Navigating successfully through a career requires many ingredients. Hard work, planning, being there at the right time, knowing the right people, among factors, all play a role in a successful career. But, even then a career is filled with road bumps, unpredictable events, and situations that are sometimes hard to decipher. No matter how smart you are in what you do, having a perspective from an outsider and who can also give you the right insight at critical times are invaluable in keeping your career on track.

Being successful in a career is experiencing growth. Part of the growth comes from overcoming difficult situations that are personal in nature or from the way they affect your well being in an organization. Having someone you can implicitly trust and to whom you can reveal professional insecurities and personal inadequacies comfortably and confidentially are critical to a successful career. This is what a mentor can provide.

A mentor must be removed from your day-to-day life. This provides the objectivity to the mentoring process. This is where you talk to the mentor and communicate the challenge you face and try to get their objective advice. This is why your boss, colleague, or subordinate cannot be your mentor. They lack the proper clinical distance to give you objective advice.

A mentor is someone who takes personal interest in your professional success. They can be even be someone who earn a living doing this. A mentor, therefore, is someone who is committed to helping you find a path to career success. A good mentor uses the Socratic Method to develop you professionally and personally and provides the following:

• An objective perspective
• An industry and business insight coming from personal experience
• Wisdom from having lived through tough times
• A network of contacts
• Guiding you to other resources when they do not have the answers
• Personal intervention when your actions are undermining your welfare

Using the Socratic Method entails asking questions in a sequence to the person who comes seeking answers. The way questions are asked back reveal insights that can benefit the one seeking answers. Often, no one person can provide all these benefits. Some provide them to a varying degree. It is not uncommon to have different mentors that provide different inputs. Developing mentor/mentee relationship is one of the most challenging prospects in a career. A good mentor can make a difference in the success of a career.

Making it Happen

Decide what you want from a mentor/mentee relationship: What is your objective in this relationship? Are you looking for organizational guidance or are you looking for professional and personal development through this relationship? Are you looking for relationships? Answers to these and other questions can help in deciding whom to pursue for this relationship.

Assess what you bring: A good mentor/mentee relationship is typically a give and take. You must give something in return for what you get out of the relationship. Be very clear with the person so that there is no surprise or disappointment.

Make a list: Ask around and check out for yourself. The most important element of a good mentor/mentee relationship is personal chemistry. This is usually established in a series of meetings not just one encounter. Some companies have an official mentoring program. Enroll in the program and see what is available. Interview candidates so that you can get a good picture of the relationship you will develop over the long term.

The problem with a company-sponsored program is that once you leave the company the relationship ends. The other limitation is that it is difficult to explore matters that may be in conflict with the company’s interest (another job) without compromising you.

Establish ground rules: When do you see each other? How often? How long? Where (home)? These are some of the logistical issues that must be addressed? Often, they evolve just as the mentor/mentee relationship evolves.

Young Mentors

Although mentor in the dictionary sense means someone who acts as your trusted counselor or a guide, it has a connotation of seniority. A mentor is usually an experienced professional full of wisdom stemming from their years of having lived a life of adventure, accomplishments, and learning. They are also pursued because of their power, influence, and stature in the business community in which they play. In today’s context that definition of a mentor may be limiting. Why? Many young professionals these days are highly driven, accomplished, and savvy. The rapid growth of technologies has made mastering these technologies a challenge for most. Somehow, the younger generation seems to master them well and, as a result, is a great resource for learning. They are also well versed with how their generation deals with the fast-changing world, which the older generation seems to find challenging.

Having a young mentor may seem like a contradiction, but in today’s world it is a necessity. There is no rule that says you must have only one mentor. One of your mentors could be someone (or several) who is savvy at something that you want to learn. Jack Welch, the legendary chairman of General Electric, often courted Gen-Y (and even Gen-X) professionals and called them his mentors. He learned much about the Internet and how they look at the exploding commerce in this new paradigm.

Common Mistakes

The following is a short list of common mistakes made in developing a mentor/mentee relationship:

• You look to your boss to be your mentor.
• You and your mentor are frustrated with the lack of progress made. A mentor/mentee relationship is more about personal growth and maturity and not project deliverables.
• Having a blind faith in the mentor. Mentors are humans, too. They, too, need mentors. Do not expect too much from a mentor. They do not have all the answers.
• Not knowing when to move on. Every relationship plays out. Once you start seeing the end of a relationship because of your own growth or the stagnation of the mentor, gradually move on and do not make a big deal about it. Graduating to a different mentor is a sign of growth

Coaching

Coaching and mentoring are considered kindred needs in the corporate world. Although they are complementary in their application, nothing could be further from the truth. While mentoring involves someone who can guide you in your career and who brings both the content and the context of what is happening in your situation to the relationship, coaching invariably involves someone who gets paid for understanding the context of your predicament. A mentor can be a person inside your organization, if not in your company, but a coach is usually a professional who comes from the “outside.” Yes, some companies employ executive coaches who are on their staff, often they are a stable of professionals retained to serve an ongoing need when a company is doing well.

Coaching came into vogue in the mid 90s when the full impact of the newly-launched 360 degree review became growingly popular in the corporate culture. Annual reviews based on the 360 degree instruments typically highlight areas for an employee where they need to grow and increase their value in those areas. Managers typically do not have the time or the skill to help their direct reports to achieve this development. So, companies started hiring coaches to help employees in the specific areas of their needs. Many employees hire their own counselors or coaches to develop themselves, much like a physical trainer or sports coach.

