| FAQ

Every person participating in the mentor program is matched strategically with a fellow employee based on their work orientation alignment. Work orientation is how you view your work. Some people are very motivated by work/life balance (job orientation), some people are very motivated by professional advancement and skill development (career orientation), and some people are very motivated by their personal and professional missions being in alignment (calling orientation). There is not a right or wrong work orientation and work orientation is fluid, so unlike a personality assessment which is pretty much the same throughout your life, work orientation can change based on what is happening to you both personally and professionally. Part of Ambition In Motion’s background is in studying work orientation and its effect on the likelihood of a mentor relationship lasting 6 months and being considered both productive and quality. Before implementing work orientation, Ambition In Motion previously matched people together based on what the organization requested (e.g. match the marketing department with the engineering team, or match new hires with current employees that have availability, or match VP’s with junior VP’s, etc.). Ambition In Motion observed that only 18% of those mentor relationships lasted 6 months and were considered both productive and quality among both matched participants. After matching participants together based on aligned work orientation, that number increased to 72%. Ambition In Motion recognizes that they haven’t perfected the mentorship matching process, but they have identified some research that appears to be making improvements in the way people are matched together for mentor relationships.

The unique part about matching participants together for mentor relationships via work orientation is that these results occurred across departments and backgrounds. This means that if your work orientation is in alignment, your likelihood of having a successful mentor relationship, even if your background is not similar to the person that you are matched with, is just as likely as it would be had you been matched with somebody with a similar background.

Ambition In Motion has also observed similar positive outcomes from mentor relationships across ages. Essentially, Ambition In Motion has seen people with 20+ years experience gain insights from people that have less than 5 years of experience.

Ambition In Motion hypothesizes the reason for this is that people try to put themselves in the position of the other person they are mentoring when offering advice or sharing their perspective. If their work orientation is not in alignment, that person’s perspective will often not resonate with their paired mentor because they view work differently and therefore have a different motivation around how to achieve success at work.

The assessments allow us to collect feedback on the effectiveness of the mentor program and to observe if this is something we want to continue in the future. Again, your responses are completely anonymous so please be honest when responding. Ambition In Motion provides a report on the effectiveness of the mentor program at the end of 6 months.

The responses are anonymous because in order for us to effectively and accurately measure change and improvements from the mentor program, you need to feel comfortable with answering honestly. If you feel compelled to answer in a certain way, we won’t be able to know if this program is helping our culture.

The mentors are fellow employees at the company that are interested in participating. Your mentor could be somebody in your department or outside of your department, somebody 20+ years older/younger than you or your age, or somebody that is based in your office or in a different office. Your mentor is matched with you based on similar work orientation.