6: Mentoring as an educational process in the company

Design Mentorship (00:01.582)
Hi, welcome to the Design Mentorship podcast. Here we talk about the true face of disguise, career path design, mentoring, as well as our behaviors. My name is Kasia Szczesna, I am a behavioral designer and the founder of Design Mentorship. I invite you to learn about the stories of people who bet on courage and change through mentoring.

Design Mentorship (00:26.158)
Today we have another meeting from the Mentoring in your company cycle, during which we will talk about a very interesting topic, namely the process of the mentoring program in Krug. I will lead this meeting together, of course, with Wojtek Ławniczak. Hi, Wojtka. Hi. I want to welcome and introduce our guests. Marta Maciejewska, Head of the Strategic Business Development Department Hi Marta. Hello, hello. It's nice to be here with you today.

I'm glad. And Natalia Jaszczewska, business development manager. Hello Natalia. Good morning. Hi. Hi. I want to point out here that this is an open meeting. So I also welcome listeners who can ask questions in the chat during our conversation. And I think so much for a word of introduction. We have a lot of topics, a lot of questions, so I think we should start with our mentoring, about the program, about what's going on around us.

For me, what I heard from Natalia, because we had a brief conversation with Natalia before we met, is fascinating for two reasons. Firstly, we will move in the area of services, that is, companies providing services, while the experiences that our guests will talk about and which we will talk about will be about production. So this is fascinating to me in the first place, because it concerns a certain...

formulas of transplantation or transplantation, as we call it in the design environment, of some solutions from one area to another. Secondly, the thematic area concerns lino, the so-called lean management, which is associated with continuous improvement. Therefore, secondly, it is fascinating to me. If the Lord permits, I would just start with this continual improvement, because...

Let me just remind you that we have a common view of this reality. The essence of LEAN is continuous improvement, continuous development of employees, development of systems, development of various solutions. Please tell us how this LEAN relates to the mentoring program in your company, that is, how it came to be that mentoring appeared in a service company and this in the context of

Design Mentorship (02:50.446)
Maybe we should start with a strategy. Lean appeared primarily in the company's strategy. It was such a response to the search for improving the efficiency of increasingly better processes. How to grow, how to do this business better, how to give people opportunities too. After searching for different methods, different solutions, the company's management came to Lean and said...

After the pilot, he said, that's it. We started lean in general in the raven with Hoshinkanri, that is, with management by goals. And it turns out that lean is what it is. And since lean will appear in strategy, it is naturally that philosophy properly, because it is not even a tool, but more a way of working that supports it. And constantly...

We have tried different tools, what fits our organization, what does not fit, what can help us in a given specific business reality, responding to the here and now, to the challenges that people faced. Anyway, we came across the concept of teams, which Natalia brought to the organization here. Natalia, do you remember how it was? Yeah, I remember. A couple of years ago. I remember, I remember. Indeed, Wojtek, the concept took place...

Inspiration from the manufacturing industry, because before I worked there in this sector, I moved to services and I saw that the need for development of competencies is the same and the way of developing competencies will perhaps be equally effective precisely through the formula of mentoring. And where did such a need come from? No developing Lean-Lean competencies.

we realize at some point that training is not enough, the training room is not enough, because what, by the way, here with Marta, as we talked in the audience before today's meeting, we also talked about the fact that we have such a concept, that there are a lot of books that you can read about Lean Management, but after reading this book...

Design Mentorship (05:05.229)
This is not an instructor, it is not, as you said, Wojtek, transplantation possible after this reading and I just come to the company and implement it as described, because experience is needed. And this is where mentoring comes in handy, because thanks to this we can teach individually and combine the experiences of the mentor and develop the experiences

menti, that person who acquires rope competencies, in this particular environment, that is, a mentor from our organization will be much more effective in this development of competencies, he will know this environment and will be able not only to convey knowledge, experience and show how it is done in practice, but also will tell you how to get to this place in our organization faster. So that's where this one came from, too.

This need, and so we decided that rope competence is necessary to develop it in the form of mentoring, because we are not able to acquire rope competence through training, by reading reading or we will acquire knowledge, but it will not be a complete competence. It seems to me that this is the best time for us to be together for a short time

They focused on what this model looks like. If you could tell in a few sentences how it is organized, that is, what solutions you came to at the beginning using the model, the model itself and the concept of rope philosophy itself. First of all, we started from the need, that is, the rope is a very broad concept, so...

it is important to identify what is needed in a given organization in reality here and now. You could say, let's implement it one by one. Wise books say first some fives, maybe some processes, that's that, waste and definitely worth it. The reality of business is that...

