences with other leadership development experiences. So we always encourage that you know, think big picture around your leadership development focus and then how mentoring is going to fit into that and tie into your processes and you know assessment processes for talent. And then there's depending on which approach to take to mentoring right, are you looking to do mentoring for the masses? Are you looking to develop key talent? Are you looking for external mentors versus an internal mentoring program? There's different considerations, depending on what they want to get out of mentoring. So I always say what's the outcome you're driving towards with mentoring, and then work backwards from there, because, depending on the outcomes and you know the results that they're looking for that will then inform the approach to mentoring. So it's always, you know, taking that big picture approach and thinking about what are you trying to achieve through mentoring. Now let's work backwards and figure out what's the right program, what's the right approach, you know.

Missy Chicre:

The other thing is mentoring isn't new, right?

Missy Chicre:

Mentoring has been around for a long time. Sort of this universal mentoring is valuable and important, and people can sometimes underestimate what it takes to do it successfully. And so you have to have the rigor, the structure, the processes, the training, the resources and tools, because often there can be a lot of excitement and buzz when you launch a mentoring program and then it can easily fizzle out over time if you don't have those things in place. And so that is really, really critical in terms of making sure that you're setting your program up for success and making sure that the mentees have outcomes they're driving towards. So for our program, it's all about goal development. You need to set your goal, because mentoring can easily turn into nice coffee chats and I met this awesome person and we had great conversations. That's lovely and by the end of the program you want to say I achieved my goals. So having that process, structure and the tools to set goals and then be able to measure the progress against those goals over time, that's really important to have outcome based mentoring.

David Craig Utts:

Right. Well, it's the same in the work that I do as a coach. I mean, you could get into a flow of conversations that don't lead you anywhere and I always kind of. Well, there's been a lot of studies done on ROI and coaching and you've shared some. With mentoring, it's a no brainer, right, it's not like we're not into ROI, it's just.

David Craig Utts:

If you have to start with the foundation of what is the outcome that you want for the mentee and also probably for the mentor, I said, well, why do you want to be a mentor? But it's from an organizational standpoint. Why are we investing in anything? It's to you know, and maybe it's this. Is this to me, one of the biggest benefits to coaching and I have a sense it's also for mentoring is it adds velocity to development. You know that personal, probably, but they make. But do you say you can and you can change the trajectory of somebody's career in a positive way in that? So yeah, this gets into the you know this kind of dovetails into. I think this conversation has been happening and probably people will know the distinction between coaching and mentoring. But how would you differentiate the difference between coaching and mentoring? What are the key differentiators for that and how could they be blended together well to support an individual to develop in a profound way?

Missy Chicre:

Yeah, it's a question. We get a lot, as you can imagine. You probably get it too in your coaching world and you know I always start out by saying there is some overlap. Of course. Coaches, mentors, mentors, coach there are some of those skills that kind of go across. I would say how I would define some of the key differentiators to discern between the two. And you know you can jump in here as a long time executive coach. But coaching you started out right. We are creative, resourceful and whole and you have it within yourself to figure things out.

Missy Chicre:

So coaching is a lot of inquiry. It's a lot of asking of powerful questions versus giving answers and helping people unlock the answers for themselves. And while mentors certainly ask powerful questions, something about mentoring that is distinct is the mentor is a guide. The mentor is someone who's gonna share here's what I did, here's what worked, here's what didn't, here's what I would recommend based on that. So it's more of that advising. There is, of course, asking of questions and asking of powerful questions, but I would say that's one of the key differentiators is sort of that inquiry asked versus the advise and guide. And there's some nuance to this right, because there's lots of different approaches to coaching as well, and depending on how organizations are leveraging coaches. Like you said, your coaching is more about investing your people through coaching versus fixed people. There is still, I think, some fixing through coaching, like if there's a performance.

David Craig Utts:

There's certainly that. There's certainly that that's not my area, but there are coaches that are very good at that. Yes, absolutely.

Missy Chicre:

Correct, correct, and sometimes there's a need for that right, so it's understanding what your needs are. Another thing I would say is, with our approach to mentoring, the mentors are seasoned business leaders who are in organizations themselves. Right, they're doing the work, they're leading the teams, they're navigating, just like everybody else, these complex, unprecedented times, and so they're in it. And many coaches have worked in corporate environments in organizations. Some haven't, and so it's depending on are you looking for someone who's sort of in the trenches as well, who could give that guidance based on the fact that they're living and breathing similar environments, whereas sometimes coaches are hired to come in and they're professional coaches, right, they haven't necessarily been an executive in a corporation. Some have, because many have.

