UNDERSTAND THE ENVIRONMENT

YOU ARE WORKING IN

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Good knowledge of the social problem you address

Understand the environment you are working in

Clear purpose

Strong public narrative

Good governance

Collective leadership

Organisational structure for effectiveness and agility

Marketing strategy and communication plan

Human Resources

Financial sustainability planning

Financial management & analysis

Operational processes, systems and infrastructure

Create dynamic partnerships

Quality of mentoring-to-work

Social impact

TOOLKIT

Introduction

UNDERSTAND THE ENVIRONMENT YOU ARE WORKING IN

Your mentoring-to-work initiative is not an island. You are part of a larger, external environment with which you will interact continuously. The features of the environment – the landscape – might change very fast. Currently, several authors speak about a VUCA world: an environment that is volatile, uncertain, complex and adaptive (Wheatley, 2017). This is the context within which (new) mentoring-to-work initiatives have to work in order to fulfill their purpose. We see that only a few of the mentoring initiatives that we learned about survived in the long run. Keeping an eye on the environment around your mentoring initiative(s) is crucial in order to navigate towards a successful future. An evidence-based study within the transnational ESF-project MeMoRe shows that the following elements may have a profound impact on the design and impact of the mentoring initiative: political context, funding sources of the initiative, social context (e.g. volunteering culture), labour market rules and needs (Purkayastha & De Cuyper, 2019).

We highlight another, equally significant element: the ‘ internal environment’. This highlights the importance of knowing yourself. This includes the historical evolution of your mentoring initiative and/or the organisation the mentoring initiative is embedded in and how this influences the challenges of shifting the mentoring initiative from a project mindset to a social entrepreneurial mindset (Earl, Carden & Smutylo, 2004). The shift might be uncomfortable for some organisations or individuals in organisations (Abercrombie, Boswell & Thomassoo, 2018). It can cause fears and trigger past trauma with management, leaders, employees, and other relevant actors, even

stakeholders that are based in historical evolutions (Bailleur, 2016). These traumas and fears might hinder the evolution towards a social entrepreneurial mindset. We often forget the influence of these elements in organisational change processes. There is a growing preference to see organisations less as machines and more as living systems. When broken, machines can be fixed. A living system, instead, needs to be healed when wounded (Bailleur, 2016).

However, most organisations don’t consider these issues at all. When everything in the organisation goes well, all is fine and the traumas and triggers stay under the surface. When things go bad (e.g. you do not have the impact you want to have, there is a lack of efficiency and effectivity in how you organize yourself, …) or when an organisation is challenged to sail in unknown waters (e.g. making a shift towards a more entrepreneurial approach), these issues often arise. We argue that it is good to know what these challenges are and start to begin working on them in the good times. Abercrombie, Boswell & Thomassoo (2018) call this the zone of uncomfortable debate. It includes having a conversation that addresses unquestioned assumptions, beliefs, elephants in the room, suppressed conflicts, major gaps in knowledge. This sort of attention for the ‘ internal environment’ and the preparedness to make a shift towards an entrepreneurial mindset has not been explored in any documentation on mentoring-to-work initiatives.

But first things first. In this section, we focus on how to identify the features of the external environment of your mentoring programme.

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Good knowledge of the social problem you address

Understand the environment you are working in

Clear purpose

Strong public narrative

Good governance

Collective leadership

Organisational structure for effectiveness and agility

Marketing strategy and communication plan

Human Resources

Financial sustainability planning

Financial management & analysis

Operational processes, systems and infrastructure

Create dynamic partnerships

Quality of mentoring-to-work

Social impact

TOOLKIT

Introduction

External environment

Analysing and monitoring the external environment and the social problem you address builds a strong foundation for being economically sustainable. It ensures that you design your mentoring-to-work initiative in such a way that it makes a difference and has social and societal impact (Abercrombie, Boswell & Thomassoo, 2018). This analysis can only be done well if it is shared with other relevant actors in the environment you work in. When addressing complex social problems – what mentoring-to-work initiatives for refugees and newcomers are – it is strongly recommended that you involve a broad enough range of stakeholders that are part of your ecosystem and who might influence your social impact. If the analysis of the environment is shared, it might not only generate a connection between your initiative and the other actors. It might also generate resources to support your mentoring initiative to make it sustainable.

