Today I heard from a lovely new connection on
LinkedIn LNKD +2.63%, who responded to a recent post I shared about Why Your
Job Search Has Stalled Out. He asked a question I hear frequently from
professionals who know that mentorship
is important to their careers, but don’t know how to achieve it.
He asked:
“In my
pursuit of THE job (not just any job), I have so far addressed all your
recommendations but mentorship. This is the stage where I have stalled out. I
have found many professionals that have shared my dreams and are now big
successes in the industry, but find myself hesitant in approaching them and
asking for help. These hesitations may be due to me not wanting to come across
as needy, but I think they mostly stem from lacking the trigger words that
would inspire acceptance of such a request. I really need help in this area and
humbly ask for your help in the follow-through of this job hunting step.”
I’d love to tackle this question, because so
many people I speak to are struggling in their approach to finding mentors, and
are ending up disappointed, angry or confused.
Below are the top 4 tips I can share about finding
fabulous mentors, and making the most of the help you receive:
1. There
are no “trigger” words that will help you get mentoring from a stranger. Don’t
bother.
First, it’s critical to know that, to find great
mentors, you don’t want to reach out to strangers. That’s not how you’ll find
them.
Sheryl Sandberg, in her book Lean In, likens
asking strangers to be mentors to the behavior of the main character in the
favorite children’s book Are You My Mother? The book is about a baby bird that
emerges from its shell in an empty nest, and goes in search of its mother. The little bird asks everything it sees (a
kitten, hen, dog, cow, steam shovel), “Are you my mother?” The answer is always the same. “No!” This is just like a professional asking a
stranger, “Will you be my mentor?”
Sandberg says:
“If
someone has to ask the question, the answer is probably no. When someone finds
the right mentor, it is obvious. The
question becomes a statement. Chasing or forcing that connection rarely works.”
Instead, find great mentors through the
inspiring people you’re already interacting and working with now. They need to
be people to whom you have already demonstrated your potential – who know how
you think, act, communicate and contribute. And they have to like, trust and
believe in you already (why else would they help you?). They also need to believe with absolutely
certainty that you’ll put to great use all their input and feedback.
Strangers (especially people in the media and
the public eye who’ve become “huge” successes, as the individual above
mentions) will virtually always have to say “no” to mentoring requests from
strangers. Why? Because their time is
already spoken for, and they’re drowning in similar requests. Secondly, they don’t have a relationship with
you, and therefore can’t know how you operate or if it’s a great investment of
their time to help you.
2. What
can you do to get on the radar of strangers whom you admire?
Don’t ask for mentorship, but follow their work,
and be helpful and supportive. Give, and
give more. Tweet out their posts,
comment in a positive way on their blogs, share their updates, start a
discussion on LinkedIn drawing on their post, refer new clients or business to
them, and the list goes on. In short,
offer your unique voice, perspectives, experiences and resources to further the
action and conversation that these influencers have sparked. Understand that you are able to be of service
to them, and go out and do it.
3. Be
someone who is enjoyable to mentor.
The third piece of attracting empowering
mentoring is in how you operate in your career and your life. Are you somebody you yourself would like to
mentor? Are you open, flexible, resilient, respectful? Are you eager to learn,
and committed to modifying how you’re interacting in the world so you can have
even more success, reward and happiness?
- Be great at what you do – while this sounds
obvious, it is the most important thing you can do to get noticed.
- Ask for
more responsibility
– be sure to have specific ideas for how you can contribute in deeper, more
expansive ways. Be creative/think outside the box.
- Don’t be
a wallflower
– participate in all meetings even “optional” ones. Volunteer to represent your
team on important department or enterprise-level initiatives. Prepare ahead of
time so that you can meaningfully advance the discussion.
- Promote
the success of others
– your generosity and openness are critical to your success, and will be
remembered.
- Build
your support network
– reach out to groups within your company and outside your line of business.
Learn what they do and how you can help them succeed.
4. Put
yourself in a potential mentor’s shoes.
Finally, whenever you’re in a quandary about how
to get help from someone, put yourself in their shoes. If the tables were turned, what would you
want to see from this individual asking for help? If you were inundated with requests for help
every day, what type of person would YOU choose to assist, and why? Go out and
become that person that others would love to support and nurture.
No comments:
Post a Comment