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Prior to starting Mento, I worked at Jigsaw, an Alphabet incubator developing tools to help activists, dissidents, and journalists be safer online in the world’s most repressive countries. I quickly found myself promoted to the C-Suite. It was equal parts exciting and frightening.  I suddenly found myself in a leadership role having no clue what leadership even meant -- I’d never so much as been a manager before. I had questions! But had no idea who to ask.

Like so many other women and underrepresented groups working in tech, I never felt that I had a tried and true mentor that I could turn to for advice and support. My new manager at the time had just gotten an executive coach. I had no idea what that was, but I asked for one, and it completely changed my career and my life. Through my network, I was able to find an incredible coach who specialized in working with female founders and executives. She was incredibly relatable on a personal level and professional level -- she had started businesses and held roles. I felt we’d be friends in real life.

Working with a coach who had been an operator and executive meant she had been through similar challenges before. She was able to coach me on not only leveling up into my new leadership and management role, but also improve my relationship with my work, faster. It expanded my perspective, pushed me to think differently, and felt confident, happier, and less stressed.She transformed my career -- and my life.

I felt I had discovered the secret power of coaching and I wanted everyone to have access to this kind of coaching-mentorship relationship, too. I discovered that this type of coach-mentor relationship is hard to find, so we set out to create it ourselves at Mento.

We’re on a mission to help everyone live healthier and happier lives personally and professionally.

In pursuit of our mission, we’ve developed a new approach to coaching informed by my experience with my coach-mentor and the help of organizational psychologists, industry leading experts and ICF certified coaches. We call it the 80/20 rule, utilizing 80% traditional coaching practices and 20% hands on advisory or mentorship.


When we think of coaching, we adapt Tim Galway’s “inner game approach” which can be summarized as a simple formula: 

Let’s break that down with the help of our Head of Coaching, Tara Padua.

“Performance is the desired outcome you’re hoping to achieve - developing a new skill, securing a promotion or raising your next round of funding, to name a few. To drive that outcome, you need to grow your potential and reduce your interference. Potential can be thought of as your natural strengths and current capabilities. Interference is really your 

, or your mindset, beliefs and emotions that may inhibit your ability to reach your potential.”

A coach will work with you to help increase your potential and reduce interference so that you can feel and perform at your best, and reach your desired outcomes. In practice, coaches help increase potential by empowering you to better understand your current capabilities and lean into your natural strengths, some of which you might not know you have. They will help you reduce internal interference by asking thoughtful questions and serving as a neutral, third-party sounding board, helping you to identify areas internally that interfere with your ability to reach your potential. Through this work, you’ll develop your self-awareness and an internal feedback loop that ultimately drives you to feel and perform better.

To facilitate our unique 80/20 approach to coaching, we hire exceptional operators who work at today’s top companies. This enables us to pair our members with a coach who knows their role and the challenges associated with it, empowering them with hands-on guidance to help actively problem solve our member’s most difficult challenges, because our coaches have been through them before. Mento coaches can help our members grow their potential, faster, leading to better performance.

This 80/20 approach empowers our members to see a 2x increase in performance on average.

Our approach to the 80/20 rule can be visualized using a 2x2 measuring experience and commitment. Experience considers how much experience someone has and their ability to hit their goals. Commitment considers someone’s commitment and motivation to pursue their goals.

We ask thoughtful questions to assess where our members are on their journey, then apply the 80/20 rule to use the appropriate coaching practice to best support them, meeting them where they are so that we can help them get to where they want to go, faster.

We practice advisory coaching. We help members to develop self-awareness around the skills that they need to develop, and help them understand the “why” behind their lack of commitment by enabling them to think differently and sharing back what we’re hearing. When members are lacking the experience they need to succeed, Mento coaches can lean on their previous expertise as top operators to hands-on problem solve with their members, growing their skills and experience faster by learning and collaborating with experts.

We practice directive coaching. Whether someone is new to a role or lacking clarity in their responsibilities, there are many reasons why someone may be low commitment even though they have the experience and skill to hit their goals. Here we focus on question asking to uncover the core “why” behind their lack of commitment, ultimately addressing their mindset to help motivate and grow their commitment so that they can be successful.

