David Miron is one of the executive members of McBer and Company in Boston and holds a position of Vice-President while David McClelland is the chairman and founder of the same company, but works at Harvard University as a Psychology Professor. They both authored “The Impact of Achievement Motivation Training on Small Business”. In this, Miron and McClelland (1979) argued that entrepreneurial training is essential in motivating businessmen in order to facilitate them in achieving their goals and improving their level of performance. Further, Miron and McClelland (1979) claimed, “businesses managed by the trained men grew faster by a number of indicators, such as sales and number of employees, than did businesses managed by untrained men” (p. 13).
Miron and McClelland (1979) used an achievement motivation-training program for seven years to establish the impact on training on businessmen in Andhra Pradesh. Findings indicated that in Andhra Pradesh, business employment is high, but they did not obtain reliable figures on their research. As a result, further attempts were made to train Washington, D.C businessmen and their performance monitored for six months. Findings from this attempt indicated that business performance of the trained businessmen improved significantly over the years in comparison to untrained men.
The purpose of this paper is to reaffirm the need for having a single person being involved in the mentor training in order to improve individual level performance, as well as the overall performance of the organization.
Problem Statement
Peer mentoring is an effective means of building intellectual capital, encouraging learning and sharing knowledge (Bryany, & Terborg, 2008, p. 1). Further, peer mentors provide psychological and job related support. These are essential in motivating individuals to improve their individual level performance. Unfortunately, most individuals involved in business activities do not have an access to the services of peer mentor trainers. This has limited the chances of such individuals to improve on their individual level performance, as well as the whole performance of the organization. Further, businessmen do not have close relationships with experienced business experts, which limit the success of peer mentoring of such individuals. As such, transfer of skills, knowledge, and experience to new businessmen does not take place effectively. Consequently, motivation level is low and individual level performance is below the expectations. In addition, presence of so many peer mentors with different ideologies compromises the success of the strategy of peer mentoring since businessmen to be trained are left at a confused state of what they should do or whom to believe. This necessitates the need for a single peer mentor.
Method Used
The method used in evaluating the impact of peer mentor training is illustrated by Bryant and Terborg (2008, p. 14). In this method, participants are obtained from different firms and areas, which include software design engineers, software testers, support professionals, usability engineers, and program managers. These jobs are regarded as knowledge-intensive and they are expected to earn considerable benefits from peer mentoring. A quasi-experimental design for the field-based was used with a control group. Repeated measures were adopted and surveys made in weekly basis. The sample population was comprised of 502 participants and they were engaged in research for 3 months.
Figure 1: Business performance as a result of training
Figure 1 represents a tabulation of the impact of training on business performance level of an organization. The figures reported on the table are based on monthly analysis for the study.
Figure 2: Training inputs for peer mentor training
However, peer mentor training process incurs some additional costs. These costs are related to the funding of the program and reduction of the working time of businessmen and employees. This is illustrated in figure 2 as the training inputs, which are involved in the overall process of peer mentor training. Illustration of the training inputs in figure 2 is essential in order to perform an effective cost benefit analysis of the training process. Nevertheless, such training is associated with earning considerable benefits to individuals and organizations.
Analysis
As illustrated in figure 1, peer mentor training results in an improvement in the overall productivity of an organization. This was obtained irrespective of participants being from companies, which were underperforming. Income and sales improvement occurred according to the expectations, but such changes were not very significant. Employees’ median number did not change. Further, businessmen motivation improved as they received peer mentor training during the study. There was a direct linkage between employee motivation improvement and profitability improvement. This indicates that peer mentor training results in an improvement in the motivational level of employees, as well as the improvement level of the organization performance in terms of profitability.
Cost benefit analysis of the peer mentor training indicates that such training is cost effective and results in attainment of considerable benefits to trainees, as well as organizations. Such benefits include higher motivational levels, contribution towards business and organization growth and improvement in the performance level of organizations.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Bryant and Terborg (2008) article “Impact of Peer Mentor Training on Creating and Sharing Organizational Knowledge”, investigates the impact of psychology peer mentorship in terms of relationships creations, which contribute towards building intellectual capital, encourage learning, and sharing knowledge.
Peer mentorship training is one effective measure, which has the ability of improving employees’ mentorship skills, behavior and competence skills, and motivating them to take chance of all opportunities, which emerge in the business environment. Peer mentor training also contributes towards sharing of knowledge and improving individual level performance, as well as the overall performance of an organization.
Organizations have to focus on allocating adequate resources for peer mentor training in order to improve business skills of employees. Businessmen also need to participate effectively in peer mentor training in order to develop essential skills, which will warrant them to conduct and run their business activities in an effective manner, as well as improve on their performance level. As firms implement peer mentor training program, they contribute significantly in helping peer mentors to share knowledge in an effective and efficient manner. In addition, peer mentor training should be adopted by organizations, which are focused at creating competitive advantages for their business environments.
Organization peer mentoring program contributes towards
Improving individual business skills, competency skills, and behavioral skills,
Motivating an individual to engage in business and improve on individual level performance, and
Improves the overall performance of an organization and creates a competitive advantage.
The Executive Board of Junior Chamber of Commerce should embrace the peer mentor-training program. This program will contribute towards attainment of positive benefits to the organization and improvement of motivation level and performance of businessmen.
References
Bryant, S, & Terborg, J. (2008). “Impact of Peer Mentor Training on Creating and Sharing
Organizational Knowledge”, Journal of Managerial Issues, Vol. 20, No. 1. Pp: 11-29.
Miron, D, & McClelland, D. (1979). “The Impact of Achievement Motivation Training on
Small Business”, Summer, Vol. 21, No. 4.
