Thoughts on Mentoring

Before addressing the subject at hand, just an acknowledgement that I’m considerably behind where I want to be in writing this blog.  With another eight topics in the backlog, it may take a while to get “caught up”, a concept that I pray is achievable in practice, or I need to hire some ghost writers.  Hopefully the concepts will continue to be worth the time spent reading them.  Feedback and other ideas for articles are welcome.  These continue to be an expression of my point-of-view.  There is plenty of room for debate and dialogue, and it’s welcome.  That is, after all, where innovation and improvement originate.

With regard to mentoring, in my earlier article on Excellence by Design, I referenced the importance of talent development in relation to Operating with Agility.  I’ll write separately about workforce and sourcing strategy in an upcoming post, but the purpose of this article is to explore the mentoring process, both from the perspective of the mentor and mentee.

 

Setting the Stage

First of all, the mentoring process itself requires two critical components: a willing coach and an engaged participant.

Mentoring isn’t something you can “kind of” do if you expect to have an impact on an individual.  You need to meet them where they are in their journey, be mindful of their aspirations and needs, and find the right way to provide guidance that will lead to sustainable, long-term growth.  Mentoring, from my perspective, is more than “feedback”, insofar as the latter is generally situational in nature and somewhat transactional or provided within the context of a current role or assignment.  Mentoring is really about longer-term capability development when done properly and requires more of a strategic focus on behaviors and overall career goals.  In a talent development sense, this is akin to why there is a difference in many organizations between performance reviews and career development plans, which contemplate longer-term goals of the individual, not limited to execution of their current responsibilities.

From the standpoint of the person being mentored, it is equally important to be engaged in the process in a healthy way.  Looking back at my own experiences, there were times when I was receiving good career advice that I was either too inexperienced, too insecure, or probably too headstrong to receive and learn the lessons I needed to at the time they were being provided.  Fortunately or unfortunately for me, as has been said many times, when you don’t learn those lessons or take them to heart, they will keep re-presenting themselves to you, sometimes painfully so, until you actually are open and receptive to them.  Success ultimately requires humility, reflection, and a fundamental acceptance that we’re all on a journey, no matter what stage we are in our careers, and there is always something to learn if we want to be better at what we do.

Said very simply: if the mentor or the mentee don’t engage effectively, the process will fail, and both individuals actually will lose opportunity as a result.

Looking back on the last thirty years of my career and seven employers, I’m very grateful to the leaders, some of whom were not my direct managers, who took the time to help move me forward in my journey.  In many ways, my success is their success because, without those little nudges and sometimes very pointed smacks upside my head to get me to the right place, I wouldn’t be where I am, and I owe very much to them for caring enough to spend that time helping me along.  While I may be very motivated and self-directed, I do want and need that advice and guidance just as much now as I did when I was a kid out of college writing software for a living.

 

Putting “Growth” in Perspective

When talking about mentoring, I believe it’s important to spend a couple moments on “growth” (in terms of promotions) by comparison with capability development.

While, in a perfect world, developing your capabilities would ideally go hand-in-hand with your level of responsibility or relative seniority in an organization (whether that’s in a management capacity or not), the reality is that they often don’t.

Promotions take three things in my experience:

• Opportunity – There has to be a spot to which you can move with the desired role
• Advocacy – You need someone from a management standpoint to make the case for change
• Accomplishment – You need to have delivered something or created value that helps to substantiate your worthiness to assume more organizational seniority

If any of the above is missing, in the vast majority of cases, you won’t be promoted and, if you find yourself in an organization where advocacy and opportunity are enough for people to be promoted without actual accomplishments… you’re probably not in a high-performing organization, because results and/or proven leadership should be part of the process, otherwise it would suggest people are promoted for other reasons than demonstrated capability (yes, I’m an advocate for meritocracy).

So, the fact that these things can be out of synch having been acknowledged, here’s my overall point-of-view when it comes to career development: focus on your capabilities and the recognition will catch up in time.  Said differently, when you build your skills and knowledge, they become part of who you are and what you bring to an organization.  If those things go underappreciated over time, you will eventually find other opportunities that align to your capabilities where those talents are recognized and valued, presumably you will pursue those situations (at some point), and things will be in sync again.