The following guidelines are provided to help you select a coach that you may want to engage in your ongoing development:

1. The best sources of getting names for potential coaches is referrals from someone you know and someone who has shown progress that is visible to you.
2. Have a meeting with yourself and ask yourself introspective questions that articulate your need for development and the areas in which you see the need.
3. Meet with the coach for an initial session and explore their approach, compatibility, and style.
4. Do not sign up for a package deal no matter how much you save by paying in advance. Have a few sessions before you decide.
5. Make sure that the coach has real experience working in the corporate world and has shown career growth, reinventions, and has dealt with challenges that are typical in the corporate world. If they come from recruiting and HR staff or academic backgrounds they are less likely to be effective in what they have to offer.
6. If a coach cannot offer you specific and actionable guidance you are probably talking to a frustrated therapist who could not get their license.
7. If the guidance that you get in your sessions is not working for you, bring it up immediately in the next session and seek a course correction. If things are not working fire the coach and find another one.
8. Seek feedback from your colleagues and check for changes in your own self.
9. If you do not see things changing for yourself do not delude yourself by waiting longer.
10. If you do not respect the coach, you have lost the edge in your relationship and you must move on.

There is absolutely no reason why you cannot manage your own career through a series of preemptive actions. Most complain about how stultifying their jobs are, how they have reached a glass ceiling, or how insecure their boss is and how he is holding them back. Then they let each one of these factors militate against their career to let it take its own course. Most are far more comfortable being a victim of their circumstances than they are being a victor. Because to move from being a former to the latter involves taking charge of your situation, taking some risks, and then acting on the plan that you set out to execute.

Regardless of the specifics of your own career barrier, the following prescription is offered to transform your usage of the word “career” from a noun to a verb:

1. Take a stock of what is happening and what should be happening in your career trajectory. Assess how much of the blame points inwardly; you’d be surprised what you discover if you remain objective in this assessment.
2. Shed the victim mantle and put of the victor armor. Make a list of things you must do to turn the situation around that has got you stuck. For example, if your boss is ignoring you and you are not getting any credit for you good work, take charge of the situation and write a memo to everyone in your team thanking your boss for giving you the opportunity to take on a project that you successfully completed. Send a copy to his boss and let her know that your boss is a good leader. Mention this in open meetings where your boss is going to be present. Pretty soon he will get the picture that you are there to make him look good and he will start paying attention to your needs.
3. If no one has praised you for your good work, take a random person and praise them. Praise must be specific, genuine, timely, and spontaneous. When you give this praise the recipient should light up and start telling you about their accomplishment proudly. Praise is a contagious sport; pretty soon it will boomerang back to you. If you feel shy doing this in person, do it by email or a note! The amazing aspect about giving someone praise is that the recipient assumes that you are someone important!
4. As you move up in the hierarchy what matters is the relationships you have with those around you. This is particularly important for those who come from technical ranks. They are raised in the belief that as long as their technical work is flawless, everything else should not matter. Wrong! No one likes a smart alec, but everyone finds irresistible people who make them genuinely feel worthy and good. This is the basis of establishing good relationships.
5. Set out an objective to advance your career in a measurable way. For example, if you are a senior manager vying to become a director in a year, merely doing a good job in your current position is not enough. You must become visible at the level that matters. Supporting your boss in front of their boss; becoming visible by taking initiatives and social causes that the company believes in, and so on. If you do this well, most of the people working with you will wonder how is it that you are just a senior manager and mingling with higher ups effortlessly. Once you become part of the circle in upper management you will be seen as a part of the upper management. Remember, to move up, relationships matter and not merely your competence.
6. Look for outside jobs that are one or two levels above your current title. Find what job skills you need to develop to qualify for those positions and then ask your boss for assignments that allow you to take on those opportunities. Each year proactively draft your resume for those positions and see what assignments will take you to claim that expertise. Now you are managing your career with you in the driver’s seat.
7. Learn how to look and feel important and project that image. You can influence people without authority. Understand the difference between influence, power, and authority.
8. Understand how senior executives in your company spend their time professionally, socially, and in the way that they project their image. For example, if they all belong to a certain club or a network, join that club and get in to be seen as one of “them.”
9. The best way to claim a position that you are vying for is to act as if you already are in that position and to start behaving as if you have that responsibility. Without alienating your team, show leadership that allows you to be seen as doing that role and getting everyone’s cooperation. When time comes for a promotion no one would be surprised if you get that promotion.
10. Senior managers and those in the executive suites have extensive networks. Start developing your own network of influential people and take time to nurture and expand your circle of friends and professionals. Make an investment of time every week to make this a scheduled activity in your routine.
11. Learn how to communicate effectively and to take on opportunities that require you to speak publicly. Nothing creates greater visibility than to have done well in a presentation that has public exposure. Join Toastmasters or similar organizations to ratchet up your leadership and communication skills
12. Do not wait to be assigned a project. Identify a project that will improve the company’s position and take it on. Send out a memo spreading the news of your successful accomplishment, and, once again, thanking your boss!
13. Take on someone to mentor and find yourself a mentor. Learning is painful but without pain there is no growing. Seek out opportunities to take risks and do not be afraid to fail. As Winston Churchill said, Success consists of jumping from failure to failure without admitting defeat!

Good luck!