A New Career Culture is Disrupting How Mentoring Works — and That's OK

In this series, professionals thank those who helped them reach where they are today. Read the posts here, then write your own. Use #ThankYourMentor and @mention your mentor when sharing.

Maybe, once, a mentor was useful. It was their job to pass on that important expertise and experience, those hard-learned lessons which only so many years of industry experience could teach. And, once, it was their responsibility to pass on the mantle. To be a mindful protégé was to mark yourself out as next in line to the throne. Within the dynasties of the 20th century’s big companies, mentorship made sense — it was necessary for the forward march of the organisation, and it was how employees learned their trade.

Company-sponsored, structured mentorship programmes scarcely exist anymore, partially because the structures of recruitment and advancement which they supported have disappeared. Employee tenure has become shorter and shorter. The modern careerist’s guidebook says relocation, relocation, relocation. Investing heavily in new recruits comes with the risk, savvy and ambitious as they are, that 18 months later they will sit in the offices of your top competitor. This alongside the blossoming of an informal “flat white” economy and the growth of self-employment as an ambition for many more even than the record numbers who are indeed going it alone.

There are fewer people set up as mentors, and there are fewer set up as protégés. The flat management structures and mayfly life-spans of today’s nimble startups just aren’t wired up for slow-burning mentor-protégé relationships – but then again how many workplace entrants now want to be taken under a wing? Any self-respecting startup entrepreneur, the punk pin-up of the age of self-reliance, is too busy coming up with ways to undermine (or “disrupt”) generations-old business practices to sit down with someone senior in their sector.

The shapes of industries, business environments, career markets... change so quickly. How valuable are the life lessons and career fables of today’s senior executives to today’s graduates? Can years of experience tell young people much of value about where to go next? So the thinking goes.

So much of the technical knowledge needed for competitive advantage in career markets is not only more rapidly obsolete than it ever has been, but more easily picked up without formal teaching or training. Restless re-skilling is a fact of commercial reality for professionals at all levels of seniority. It doesn’t matter who you are in this world, more student than teacher.

So is that it for mentors then? “Who needs ‘em”?

Well you could say that in an age of serious career market volatility, “job-hopping,” and hyperactive self-determination, voices of reason and guiding hands (often from outside of the company or outside of the industry in which you are working) are more important than they ever have been. But the mentor’s role has changed.

One of the most important things that a mentor can do for you early in your career is teach you to read these markets, to recognise patterns in the world around you, to identify the forces you need to ride, and those you need to push against.

The good mentor is now anyone who can offer something toward you making the right decisions for you. Their experiences are the case studies in your assessment of the world. Their advice should enter the mix of so many voices, professional and personal, that steer you in your decision-making.

Mentors are simply smart people who are generous with their time and who help us to activate something — some impulse, some clarity, some realisation — in our lives at a particular time, normally of transition. They might open a door for you, or slam one in your face. Whether you learn from their successes or failures, they are no less valuable as guides. 

If the modern skill-set must be liquid — ever flowing to fill the shape of its environment — so must the modern support network. Don’t feel bad about playing the field. Embrace important people when they enter your life, and proactively seek out untapped inspiration in your circles.

The best mentors will not try to shape you in their image (impossible), but simply present themselves, make of it what you will. We should be grateful for them, without expecting them to light the way.

With that I can talk about the mentors who have mattered to me.

My husband taught me how to sell. One of our non-Executive Directors once told me that if you're Irish, you'll never need to learn how to sell. She was right, but there are strategic shortcuts and scale to think about. The fact that my husband had a wildly different industry view on how to approach this I realise helped me enormously, and made me better at my day job — teaching clients how to draw inspiration from worlds, sectors, trends that are at first glance alien.

My business partner taught me how to manage my time. Because we are totally different personality types. I watched and learned how to temper my worst habits.

My Chairwoman taught me about businesswomanly things. I didn't ever feel I should have to learn how to lead differently just because I was a woman. But when you can watch how another highly respected female commands naturally, it certainly helps your instincts with both sexes. A little bit of solidarity goes a long way. I'm very proud to run a business where 50 percent of the board is female and equality is not a “management issue” or “company objective,” but a fact of how we operate and co-operate.

My Editorial Director taught me something I thought never could be taught — how to rebel. When to challenge and then when to shut up, especially when others don't know how to.

My colleagues teach me constantly, just because they're brilliant.

So surround yourself with people who are smart, whom you respect, and who want your job. And don’t treat them just as husbands, or partners, or colleagues. It’s a question of perspective. Treat them as mentors. Look to them for mentorship, and you'll have all the mentorship you'll ever need.