15
Today, the lines between mentoring and networking are blurring. Welcome to the world of mentworking.
—Beverly Kaye & Julie Winkle Giulioni, authors1
Mentor, from Homer’s Odyssey, served as a teacher and overseer of Odysseus’s son while Odysseus was fighting in the Trojan War. Since then, we’ve adopted the term “mentor” to refer to a person who teaches or guides someone with less experience. I realize I spent the last chapter recommending that you should treat everyone as a mentor, but it’s also critical that you add traditional mentors to your network. Those more experienced than you can pass on valuable knowledge and insights that you just can’t get from your peers. And you don’t only need one mentor. The more mentors you can add to your network, the better.
In the workplace, research indicates those with mentors receive more promotions and more pay than those without mentors.2 Good mentors also inspire their protégés. From helping protégés set career goals to coaching them through difficult situations, mentors serve as career guides. By providing tips on how best to manage or complete a job task, mentors can enhance your job performance. By providing insight into the corporate culture, they can help you get noticed by other senior managers. Since men typically hold the majority of senior management positions, men are often able to provide greater mentoring benefits to their protégés, and research indicates that those with male mentors earn more money.3 That’s not to say that female mentors are not valuable—there are plenty of fabulous female mentors out there too.
Although sometimes mentor relationships are formally initiated and managed by the organization, more often they develop informally, much like a friendship. It is these more informal mentor relationships that have been shown to provide the greatest career benefits to the mentee.4 Unfortunately, it’s not only up to the mentee to find a mentor; the mentor must play a role as well. In fact, the greater the role the mentor plays in relationship initiation, the greater the benefits from mentoring will be.5
You get it. You need to include senior executives in your network, but how do you proceed with this task? My advice for choosing mentors for your network comes from finance portfolio theory. Time and time again, as friends learn about my career on Wall Street, they ask me for investment suggestions. I tell them the secret to successful investing is diversification. What does that mean? It means don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Even if you think that Amazon and Google are the greatest companies on the planet, and there’s no way they’re going to fail, you don’t put all of your money in Amazon and Google. You diversify. You invest in many, many different companies in several different industries, maybe putting slightly more money into your few favorites. That way, if Jeff Bezos (Amazon’s CEO) gets hit by a bus, and no one else can get the company going again, you’re still okay. Your portfolio is diversified, and you still have money in some healthcare companies, some technology companies, and some consumer products companies. I can actually mathematically prove to you that diversification is the best investment strategy, but don’t fear, I won’t do it here.
Your network of senior executives is like an investment portfolio: It must be diversified. I realize those with male connections earn the most money, but that doesn’t mean that you only seek out men. Perhaps female mentors have more insights on work and family balance, but do you only choose female mentorship? No, you diversify! You add senior executives from your own organization and from other organizations and other industries to your network. You include both older execs and younger ones in your network. They will all be able to provide a unique perspective that can help you.
So you know you need to diversify your network of senior managers. But you still need to locate these people, and finding a few people that you can count on for career advice can be tricky. Obviously, when choosing senior managers to add to your circle, you want people who have exhibited their ability to succeed. That doesn’t necessarily mean you hit up the CEO. It’s equally important that your prospective mentors have time to meet with you. An extremely successful mentor who always cancels meetings won’t be of much help. A valuable mentor will have achieved success but will also have the time to share his or her insights with you.
The sad truth in corporate America is the higher you move up the corporate ladder, the fewer women you find. No matter how much you want to diversify your selection of mentors, there will probably be more male mentors available than female. For women, that means if you want senior execs in your network, you’ll probably have to cross the gender line. Unfortunately, the sex partition makes it more difficult to establish these relationships.
Catalyst, an organization dedicated to studying and advancing women in the workplace, provides evidence of this effect, reporting that only a small portion of senior-level women (23 percent) are satisfied with the availability of mentors in their workplace,6 and other researchers report similar findings that women have more difficulty than men when it comes to finding mentors and establishing high-quality networks.7 Fortunately, all hope is not lost. The following suggestions will help you connect with potential mentors, while minimizing the sex partition.
