Find yourself a mentor and get the best possible chance to fulfill your career potential

Have you ever found yourself staring blankly at perhaps your computer screen, after a series of failures in your life and career?  Looking desperately for someone to come your way with whom you could have a candid dialogue, seek career advice, and perhaps hope for care, support and a certain degree of commitment.

Almost all of us have gone through this phase, at some time during our lives.  Though some of us, through some quirk of fate have managed to take the right decisions through advice and counseling, the lucky ones may have got entwined in a quagmire of hopelessness.  A classic case, which calls for mentoring.

From its earliest roots in Homer’s Odyssey, written some 3000 years ago, mentoring has been an integral process used worldwide, whereby one person helps another to grow and develop new skills and attitudes.  Trying to define mentoring in differing situations can be as elusive as the goddess Athena herself, who took on the form of the Ithacan noble Mentor, to guide and teach Telemachus, the son of Odysseus.

Closer home, the genesis of mentoring is deeply entrenched in our old epics.  The Bhadwadgita for example is a treatise on mentoring where Lord Krishna advises Arjuna to curb his emotions and continue the war against his own cousins.

Similarly is there really need for mentoring at the workplace?  Yes, there is.  Take the case of a novice who is suddenly flung into the intricacies of a corporate lifestyle and left groping in the dark.  He needs to be developed, nurtured and guided in order to emerge as a successful manager ready to fulfill his responsibilities.

So what does a mentor actually do?  According to V. K. Madhav Mohan, a renowned management mentor in India, who has held several corporate mentoring programmes in India,  and abroad, “What a mentor does is to become a force multiplier (to use a military term) to an individual.  By being a source of affirmation, encouragement and guidance, a mentor fulfills the role of a guru.  A mentor can assist a person and unlock and attain his or her unlimited potential.  He can also see what the individual cannot and therefore point out pitfalls to avoid and opportunities to capitalize on.”  In addition to this he adds, “The mentor can also spot weaknesses and indicate strengths that the individual is not aware of.  He is  source for support, feedback and counsel-a person to whom the individual can talk about anything, no matter what.”

To quote an example, James B. Miller in his book, "the Corporate Coach", tells us what mentors can do for new recruits.  Each new recruit is assigned a ‘buddy’ on the new hire’s level, for 30 days.  The ‘buddy’ and the new employee’s boss give him/her a tour of the facilities and take her/him to lunch the first day.  At the end of the first week the new hire completes a how was your first week? form, to rate the items of training received, friendliness of peers, helpfulness of the programme etc.  the new hire is also asked to indicate if she/he would like to be a ‘buddy’ for future incoming employees.

However even today, in India the concept of corporate mentoring is relatively new.  Speaking on his experience with Indian companies, Madhav Mohan who has been a corporate mentor for the last four years says, “Indian companies tend to be rather defensive about their operations and prospects.  While they recognize the need for transparency and change, they find it  difficult to break out of their old habits.  The Directors and top managers find it difficult to confide in others.  However, when they develop confidence in the character and competence of the mentor, they open up and are totally receptive.  So, while in theory Indian companies are open to mentoring, in practice they are open only after they develop confidence in the mentor.”

For example when Madhav Mohan started out he had no model to follow.  So, he had to create his own methodology.  He admits that this came out of his rather unconventional and multidisciplinary background.  Since the concept was new, it had to be communicated in a very careful way.  After years of training managers at various levels, he realized that organizations were barking up the wrong tree.  While managers came back with augmented skills and upgraded attitudes, their motivational levels started plummeting soon after they resumed duties.  This he says, was essentially because the bosses were not receptive to the new ideas.  He reveals, “I began to realize that if real change was to happen, it had to happen at the level of the bosses.”  In effect, there had to be a trickle down rather than a bottom to top kind of change.  Mentoring ultimately is a far more powerful tool than other forms of training imply because it is personalized.  And Madhav seems to agree.  Reminiscing on his experience he says that he has always felt that a workshop, seminar or training programme is a condition precedent for a mentoring programme.

So what makes a person an ideal Mentor?  Some of the  desirable qualities a Mentor should possess are being a good communicator, a good listener, trustworthy with an ability to teach, and last but not the least, loyal.

However, Madhav adds that it is also essential that the Mentor has the ability to be non-judgmental, non-threatening, with highly developed analytical skills, excellent general knowledge, a total grasp of global current affairs, a highly developed memory and knowledge retrieval skills and most importantly a body of published work to support his own credentials.  He cautions that organizations should not perceive a mentor as a consultant with a ready solution, since his work is subtle, mostly intangible and based on personal relationships.

A moot point to be noted here is that mentoring is not doing the protégé’s work for him or accepting responsibility for the same things that he is responsible for.  Mentoring is definitely also not a process of giving and then being indifferent to the growth, experiences and success of the protégé.

However when it comes to implementing mentoring, the onus rests squarely on every manager in an organization.  As Dr. Gorden, who classes himself, The Workplace Doctor says, “Mentoring should be the responsibility of every manager rather than a responsibility put upon HR.  Employees are naturally interested in their careers and they want to learn the ropes and find paths to greater responsibility and job security.  But like every effort to increase value, improve quality and cut costs, it takes a champion and implementer to do some planning, to generate enthusiasm and to establish a system.”

So, how do you actually make a mentoring relationship work?  According to Cheryl Dahle of Fast Company, “There is no such thing as a mentoring match made in hell.  For the relationship to work, you have to commit the time.  You can’t give up if the chemistry doesn’t feel right at the first meeting.  We suggest a minimum of one meeting per month – by e-mail or by phone.  Some people meet at the gym for a workout.  In fact I have taken my protégé to baseball game.”  She adds, “ Nothing kills trust in mentoring relationship faster than a breach of confidence.”  Her advice, “You’re in this to learn, whether you’re a protégé or a mentor.  Do a little homework.  And listen.”