We practice mentorship coaching. In this scenario we find that members are excited and motivated but lacking the experience to succeed. Here we will leverage the member’s enthusiasm and the expertise of our coaches to advise and hands-on problem solve, helping our members upskill and grow their skills and experience faster.

We practice motivational coaching. We find that our members are motivated and have the experience and skills to succeed. Here we lean into more pure coaching, where we’re leveraging the member’s high motivation and experience to help get them where they’re trying to go, faster.

By adapting our coaching and mentorship approach to each individual member, we’re able to meet them where they are empowering them to have greater impact in their roles, feel the immediate benefits of coaching, and feel better while doing it. Our approach might change during a session depending on the topic being discussed or over the longer term. Every coaching journey is unique and highly personalized.

The importance of Mento’s 80/20 Methodology in today’s world of work

The world of work has evolved, and for many of us, no two days are the same. 

, and the nature of our roles are constantly shifting. Many of us are working in  remote or hybrid settings, and the learning and development we might have gleaned by being in the office around other people isn’t quite there. A coach has never been more important to helping people feel and perform their best at work, and have the impact (and fulfillment!) we need to be successful.

There are few tools that can empower us like a coach can!

Mento’s coaches help support individuals, teams, and companies during highs, lows and everything in-between with a deep and profound understanding not only of the work you do, but who you are as a person. They ensure that the work you’re doing is aligned with purpose and meaning, and they’ll challenge you while helping you stay the course. What started as one individual transformation with my coach Jamie nearly a decade ago has now morphed into a modern methodology of coaching that’s designed for all of us, the ambitious and hard-working professionals who want to make as big of an impact as we want to be fulfilled.


Get your team the support they need to thrive with a Mento coach today. 

How Does Mento’s 80/20 Methodology of Coaching and Mentorship Work?

Insights exploring human potential and unlocking growth.

Articles for business & people leaders

In today's rapidly evolving workplace, employee development has become table stakes for organizations and their employees.

LinkedIn’s 2022 Global Talent Trends report

, 59% of employees listed professional development as the top area their business should invest in to improve company culture.

In this blog post, we'll explore the ways that human resource leaders can support employee development today, the pros and cons of each method and take a brief look into the future of the space.

In discussing employee development best practices with HR leaders, the same important “rule” kept coming up in our conversations.

“The most important piece of building an effective employee development strategy is to first ensure it aligns with the overall business goals” said Kate Arambula, Human Resources Coach and former VP of People & Culture at HealthCare.com.

Following this rule holds us accountable to making decisions that will impact our most important goals and provides us with a feedback mechanism for when they aren’t. This rule ultimately ensures that you are investing in the right people, on the right teams, at the right time with methods that work.

Make sure to keep this “rule” in mind as you consider the following employee development methods stated in this article.

The current landscape of employee development

There are several methods human resource leaders can use to support employee development, and each comes with benefits and potential drawbacks. Here, we’ll outline each method.

Training and workshops provide employees with the opportunity to acquire new skills and knowledge, which can improve their job performance and effectiveness. Training can even help employees stay up-to-date with industry trends and tech changes. We find this is particularly useful for engineers and others working at the intersection of rapidly changing technology and the application.

However, training and workshops can have their downsides. Developing and delivering training programs can be expensive, especially if they involve external trainers or require employees to travel. But most of all, it’s the short-term nature of training and workshops that are the most limiting. It’s not as easy to take what you’ve learned and 

 apply it to your work. For example, a workshop on team communication is valuable in setting a baseline foundation, aligning on what “good” looks like and providing tactical tips to implement learnings. What's really meaningful here is how you take what you’ve learned and integrate it into the day-to-day of your work. Having support systems and follow ups to help bridge this gap between learning and implementation is key.

Coaching and mentoring are commonly used by businesses to improve employee performance, maximize potential, improve wellbeing, develop new skills, support leaders and much more. 

, almost 50% of workers who don’t have a mentor say they’ve considered quitting their job in the past three months, compared with just 25% of those who do have a mentor. Other research found that 

 who receive coaching report improved performance at work.

Coaching is often provided on a one-on-one basis by a qualified coach. A knowledgeable coach can provide tools, training, advice and feedback, generally through a structured program. Meanwhile, mentoring involves a nurturing relationship where a more experienced individual directly shares their knowledge to a less experienced individual.

 that takes the best parts of both career coaching and mentorship for a different approach to help people develop and grow.