Design Mentorship (07:22.829)
People, so to speak, take heart from what is currently hurting them, are looking for some solutions to their specific business problems, so we decided to respond to these problems as well. So identifying first the need, which in business today is the most important topic and where these competencies are perhaps lacking or perhaps you can show some other path precisely from experience...

people from another company, also from another industry, but who have crossed the Nile path and here is Natalia, who proposed such a mentoring concept. Because we proposed this identification of the need, here Natalia proposed a team model for the organization. The team model, that is, extracting the organization from different silos, from different departments.

individual people with some competence, with some knowledge about processes, it is very important what Natalia said, knowledge of their own organization of these processes and also a great desire to learn new things and we have united these people, such groups into teams that had some guiding motive, that is, for example, solving problems.

If I come back to the teams in a moment, let's stop for a moment at these needs. Was it the needs of customers, contractors, other stakeholders? Whose needs were these? Can you give an example of such a need? Perhaps I will start with the context at all, because perhaps not all listeners know, actually, as we said, the service company, but what we do and what these services consist of.

Kruk is a financial institution, it operates in the collection industry, so this is a close cooperation with the client, debt recovery. Our business model is that we support debtors in paying off these debts to the creditor. These are processes that are characterized by multivariate.

Design Mentorship (09:41.101)
very, very big. I would not like to say that production processes are simpler, because they, today's technology, they are very advanced, but in a simpler sense I mean more linear, because we have some kind of production line on which if you trace the process from A to Z, you actually see it, it is very easy to observe. On the other hand, as regards the service sector, the debt collection industry,

What a customer is a different matter. Of course, we have certain standards, we are also obliged to do certain things by law, but you can never predict what the customer will come into contact with and what the employee of the company will also come into contact with. So now, in order to serve customers well and effectively, to carry out these processes well and efficiently, we need to find some effective way to observe them and these needs...

This diagnosis of needs was both from the client's side, that is, how we contact the client, what he sees, how he contacts our organization, but also internally, it is our people, how they do some work, what they come into contact with today. Like any probably large organization, we had the subject of such a powerful silos, working in some department, in some department, you do your job to the best of your ability, but if you don't,

you will not approach it in a process and you will not understand a little what happens next with the result of the work that you have done, who takes it from you, how the process goes on and how it finally reaches the client, well it is very easy to fall into such a trap, some micro-optimizations, but in fact pushing problems further somewhere else somewhere, so these needs were equally identified internally.

where today we see bottlenecks in the process, where we may not have stable processes, where something may take a long time, etc., etc. And on the basis of just such a conversation with the organization we also observe indicators, because I said that we started with hoshyn kanri, that is, with management by goals and at the same time management by goals.

Design Mentorship (11:58.173)
measuring processes, setting measures for ourselves, but not only those of efficiency, financial, profit type, type of effect, but the search for process measures, such as those that tell us how something is done, how, qualitatively, efficiently, we began to identify needs and precisely by introducing different concepts or tools or rope approaches.

We are responding to these current needs here and now. And this is a very interesting thread that we are starting, that is, this educational formula, because we are talking about the process, about measuring, precisely showing the direction or setting this goal and I will even refer to our last conversation, previous in our cycle with Małgorzata Szteter regarding mentoring, where this responsibility lies on the mentee and taking into account what mentoring looks like, that it is a relationship and it is a support.

and the mentor is not a lecturer here, then I am curious what this educational formula of commanding this knowledge looks like, because you can guess that if, as you introduced Lina, he was not sufficiently understood or understood theoretically by some people, that the mentor may have had to devote more time to explanation, to this education and I would like to ask myself what this educational formula looks like Yes, from a practical point of view with you.

Well, maybe I'll answer. Still, as if smoothly moving on to this question, Kasia, as if I think that one of the most important tips that you can also draw here, is that if we start an educational program precisely under the motto mentoring, it is very important to understand these business needs, that is, what competencies we want to teach, which...

are to ultimately bring us a goal in the form of competence, competence, competence growth, it also equals business value for the organization, yes? Because today we will talk a little later I think about measuring mentoring, and we are aware that mentoring will then be effective and effective if the need is business, yes? So we develop lean competence, but we have previously identified,

Design Mentorship (14:18.497)
These are the skills we want to teach. And how do we do it? Indeed to begin with, when we decided on this development of mentoring, we were looking for people who already have a certain level of knowledge about this particular competence built. These people had a certain range of competences, already experienced, that is, these people had skills.