First, once you’ve found a senior executive you’d like to add to your mentor circle, you’ll need to break the ice. To get things rolling, all you need to do is ask. Ask a potential mentor for a meeting to discuss your career. As opposed to lingering around his or her office, a direct request lets your potential mentor know exactly why you want to spend time with him or her. You’re not stalking, but you’re being perfectly clear. It’s not because you want to sleep with or date him or her. You just want career advice.
Another way to let your mentor know that your motives are purely professional is communicating what you want to get out of this relationship. Do you need advice on a specific topic? Do you need help networking? Be specific and, as always, be professional. “My job sucks; what should I do?” doesn’t inspire potential mentors. “I know you have one of the largest client lists in the firm, and I was wondering if you had any suggestions as to how I might expand my client list” would be much more likely to be taken seriously.
It’s also helpful if potential mentors understand why you chose them. Maybe it’s because they were in your position five years ago, and you want to emulate their career. Maybe they have a similar educational background. Maybe you like something about their management style. Once again, specificity is key. It will help them understand that you’re not seeking them out because they’re cute or they’re single. This relationship is purely professional.
It would be great if a close friendship developed with your mentor, but at least in the initial stages, it’s best to keep it purely professional. That doesn’t mean you can’t congratulate your mentor if his or her favorite team just won the Super Bowl, but he or she doesn’t need to know about your date last night or why you were arguing with your spouse. Steering clear of personal talk, at least in the initial stages, helps send the message that your motives are all business.
Once you land a mentor, make sure you’re a good protégé. Implement your mentor’s suggestions and provide your mentor with feedback. Not only will this let your mentor know that you’re serious, but also no one will question your motives.
Taking on the role of mentor yourself is a great way to learn how to be a good protégé. You’ll learn what’s annoying and what inspires you to help your protégé, and you can use this knowledge to win yourself valuable mentors. In doing this, you’re helping someone else move up the ranks. It’s win-win.
Exude Confidence and Follow Up with Results
My experience on Wall Street provided me with a few more insights on getting the attention of senior executives. My manager and I started our trading group together, and as the group grew, I remained second in command. After the first few years, we were trading a significant amount of money every day. Some days we made a lot of money, other days we lost a lot of money. We had more up days than down and produced a nice annual profit for the firm.
One day, when my boss was out of town, we lost a lot of money (I don’t want to provide the exact figures of our loss, but many small businesses don’t earn this much in a year). My boss called in some words of advice for me. He told me that, given the loss, the head of our division would probably check in with me. The advice was, “It doesn’t really matter what you say to him, just sound confident.”
It doesn’t matter what I say? Clearly I needed to explain the loss. He explained further that the head of the division doesn’t really want to know, nor does he have time to understand, the details of our trading strategy. He just has to be sure that everything is under control, and he’s very good at sensing whether things are under control. That’s his job. If he senses any fear or uncertainty, then he’ll find someone he can trust to come in and oversee things.
At first this sounded like counterintuitive advice. Was it possible that how I said something was more important that what I said? It turns out, it is. (Research supports the importance of confidence—for example, jurors are more likely to believe confident witnesses.)8 If you sound confident, people will think you know what you’re doing (and hopefully you do).
Like our division head, many managers have, out of necessity, developed the ability to detect weakness. So confidence isn’t just important in the trading environment, it works everywhere (I used it to negotiate with my insurance company just yesterday). If you want a senior executive to trust you and include you in his or her inner circle, you must sound confident.
When seeking the advice of a mentor, confidence is equally important. No one wants to spend their valuable time providing suggestions to someone they don’t feel is capable of implementing the suggestions. You need to make sure that your potential mentor sees you as someone who can get things done. If you seem overwhelmed by your mentor’s suggestions, then the suggestions will cease. If you seem eager to implement the suggestions, the suggestions will keep coming.
Although confidence is critical, all the confidence in the world isn’t going to help you if you can’t produce results. Confidence allowed my division head to feel comfortable if we lost money over a couple of days, but we still needed to prove ourselves over the long run. Fortunately, we did. Our success spoke for itself. We produced strong results for the firm, and that got us noticed. Senior execs have an incentive to surround themselves with successful people, and to be accepted to their inner circle, you need to have your results speak for themselves.