Start with an extensive analysis of the external environment by using a tool such as the DESTEP analysis, and repeat this exercise (a shorter version, if need be) regularly. This can form part of an important and often-repeated loop of learning and designing your mentoring initiative at the processual and organisational level. Doing so will make it possible to navigate better and find the right answers at the right moment. The DESTEP analysis is one method to scan your environment, it is widely known and easy to use. We also provide a tool for conducting an ecosystem analysis, so you can make a more informed decision regarding which stakeholders you want or need to involve in your analysis. It might be relevant to first do the analysis of the external environment with the people working for the mentoring initiative (esp. including the ‘field workers’ as the coaches of the mentors and the mentees. They have a lot of field knowledge). That way

you have a first look – from within the organisation – of the external environment. Then you can make an ecosystem analysis to know which stakeholders to involve in the external environment analysis in order to get a broader view of the opportunities and challenges in the external environment. Doing this will also give you information on how well your ‘environmental sensors’ work and if your own external environmental analysis reflects the environment that your stakeholders see. By including your stakeholders in this phase, you also raise awareness among them about your existence, your intention to evolve and to involve them in this evolution. This, in turn, generates a new level of cooperation. We talk more on the issue of cooperation and partnerships in mentoring initiatives when we address the creation of dynamic partnerships and cooperation.

An analysis of the external environment and of the existing ecosystem in this environment can also inform you about the relevance of your mentoring initiative and opportunities for further development. The results might shed light on whether mentoring to work is the best way to support people at a distance from the labour market (e.g. people with a migrant background/refugees) find their way to employment. MeMoGa mentoring project, which is part of the MeMoRe project, explains the process and outcome of their environmental analysis. Below is an excerpt from a communication in early 2018:

“We’ve finished our visits of mentoring projects and are still conducting an evaluation of best practices according to the collected material. We´ve finished our research about the right area/district where we will have our pilot phase that will start in August. We´ve visited six districts and had very interesting meetings with local integration coordinators, coordinators of the volunteers, volunteers working

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Good knowledge of the social problem you address

Understand the environment you are working in

Clear purpose

Strong public narrative

Good governance

Collective leadership

Organisational structure for effectiveness and agility

Marketing strategy and communication plan

Human Resources

Financial sustainability planning

Financial management & analysis

Operational processes, systems and infrastructure

Create dynamic partnerships

Quality of mentoring-to-work

Social impact

TOOLKIT

Introduction

with refugees, migrant organisations and welfare organisations. We´ve learned a lot about the labour market integration of refugees. We´ve explored that the work of volunteers is very different in each region in terms of numbers, motivation and issues. Their connection to local networks is sometimes weaker or stronger and their motivation differs between the regions. Since the number of new coming migrants is decreasing, the number of activists is decreasing too. Finding new volunteers who can work with us as mentors in the mentoring process is the main challenge before starting the pilot phase.”

A few months later:

“In times of the so called ‘migration crisis’, motivation and engagement has decreased. Volunteers who wanted to support the first needs of refugees did not always get the support they needed, and often they retreated disappointed. We also noticed that since the start of our project the environment has become more hostile towards refugees. The media is dominated by a political discourse that is questioning if migration in general is wanted and needed. Our main questions for now are: how can we find and motivate volunteers to support refugees? What can we offer to attract volunteers to become mentors? How can we keep them in the project? What can we offer mentors to motivate and engage them?”

An external environmental analysis is also used when organisations want to scale up. Several mentoring to work in initiatives in Europe are recently scaling up within their countries (e.g. DUO for a JOB, Joblinge, Mittliv, Kodiko) and/or have plans to upscale abroad (e.g. DUO for a JOB). The new areas they work in are chosen after an in-depth analysis of the environment and what the social challenge they want to address looks like in that area. Through this, they can establish whether there

is enough potential to establish a new mentoring to work division in that area, one that can be economically sustainable and create a social impact down the line.