Personalized guidance from a mentor or coach can be highly effective in addressing individual development needs, and is inherently personalized. However, coaching and mentorship can be resource-intensive — and may not always be easily scalable across your organization. What we find is that most of our partners target an initial cohort where coaching will have the biggest impact across their organization to start and prove out the value. Managers can also tap into their own team budgets or team L&D stipends to make coaching available to their team.

Managers can use feedback to motivate, support, correct and regulate work efforts across their team members. Empowering managers to deliver regular feedback and have performance reviews also ensures that your managers and employees are aligned on standards and expectations.

Employees who say their managers gave them “meaningful” feedback in the past week were 

 at work. Frequent, constructive feedback allows managers to act as coaches who recognize and nurture employees’ strengths, rather than bosses, who delegate tasks and micromanage. This empowering relationship where managers give advice, offer assistance, and advocate for their employees helps develop trust, a key factor in engaging employees.

Regular feedback sessions are critical — they help employees understand their strengths and areas for improvement. However, how feedback is delivered can make or break how it’s received. Ensuring that managers and the entire company is equipped to have meaningful and productive feedback conversations is crucial to their success and a tool for developing trust and high performance organizations. 

 offers a solid framework that can be used to empower your managers to give effective feedback.

In our digital age, you may consider turning to online learning and development platforms to  facilitate employee growth.

Using online learning and development platforms within an organization has come to be an effective way to improve performance and innovation. IBM 

 that found that for every dollar spent on employee e-learning and training, there is a $30 increase in overall employee productivity.

Online platforms offer a wide range of resources that employees can easily access. However, the lack of personalization may make it challenging for employees to find content that truly addresses their needs and is easy to understand and implement. We often find that over time people stop using and engaging with these tools, so we recommend not over investing in expensive annual licenses until you find the content and platform that works for your business and employees.

As the name implies, stretch projects “stretch” or challenge an employee to think and act outside their comfort zone or day-to-day job.

 of 823 executives, 71% of respondents said stretch assignments had the biggest impact on unleashing their potential. In another, 

, stretch assignments were named the most valuable developmental experience, ahead of things like training, 360-degree assessments, and even exposure to senior leaders.

These opportunities allow employees to gain new skills and experiences within an organization — all without leaving their role. However, due to their nature, stretch assignments can be disruptive or require additional support from their manager or other team members. Make sure to give yourself managers time and space to co-create the project with an employee -- and build in the systems, support, and clarity to set them up for success.

As we look to the future, employee development is poised to become even more dynamic and employee-centric.

To remain a competitive employer, it’s important to keep up with these changes and recognize that it takes more than ever to keep employees engaged, productive, and happy at work and in their roles. Organizations should embrace technological and workplace trend shifts to stay ahead of the curve. Artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics will enable personalized learning journeys tailored to individual needs and preferences. Additionally, the rise of remote work will reshape the way development programs are delivered, making them more accessible to geographically dispersed teams.

Thought leader Josh Bersin highlights this shift, stating: "The future of employee development is all about personalization and continuous learning. Organizations that invest in technologies that support these trends will be at a significant advantage."

Additional support for employee development

Want extra support to move faster? Mento’s 80/20 blend of coaching and mentorship helps your people excel at work. Give your teams the support they need to grow, develop and thrive: 

Empowering Human Resource Leaders to Support Employee Development

Growing and operating a business in the face of budget, time, and resource constraints has become a critical capability in recent years. In a world where we’re running with reduced resources, leaders can do more, do less, or they can do more with less.



Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

, executive advisor Liz Wiseman and business coach Greg McKeown make the case that great leaders can still help their teams thrive, even when they have to do more with less. Based on research of more than 150 executives across four continents, Wiseman discovered that leaders can be placed on a spectrum between two extremes: Multipliers and diminishers. Multipliers are leaders who bring out others’ capability and “multiply” their organizations’ collective intelligence. By contrast, diminishers are leaders who drain an organization’s vital intellectual resources. 