Befriend the Boss
Exuding confidence and producing solid results are great ways to attract the attention of senior executives. However, there’s one more senior employee whose attention you get for free—your manager. You should always be sure to befriend your boss. I’ve always had a good relationship with my managers and can’t imagine showing up for work every day working with a boss I didn’t consider a friend. Many aren’t so lucky. A recent survey revealed that 60 percent of Americans thought they’d do a better job if they got along better with their boss, and they’re correct.9 Buddying up with your boss has its rewards. You may think that managers should treat all of their subordinates equally, but managers typically have a close working relationship with only a few of their underlings. Often referred to as the manager’s in-group, these subordinates are typically provided greater responsibility, trust, and access to resources. Not surprisingly, the in-group employees wind up doing a better job at work.10
So how can you join your boss’s in-group? Just like your friendships outside of work, friendships with the boss are most frequently initiated because of common interests or repeated contact with him or her.11 Don’t stalk the boss, but if you find out he or she is obsessed with polo, it would behoove you to familiarize yourself with the ins and outs of chukkers and polo ponies. If NASCAR is your boss’s thing, at least know when the Daytona 500 is held, and what type of cars compete in these races.
One last piece of advice on befriending the boss: Employees are more likely to become friends with the boss if the boss and subordinate have a third friend in common.12 In other words, you need friends in order to make more friends. Befriend the boss’s friends and you’re more likely to land in his or her in-group.
Sponsorship vs. Mentorship
Mentor relationships and connections with senior executives are valuable, but some have suggested that sponsor relationships are even more essential to career success. A sponsor differs from a mentor in that a sponsor goes even further to promote the career of his or her protégés, often putting his or her own career on the line for them. While mentors typically assist their protégé directly, sponsors typically advocate for the protégé when the protégé is not present. Sponsors work behind the scenes, often without the knowledge of the protégé, to promote the protégé’s interest.13 For example, a sponsor may nominate the protégé for a promotion or work assignment, or advocate for the protégé in a meeting of senior managers. Sponsors also often introduce their protégés to important connections outside of the company.14 Any one of these efforts could drastically change the career trajectory of the protégé.
Sponsor relationships are often more visible in the organization, and therefore sponsors must be cautious when advocating for their protégé. In order to ensure that the protégé will fulfill his or her responsibilities in a manner that will reflect well on the sponsor, managers typically only choose to sponsor those that he or she knows well. Once again, a friendship is a necessary prerequisite.
Recently, the Center for Work-Life Policy completed research on the value of sponsorship for executive women and concluded: “If today’s female executives find themselves outside the inner sanctum, it’s not only because they’re removed from the crucial conversations that determine who moves up, but because they have no proxy. Sponsorship corrects that. By providing women the authoritative voice they lack, the backroom access they’re often denied, and the advocacy they desperately need, sponsorship truly levels the playing field.”15 Kerrie Peraino, head of diversity at American Express, was quoted expressing a similar sentiment regarding sponsorship: “You can have a strong network, drive strong results, even know all the unwritten rules. But if you aren’t sponsored by someone in a position to weigh in on your behalf at the decision-making table when you’re not there, you’re not getting the next opportunities.”16
Despite the clear benefits of befriending a sponsor, only 13 percent of female employees at large companies report having sponsors. Men, by contrast, are 46 percent more likely to cultivate these important relationships.17 Once again, women say it’s worth crossing the gender line to find male sponsorship. Men, the female employees claim, make better sponsors because they are better connected both within and outside the company, are more powerful, know how to succeed, and typically have more time to devote to sponsoring.
In her book Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor, Sylvia Ann Hewlett makes it clear that you don’t ask someone to be a sponsor, you have to make them want to be your sponsor. Hewlett explains that sponsorship is a two-way street. In other words, sponsors gain as much from you as you do from them. That’s why they’re willing to work so hard on your behalf. How can a high-level exec benefit from hanging out with you? As Hewlett explains, “They recognize the incredible benefit to their own careers of building a loyal cadre of outstanding performers who can extend their reach, build their legacy, and burnish their reputation. . . . They need your support and skills. They need you to build their bench strength and complement their expertise.”18 In other words, having talented, loyal employees scattered throughout the organization is a huge asset for a senior executive.
