Finding a Mentor #1: Know Thyself
In which I discuss the prerequisites of finding a great mentor
Just over twenty women crammed themselves last year into a conference room during lunch for our monthly brown bag for women at Adobe. The topic was on “mentorship,” and we came prepared to talk about our thoughts on the topic after reading a couple of articles on the topic.
I was surprised that I walked out of the session with pretty much the same idea of mentorship as when I walked in, despite the enthusiastic contributions from the various people who participated in the conversation. After further reflection, I realized it was due to the fact that I had, after all, participated in many years of formal mentorship through my martial arts program, and had in turn become a serial mentor in an almost Sith-like manner. (“There are always two: master and apprentice.”)
In my mind, the question of “what does mentorship look like?” is almost secondary; the most important component is the person itself. After all, at the core of any mentorship is relationship. And because it’s relationship and not specific to any particular skill set, I realized that my experience in being on both sides of a martial arts mentorship directly applied to career mentorship as well.
So what does the martial arts teach me about finding a career mentor? It turns out, quite a lot. Instead of exploring each aspect of mentorship in one long blog post that no one will read, I’m breaking them up into a series of shorter blog posts covering the lessons I’ve learned from martial arts that have been applicable to my career.
I realized that, when it came to mentorship, you have to have a pretty clear idea of what you want to accomplish through the relationship. Even before you ask a person to be your mentor, you should be cognizant of three things.
Prerequisite 1: Know Your Destination
I originally had this as the last point in the list, but it quickly bubbled up to being the linchpin of the entire strategy, as every other prerequisite should be considered in its context. The first thing you need to know is what you want. What is your goal? Is it to grow to the next step in your current career path? Is it growing in a particular soft skill? Is it switching careers?
In martial arts, this is a pretty easy step: you just tack on one belt level above from where you are, and that’s your goal. (“I’m a first degree black belt, and I want to get to second degree black belt.”) But career growth is rarely that linear; for many, the destination may be orthogonal to one’s current position or may come after explorations in one path or another before they, like Goldilocks, settle on something that’s “just right.”
Prerequisite 2: Know Your Strengths
Before talking to someone about mentoring you, you should have a pretty good categorization of your strengths. These could be specific skills, experiences, or character traits that you already have. They could be utilized in your current position or not, but they should be applicable to your goal. For instance, the ability to make an amazing tiramisu probably isn’t applicable to becoming a better programmer, but having experience designing relational databases is.
For some, making this list might be easy. They’re things you’ve been praised for in the past: some piece of technical acumen, for instance, or the ability to speak well in front of people. It could be the ability to handle irate customers or the ability to connect with others and get information to them in the right format.
But, as I mentioned above, the most important part of this list is that it helps you identify what you already bring to the table as you work toward your goal.
Prerequisite 3: Know Your Weaknesses
In a similar vein, you should also have a pretty good categorization of what you’re not good at with regards to your career goal. For some, this list will be pretty obvious, and for others, this process will be more difficult. However, this step is critical in identifying growth steps to get you where you need to go.
When Self-Reflection Isn’t Enough
So what happens if you have problems with identifying any of the three steps I’ve outlined above? It is, after all, the nature of the beast to be a little myopic about one’s own strengths and weaknesses. And, even if you’re pretty aware of your strengths and weaknesses, adding them up to a career step can also be difficult without outside assistance.
This is where the concept of a personal board of directors comes in handy. I’ve heard this term multiple times; while I’m not too enthralled with the term, I’ve put the concept into practice a fair amount.
At its core, a personal board is a list of people you trust to be honest with you. These are people who are perceptive enough to call out your strengths and weaknesses and who are interested in your personal and career growth. These are tactful people who will contextualize and clarify your strengths and weaknesses and will give you feedback on ideas or careers you’re considering.
I’ve struggled over the past three years with, in my own words, “trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.” Sometimes the people on my board have been managers or former managers, people I’ve talked to about my career aspirations, or friends who are perceptive enough to comment on trends they see in my life. Sometimes these people have come from formal one-day mentorship opportunities or in a skip-level conversation with an executive. I always treat them as opportunities to learn more about how others perceive me, which either reinforces opinions I have about myself or causes me to reevaluate whether or not my belief about my skills (or lack thereof) is valid.
Nevertheless, having these conversations can help you gather enough data to move ahead with approaching a mentor. Have enough of these conversations over a period of time, and you might be able to identify motifs and a potential career trajectory.
Next time, I’ll cover who makes a great mentor, and why.
Until then, friends, go on out there and be awesome.
More in this series:
“The Inner Cloister” courtesy Justin Kern. Licensed under Non-Commercial Creative Commons 2.0.
Elaine is an engineer at Adobe. You can find her on Twitter at @elainefinnell. All statements in this essay are her own and do not reflect the opinions of her employer.