On the other hand, our goal was to first calibrate ourselves with these people, that is, to equalize this level of knowledge and experience. And in Linn we call it the creation of a standard, that is, the creation of such a unique, uniform way, the best way to convey this knowledge in the form of collective competence, that is, here Marta mentioned earlier about solving problems.

So in the first place, we gathered people who could already know the concept of so-called problem solving, had knowledge about it and with these people in the first place we tried to develop a homogeneous standard, that is, a way of solving problems, yes, that is, we first created a certain standard.

of what it should look like, how we want to teach other people this problem solving, that is, in this group of people who have already had some experience. That is, if I understand correctly, you have translated or translated the concepts in general to your reality and to your needs. Yes. there was such a complete fit, you will get to your...

Yes, because I will only refer to what Natalia said about these books earlier, that there are wonderful books, if we are competent in solving the problem, there are wonderful books and various formats and instructions for solving problems available somewhere, but life also shows that once you enter a particular organization, sometimes you can not quite translate it.

Design Mentorship (16:33.477)
for this particular organization, for these particular processes, it's not that simple. And here it is important the experience of people who already know this concept somewhere, perhaps from experience, perhaps from other organizations as well, but it is fun to calibrate them precisely in order to be able to describe these best experiences somehow.

a tailor-made method of teaching and transmitting the development of this competence with examples from our organization, to be able to go out later to people more broadly, because I think most of you run into it, when you go to some training and the teacher gives an example that is obvious and wonderful in the training, some abstract, standard, and then you go back to your organization and not very You can translate that into...

Your processes, because they turn out to be much more complicated and here this experience, these examples too, that such a group, this original group working on this standard is able to show, use some standard that says in our organization it will work better, people will understand it better, it is invaluable. Sure. All right, that was the foundation. That was the foundation, and on that foundation you built the processes.

Or structures? One and the other. So basically we've already mentioned the word team a couple of times, so maybe let's start with that. It's fascinating, I was just about to ask, because you're the only third instance where I associate the word team. The first is the ring team, the second is the PKP team.

Your team in your team seems to be about something else. More under the ring team. A team in the ring than PKP. Let's plant greetings PKP of course. Tell me a little bit, because these teams, and the concept of teams, and the concept of competence centers in general, were two fascinating concepts for me. Please tell us what this structure looked like in this context, this foundation.

Design Mentorship (18:41.453)
We were looking for a way to effectively develop this established standard, that is, we wanted to transfer competencies to the organization, so the idea of teams was created, which synonymous with the word team are precisely the competence centers that we use.

that is, interdisciplinary groups, as Marta mentioned, made up of different people from the organization. It can be an HR manager, it can be a process expert from some particular line of business, this is a business analyst, this is someone from analytics and these people, all a group of a dozen people unite into a so-called team, that is, a competence center, whose task is in the first place.

qualify in a given competence, that is, become a mentor, and then start developing people outside this team, that is, from the organization in this specific competence. So we built a kind of matrix structure, I think, yeah, because that's going to be called a matrix structure, where teams are that kind of an overlay on the structure of the organization.

that and these teams work across the organization, yes, by sharing knowledge horizontally, so we can more effectively experience mentors and mentees who are in that group that influences, whose team has a huge impact. Okay, one thing, because as far as I know...

Polish reality, for example, it is very often the case that at the level of declarations we get along, we form cross-organizational teams and these are project teams. And in general, and after a month, when it comes to what, it is especially the heads of departments at the B-1, B-2 level, the managers say, look, why are you going there or what are you going to go for, after all, you have work to do, you are going to do some cooperation.

Design Mentorship (20:56.653)
They're not from your department. What did it look like? This is a super important, important point, it is a super important question, because of course we are not some organization, I mean we are unique, but we have similar problems as everyone else, that is, not all topics seem to capture the same and this is obvious, because the job that you have and your supervisor gives you is always more urgent and important than the team.

club, some competencies that you will develop there. And here we come back to the word need. Why has it come and gone with us, because we are firing up more teams, as if there are a lot of ideas, because we have hit the need, the right need. Here Natalia talked about this team solving problem. This competence was very, very, very desirable among everyone in general, and managers, and employees as well.

