You can’t just ask any Tom, Dick or CareerDiva to be your mentor.
The key is targeting your mentor search. A mentor should be someone you can learn from, someone who is in the career you want to excel in, or has done something you want to some day do.
I just got an email from a reader that demonstrates exactly how NOT to find a good mentoring relationship:
“I am Kristina, age 23 and I need help in finding a full-time job with benefits. Would you please mentor me?”
OK, I am honored by such a request; but me, her mentor?
I have no idea what job Kristina is looking for or what profession she’d like to enter. Based on her email, it appears she has no ambition to become a journalist, blogger, or columnist. So, it’s really unclear why she wants me to mentor her. She also asks for help writing a cover letter, which I will gladly do, but mentoring?
I am doing well in my career (knock wood), but success shouldn’t be your only criteria for choosing a mentor folks.
I wonder how many requests to mentor Obama gets? I know, I’m being a bit silly, but I’m trying to make a point.
Mentor is a character from Greek mythology who counsels Telemachus, son of Odysseus.
The dictionary defines mentor as: a trusted counselor or guide
The question is, what guidance can Kristina get from me? And also, can I truly be her counselor?
If she has visions of becoming a vice president at a consumer products company or would like to work her way up at a solar panel company, she’ll get little targeted help from talking to me. Of course, I can offer her general advice on how to move up the ladder in Corporate America but great mentoring is not about general advice.
You can use advice from columnists, from great leaders, or from a host of socalled gurus. But again, that’s not mentoring. A true mentoring relationship, for it to work well, goes much much deeper.
In my book, “From the Sandbox to the Corner Office,” the CEO of Macy’s Terry Lundgren talks about the key mentor in his life, fashion icon Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus fame.
Lundgren saw Marcus at a Dallas restaurant and decided to say hello to his hero:
That chance encounter led to what would become a close friendship, with Marcus offering guidance and support to the younger Lundgren during his five-year tenure at Neiman Marcus.
Their first meeting was lunch at Marcus’ office where he showed Lundgren his retail memorabilia, and collections of pieces he had collected on various buying trips. “I was just listening to this guy, enamored, and from that point forward I met with Stanley every month.”
During one of their lunches, Marcus’ fashion insights led to sales for Lundgren’s stores.
Mentoring is about getting those nitty, gritty details you need to figure out how a company, or industry really works. Someone that can spend a good amount of time with you, either face to face, or on the phone, or via email.
That means your mentor has to really like the industry she’s in so she’ll have the energy to mentor you fully and completely.
Finding such a person requires work. I suggest making a list of who your perfect mentor would be, what traits, experiences, etc., they should have. Then you can start searching for that person.
I emailed Kristina to find out some more specifics on what her career goals are. That way we can get her just the right mentor.
Did you have a mentor? How did it work out? Is there any advice you’d offer someone looking for a mentor?
May 13th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Great advice. It’s important to have defined goals. I also find that coming right out and asking, “Will you be my mentor?” is a bit formal.
I do just as well by forging relationships with people I admire. The “mentoring” comes through in conversation, in a natural way, because we share the same interests.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:45 am
‘You are in business to create customers’-
Peter Drucker
That is it. That is all there is to be successful in business.
My father and I were estranged for several years. When we did simply stop being apart, he said simply that I still sound like I am trying to sell him something. My Mom said what she said so many years ago, he is a salesman.
The more you look for hidden gems or secrets, the more disappointed you will become. In life, most of us will struggle and assume it is all about you. In the end, or perhaps before it ends but right in the nick of time, you discover it is not all about anything you do, but how the other person actually responds, reacts or sees you.
If you are seeking some one who can show you how to perform the task at hand with adequacy, ask. If the person is not a willing teacher, observe.
One certainty, no matter what, even the most successful person you can find will make mistakes or will fail to improve. As matter of fact, the person who makes no mistakes does absolutely nothing.
Another thing that should be quite obvious, the more you have, the bigger the corporation, the more that can and ultimately will be lost.
Today as always it is a matter of adaptation. you must adjust. Some times an adjustment may wait for years, sometimes every day. Ultimately it will change.Therefore I say it is important not to rely on just one magnificient person.
You are more important than all the gurus, executives, millionaires, prodigees and perogies in all the world.
I know this all sounds ambiguous and rather contrapuntal. You are the only one that can make you successful. Some one else will never be you.
‘’Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you'’-Satchel Paige, ballplayer
May 20th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
I find what Robert said truly insightful. When I first started my internship with a company, I looked at my boss as a role model because seeing someone so young in a management position was very encouraging to me. It turned out, at the end of my internship, that not only she is not good at the related field, she seems merely using the entire new team (of interns and fresh college graduates) to help her climb up the corporate ladder. She being in the current position is the result of office politics.
A lesson for me is that not all the managers out there are real good managers, not to mention to be a mentor. I’ve come to realize that finding a mentor could be a long hit-and-miss process. Only I can make myself successful.
Thanks Robert, for saying what I wanted to say.