Wiseman’s research concluded that great multiplying leaders can 2x their team's capabilities, while diminishers only get 66% out of their teams. “People around multipliers feel like winners,” Wiseman wrote. “They’re inspired to give 100% of their creativity/effort and to stretch themselves beyond their original capacity.” Wiseman’s example of multipliers showcases the traits of a great business leader maximizing their team’s potential with fewer resources.



Operating successfully with a leaner team and fewer resources is possible — it just requires keeping strategic planning, effective communication, efficient processes, and a focus on employee well-being at the core of what you do. Here are some strategies that managers and leaders can employ to  operate with a leaner team.

Open and transparent communication is crucial in any workplace, but particularly at organizations operating with fewer resources than before.



Keep your team informed about changes, challenges, and successes, and create a team environment that encourages and enables healthy communication — including trust, vulnerability, honesty, and safety — and make it safe for employees to speak up. Here are just a few examples of how we practice effective communication at Mento:



Asynchronous or synchronous weekly or daily stand-ups

Creating space for teams to talk about how they’re doing

Empowering managers to share information with their teams

 offers a framework for building trust and fostering workplace relationships called the BRAVING Inventory that can be helpful in thinking about instilling trust through communication at work. By practicing the principles of the BRAVING Inventory, leaders operating leaner organizations can communicate effectively and with impact. Employees will feel more confident speaking up and sharing ideas or concerns.


Having fewer resources and a leaner team means being strategic about the projects the team tackles. Identify the core objectives and projects that have the highest impact on the business's goals. Allocate resources and efforts to these priority areas to maximize efficiency and outcomes. 



Even though it might feel like taking a step back, now is the perfect opportunity re-evaluate your existing processes to identify inefficiencies and bottlenecks. Streamline workflows, automate repetitive tasks where possible, and eliminate unnecessary steps to make the most of limited resources. Mento’s Customer Success team recently completed an Eisenhower matrix exercise that’s been an enormous help for both prioritization and process improvements that are holding the team back from doing their best work.

Even though it feels harder than ever to focus and prioritize, leaders need to be realistic about what’s possible for the team to do. Adjust priorities to focus solely on the goals that matter most. Think about trimming your quarterly objectives and your key results. At Mento, we went down from 5 objectives to 3 objectives, and from 25 KRs to 15 KRs per quarter. Even though this environment was the forcing function, we’ll continue to stay focused. It’s been incredibly helpful for the team to have clarity and be able to focus on execution.



“Equally important is a demonstration by leadership that ‘we acknowledge we can't do everything’ in our current environment, which is really hard for most leaders, but will be received as liberation by your teams,” Mento executive coach Mike Lane said. Lane learned this lesson during his time as CPO at Grindr and CIO at MedMen. “Redefine the shorter-term horizon with motivating opportunities that focus specifically on what is critical and urgent to impact the business goals. This means you make cuts, and socialize those cuts or moves to the back burner. Invite debate and challenge teams to create an aligned environment driven by shared understanding, buy-in, and ownership of the roadmap.”

 found workers who felt a low level of empowerment had an engagement level at the 24th percentile, compared to employees with a high level of empowerment who had an engagement level at the 79th percentile. Engagement matters, because 

 outperform peers by nearly 150 percent in earnings per share, according to Gallup research. Employee empowerment is directly tied to results.



Empowering employees to make decisions for your business frees up managers (whose efforts can be allocated elsewhere, especially during times of resource scarcity), increases employee effort, and boosts engagement throughout the workplace. A 

 found 4 percent of employees are willing to put in more effort when empowerment is low, while 67 percent are willing to go above and beyond when empowerment is high.



“A good leader must lean into freedom and responsibility along with context, not control,” Mento executive coach Rico Nasol, a former executive at Netflix and Zappos, said. “Give the team all the information and context they need to do their job well and then give each team member the freedom and own the responsibility for their decisions. It doesn't mean you leave them on their own, but you guide and support them as opposed to directing and controlling them.”


Setting goals is deeply meaningful and clarifying for employees — especially those on leaner teams who may be struggling to understand their responsibilities. Follow this advice for setting clear expectations and goals for employees:



Identify goals for the team — and link individual goals with organizational goals and business objectives.