And this is, I think, the clue to success, that is, the people joining this team, which is not a formal structure, but just such a cross-departmental club of fans of competence, after some, one specific I would say, they realized that firstly I need it, secondly there I have the opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience with people from other areas who...

Which also brings value to me, because we build synergy very nicely, because it turns out that although we have different business lines, some problems are the same, but for example the ideas for solutions are a little different. Someone has already tried something, I can draw from others too. This is what Natalia also said about people in general with various other complementary competences. If such a team includes a statistical analyst, a business analyst, an IT person, a person from HR,

is a given problem, a given topic you can bite from different sides and get answers to different questions there right away. I think that what is also worth emphasizing is this team beyond the standard of teaching a given competence, that is, how to do it in order to teach a person, for example, a problem solving method, which is strictly defined.

Design Mentorship (23:14.381)
it is she who does not work on theoretical examples, but on practical examples. I mean, someone comes up with a specific problem and says, I want to learn this competence at this time. So in the benefits for the manager too, why does he have to send there with this employee, to say I will give you there 30 -40% of the time to participate in this team, that is that he will first have a person who has the competence developed and measured, because as Natalia said...

We can indicate at what level this competence, it will still have a solved problem, as if a cause has been found and solutions invented and brought to an end, so there are a lot of benefits. Here Marta, it will be for the benefit, this benefit, this advantage in terms of time, but if the people who enter, the day comes that we do not want to, we want to do our tasks that we have on the list to do, so...

as it is, who or what motivates this person to go into this whole process, this whole, I don't want to say confusion, but another current, when he has so de facto his own things to do on his list and not quite. I feel good about it on that particular day, and you know, it's a process. Who pays for it, we know, but what motivation he has. Why do these people want to do this?

It's fascinating. Why do you want to do this? This is a very good question. I agree with Martha absolutely that the need is super crucial. In our organization, this is the starting point. Hopefully in many other organizations as well. What as if the structure of the teams is an informal group, that is, each team, as Marta mentions, is an informal group, but the way...

the implementation of this team program, that is, the development of mentoring, is formalized and we have a certain standard of team formation, a standard of team leadership, is formed during such a stage of improvement of this standard and each team has a leader who is responsible for the implementation of a certain agenda, that is, the development of specific people,

Design Mentorship (25:34.649)
first the team, then outside the organization, and above each leader there is a sponsor. So I think the sponsor is also a kind of feature that works very well for us, here too in the team program I guess, as someone says.

If you want a good project, find a good sponsor. Those are the statistics, sir, when it comes to the effectiveness of the project, how do you have a good sponsor. And when we go deeper into the organization, that is, the so-called planning of the year, goals, is it also included at this level, where we have ticked off that we are in this mentoring or in these competence centers, how does it look at this level, where we want to show it precisely in this annual score.

That is, we develop those competencies that are crucial to the organization, so this team program is one of those strategic directions where we see it from the top of the organization. Here Natalia mentioned the sponsor. It is worth adding that this main sponsor is the CEO of the company, who is very supportive of the team and also comes to...

so-called celebrations, because after each completed mentoring process we give a certificate, there is such a mini celebration, where there is an opportunity to tell each other what the other one looked like and the managers, the top managers simply take part in it, as if they also support it very actively. Well, in such an environment, it is worth showing the measure of this. And that's important, but also those priorities, right? I mean...

all cases solved by teams and how people learn this competence, they learn from practical examples and these practical examples they are not as if on the side of the organization, only these are top priorities referring for example to the problem of solving, it is not some problem somewhere out there that is not important to anyone, only for managers it is like one of the key for example, it concerns a key process or...

Design Mentorship (27:46.029)
key priorities, so it's just that everyone is interested in how it goes and when planning whether annual or even such operational current of their activities that interest is alive. I have to ask this sponsor a little about this sponsor, because we have a sponsor, we have teams, I associate it with sports. The sponsor, as I heard, is not a yogurt company.

whether alcohol or any other products. But the mechanism of sponsorship consists in the fact that someone has funds, someone transfers these funds and later, as a rule, accounts for these funds. It's how he calculates, how you measure it, because since you give each other prizes and there are hugs and flowers and things like that, he's on the other side, as I heard, also sure...

a certain philosophy of measuring it all. Tell us a little about this philosophy, how do you approach showing results, the effects of mentoring on numbers or in some other way? Each team has a specific goal. The goal of each team is to develop, develop competencies.

in the specific category for which the team is intended. So developing competence, but what does it mean? Because competence is knowledge, skills and attitude. Our goal, the goal of each team is to develop competencies at such a level that the person after the mentoring process is independent. Yeah, so we want two...

