Business Forum: Mentoring can get you straight to your goal

I am often asked about mentoring. Everyone can benefit from having a mentor because a voice of experience can enable us to tackle problems or plan our career more effectively than learning by trial and error. We can think of a mentor as a coach who is always there for us when we need guidance or want brainstorming. With that as a loose definition, the relationship can be brief and informal or deep and lasting—professors in graduate school, senior co-workers, your direct supervisor, or senior management in your company. I personally have also benefited from relationships with capable people I admire, such as colleagues in professional societies.

If you are a student, you’ll want to talk to people in different walks of life to see all possibilities in identifying a career that’s right for you. Identify a field and develop a deep relationship with someone ahead of you who has been there and done that. “Going with your passion” is not necessarily good advice to heed because knowing what you want and what your innate capabilities are may take a lifetime to discover. You just might be locked into a career before knowing what you don’t know!

Mentors are out there—you just have to reach out and meet people until you find someone with whom you can develop a rapport. An altruistic reason to take on you as a mentee could be that the individual sees the potential in you and wants you to succeed. Once engaged, you’ll want to give something in return to maintain the relationship, which could be as little as being fun to work with. Be open and inquisitive, and receptive as well as challenging. Present problems along with multiple solutions to brainstorm, and make it an intellectual exchange so your mentor learns something from you as well. There is no reason for a successful individual to spend time with a know-it-all who in reality is seeking approval, not advice.

Having a mentor at work provides you with a context for how management decisions are made, enhances the learning, and can improve your job performance. Reach out to meet senior executives at company functions as well as in community groups and professional societies. Avoid internal politics by discussing something of mutual interest unrelated to the company to initiate the relationship. I have made more friends, for example, by sharing insights on plants and gardening than from anything else I have done.

Once I was on the board of a company where the CEO started as an engineering manager soon after graduate school. He was able to develop a strong bond with his “boss” and along the way he took over his mentor’s position with each promotion, and he eventually became the CEO of this major company when his mentor retired. I am not suggesting engaging a mentor to move up in an organization; rather, it is an effective way for continuous learning. This relationship was successful because there was total trust and mutual respect as confidants, and also because both parties having something to gain. The mentee is very capable, and he enabled his mentor to accomplish more by getting the job done. And the mentee was happy because he knew he was learning and was taking on increasingly greater responsibilities.

This case is very unusual because the relationship lasted more than two decades, whereas most mentor relationships, according to research, rarely last more than a few years because mentors want to feel superior with a sense of control, whereas mentees want to spread their wings as learning diminishes with time. The reality is that giving with the expectation of getting something in return invariably leads to disappointment in just about all relationships. The message here is to engage altruistic individuals who want to be helpful and expect nothing in return if you want the relationship to last.