 Ensure that each person understands their role and how they connect to the team. This helps align everyone's efforts toward common objectives and maintains a sense of purpose. Of companies that have effective performance management systems, McKinsey 

 91% say that employees' goals are linked to business priorities. Employees will be more effective if they can see how their individual goals fit into the big picture.



Involve employees throughout the process. 

Getting buy-in from employees ensures a greater level of engagement in the goal-setting process. Develop SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, results-oriented and time-bound) goals jointly with employees, which inspires commitment and allows employees a sense of ownership in pursuing goals.



Being more realistic now can lead to being more productive later.

 Instead of being overly ambitious, “set your team up for success keeping in mind realistic goals for a lean team balanced with encouraging focus time, time off, and work-life balance,” Mento executive coach Jennifer Palazzo, formerly the Head of Marketing & Comms at TROV, said. “A happy, balanced, engaged team will be more productive.”


So often at work we’re focussed on how many hours were spent, generally equating more time spent with higher quality work. In an environment where resources, and hours, are scarce it can help to focus on results over hours. If you’re getting the results your business needs with less time spent, that’s a win, especially in a time of scarcity.



One way to help keep the focus on results: quick wins. Quick wins are visible contributions that deliver incremental success and build momentum.



“Perhaps most importantly, teams that are stretched too thin need to build and maintain momentum and confidence. Quick wins are critical to momentum that becomes contagious across teams. Slicing projects and bets down into reasonable and achievable scope demonstrates incremental progress and secures the wins,” Mento executive coach Mike Lane said.


Giving regular feedback on performance and recognizing employee and team achievements is vital, especially at lean organizations. In 

Glassdoor’s Employee Appreciation Survey

, 53% of people said feeling more appreciation from their boss would help them stay longer at their company — even though 68% said their boss already shows them enough appreciation. The lesson: More is better.



Positive reinforcement boosts morale and encourages employees to continue putting in their best efforts. A 

 found that 67% of employees whose managers focused on their strengths were fully engaged in their work, as compared to only 31% of employees whose managers focused on their weaknesses. IBM’s 

 of more than 19,000 workers in 26 countries, across industries and thousands of organizations, revealed that the engagement level of employees who receive recognition is almost three times higher than the engagement level of those who do not. The same survey showed that employees who receive recognition are also far less likely to quit.



Practice providing regular feedback and recognition in these ways:



Make regular one-on-one meetings standard. 

One-on-one meetings are an opportunity for managers and direct reports to meet and check in with one another about how things are going.

 Use digital tools to collect 360 feedback and distribute annual reviews or continuous feedback to employees more easily and consistently, using software like Mento’s 

Scheduling project retros after your team wraps up a project helps everyone reflect on how they did. Think about what went well, what could have gone better, and what actions the team should take moving forward. 

 we use at here at Mento to help you get started.

By implementing these strategies, managers and leaders can navigate challenges, optimize their team's performance, maintain engagement and happiness at work, and achieve success, even with limited resources.

Getting more support when resources are scarce

Coaching and mentorship are a pathway for managers and business leaders to do more with less. By spending less on headcount, you can invest in the team that you do have. Coaching and mentorship enhance employee engagement and retention — employees who participated in mentoring programs 

 their jobs. Additional support from an expert who has been through what your business is going through can help you more effectively navigate the best way to use your resources when you have fewer of them. 



At Mento we provide businesses with the skills, support and hands-on guidance they need to get through their toughest challenges through 1:1 coaching and mentorship from today's top experts who have been there before. With flexible pricing, we have a plan to suit every business, even thoughs operating with fewer resources.



Mento for Founders & Execs

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Mento for Founders & Execs

Unlock your potential with the leadership skills, support and hands-on expertise you need to grow your business.

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Unlock your managers’ potential with the leadership skills, support, and expertise they need to lead high-performing teams.

Mento for ICs

Unlock your ICs’ potential with the the tactical skills, support and hands-on expertise they need to thrive.

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Overview of the Mento platform tools to accelerate career growth.

Peer Insights

Supercharge your growth with actionable insights.

Mento for Teams

Lead, understand, and support your team like never before.

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Articles for business & people leaders

Insights exploring human potential and unlocking growth.

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How Does Mento’s 80/20 Methodology of Coaching and Mentorship Work?

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How Does Mento’s 80/20 Methodology of Coaching and Mentorship Work?

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