Natalia 2 Mart create 4 such additional people. And then we want these people to teach another 4, and so does this transfer of the organization. Spitting. I don't want to say transinfection, right, because we're still in a post-pandemic time, so...

Design Mentorship (30:00.781)
So please, although sometimes such a comparison suggests itself. So how do we measure it? First of all, starting from the goal, since the goal is to develop these competencies, then we first of all measure how many such people are independent in the application of a given competence in our organization. And this is one of the main meters, yes? Beyond the business aspects, as Marta mentioned, problem solving, that is, for example

measuring how many of these problems have been solved, it is also that aspect of the number of people who have completed a given mentoring process and that is unequivocal in the fact that this person is independent in applying this competence in practice, that is, that the mentor of that person no longer has to go through supervision, because this person confirms precisely with what Marta mentioned

certificate that here Natalia has gained this experience and can now use this competence on her own in practice. The competence is also divided into fragments, that is, we are also able to say what it means that you are a mentor. We have competence on a scale from 0 to 4, where 0 means you are a green freshman, you don't know anything about competence.

Somewhere there the only one is so basic, that is, learning, and a little bit of awareness, and maybe some first meeting. The second level is participation, for example, in specific workshops, on a specific case, taking part as a participant, perhaps doing fragments of tasks a little independently, but this is still incomplete competence. Level 3 is now I...

As an independent person, I can complete the problem solving process for myself. There are specific stages, because it is a dozen steps also very specific. I will stick to this example, because the easiest example will be to give. And the fourth level is not only I am independent and I can do the whole thing for myself, also lead a group in such a process, but I can also teach another person.

Design Mentorship (32:24.429)
And it is also measured how many such workshops you have to go through, what you need to show so that the mentor also evaluates it during such a workshop. At the end of the day, it is a confirmation. Of course, not every person in the organization has to be at this fourth, highest level, because it is also worth adding that here Natalia as a guardian, especially of the concept of the team as a whole, but especially of this team of a specific problem solving,

which we use as an example. Natalia contracts with managers these numbers of people, that is, she comes to the managers and says how many people in your department you would like them to develop this competence and at what level, because maybe basic is enough for someone, and someone we want to become a mentor. I will ask you one thing because our time is inexorable. I will intertwine Paul's question, because since we know what competencies

to develop as it looks, we would like to ask, Paweł thank you for this question, how numerous are these groups in which you work. Is this a certain constant, or do you have any range that goes from, to, what it looks like in terms of abundance?

The team itself, it is so effective that it is effective, between 15 and 30 people depends on what competence it is, because it is simply more difficult to manage a larger group and that is the core of the team, yes? On the other hand, these people can also rotate, that is, they arrive, as if someone already, for example, thanks and says, okay, I'm already finishing working with the team as hers.

participant, employee, I am going to develop this competence further, but I will join, for example, a new person, but what is still attached to the team is the community, that is, the people who are most, closest interested, they most quickly benefit from the products, the results of the work of such a team.

Design Mentorship (34:27.565)
But the core of the team itself, that is, those people who work on standards, who work on the development of measures, who work on the development of the process and the improvement of this mentoring process, that is, between 15 -30 people depending on the competence, on the subject. Now I will ask one more thing, having in the back of my head the Polish reality, which I face every day and which I know sounds fantastic.

And it would be fantastic, maybe it is fantastic, if the sponsor did not practice, was not tempted to practice micro-management, to introduce his vision, different concepts, pivots, changes. Does the sponsor, or what sponsor, have any influence, if any, on the structure, on the operation, on the vision of the work of that particular team?