Missy Chicre:

I know you have a sales background and I've worked with many coaches who have previously worked in corporate environments as well, so I think there's a lot of. Again, it kind of goes to the design of what are you looking to achieve through a coaching or a mentoring engagement? What is each individual need at this stage of their life and career in terms of development, and then sorting out what is gonna be the best intervention at this time, because it isn't one and done right, and sometimes people need both. Right. It doesn't have to be an either or, or maybe they need a coach at one stage, but they need a mentor at a different stage, right? So I think these things can work together, because you have to put very holistic leadership development plans to make sure that leaders are prepared to lead for the future.

David Craig Utts:

Yeah, well, that brings me to the world we live in today, and and and you know you mentioned this just a moment ago that you know we don't, we have a disintegration of structures that is happening right now. Obviously, the divisiveness that's occurring. You have all kinds of other crazy things in the economy and concerns about that we get, we. I don't wanna go, you know, be a downer and name all these unsustainable things we're dealing with. But how, how do you see, you know? And yet in both cases, you know the coach may be asking deeper questions to find. Where do I find? Where do I can I plant my feet in the ground? I'd be resilient, resourceful and empowered, right, you know.

David Craig Utts:

And yet I also heard you say that mentoring is also, you know, something that it adds to this too. So in that, in that situation, where the mentor maybe also be asking questions, right, and yet there's some value that the mentor is providing and the mentee relationship is providing in this environment, one of the things I think you said that hints to that which I think there's there's more to it than this but is just that human to human connection, that many ways we're all missing right now. You mean we all used to sit around the campfire and mentor each other, talk and share stories and sustain the stories and the narratives, and that held us together as a community right, and it feels to me that that's one of the values that mentoring provides, is that connection to each other. But in addition to that, what do you think mentoring is, you know, uniquely suited for now versus prior to the pandemic?

Missy Chicre:

Yeah, good question, and I do think it really comes down to authentic human connection, which is lacking everywhere. I mean, I have a teenager and an elementary school child and I see how human connection is dwindling in terms of even how we teach our children how they interact with each other. And so technology can be an amazing enabler and it cannot replace that human to human, authentic, genuine connection. And so I keep saying in my team they're probably sick of hearing me say it all the time you know like we are doubling down on authentic human connection because we need it more than ever in this environment. And you know we have a mentor. He always shares this quote. It's a Maxwell quote.

Missy Chicre:

He says people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care you care right Through genuine care for one another, emotional safety, to be authentically yourself and grapple with the things that you know many of us are grappling with, whatever that is for each individual person. Mentoring creates that space and it creates that human to human connection that cannot be replaced and I really believe people are craving it more than ever and they need it more than ever.

David Craig Utts:

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more that that is really the nugget for everybody right now is, whatever way you can do that and I find I've shared this with four, I think, on the podcast is that even after the lockdowns I found myself I'm a pretty extroverted guy found myself challenged to reconnect. It was almost something that did something to us, you know, and you know, mentoring can be a way to kind of heal that and reenliven that, and I think that's what we're all craving to see in the world. Like let's, can we talk about unity and not divisiveness? How could we create more unity?

David Craig Utts:

There's really not all that different when it comes down to. We care about very similar things. We might want to do it in different ways and we care about different things. So that's really well said.

Missy Chicre:

Yeah, I think there is something so powerful there because, you know, I too am an extrovert and love being around people and get so much energy by being around others, and because I got so used to being in my little world, you know, just with my immediate family, for so long it's like I almost forgot how much I need and love that. And then, when it, you know, the world started opening back up again and you know we all started opening back up again, it really hit me how much I missed it and how deeply impacted I was by not having it. I didn't even realize it until I started shifting back into normal, new normal, whatever word you want to use, I don't know.

David Craig Utts:

What door forward?

Missy Chicre:

Everyone's frame it you know, in terms of our environment, because there's so many different things happening in the world that continue. It's like one unprecedented event after another, after another, after another. But I do think that craving for being around others, being seen, being heard, being valued, being able to make those deeper connections, it's so important and we got away from it for so long because we had to and then kind of get back to it. You realize how deeply impacted we, individually and collectively, have been by not having it.

David Craig Utts:

Absolutely Well, good, as far as you know what I talk about, about women and leadership now with you and you know I know this is a deep something you deeply care about, for obvious reasons. But, as a powerful and successful business woman, what do you think is the most important impact women business leaders have on organizations today, and why is it so important to embolden and support? And I, quite frankly, have a lot of women leaders in my practice and I love working with women business leaders for particular reason. But I want you to talk a little bit about it first.

Missy Chicre:

Yeah, absolutely yeah. This is so important to me and I think I have a 13 year old daughter, so I think a lot about future and I see her growing up in the world today right as a teenage girl and, you know, coaching her through different things of building confidence and pursuing her dreams and not feeling limited. So I live this out at work and at home, with my personal life. That's awesome.

