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Finding
Your Next Mentor My first mentor was a
US Navy Master Chief Petty Officer.
She had the biggest presence of any one or anything I’ve ever
encountered short of a nuclear aircraft carrier, and it’s followed me
throughout my working life in the form of the best professional advice
I’ve ever been given: “Find
someone who can tell you from experience the things that you need to
know, and follow their example.”
What she was really telling me was that I needed a mentor, and in
taking the time to give me that advice way back in 1986, she was acting
as my very first one. That
advice has brought me great
success and exceptional friendships, and it’s taught me a thing of two
that I’d like to share with those of you who are looking for mentors
to help you set and achieve higher goals.
What’s
mentoring all about?
A
mentoring relationship is an agreement between an experienced individual
and a less experienced one to work together toward developing existing
talents, discovering new ones, acquiring new skills, and building
self-awareness. Typically,
the relationship is established with the primary goal of the less
experienced person (the protégé) learning from the more experienced
one (the mentor); but in the most successful relationships, both parties
learn as well as teach so that the end result is that the protégé
experiences improved performance and the mentor hones his or her
leadership skills.
Entering
into a relationship with a mentor usually begins with little more than
an agreement from them to be available when the you need guidance; a
mutual agreement to devote time to communicating with each other
exclusively about the possibilities of your career; and a commitment on
your part to respect your mentor’s time and experience by allowing
them to guide you in your career decisions.
These are the building blocks of a good mentor / protégé
relationship, but a key decision has to be made before you even reach
the point of forging a relationship.
Arguably, the toughest part of developing a relationship with a
mentor is in finding the mentor who’s right for you.
Here are my seven best tips for doing exactly that:
Know
your professional self: This is an exercise, so once you’ve read it through,
you’ll want to come back and actually do it.
Sit down in a quiet place and consciously think about where you
are in your career right now, and where you would like to be a year from
now, five years from now, ten years from now… imagine what you would
like to have accomplished by the time you’re ready to retire.
Spend some time getting comfortable with this picture of your
future. Once you’ve
established a vision for your professional self, come back to the
present and honestly assess what type of personality you have.
If you need a little help pinning yourself down, there are a
variety of personality tests available online to help you gain some
personal insight. A
resource list is provided at the end of this article.
Knowing
yourself professionally requires that you get to know your comfort zone
when it comes to change. Taking somebody else’s advice isn’t easy for many of us,
so that alone might represent a big change in your way of doing things.
Acting on that person’s advice might also require you to make
major changes in your way of thinking and/or doing.
Think about how you’ve reacted to change in the past.
Think about what kinds of specific changes a mentor might suggest
that you make. Often, we
have an intuitive grasp of what we should be doing to further our
careers, and just need someone to help us put those thoughts into
action. You may be
surprised down the line by how closely your mentor’s direction
resembles the hypothetical changes that you pose to yourself in this
exercise.
Once
you’ve considered your strengths and weaknesses, define how a mentor
might guide you through your growth.
Can they lead you by example?
Can they help you develop specific skills that you lack but that
they possess? Can they help
you set and achieve goals? Take time to explore the whole mentoring scenario in your
mind and develop a personal vision of what you hope to achieve.
Only when you have defined what you expect to gain can another
person support you and help you grow.
Take
the initiative: Mentoring
relationships often form quite naturally when two people at different
stages of their careers but with complementary personalities and
affinities come together. Occasionally,
finding the right person is as easy as looking to your immediate
supervisor. Consider
yourself lucky if that happens for you, but if it’s not that easy,
don’t wait around for the right alliance to materialize.
This is especially important at the corporate level where you
might have to look outside of your company for someone in your field of
expertise who has achieved the degree of success that you want for
yourself. Design a
deliberate course of action to find the mentor that’s right for you,
and incorporate some or all of the following tips in your search.
Ask
around:
In an industry where referrals are so important, this shouldn’t
be a tough one for you to grasp. Tap
into your friends’ and associates’ networks to expand your reach.
Ask a friend, and if they can’t make a direct suggestion, ask
them to ask around for you. This
is how networks grow. When
requesting referrals, be clear about what you’re looking for and why.
It’ll save your time, your friend’s energy, and the ultimate
contacts’ efforts.
Keep
an open mind about who your mentor might be: A mentor is someone who will help you grow in the areas that
are most important to you. This
person is not necessarily your supervisor, or someone with a
high-ranking title. Perhaps
your best mentor isn’t even within our industry.
The key is to find someone who exemplifies the traits and skills
that you want to adopt. My
current mentor found me quite by accident and talked me into
taking my life in a whole new direction.
Keep your eyes – and your mind – open not just to what’s in
front of you, but also to possibilities beyond your immediate
grasp.
Look
where you’re likely to find: Keeping
an open mind doesn’t mean just sitting back with wide eyes and ears
and waiting for something to happen.
You still need to seek the right person proactively, and that
means looking in places where the right person is most likely to be.
Likely sources include your management team, the next step up the
organizational chart from your own, local and industry associations, and
online communities (like the SMMOnline chat rooms or bulletin boards,
and Lisa Trosien’s APT list). You
might also consider working with a professional coach like Terri Norvell
or Ernest Oriente. Also
consider people in your non-workplace communities, such as retirees,
local business owners, and people associated with your hobbies and
extracurricular interests.
Know
what you want to gain from the relationship: This is where I get inevitably “zen” about the whole
mentoring thing: you
can’t have a path without a destination, and you can’t have a guide
without a path. Approaching
the whole issue with a clear understanding of your purpose and desired
results will help you: (A)
know when you’ve found the right person; (B) ensure that you and your
mentor find mutual value in the relationship; and (C) eliminate any
potential confusion about roles and expectations.
Think
about people who have been your mentors in the past:
Whether you called them “mentors” or not, you’ve probably
had several already. Think
about the people who have helped to shape your life’s major decisions
and the qualities that you appreciated most about them. Use these traits
as homing signals for finding the next person who will help you achieve
your professional goals.
I
hope these tips are as beneficial to you as they’ve been for me.
Best wishes for professional success, and may you find all the
right mentors to help you along the way! RESOURCES Online
Personality Tests The Keirsey Temperment Sorter - http://www.advisorteam.com/user/ktsintro.asp The Personality Page - http://www.personalitypage.com Professional
Coaches Terri Norvell – www.norvellassociates.com
Ernest Oriente – www.coachingsuccess.com Reading
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