You and Your Mentor

By Vic Downing

© Vic Downing March 2007

Everyone has one.

Everyone takes counsel from someone… sometimes more than one someone. You listen to the distant “voice” of your parents, your high school history teacher, your first boss, your ambitious-self, and your scared-self, et al.

Successful people deliberately select their mentors and are careful to take very good care of them. Here is how to do that:

1. Take Applications Only from the Admirable and Capable
2. Build a Relationship that Benefits Your Mentor
3. Be Clear about What You Want
4. Be a First Class Recipient

1. Take Applications Only from the Admirable and Capable

In the final analysis, the insights and comments and suggestions of your mentor are only as effective as the value you attribute to the mentor.

If you admire your mentor you will “put up with” painful feedback and frightening recommendations. If you don’t admire your mentor… well, if you don’t admire your mentor, it’s a waste of your time and a waste of your mentor’s time. If you have a mentor you admire but who doesn’t share your most highly prized values, then you and your mentor will part company on the most important issues. Finally, if you have a mentor you admire and who shares your values but who doesn’t know about the things for which you need counsel, well then…

With this in mind, do the following:

• List the people you admire. Don’t limit yourself to people in your current place of employment or even people in your professional discipline. Also consider retired people, younger people, people who are “very different” from you, et al.
• List your values. What do you prize most? Experience? Expertise? Courage-under-fire? Creativity? Personal integrity? Knowledge of the field of your interest? Career success? Etc.
• List what you need most from a mentor. Is it help in finding your way through the political jungles, guidance on “career moves,” how to lead your team, how to manage an incompetent or mean boss, how to master a new discipline, how to keep family and health together while your travel schedule expands by fifty per cent?

Evaluate each of the people who might be mentors for you. Give a value of “1” where the mentor has “some” of what you are looking for, a value of “3” where the candidate has “more” of what you are looking for, and a value of “9” where the potential mentor has “lots” of what you are looking for. The candidate with the largest total value is likely to be your first choice.

Your mentor selection grid might look something like this:

2. Build a Relationship that Benefits Your Mentor

You already know the relationship will benefit you (see above). Will the relationship benefit your mentor? If not, then why should your mentor—who has no free time—want to spend time with you? Answering the following questions will help.

Who is your mentor and what might your mentor value in mentoring you?

• What are your mentor’s career ambitions?
• What are your mentor’s mostly highly prized values?
• What is “the burr” under your mentor’s “saddle?”
• What are the business challenges facing your mentor?
• How would your mentor view your career success?
• How could your increased career competency benefit your mentor?
• What does your mentor value in professional relationships?
• Who are your mentor’s heroes?
• Given all of the above, if you were your mentor, what would you “get out of” mentoring you?

What practical help can you offer to your mentor?

• What research can you do that will help your mentor?
• Who do you know who has expertise in areas of concern to your mentor?
• What skills do you have that you can give to your mentor on your own time?
• Commuting: Can you be your mentor’s chauffer on mentor days?
• Presentations: Do you have skill in putting together snazzy presentations?
• Team Events: Are you “good at” putting together the kinds of team events that your mentor “hates” but which are essential to the job?
• Given the above, what help can you offer your mentor?

How can you protect your mentor’s time?

• When is the busy time of year, quarter, month, day, and when are the “lighter” times for your mentor?
• When does your mentor like to begin the day?
• When does your mentor like to finish the day?
• What are the minimum hours per month and the minimum number of months that you will be requesting from your mentor? Is that reasonable from your mentor’s perspective?
• Given all of the above, what are you asking of your mentor in terms of time? Be sure to set a firm end-date and a not-to-exceed number of hours per month.

3. Be Clear about What You Want

Any mentor worth your time has no time. With this in mind, the absolute worst thing you can do is to be unclear about what you want. The following checklist should help:

• Answer the questions listed above. Convert those answers into one or two very short sentences that clearly answer the question: “Why do you want me to mentor you?” Practice your answer with a friend until it becomes spontaneous and “sounds like you.”
• Be prepared with a very brief, clear, backyard-barbecue-language answer to the question, “How much of my time do you want?” (Review your answers to the above questions to prepare for this.)
• Be prepared to answer the question, “What do you mean when you say you want me to mentor you?” You probably need to build your request from one or more of the following mentor roles:

Mentor-As-Mirror

“I want you to show me what you ‘see’ when I talk about my career. For example, tell me what puts ‘fire in my eyes’ and what ‘takes the wind out of my sails.’ Tell me when I look anxious. Tell me when I sound phony. Tell me when what I say I want to do contradicts what I have done. In other words, help me see me as you see me.”

Mentor-As-Telescope

“I need you to give me the long view. For example, when I talk about wanting to move from being an individual contributor into management, or from Marketing into Sales, or from North America to Asia, or from working for others to starting my own business, tell me how my life will be different.”

Mentor-As-X-Ray

“It will help me considerably if you ask tough questions about the details. For example, push me to get closer to the core of why I want to do what I want to do. Get me to think through the implications of ‘standing up to’ my boss and the implications of not ‘standing up to’ my boss. When I complain about the shortcomings of my boss or my colleagues or my employer, ask hard questions about what I did and what I didn’t do that contributed to those problems.”

4. Be a First Class Recipient

“Never whine.”

Here are the ten commandments of first class recipients:

1. Thou shalt always—without fail—be on time for appointments.
2. Thou shalt always—without fail—do what you told your mentor you would do.
3. Thou shalt always—without fail—be prepared for meetings. (You have reviewed your notes from the previous meeting. You are ready to report on your action items. You know what you want to ask and you can ask it in a clear and brief manner. You know what you want your mentor to comment on and you can request that in a clear and brief manner.)
4. Thou shalt always—without fail—tell the truth when your mentor asks you a question… especially if it is a question that makes you “uncomfortable.”
5. Thou shalt always—without fail—come to the meeting with something that is of value to your mentor.
6. Thou shalt always—without fail—err on the side of taking personal responsibility for failures and disappointments in your career and day-to-day work.
7. Thou shalt never whine.
8. Thou shalt never make excuses.
9. Thou shalt never speak when your mentor is speaking.
10. Thou shalt always—without fail—thank your mentor for the time and insight and thought invested in you… after every meeting.

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