Jobs are like going to church: it’s nice once or twice a year to sing along and eat something and all that, but unless you really believe there’s something holy going on, it gets to be a drag going in every single week. -Thomas Michael Disch, science fiction author and poet (1940-2008)
After many years of struggling to find the right mentor Sally found a great one in Richard, who was a well-known player in the IoT space at a global IoT conference she attended. Through serendipity she found out that Richard worked for the same conglomerate as Sally did and they ran into each other at their companys booth during one of the Happy-hour events their company was hosting during that conference.
Sally was a middle-level manager in one of the operating units and Richard, a VP of technology in the corporate CTO office. They hit it off during the conference after the preliminaries and Sally was pleased to learn that Richard took personal interest in her career and growth by asking how she was planning to move ahead in her role as a Product Manager at her BU in the systems side of the business that was increasingly focused on the IoT space. During their time together Richard was generous in giving Sally the time she needed to understand the corporate and BU landscape and how what Richard was working on through the HQs CTO office influenced Sallys product roadmap, both short-term and long. Armed with this new insight and a great mentor connection Sally was poised to move rapidly within the ranks at her BU; at least, so she thought!
During the ensuing three years Sally and Richard stayed in touch and Richard guided Sally in making the right choices when it came to her development plans and making the right choices for Sally to open new doors of opportunity both at her BU and, occasionally at the corporate events. Personally, Sally blossomed through these interactions with Richard and felt sure that her contributions, momentum, and connection with Richardthe local BU head knew that relationshipwould put her on a fast track for her next promotion and beyond.
Yet, despite this Sally was unable to move past her middle management pay grade and get qualified for a director role at her BU, even after being a superior performer and a visible contributor during the three years that she had sought Richards mentorship.
What she realized during the ensuing years was that she was missing out on getting sponsored locally for stints that were important to the BUs GM and the local brass. Those who got sponsored by the local honchos often got the plum assignments and, when they succeeded in what they were assigned in these plum assignments, their stock suddenly went up, putting them on a Hi-Po (High Potential) track. Sally, somehow, did not get such openings nor did she find a sponsor in the executive circles that would back her.
So, despite a great mentor what did Sally not do to leverage that resource into a career track that played in her favor? Here is my prescription:
1.A mentor acts more as a catalyst in your personal and professional growth. But, as the role suggests, a catalyst never participates in a chemical reaction. It merely helps that reaction to become real. Knowing this role for a mentor is critical in how you leverage that resource to advance your growth.
2.To complement a good mentora catalystyou also need a local agent who participates in key chemical reactions and takes charge of sponsoring you in activities that matter to the local executives. So, to translate the guidance from a mentor into a career growth plan you must find yourself a local sponsor at a high enough level in the ranks that can make things happen.
3.Developing a sponsor requires cultivating relationships with influential leaders local to your geography. In our case what Sally failed to do was to ask Richard whom he knew at her BU that would be a good sponsor for her and leverage Richards help in building that relationship. Richard was personally vested in Sallys growth, but he failed to translate his advice for her personal and professional growth into a career plan that helped Sally advance in her station.
4.Making your intentions clear to both your mentor and to your sponsor is critical in your interactions with them. Here, Sally did not understand that if she did not make her intentions clear of career advancement to Richard and how he could help her through local channels, that mentorship with Richard was providing her only limited benefit; this was not Richards fault.
5.In our use case with Sally, she failed to keep herself visible in the local high circles through proactive moves and making her intentions clear of what her next career aspiration was. She merely expressed that to her boss during her Annual Performance Review (APR) discussion, but her boss took that to mean nothing more than a pro forma conversation that he had with all his direct reports.
So, if you found yourself a great mentor, count your blessings! Now go ahead and work on building relationships with your local brass to find yourself a worthy sponsor who can make things happen for you!
Good luck!
| About Author | |
|
Dilip has distinguished himself as LinkedIn’s #1 career coach from among a global pool of over 1,000 peers ever since LinkedIn started ranking them professionally (LinkedIn selected 23 categories of professionals for this ranking and published this ranking from 2006 until 2012). Having worked with over 6,000 clients from all walks of professions and having worked with nearly the entire spectrum of age groups—from high-school graduates about to enter college to those in their 70s, not knowing what to do with their retirement—Dilip has developed a unique approach to bringing meaning to their professional and personal lives. Dilip’s professional success lies in his ability to codify what he has learned in his own varied life (he has changed careers four times and is currently in his fifth) and from those of his clients, and to apply the essence of that learning to each coaching situation. After getting his B.Tech. (Honors) from IIT-Bombay and Master’s in electrical engineering(MSEE) from Stanford University, Dilip worked at various organizations, starting as an individual contributor and then progressing to head an engineering organization of a division of a high-tech company, with $2B in sales, in California’s Silicon Valley. His current interest in coaching resulted from his career experiences spanning nearly four decades, at four very diverse organizations–and industries, including a major conglomerate in India, and from what it takes to re-invent oneself time and again, especially after a lay-off and with constraints that are beyond your control. During the 45-plus years since his graduation, Dilip has reinvented himself time and again to explore new career horizons. When he left the corporate world, as head of engineering of a technology company, he started his own technology consulting business, helping high-tech and biotech companies streamline their product development processes. Dilip’s third career was working as a marketing consultant helping Fortune-500 companies dramatically improve their sales, based on a novel concept. It is during this work that Dilip realized that the greatest challenge most corporations face is available leadership resources and effectiveness; too many followers looking up to rudderless leadership. Dilip then decided to work with corporations helping them understand the leadership process and how to increase leadership effectiveness at every level. Soon afterwards, when the job-market tanked in Silicon Valley in 2001, Dilip changed his career track yet again and decided to work initially with many high-tech refugees, who wanted expert guidance in their reinvention and reemployment. Quickly, Dilip expanded his practice to help professionals from all walks of life. Now in his fifth career, Dilip works with professionals in the Silicon Valley and around the world helping with reinvention to get their dream jobs or vocations. As a career counselor and life coach, Dilip’s focus has been career transitions for professionals at all levels and engaging them in a purposeful pursuit. Working with them, he has developed many groundbreaking approaches to career transition that are now published in five books, his weekly blogs, and hundreds of articles. He has worked with those looking for a change in their careers–re-invention–and jobs at levels ranging from CEOs to hospital orderlies. He has developed numerous seminars and workshops to complement his individual coaching for helping others with making career and life transitions. Dilip’s central theme in his practice is to help clients discover their latent genius and then build a value proposition around it to articulate a strong verbal brand. Throughout this journey, Dilip has come up with many groundbreaking practices such as an Inductive Résumé and the Genius Extraction Tool. Dilip owns two patents, has two publications in the Harvard Business Review and has led a CEO roundtable for Chief Executive on Customer Loyalty. Both Amazon and B&N list numerous reviews on his five books. Dilip is also listed in Who’s Who, has appeared several times on CNN Headline News/Comcast Local Edition, as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle in its career columns. Dilip is a contributing writer to several publications. Dilip is a sought-after speaker at public and private forums on jobs, careers, leadership challenges, and how to be an effective leader. |
Website: http://dilipsaraf.com/?p=2736
Disclaimer: Please use this channel at your own discretion. These articles are contributed by our users. We are not responsible or liable for any problems related to the utilization of information of these articles.