An analysis of the internal environment

Also an understanding of the inner context is necessary: an understanding of who we are in this moment, how we function, what our impact is. This self-reflection exercise is not always comfortable (Abercrombie, Boswell & Thomassoo, 2018). An effective internal assessment includes input from all viewpoints in the organisation. Maybe not all employees, but all levels of employees. Your first step should be to gather input from throughout the organisation on the issues or challenges associated with optimizing the organisation, i.e., the issues that keep the organisation spinning its wheels.

An important measure in an internal analysis is to determine your organisation’s level of strength and competency. A strong organisation uses updated technology systems and equipment to accomplish its work. Its financial goals are being met and strategic planning objectives are being accomplished. An organisation with strong competency also has a solid brand identity built upon expertise, capabilities and resources within the organisation. A weak organisation is one that uses outdated technology, is lacking in expertise or working with deficient assets. A well-orchestrated internal analysis should bring to light any such organisational weaknesses that exist – areas in need of improvement and objectives that are not being realized. Once your analysis has revealed your deficiencies, you can revise your strategic plan to address and overcome failed objectives and improve or eliminate weaknesses. Conducting an internal analysis often incorporates measures that provide useful information about your organisation’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

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A destep analysis - what are the features of the external environment of your mentoring programme?

Use the DESTEP method to analyse the external environment together with your team and/or stakeholders. DESTEP stands for: Demographical, Ecological, Social, Technological, Economical, and Political features of the environment. In this context it might be relevant to add Education as an important societal field which might influence your mentoring-to-work initiative. It is useful to involve external stakeholders as well, as they can bring a new perspective and help identify your blind spots.

Formulate the features of the environment for all these elements. You can provide for each element a large paper on the wall and ask each participant to write down for each dimension everything they think of on post-its. After that you ask them to stick the post-its on the white papers on the wall. While doing this, you can already start clustering. When you have done this you can have a conversation on these elements using the guiding questions.

Good knowledge of the social problem you address

Understand the environment you are working in

Clear purpose

Strong public narrative

Good governance

Collective leadership

Organisational structure for effectiveness and agility

Marketing strategy and communication plan

Human Resources

Financial sustainability planning

Financial management & analysis

Operational processes, systems and infrastructure

Create dynamic partnerships

Quality of mentoring-to-work

Social impact

TOOLKIT

Introduction

Demographical:

Ecological:

Social:

Technological:

Economical:

Political:

Educational:

HOW TO TOOLBOX

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Guiding questions for a conversation:

• What are the 5 most important opportunities in the environment for your mentoring initiative?

• What are the 5 most important threats in the environment for your mentoring initiative?

• What are the necessary steps you could take to build on the opportunities? What could be gained by building on the opportunities?

• What are the necessary steps you could take to deal with or avoid the threats, or at least minimise their impact?

An ecosystem analysis /3

In the context of the labour market integration of people of migrant origin and specifically refugees a lot of actors are involved: local public employment agencies, public services for social welfare, representatives of the public services of the city, volunteers etc. Mentoring initiatives often address a social challenge that is not addressed enough by the traditional actors involved in labour market integration. This might challenge the way of working of these actors but also help them open up to new approaches in dealing with the integration of newcomers and refugees into the labour market.

That is why it is important to make an analysis of the ecosystem your mentoring-to-work initiative is part of. A business ecosystem is a dynamic structure of interconnected organisations that depend on each other for mutual survival. Cooperation rather than competition is the dominant mindset. A well-functioning ecosystem enables and encourages diverse participants to interact and co-create in increasingly effective ways.

The participants of an ecosystem share the same interests and purpose. Individually, each organisation’s

capability set is narrow while collectively the capability set becomes broader and the social impact that can be realized will be much higher. A value network analysis is often used as a methodology for understanding, using, visualizing, optimizing internal and external value networks and complex economic ecosystems (Peppard & Rylander, 2006; Biem & Caswell, 2008).

