What’s the Right Way to Find a Mentor?
Mentoring is an incredibly powerful tool for a successful and progressive career. By definition, a mentor is a person with some better experience and knowledge. This is a person who can guide and influence a person’s career or personal growth. In the marketing arena finding and learning from a mentor is key to professional development.
There are some worthy examples of a few great people in history and today’s times, who have been mentored themselves. In businesses, these kinds of connections can become powerful relationships. Many business leaders have gone on records, thanking their mentors for the success that they have achieved. To assess the impact of a mentor here is citing an example of a very famous and powerful mentee-mentor duo.
Warren Buffet & Bill Gates
Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard as a teenager and always believed in himself. Warren Buffett assisted, invested, and acted as a benefactor to ensure that Gates’ and Paul Allen’s partnership had the right infrastructure to succeed. Gates once said in his interview with CNBC about how Buffet’s invaluable advice has overcome adversity and long-term thinking.
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He stated how he taught complex things in simpler ways to put them together so that he could understand and reap the benefits of his experience. This had greatly enabled Gates to achieve his potentials. Both of them the wealthiest people in the world are also the best friends. After having bonded over mathematics and numbers, Gates has received plenty of advice from Buffett. Buffett always told that the right friends are important for success in an occupation.
They exchange conversations about policy issues, the economic issues, which kind of businesses will survive, and a lot more than they like to puzzle out. They connect on a regular basis and have a great time listening and talking to each other.
The Power of Mentoring
Finding mentors helps with career planning, management skills, dealing with personal challenges. A mentor is a knowledgeable and experienced guide and a trusted partner who is reliable, patient, trustworthy, and a good listener. An effective mentor can help their mentees discover and develop their potentials and succeed. Mentoring is acknowledged as important in today’s times, especially in initial stages of a career. The mentoring relationship brings influence and goes beyond professional aspects.
The actual importance can be seen through a mentee’s career and practical life. The positive impact will be more apparent when mentorship has reached to a point of involving elements of emotional uplifting. Mentors do not just provide career support but they also give psychological support to mentees. The behavioral, motivational, and career outcomes are tremendous with a mentor, making it an increasingly popular tool.
The trainee has a higher level of self-respect and starts to structure themselves with this trusted guide. There are positive developmental opportunities for mentors also through this relationship. Mentoring is more about giving and receiving wisdom. Remember that significant mentoring occurs not in big moments but mainly during part of our daily interactions. This gift of wisdom is graciously received by mentees and carried to their sphere of influence.
Ways to Find a Mentor
Questions like- what qualifies you for the next position, what skills have you acquired, what network will help you move forth in your career are a few ones that you may need someone to guide. Your first manager, first project, the one who helped you on passing your first promotion, are a few among those to whom you owe your success to. These are the people who mentored you to come out successful from different challenges. They are teachers, personal or career guides, who see ahead help navigate a course to a destination.
So who is the right mentor?
To find the right person to mentor you, set smart goals. Measurably, a right mentor should be able to give you guidance as well as resources to your goals. He should be able to resolve your obstacles and focus on your personal development. Finding a mentor is not a daunting task, it is very simple. There are a few places where you can find your possible mentors. These can be:
- Your company
- Social networks
- Professional associations
Your Company
Many big corporates believe in the importance of mentorship, consequently, they have developed mentorship programs with top executives as mentors. The programs have well-built curriculums that chart best networking and interactions in their resources. Having experienced same career path they can direct their mentees towards those opportunities that may not be made available on company websites and intranets.
Social Network
With social media being a massive part of our days, we have been able to gain access to a huge social network. Networks like LinkedIn lets you connect with and manage your network far beyond one can imagine. LinkedIn network facilitates, finding individuals with the same experiences, employment history, and most important similarities between you two. Having located a prospect, you can try to connect with them by sending a message. Similarly, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can be used to follow and watch people of your interest. Fan pages and professional Facebook groups are good apparatus to find other professionals.
Professional Associations
Professional associations have been in place for many years where people connect within your industry. The lawyers, doctors, chartered accountants join associations that require membership fees. The benefits from such memberships include sharing best practices and regulation changes etc. Some of them also have developed mentorship facilities for their members.
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Steps to find mentors
- Meet Up
Only a very few people have mentors, probably because of a lack of initiative to ask for an initial meeting. The rejection must not be feared and reach out to those who you admire. Find opportunities to interact with them. Ask for a quick 15 to 20-minute coffee break. Write an email; connect on social networks and conferences. Tell them what you like about them and how you would like to be guided and mentored by them.
- Nurture the relationship.
Take the time to connect and get to know them without just focusing only on work. Find out more about their interests, books, and hobbies. Many people want to take time off their schedules so try to keep connection at personal levels. Your meetings will help you explore about similarities between you. You can discuss your career in first meeting towards the end. Do not hesitate to discuss career related career questions when the time is right. Do not forget to show how valuable their inputs can be for you.
Your mentors could be the ones in very high positions, so getting their time for you may get delayed but do not get disheartened in case of no response from the other side. Video conference can also be an option to start after which you can progress to phone calls.
- Follow up
Follow up is very important in achieving your goal of meeting up your lead. Try to communicate after a few days. Giving reference to the earlier meet, request if they could find time for the next encounter again. A more informal meeting will be a better way to spend the time, so set a casual tone. If an email is being sent, write down what you would want to discuss.
Once having met about 3 to 4 times, it will be easy to determine if the person can be your good mentor. Tell them about your idea of being their mentee. Even if they do not formally commit to a mentorship relationship, it will be great if they keep making time for you.
- Maintain
On being a mentor, the other person is also investing their time on you. Mention that the mentorship is being well-used. For a mentor, it is rewarding to know that under his guidance the mentee is advancing. Therefore always mention how their advice has helped. Regularly action on the goals you set with your mentor, so that they remain updated. Tentatively once in a month make sure to ping them how your career is progressing.
Always set an agenda for the meeting. Chat about a new project you worked on, ask for feedback, take notes and follow up on emails to stay on track. Meet often and try to figure out how often and how long to see each other.
- Offer to help
Mentorship is a two-way relationship. They are interested in your progress, but as a mentee always keep checking how you can help them. Express gratitude for every meeting without sounding to be excessively appreciative. Mentorships should work both ways through transfer of knowledge and insights. It has to be respectful for both the participants. A mentor may want to embrace mentees’ opinions and understand how young professionals think.
Collaborative mentoring, on the other side, should reinforce the mentor’s own skills, gain him recognition, and should build a sense of personal growth. Think about what you can return to your mentor, how you can commit yourself to challenges. Most of the time, simply sharing your own unique ideas with a mentor can help convince them.
Finding a good mentor helps people take big leaps. A mentor can help you grow professionally so approach them intelligently and let them be convinced that you are the right mentee for them. If you are an asset to your mentor, he would find it worth investing his time in you. This will further make sure that the mentor is available for you and you can easily seal the deal with the mentor.
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