I think we have to bow to the sponsors, Natalia, because we really have great sponsors who give a lot of free rein, in the sense that they say yes, I outline the direction, I tell what competencies are important for me, and as if they support in the realization of this goal, they also ask for results, because that in itself supports and motivates, if someone is...

interested simply in the results of work. However, how we are going to do it, here there is a lot of freedom, because we start from the assumption that, well, that's why we have experts in the organization to determine it, and not this micro-management mentioned. This is such a non-outsider. I hear it's so fresh, it's new. Yes, it is a bottom-up initiative, but as if from two sides. It's like,

creating a diamond, yes? From two sides you have to put this emphasis in order for this diamond to finally shape it properly, so as if what goes from above, it is definitely this business need and that we develop competencies really as if we cascade into the organization and review it.

Design Mentorship (36:49.273)
at least every month, every two months, the development of this, the transfer of this knowledge. How many of these we already have independent experts in individual departments, and the grassroots initiative is so strong that this motivation is stronger, because when people themselves want, it makes this motivation more lasting. You mentioned the sponsor, but I just want to emphasize that the teams have one main sponsor.

because it is a company-wide program, but they also have key stakeholders who are part of those people with whom we share the results and talk about possible adjustments. That is, for example, bosses or heads of departments of individual cells. Yes.

Yeah, so this one sponsor is at the CEO level, because it's our strategic initiative and it's important to us. In contrast, stakeholders are, as a rule, top managers, heads of business lines, heads of departments. And here is also Paul's question about these different visions, because of course that can also happen. So when planning such a program, it is crucial that...

as if to agree on one direction with this coalition of sponsors. That is, if we agree on the specific need that we are going to develop that is crucial for the organization, what it is to give us, what benefit it is to transfer to us, then we minimize this risk of separate visions. It just doesn't materialize afterwards, so this endorsement at the sponsor level as to what we're developing and in what direction is relevant at the very beginning too.

In order for this program to work, you know, there must be mentors who pass on this knowledge, but you can also see the effect of this work and we know that these are competent people in the right place. And I think a little bit of our conversation here came out, how do you select mentors and those four levels, but precisely, can any person, when they walk that path or are at that level four, become a mentor? Let me turn to Justine's question.

Design Mentorship (38:59.417)
how do you know or did you know that a mentor has sufficient competence to share knowledge and promote good practice in the company. Well, because maybe there will be such people who just want to. From the title. The best option is when they want and can, so I think the most important thing is that they want, so as I think about our mentors that we already have in Raven, they are people who want for sure.

Not all people immediately had this predisposition to learn, but they had some experience in conducting trainings, trainings and we just together in this group created such a homogeneous way of learning from this particular competence. HR also supports us here, I also warmly greet HR.

from our organization that provided us with Train the Trainers training. This is a course that I highly recommend this kind of support from mentors, people who are thinking about becoming mentors in the end. Such delivery, such pills of knowledge from how to teach adults, that is, the flask cycle, how to implement in practice.

So mendosas, who want to and can't yet, we can manage it. We can manage it. It may also be worth adding, because it may be interesting that a propos why exactly such cross-departmental teams and why this way caught on. We are a very large organization, we have a lot of people on board and listen, it is so that there will always be someone in the company...

this is something he can do at an expert level maybe he does not do it today in the workplace, but he has this knowledge somewhere there from other areas, they use it somewhere else, nobody knows about it, this person is passionate about a given topic and you need to catch such a person and start spreading it. It is also this synergy that we enable people to take advantage of their predisposition, competence, talents and spread them to organizations, because in large companies,

Design Mentorship (41:19.323)
Employing several hundred, several thousand people, there is no possibility that there will not be someone inside who is already capable of something at a very high level. And now it is enough to connect these people together, because just as Natalia talked about this setting of standards, first by those primary mentors who first meet and calibrate, and then go out to the organization, it is also the case that someone is super technically in some competence, but for example

He does a little worse in conducting group meetings, and someone, for example, is great at facilitating the workshop and bringing the group to the goal, but he lacks these technical substantive competencies, where, for example, he gets lost at some point and does not know how to get out of it. And by calibrating such people with themselves, you can supplement these competencies, and then they can go on and...

and say, this is one of our common best ways to teach the others. So it is worth looking for, if you work in large companies, it is worth looking inside the organization, because surely there is someone with the competence that you are looking for. And if not, if this is a completely new topic, then you can always gather a group of those eager enthusiasts first, acquire this knowledge from outside, perhaps then from an external mentor.

invite to each other, and then do the same, that is, sow this seed somewhere, and then grow it. Time, unfortunately, chases us relentlessly. As I listen to you, I am already thinking about how to invite you to the next part of this and continue the conversation. But unfortunately, we will have to finish. Just one thing, speaking of time, is one more question we got from Paul, because...