 

Why being a mentor is so important

From the perspective of the mentor, it is worth stating that it is a primary responsibility of a leader to help develop others and make the organization better, whether in a managerial capacity or not.  Sharing knowledge, providing feedback and advice, and actively collaborating with others in solutioning situations are things that anyone can do, regardless of their role, and all of which contribute to helping develop and grow others.  Whether that is, in a “formal” sense, mentoring or not, informally it can very much help advance the cause of developing talent over time.  It makes others better, it creates value for the organization, and makes you a more valuable contributor to the organization as well.

Another lens to put on being an effective coach is that, when done well, it actually makes you a better performer by extension. 

Thinking back on a non-work example, I coached baseball for nearly ten years in my twenties.  As a coach, it was important to me to understand the fundamentals of what I was sharing with our team and individual players in the interest of helping them improve.  In an area like hitting, with all the years I played baseball growing up, I don’t think I ever really thought about the mechanics of a swing at the same level I did when I started trying to coach others… primarily because I was committed to doing the best I could to making them better players.  Oddly, what I found was that, aside from imparting that knowledge, I also became a much better hitter myself and the process of internalizing those things stuck in a way I didn’t expect.

Coaching in a professional setting is very much the same thing, because ideally a good mentor should be thinking through the mechanics of what they are recommending to an individual and, in doing so, it becomes a very healthy reminder and opportunity to “sharpen the saw” yourself.

 

My overall advice to the prospective “mentee”

From the perspective of the individual wanting to be mentored, my advice would fall into four areas:

• Find and develop relationships with mentors who can help you over time and who are committed to your personal and professional success. I mention the personal dimension, because so much of developing over the course of a career involves soft skills and behaviors that extend beyond the workplace into daily life. Good mentors should ideally be people who you respect and trust, and who you view as being knowledgeable and capable in areas you’d like to develop yourself.  This doesn’t need to be an immediate manager, though it’s great when that happens.  It also doesn’t necessarily have to be someone “senior” to you in an organization, as the process is more about developing skills and capabilities that you lack than the relative position of the person that is helping you.  In reality, mentors can span positions and jobs, so it’s more important to choose the right person(s) than the expedient one(s).  Mentors can also come and go over time, and that’s fine as well, as long as you benefit and learn through the experience.

• Have a clear idea (or a reasonably clear one) in terms of what you want from an aspirational standpoint. Your goals matter, they can be everything from a behavioral quality or actual capability you would like to excel in to a position you’d ultimately like to hold (even if that’s only a short distance from where you currently are).  Make sure your mentor is aware of those goals, and guide them in terms of where you’re seeking the most help.  A good mentor should be able to evaluate where you are and help provide the right guidance based on your needs and the circumstances, but it doesn’t mean your input is any less important to the process. It’s your life, it’s your career, and you have the ultimate vote in whether the process works for you.  At the end of the day, the only person accountable for managing your career and ultimate success is you.

• Remember that you can learn the most from those who differ from you and you don’t need to have just “one” mentor. Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to cultivate an amazing set of coaches who help me improve, but they come in all shapes and sizes for different needs, and that’s great from my perspective.  I have mentors who help me on a more strategic and broader level and others who help guide me on more tactical, skill-based needs.  The mixture is something that works for me.  Some of the best coaches I’ve had are also those who have behaviors or approaches that are polar opposite of mine.  Those relationships have been extremely helpful, given those with similar thoughts and approaches as me won’t as easily be able to provide insight on my blind spots or opportunities to think differently as those who actually are different.  Whether you ultimately choose to model or learn their behaviors or not, you can always seek to understand and learn from those perspectives and that will make you a more well-rounded contributor over time.

• Finally, it’s important to recognize that your career is a long-term investment, and one of the most important ones you make in life. Investing in the right coaches and committing yourself to continuous learning is the best way to increase your probability of success, in whatever it is you choose to do (and being exceptional at it over time).

Keeping the above points in mind should help make the process more effective as long as you continue to engage with it in a positive and productive way.

 

The connection into Excellence by Design

In an earlier blog article, I wrote about the “The Power of N” and maximizing the collective potential of a team.  I will write an article about expanding that potential further, when we look at organizational aspirations and portfolio composition, but for now, I’ll wrap this up with a simple, but important point:

Where we don’t invest in ourselves and our long-term development and, by extension, when we don’t help people achieve their potential as leaders, we suboptimize the results we can achieve as an organization.  The investment is always worth the time.

 

So….

On what are you working to improve and who is helping you get there?

Who are you helping to achieve their potential?

 

As always, I hope the information and thoughts were helpful.  All the best in achieving the sum of your aspirations, and in being an inspiration and guide to others as well.

-CJG 06/02/2022