The methods include visualizing sets of relationships from a dynamic whole systems perspective. Robust network analysis approaches are used for understanding value conversion of financial and non-financial assets, such as intellectual capital, into other forms of value.

1. Identify roles List at least 15 roles played in your organisation’s ecosystem. Focus on types or roles.

2. Get specific Write down some specific examples of each role to jog your thinking when you return to the map in the future.

Good knowledge of the social problem you address

Understand the environment you are working in

Clear purpose

Strong public narrative

Good governance

Collective leadership

Organisational structure for effectiveness and agility

Marketing strategy and communication plan

Human Resources

Financial sustainability planning

Financial management & analysis

Operational processes, systems and infrastructure

Create dynamic partnerships

Quality of mentoring-to-work

Social impact

TOOLKIT

Introduction

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3. Begin your ecosystem map by drawing roles

Start by drawing one circle for each role (not for each specific entity) on your map. Make sure there’s enough room between them. You may wish to space those that you believe have more interactions closer together. You can also use post-its so you can easily move them around, relative to the space you want to leave between them.

4. Tell the story

Tell the story of how roles interact in the ecosystem. Start with the customer. Who does the customer go to for service? What do they request? Then what happens? How are the requests fulfilled? Who’s involved? As you tell the story, draw arrows between entities to show the flow of transactions through the ecosystem. Since you’re starting with the customer, the first line should travel from the customer to another entity. Remember to label lines with their deliverables.

5. Analyse your ecosystem

Look at your ecosystem map and analyse what you see. If you get stuck, try these questions:(a) How much reciprocity is there between roles? Are some roles giving much more than receiving? Are others receiving more than they’re giving?(b) Do specific roles provide resources, work, and/or sustenance for others in the ecosystem? How dependent is your company on these roles? How stable are the companies that fill these roles?(c) What part does your company play in the ecosystem? Does it provide a low-cost, commodity service that can easily be replaced by someone else? Does it fight for limited resources with many other companies? Does it set the pace for other entities?

6. Use your ecosystem map

Your ecosystem map can be helpful for orienting new employees to your mentoring-to-work initiative, demonstrating the value of a potential partnership to others in your mentoring-to-work initiative or ecosystem, giving you a quick view of the environment you need to monitor for disruptive changes and opportunities.

Good knowledge of the social problem you address

Understand the environment you are working in

Clear purpose

Strong public narrative

Good governance

Collective leadership

Organisational structure for effectiveness and agility

Marketing strategy and communication plan

Human Resources

Financial sustainability planning

Financial management & analysis

Operational processes, systems and infrastructure

Create dynamic partnerships

Quality of mentoring-to-work

Social impact

TOOLKIT

Introduction

31

Good knowledge of the social problem you address

Understand the environment you are working in

Clear purpose

Strong public narrative

Good governance

Collective leadership

Organisational structure for effectiveness and agility

Marketing strategy and communication plan

Human Resources

Financial sustainability planning

Financial management & analysis

Operational processes, systems and infrastructure

Create dynamic partnerships

Quality of mentoring-to-work

Social impact

TOOLKIT

Introduction

SWOT analysis for the analysis of your internal environment /4

A SWOT analysis is a common used tool, and proven to be powerful and effective. It helps you understand what your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are. Inspired by Cayenne Apps we use an advanced version, so you also learn how these elements interact with each other and which of them have the biggest impact on your organisation.

1. Make an inventory of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

You don’t have to discuss this with the others. Everyone can add what he or she wants to add, without judgments or analysis of whether one feature is more important than another.