Missy Chicre:

So I'm passionate about empowering girls and young women to think big, dream big, go for their goals, pursue their dreams, be confident and strong and I've learned a lot through my own journey because I wasn't all of those things always either and so you know, you live and you learn and you get older and have more of those life and leadership experiences that can then, you know, empower you to help others who are earlier in the journey. But I'm really passionate about equity right, gender equity and you mentioned earlier the program that I launched back in 2020 around women mentoring men, and that was a mentoring program, but with a very specific purpose and outcome, which was to engage men as allies in gender equity. So this, for me, is not a zero sum game and either or men versus women. This is we need to come together to create equity in our workplaces and our world. And while we've made progress, certainly when we look at the data, we still have so far to go, and you know we see that with women are still underrepresented at every stage of the corporate pipeline. You know, I always read the McKinsey study around women in the workplace. They've been doing it several years now, sort of started with this notion of the leaky pipeline and then it was reframed as actually the broken rung that really that first step up into manager is where we start to see the drop off of women. So then the pipeline isn't there and then, post COVID, seeing you know what they call as the great breakup, but women, especially at the director level, exiting organizations, and so if we look at our workplaces and our world, we are still very far from gender equity and gender parity.

Missy Chicre:

So how do we come together?

Missy Chicre:

Because it's good for everybody to have inclusive cultures, right, and that goes beyond gender, that goes for all dimensions of diversity. And we talk a lot at Men'sium, at the power and the point of difference it's what you alluded to earlier when we come together around unity, learning, curiosity, seeking to understand I mean, I think most people have seen the business case right around diversity. We're hopefully long past that, but we still have a lot of work to do and it shows up in big ways around representation. It shows up in ways that are critical and important, that seem more subtle, like microaggressions in the workplace, you know, those kind of small behaviors that chip away at whether or not people feel included, those kind of standards and expectations that have sort of arbitrarily been set systemically right in our society around what women should do and what men should do, and there's a lot of other factors that contribute into this. Even as one example, why is it more women opting out of the workplace? Right, because there's all kinds of ramifications around childcare, caring for aging care.

Missy Chicre:

There's a lot of the work that goes on in the workplace that's sort of the unpaid because there's a lot of other factors that are involved Sort of the unpaid work, if you will, around inclusivity and culture work and coaching and mentoring. And so when I look around and certainly want to acknowledge the progress that has been made, there's still so much work for us to do and I believe that in the space of leadership, development and mentoring, we can at least play a small part in helping to chip away at what is going to help us get into a more progressive state around equity and parity.

David Craig Utts:

Right, beautiful and I want to go back to that the mentoring program you have, where you have men mentored by women, and there have been some of the interesting outcomes or stories that have come out of that, anything that you wanted to share. That would you know you're pointing in a direction of the greater equity, but you know that and other outcomes or other experiences people are having both men and women in that experience. And what's what are you most satisfied with or most delighted by around that?

Missy Chicre:

I mean, we launched this pilot program in January of 2020.

David Craig Utts:

And then, in March of 2020,. The whole, yeah, the whole.

Missy Chicre:

Interesting time to be in a program focused on allyship and gender equity, because the pandemic certainly disproportionately impacted women and you know we did the pilot here locally in the cities. You know, fast forward a few more months, the murder of George Floyd here in Minneapolis. So our notions of allyship went broader than gender and we really brought in this conversation around what is the role of leaders and workplaces to influence culture, to create cultures where people feel included, where people can belong. Of course we had a focus on the gender piece, but it went so much broader than gender. So it was a really powerful time to have a group of leaders here in the Twin Cities together to really grapple with everything that was happening in our world and how that was then unfolding in the workplaces.

Missy Chicre:

What is your role as a leader? Because you do have influence right, you do have authority and you can actually shape which direction all of this goes. So I think a couple of the key outcomes that were so powerful is one the relationship that were created in that experience and the depth of conversations and reflection we were able to have together and how people's eyes and minds were so opened and that goes for the mentors too. People's minds and hearts were opened to seeing the world in a different way, of being exposed to things that maybe they didn't even realize were happening, or the challenges that people were grappling with or what type of influence they could have as a leader. So walking away from that, having 100% of participants say they felt more equipped to be an ally and they felt more accountable to actually driving this work and their organizations, was extremely powerful and it was really framed. I'll go back to what I said earlier. We called it women, men, men standing together for change, and it was about bringing people together to create better outcomes.

David Craig Utts:

Yeah Well, as I said, we have to start coming together. So that you're doing that in this way is exactly the kinds of things we need to be doing to revitalize our connection to each other.

Missy Chicre:

Yes.

