A few months ago, John Donahoe (eBay CEO) wrote a LinkedIn article that talked about how instead of trying to learn a lot from a few people, he had to learn a little from a lot of people. It is definitely worth a read. Check it out.
Specifically in that article, when I read the following sentence it resonated with me at many levels:
“I realized the perfect Yoda-like mentor didn’t exist, and no one person had all the wisdom I was seeking….”
In his post, John references mentors and managers interchangeably. In my opinion managers can be mentors. But mentors does not have to be your managers. Luckily I had the good fortune of having some great managers and mentors. Spanning approximately two dozen years working for small to big companies, I have had nearly 20 managers in my career so far. Most of them turned out to be great mentors. Also in my career as a project manager and then as program manager, I was fortunate to interact with some amazing leaders who I consider to be my mentors as well.
No matter what level you are in we all need someone to shape our thinking. Whether you are a CEO or a mid-level manager or an individual contributor we need a sounding board. We need someone who can calibrate where we stand. Think of a mentor as a coach on the side lines.
In fact I’d say we need, not just one — but a handful of mentors who we can trust, confide and have honest conversations about your career aspirations, talk about challenges in advancing yourself or simply help us chart a career map for ourselves.
So, why are they important in our career? I can enumerate plenty of benefits in tapping into the collective wisdom. However in this post, I want to illustrate a couple of reasons how they had an impact in my journey. Hopefully it will resonate with you.
Feedback. One of the biggest advantages of having a mentor is getting feedback. When I was working at eBay as a Program Manager I had the good fortune of working with some amazing leaders. One of the stakeholder I used to work with took an active interest in my role and once he gave me unsolicited feedback on how I should look at my role not merely as an order taker but someone who could have an impact on the organization. It truly was an eye opener and from that point I saw my role in a different light altogether.
Feedback is a wonderful gift. Mentors are a great source for getting honest, transparent feedback. As with every relationship you either learn or teach. There is no such thing as bad relationship. For me, the key lesson learned was: Mentors won’t tell you what you want to hear. Instead they will tell you what you need to hear. They are not afraid to tell you what you are capable of achieving. They don’t overanalyze how you will perceive it. They don’t sugar coat the message.
Receiving and processing feedback is not easy. Science has proved that we pay too much emphasis on the optics than the content itself. If you remove the optics (i.e. how a message a conveyed) and focus on the content (i.e. what the message is about) feedback can be a valuable tool in our personal toolkit. Mentors are better equipped in providing that honest feedback than any one else.
Decisions. Our life is a product of our own decisions. We make decisions based on what we know and what our beliefs are. Mentors are great sounding boards when it comes to making critical career choices.
When I look back at the job change decisions, some of the best advices I received has always come from where I expected it least. My immediate managers. That’s what good managers do. They turned out to be my career coaches. They didn’t hold me back for their own or their organizations’ interests. Great mentors put your interest first and look out for what is best for you.
So, why do you need some one to validate your choice? You ask. When you make a job change decision, you don’t want to be running away from something instead you should be running towards something. We tend to often believe our decisions are correct and it is based on years of our own experience, data and objective analysis. Psychologists call this Confirmation Bias. Truth is, we don’t know what we don’t know.
Mentors provide that outside perspective that you may not have thought before.
In summary, we live in a more connected world than ever before. We spend more hours at work than with our friends and family. Why not leverage that network? Leverage the collective wisdom you have at your disposal. Connect them on LinkedIn. Go for a coffee or lunch. Make connecting and learning a habit.
Hope you enjoyed reading this. If you did, please click the share button below. There might be someone somewhere waiting for that epiphany.
(Image: canstockphoto.com)
A really interesting read !