In order to obtain sponsorship, you have to produce results, and potential sponsors need to be aware of those results. If you’re not comfortable touting your own accomplishments, find a trusted coworker or manager to do it for you. It’s important that word gets out that you’re someone who can help senior executives achieve their goals.
What about the Sex Partition?
What about the sex partition? Although the previous suggestions will help grow your network while minimizing the impact of the sex partition, there’s no way to completely avoid it. If you feel the sex partition is impacting your network, that’s no reason to give up. There are yet more guidelines that should help minimize the impact of the sex partition on your work relationships.
First and foremost is professionalism. Your appearance, your conversations, and your behavior should all exude professionalism. Avoiding heavy drinking at work gatherings, for example, sends the message that you’re not a partier looking for a good time, you’re a trusted employee. I would have thought that most of us already know this one, but Hewlett’s research found that 73 percent of business leaders rated provocative clothing as the primary appearance issue for aspiring career women.19 For those who haven’t figured this out, plunging necklines and tight-fitting clothing are not appropriate at the office. Once again, they send the wrong message.
Introducing your spouse or significant other to your coworkers and to senior execs also sends the message that your working relationships are purely business. It indicates that your spouse or significant other is a priority in your life. The earlier on in your career that you can introduce them, the better. Some single employees go as far as creating an imaginary love interest that they describe to their coworkers to send the message they’re not interested in dating anyone at work. If you don’t have a significant other and you’re not into imaginary friends, you can at least make sure everyone knows you adhere to a firm policy of not dating coworkers.
It’s not that there’s something inherently wrong with dating coworkers. However, if you’re known as someone who dates coworkers, then you may be labeled a romance seeker. Once you’re assigned this label, others may be more likely to perceive you as interested in them, even when you’re not. Or when they know you’re not interested in them, they may worry about what other employees will think if they see you together. Steering clear of office relationships altogether sends a message of professionalism.
If, despite your professionalism, interactions with a cross-sex coworker or mentor seem awkward, get it out in the open. Does he or she seem nervous around you, or, on the contrary, is he or she becoming a little too friendly? Talk about it with him or her. For example, “Sometimes, I feel like it’s awkward when I have a male/female mentor—I worry what others will think or say.” Talking about it openly will clarify your relationship and can make the relationship more comfortable for both of you.
If you are a senior manager’s favorite then, Hewlett has suggested, you need to point out to other employees why you deserve this position.20 In other words, if coworkers become suspicious as to why you are landing all the best assignments, make sure they know about all of your recent accomplishments. Hopefully, they will attribute your success to your hard work and not to sex with a senior manager.
If rumors start to fly about you and a coworker or senior manager, there’s no time to waste. Rumors need to be halted. If you’re suspected of sleeping with your sponsor or mentor, and you’re not, you must try to convince your coworkers that you were rewarded based on your merits.
Research garnered from how rumors spread indicates two integral aspects to shutting them down.21 The first is timeliness. The quicker you detect the rumor, the quicker you’re able to quash it. The longer it festers, the more difficult it is to suppress. The best strategy is to jump ahead of rumors that you’re sleeping your way to the top. If your mentor works with you, let your coworkers know that he/she is your mentor before rumors start. Tell them what you’re working on with your mentor and how frequently you meet. This will help rumors stop before they begin.
The second key to shutting down rumors is to have help eradicating them. Don’t try to quash the rumor on your own. Get your friends out there and make sure they correct the misinformation on your behalf. The more agents you have out there to set the rumor straight, the quicker the rumor will cease.
It Takes Effort, but It’s Worth It
If this all sounds like a lot of work, it is. Developing friendships, mentor relationships, and sponsor relationships takes effort. You have to be committed to establishing these relationships in order to make them work. However, it will pay off in the long run. Will sex partition issues get in the way? They might, but it’s important to remember that these issues are typically not insurmountable; they just require you to tread more carefully. And when the sex partition seems insurmountable, remember that there isn’t only one person in your organization from whom you can benefit. You’re diversified. Set your sights on someone else and move on.