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS

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Good knowledge of the social problem you address

Understand the environment you are working in

Clear purpose

Strong public narrative

Good governance

Collective leadership

Organisational structure for effectiveness and agility

Marketing strategy and communication plan

Human Resources

Financial sustainability planning

Financial management & analysis

Operational processes, systems and infrastructure

Create dynamic partnerships

Quality of mentoring-to-work

Social impact

TOOLKIT

Introduction

2. Ask what are the most important features for each participant When you have listed all the features in the table, you select which features are the most important. You can do that by asking the individual participants to give their vote to the three most important features. After you have done that, you will be able to see what the group finds is important and impactful.

3. What are the most important features for the group?

In the next step you work with these most important features and ask people to rank them. You can do this by using a ranking system, where people receive each 100 points to hand out. After ranking the most important features you will see what strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats are perceived as more important or influential than others.

4. What is the relationship between the features you identified as most important

In the last step you define the relationships between the features. For example, you can ask yourself whether a particular strength allows you to use a particular opportunity or whether it allows you to overcome a particular threat. This exercise will help you also to define a strategy for the company. A strategy for the company very often can be extrapolated from the relationships between the elements of the SWOT.

5. Define a strategy for the company

Key elements of our strategy are:

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Good knowledge of the social problem you address

Understand the environment you are working in

Clear purpose

Strong public narrative

Good governance

Collective leadership

Organisational structure for effectiveness and agility

Marketing strategy and communication plan

Human Resources

Financial sustainability planning

Financial management & analysis

Operational processes, systems and infrastructure

Create dynamic partnerships

Quality of mentoring-to-work

Social impact

TOOLKIT

Introduction

Stepping stones for wiser action

What are the key learnings?

What are the actions to take?

Who is responsible?

What is the deadline for the first step?

Who will notice the difference?

How will we notice and evaluate the difference?

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Good knowledge of the social problem you address

Understand the environment you are working in

Clear purpose

Strong public narrative

Good governance

Collective leadership

Organisational structure for effectiveness and agility

Marketing strategy and communication plan

Human Resources

Financial sustainability planning

Financial management & analysis

Operational processes, systems and infrastructure

Create dynamic partnerships

Quality of mentoring-to-work

Social impact

TOOLKIT

Introduction

REFERENCES

Literature

• Abercrombie, Boswell & Thomassoo (2018). Thinking big. How to use theory of change for systems change. www.thinknpc.org/resource-hub/thinking-big-how-to-use-theory-of-change-for-systems-change/

• Bailleur, Ph. (2016). Trauma in organisaties. Herkennen, aanpakken, voorkomen. Lannoo Campus: Tielt. Biem, A. & Caswell, N. (2008). A Value Network Model for Strategic Analysis. Hawaian International Conference on System Science.

• Earl, S., Carden, F., Smutylo, T. & Patton, M. (2004). Outcome Mapping: Building Learning and Reflection into Development Programs.

• Purkayastha, D. & Decuyper, P. (2019). Best practices and critical success factors in mentoring to work for refugees and migrants: an evidence-based study. Leuven: HIVA KU Leuven.

• Peppard, J., & Rylander, A. (2006). From value chain to value network:: Insights for mobile operators. European Management Journal, 24, 2, 128-141.

• Wheatley, M. J. (2017). Who de we choose to be? Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Websites

• betterevaluation.org/en/theme/organizational_performance

• www.cayenneapps.com/blog/2016/07/13/seven-reasons-to-use-swot-in-business/

• partneringresources.com/wp-content/uploads/Tool-Ecosystem-Mapping-Short-Format.pdf

• www.professionalgrowthsystems.com/library-articles/importance-internal-assessment/

• smallbusiness.chron.com/internal-analysis-important-80513.html

• thesystemsthinker.com/acting-and-thinking-systematically

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Good knowledge of the social problem you address

Understand the environment you are working in

Clear purpose

Strong public narrative

Good governance

Collective leadership

Organisational structure for effectiveness and agility

Marketing strategy and communication plan

Human Resources

Financial sustainability planning

Financial management & analysis

Operational processes, systems and infrastructure

Create dynamic partnerships

Quality of mentoring-to-work

Social impact

TOOLKIT

Introduction

• www.duoforajob.be

• www.joblinge.de

• www.kodiko.fr