We talk, this model looks very advanced, it all looks very well thought out and very arranged. Well, I guess it's not like this project started last week and today it's hula. It must have taken you a while. Please tell me how much, whether it is months or years, if the company was going for something like that, if it should think about the perspective, let's say it is a company of your size.

Design Mentorship (43:41.333)
2020 February, that is, just before the pandemic, yes, in March the pandemic occurred, then we launched the first two teams. And, today we have a few more teams, also in the plans we are going to launch more. And finally, this program will more or less close in such six, eight teams, most likely.

This dimension of time is very important, because quite often people ask how much time mentoring takes. Well, it depends on the individual, because mentoring is dedicated to an individual person, but statistically, as a person who wants to learn, acquire competencies, already knows something, then at least 3 months for that one person this mentor must be aware that we need to sacrifice.

So the process of this development is long lasting, while very effective. In the end, it turns out that the second one, which we beat in the mentoring process, is much more effective at the very end, because this person can actually use this competence in practice. If you ask about several such time dimensions, well that's for sure...

February 2020 was the official start of this program. The development of this competence takes about 3 months if one already knows how, but sometimes, if one is at such a very basic level, it takes even a year to develop this competence. Well, as Marta mentioned, a dozen people to a few hundred, a few dozen people, sorry, in a team, affects a few hundred.

People from the organization, right? From one team, as I recently checked here, quite recently at a conference performance, sixteen people sailed to two hundred and fifty people from the organization. Here is the scale effect after these three years. Beautiful result.

Design Mentorship (45:54.155)
However, time definitely needs to be invested, because Natalia talked about individual competence, that it is from 3 months to a year, depending on this, but the program itself, listen, because it is also so that it did not come out of a vacuum. Before we launched this program, this was also the foundation for this program, it took a while for people to find out. The first two teams, one we closed, because it turned out that the need was not met, the second was successful.

But it took about a year, a year and a half, before these standards seemed to take shape. However, the next team we opened was already three months ago. So very quickly from the moment they took off, and they were already ready to deliver some value. But listening to you, I think it's worth it. Worth it, it's worth it. Invest your time in the beginning. We will not gloat that this is short. I would stress it twice. This is an investment.

Yes, this is an investment and she really feels. To paraphrase the classics, not only is it worth it, but it probably even pays off. Yeah, exactly. Seeing and hearing this number and I think that what I also get out of this conversation for myself is how much value we have in the middle of the company and how much value do the people we have inside and what knowledge and energy they can also share among themselves. And this crossing of people is not just...

sharing is just connecting. You have to approach it wisely. I noticed one thing. Finally, I will share one thing, because literally on Wednesday, that is, before him in the free war, I send an email to the management board and to the managers of our company about one KSUS, the other team that deals with analytical work, that is, I deliver, we want analytical competence not only in specialists, but in every person in business.

And somewhere up there the managers thought, well, as if it were to develop some specific thing there, after which the team people made such a case, of course I can't give you the details, because it's like an internal know-how, but they made such a case, analytical and even using an additional tool, that well the slippers from the shoes fall out, because five have just been collected people on a specific topic, each with a different competence and created

Design Mentorship (48:18.443)
Such a great report that no one expected it to be so. And it turned out that people can, they only need a little space to create such solutions on their own. It was amazing, too. So it really pays off this investment, also in business terms. That our conversation, which we will also share soon, will also be listened to by managers, so that these slippers actually fall not only in your company, but in others.

And he saw that those people, what organizations saw, that you could do it, that you could connect people, but also measure it first and foremost and do it with your head, so I'm very happy. Yes, Message to Managers, give people time, space, opportunities and direction and you don't really expect what the results will be. It's just amazing and it can't be planned.

And here let's put a period after that sentence, but let that dot be the opening thinking of the people who listen to it. So thank you so much for this conversation. I pull out a lot for myself. I think Wojtek that you too, but so do the people who listen to our conversation. So thank you Marta, thank you Natalia for sharing this I don't know or secret knowledge, but very valuable, which I hope will be beneficial.

and valuable to individuals. Thank you and I thank Natali, who is such a fighter, who convinced us of these team concepts and here she knocked, knocked on different doors and the results are amazing. And I thank all the enthusiasts of this idea, because thanks to this we can do it. Congratulations. Thank you. Hi. Hi.

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