Mentoring has existed since antiquity: Aristotle was the mentor of Alexander the Great, and Socrates was the teacher of Plato. A mentor in modern interpretation is an expert in his field who helps a less experienced person build a career, develop useful qualities, and avoid common mistakes. In fact, this is a mentor who has achieved success and is willing to share his secrets with another person for free.
Unlike a supervisor, a mentor doesn’t really care if you come to work on time and what formulas in Excel you can use. He focuses on global things: achieving goals and professional growth. While a manager can also mentor his or her employees, many companies have mentoring programs. If you can’t find a mentor among colleagues, you can always do it outside of work.
Why does an adult need a teacher?
If you are convinced that you have sufficient experience and do not need a mentor, think twice. Don’t jump to conclusions. Even top managers have mentors: sometimes they also need advice and support. Statistics support this: the founders of a third of New York technology companies with total profits of more than $100 million regularly communicate with mentors.
When Steve Jobs passed away, Mark Zuckerberg noted that Apple’s creator was an invaluable mentor. In addition, experts from Endeavor analyzed technology companies in New York and concluded that young startups who had an experienced mentor were three times more successful than their peers in terms of income, investor interest, and the number of employees.
So it’s not only okay to ask other people for advice, but it’s also beneficial to your career. And here’s what a mentor is useful for:
- Extensive experience. The mentor has gone through different situations and knows how to solve problems that you face for the first time. He will share his experience, and you can learn from other people’s mistakes.
- A mentor sees a more complete picture. It is easier for another person to objectively assess your career situation and prospects. Together with a mentor, you will build a development strategy, prioritize, determine the primary goals and understand what skills need to be pumped in order to achieve them.
- Ask the right questions. A mentor will help you look at the situation from a new angle and find unexpected solutions to the problem in situations that seemed hopeless to you.
- Useful contacts. A good mentor has many acquaintances from different spheres. If necessary, he will connect you with them and give you recommendations. These connections are very important to a successful career.
- Help with specific actions. If you’re developing a startup, a mentor can provide legal advice or even advertise your business through his channels.
How to choose the right mentor
Look for a mentor that suits your expectations. Make sure a person has the competencies and experience in the area you are looking for. For example, the founders of the cloud service Dropbox, Drew Houston, and Arash Ferdowsi, learned from two successful Silicon Valley businessmen Hadi and Ali Partovi, who worked as consultants for Facebook and Airbnb.
Assess the personal achievements of a potential teacher: would you like to achieve this yourself? Do not choose a mentor by name or advice from friends. Seek advice from someone whose career path is inspiring.
How to get the most from working with a mentor
First of all, you need to establish contact, otherwise, there will be little benefit. How to build the work? This question is decided individually and depends on the mentor, but there are some general principles:
- Discuss details ashore. Agree right away on what conditions you will cooperate and how much time the mentor is ready to devote to you.
- Write down a schedule of meetings. You can chat weekly to share successes and challenges of the past days, or meet once a month to discuss global issues.
- Set a realistic goal. Working with a mentor will be much more beneficial if you have a concrete vision of the outcome of this collaboration. We advise you to use the SMART technique for setting the problem.
- Listen and ask. Be involved in the conversation with the mentor, ask questions and clarify anything that remains unclear.
- Do not communicate by correspondence. Communicate offline as much as possible: this way the mentor’s thoughts will come to you more clearly, and it also contributes to the development of relationships.
- Treat mentor tasks responsibly. Complete all the tasks that the mentor gives to make the work as productive as possible.
- Don’t forget about feedback. Regularly ask your mentor for feedback and give it yourself to track your overall progress and work on bugs.
Why would a mentor waste time on you
When a mentor gives knowledge to others, he himself structures information better and delves into the question. Analytical skills, decision-making, and communication skills are developed. He trains leadership qualities, due to which one can apply for higher positions in the company. And as a mentor within the company, a person raises junior colleagues who will help him, and then they themselves will become mentors for others.