David Craig Utts:

And really I think that's been dismantled for political reasons many times. I'm not trying to get into politics, but you know. But it's just like. The idea is, how do we get people talking to each other? At the end of the day, probably, people find more commonality in a mentoring relationship. They might even think they're, they're, they walk in, were really different, and they are there's. That, that's the beauty of the diversity, and sometimes in their lives, in their hearts, there's probably common ground that they're finding with each other that makes them appreciate what the other, what the other party brings, etc.

Missy Chicre:

So yeah, and we talked a lot of MPM about the power at the point of difference and when you're in a relationship that is authentic and has that safety, trust and report built in what you can learn, when you open yourself up to understanding differences, to learning from others, when you're curious out understanding, there's a lot of power in that.

David Craig Utts:

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean you can learn from everybody, everybody, because I mean you have this little perspective that's in between your ears.

David Craig Utts:

That's kind of all you have right, I mean, and you can't do anything about that. You were swimming in the water you were swimming in, you got conditioned the way you're conditioned. You look at the world the way you look at you know, and yet there's limitations to that and there's also beauty and wisdom in that right. So you have to look at both sides of that. Yeah, that's really cool. Well, as we, as we start moving towards the end in the show today, I like to say you touched on the beginning of the program. I'm going to come back to it. You know what is your vision for Mentium moving forward, and I know it's kind of hard to have much more than a couple year vision right now, or six month vision right now.

David Craig Utts:

But as you look at what you're, what you envision the future of mentoring in the world and the corporate world, how are you seeing that?

Missy Chicre:

I was thinking about this question and I really harked back to our new tagline that we rolled out, which is more through mentoring. So for me, the vision is more and being able to fill in what that more means across so many aspects of the business. But I really see it as more innovation, more experiences, more authentic human connection and being able to take what we do well in mentoring and bring that into our workplaces, in our world, for all the things that we talked about in this environment that we're in, because I think people need it and are craving it more than ever, and it's not only good for the individual, it's good for our organizations, it's good for our society, it's good for our communities. Mentoring has many implications beyond the corporate world. It can transcend whatever stage of life you're in. Kids need mentoring, teens need mentoring. But for me, the vision really is we have a long history and tradition in mentoring. We've been around for almost 33 years. We've been at this for a long time and I am really excited about being able to play a role in taking Mentium to new heights.

Missy Chicre:

So how do we keep innovating on mentoring? How do we put out new experiences around mentoring that are going to help our leaders that are going to help our community and our society. And how do we keep innovating around what we're doing? Because the world is changing so quickly we can't just keep doing the same things right. It expects change as rapidly as the world is changing. So, with the pace of change, in order to keep up with that and in order to be viable and relevant, we have to keep innovating, we have to keep evolving and we have to listen to what's happening in our client organizations. We have to watch everything that's unfolding in society and the world. And so, for me, it's about keeping Mentium within this core competency we have of mentoring this is our space and being able to evolve, innovate, put out more types of experiences around mentoring, because there's lots of ways to iterate on mentoring and how those types of experiences can show up and make sure that we are doubling down on the authentic human connection.

David Craig Utts:

Yes, very well said, and I think that what you're bringing to the table might be reformatted in certain ways. I think there's certain things we might be doing in a year from now that might be different. I'm hoping that we're still doing the same thing in many ways, but you never know how we're going to be called into action and what you're providing through Menttium and how you're understanding in depth of understanding, what mentoring can do and how to apply it and engage it and measure the success of it, etc. Is highly, highly valuable and I really appreciate you being on the show today. Is there any other final words you want to say to feel complete for in the conversation today, I'd like to share my favorite quote.

Missy Chicre:

I've shared it in lots of different venues, but I think it really goes to a lot of what we've talked about today and so, to close out, I'll share that quote. It's most people see things as they are and say why. I dream of things that never were and say why not.

David Craig Utts:

Right. That's beautiful, because you started with possibility, you ended with possibility, so that's well, well articulated. I appreciate you saying that and I I'm glad that we you know. I hope that everybody on the podcast enjoyed this conversation as much as I did it was. It's very, very profound what we were talking about today.

David Craig Utts:

All of Missy's contact, information and ability you know no more about her work will be either below the audio or video, as I do with all my guests, and you can feel free to reach out to Missy and her organization to learn more. Again, thank you, missy, and I want to thank my audience also for joining us today and participating in this conversation with Missy. It was a very enriching conversation on the power of mentoring and if you found this useful, I really encourage you to share it with the rest of your network. These conversations, and the richness of them, can have greater impact by you doing so, so thank you for considering doing that. I want to thank you again for taking the time to be here today and unfazed on the fire Until next time. This is David Kregatz signing out. Have a great rest of your day.