From Mentee to Mentor, Things Learned Along the Way, and a Plum Tree

21 years at IBM. I know, I know: me neither! Never thought I'd be here this long, but it clearly speaks to the opportunities for growth (personal and career) this institution offers for the right attitude and those that seek the right guidance.

I feel my success at IBM and in what I do is heavily linked to mentorship along the way, and mentoring people too. (If I can humbly submit that I have had some success. It's all relative. I believe you should determine what success means, not someone else - an employer or anyone. Set a goal and go for it. If you and your employer don't agree what a 'touchdown' looks like - a Martin Wildberger classic analogy - it's time for each other to find another. So... in my own space, I've accomplished goals I've set out to do.)

I've had perhaps the best mentors possible for whatever my future brings. Alyse Passarelli, Frank Luksic, and Bob Picciano have been my mentors as an executive, but mentorship started early for me too - and it should for you too. Martin Wildberger has been a life coach and still gives me advice years after leaving IBM; Fred Gandolfi taught me the very art of disruption before it was cool; Mark Ryan taught me the power of credentials; and George Baklarz taught me the importance of communication, public speaking, and to always bring technical depth and enormous research behind profound claims you make when you take a stage (translation: "Know your $hit").

The other day, a very bright and influential leader at IBM posted a BLOG about mentorship that got me thinking. For disclosure, he serves as a mentor to me, though neither of us really want to admit it. He didn't sign up for that job, and I certainly never wanted him to be my mentor...plus he's younger than me! BUT ... upon reflection, he is. I call him "Mountain Man" because he's always tossing up mountains in front of me which evoke a first reaction of  "Are you kidding me, this is @#$#@|!" Then I start climbing the mountain, get to the other side, and not to get all Miley Cyrus on you, but it turns out it is all about the climb. (Did I just lose my credentials of someone credentialed to give career advice with that quote? I didn't want to come in like a wrecking ball ... nevermind.) After so many mountains we recorded a video "Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpP9Wf_2oVM).

His name is Rob Thomas and parts of his blog posting are below along with my additions which together I feel give a good roadmap for mentees, mentors, and things we learned along the way. Since we have quorum, I changed the prose to "we" and pieced them together.

Let's start with this - and it may not be something you want to hear, so read it twice:

 There is an old story about a gentleman walking through the countryside and he comes upon a plum orchard. As he is walking through the orchard, he notices a plum tree with fruit that is ripe on the vine, but it has crashed into ruins on the ground. He starts to survey the tree to determine if it has collapsed due to the weight of the fruit or a recent storm. The farmer of the orchard walks up and promptly shows the man that insects have eaten through a good portion of the tree, causing its collapse. The man turns to the farmer and says, “Well, what do you do now?” The farmer replies, “It’s time to gather the fruit and burn the tree.” 

The "RIGHT" Mentorship Road Should Be Well Traveled

Finding and cultivating the right mentors will not only change your career, but your personal life as well; it has for both of us. We get a number of people asking us to act as their mentors. Rob feel he's an average mentor (I'm going to say I'm above average ... just so I can one up him publicly). One of the main reasons we agree to act as mentors is because there is so much to learn in the process. Success for a mentor is helping people raise their own personal bar of achievement...just sometimes those mentees think it's going to be fun. When was the last time you left a good workout session loving your personal trainer? (Hint: you should not leave a good workout session loving your personal trainer).

A mentor is fundamentally responsible to do 4 things: Inspire, Teach, Encourage, and Positively Effect. Listening is not good enough. Neither is simply giving advice. There has to be more, and we think doing 2 or more of the above, in any interaction, is a worthy goal. In order to choose or act as a mentor, we think it takes more than understanding the responsibilities of the role; you also have to understand what makes a good mentor.

Rob listened to a podcast that kind of spawned a conversation between us that lead to this blog posting. In that talk was an assertion that a person is mentor qualified if they are “quad-qualified” which means they offer the following attributes: Independence, Bandwidth, Motivation, and Expertise. For anyone looking for a mentor (and if you are asked to be a mentor), look for "quad-qualified”: 

Independence- If you work for them, they are not independent. If you work with them, they may not be independent. You need at least one of your mentors to be truly independent. It doesn't mean you can't have a mentor in these other relationships, but we see it a lot and the growth result isn't what it could be.

Hates the Checkbox- In addition to their job, how many other people are they mentoring? What is their bandwidth? If they don’t have the bandwidth to spend time with you, neither of you will get maximum value out of the relationship. We see this all the time, across many companies. People that mentor to fulfill a corporate program and register the mentorship in some ivory tower tool. Someone tells us who their mentor is and they talk once a year or so; that isn't mentorship...that's a cousin you don't mind seeing from time to time.

Motivation- Are they personally motivated in helping you out? Do you have a past together, such that they would personally invest in you? In our experience, “blind date mentorships” don’t often work due to a lack of motivation.

Expertise- Do they work and live in a similar environment, such that they can provide relevant expertise? Or, do you intentionally need someone that has a different background/expertise? You can mix and match perhaps.

The Lessons Learned Along the Way: Now Think About This...

All these years of being mentors and being mentored have led to a couple of things to add to what you just read and what we want you to think about in whatever path (mentor or mentee) you take:

Lesson 1: It's important to change or have multiple mentors over the course of your career. You can plant multiple plum trees, and cultivate them. Moving from one tree to another isn't a bad thing; your mentors should be doing the same.

Lesson 2: Your career needs mentors ... from interns to Vice Presidents. Alarm bells should be going off right now if you don't have one. As we said earlier, mentors and your 'work bestie' that rose above you are not the same thing.

Lesson 3: Pay it forward: when you are blessed with a mentorship that helps you - it's your duty to mentor others. We make it a point to mentor people every year. And it takes a lot of time, most of those mentoring relationships have not only resulted in the mentee's personal career growth and promotions, not just our own career growth as a leaders, but also in terms of personal satisfaction. There is nothing like watching it.

Lesson 4: To be a good mentor, you have to get in the face of the mentee from time to time (I can attest to this as the test bed; but ask people we mentor: it's not a free ride - but a rewarding one. If you need references, talk to Linda Snow or Dirk deRoos.)

Lesson 5: Mentorship isn't always explicit and overt. Some of the best mentors mentor people and they don't even know they are doing it. Look around and see if someone is mentoring you and you didn't realize it. If you are a mentee, ensure you are getting cuts and bruises, that you have incidents that force a gut check (and a curse word from time to time) and that growth on the other side is undeniable.

There are just two questions to ask yourself:

• Who are your mentors?
• Who are you mentoring?