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What role has mentorship played in your professional development? Was it fundamental to your growth?
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5 Answers
Mentorship has been a two-way street. It is not only fundamental to growth, it is a continuing professional obligation.
In my career I've had significant mentors who challenged me to grow and gave me solid guidance in the process. This included going beyond my education and experience. For instance, I learned to communicate technical topics in ways that non-technical people can understand. That proved especially useful when executive management needed to be informed. I also picked-up useful marketing knowledge and customer-service skills.
My career has also included mentoring others. This included coaching technical people to go beyond their limits and to see themselves playing a greater role. As a result, many of those I've mentored have made, and continue to make, significant contributions to technology in ways that engage their peers and non-technical people. They, in turn, have mentored others. A bonus, with few exceptions, is that those I mentored have become my good friends.
Mentorship has made a positive impact on my professional development. I have had the unique opportunity to participate as a mentor for a non-profit organization that matches mentors and mentees. I have helped new leaders develop their ideas into thriving businesses as well as ask questions that had not yet been addressed, such as: Do you have a marketing plan and budget? Have you thought about how you will promote the company? Where do you think the company will be in five years? These experiences have also positively impacted my career and professional development, since I have expanded my marketing expertise while interacting with these aspiring leaders.
Without the mentoring I encountered in my first job out of college, I would have failed.
I had taken a job with Pacific Telephone in their computerized billing department, in an office with 450 employees of which 443 were women, and after a short orientation was assigned to manage 150 of them. A psychology graduate who had never taken even an introductory computer course (there weren't many in the 60s), I had no idea what I was doing and was literally terrified.
One day, a long-time supervisor (one of five who worked for me) took me aside and said; "you know you are the second trainee we have had here... the first went out figuratively in a pine box. He had a MBA and thought he would tell us all what to do... so we did just what he said with disastrous results." "But I like you, and if you will just watch me as you move through your daily routine, I and your other supervisors will make sure you don't crash and burn."
The program I was in had a 70% wash-out rate so I sensed she was being straight with me. I did what she said and, sure enough, I graduated from the program early with an "outstanding" rating, going on to HQ in San Francisco as part of a major directory automation project that set me firmly on my career course.
I guess the moral of this shaggy dog is that mentoring is important and can be from above or below.
Very positive. My mentor used to tell me that he would help me in getting my intrinsic value increased. He did it very well during my initial years.
This inspired me to ask my HR manager to nominate a mentor for every new employee. It helped new employees to settle down in the organization but also grow in the organization.
Above anything else, mentorship has had the most lasting effect on me throughout my career and as Glen points out is a never-ending process...especially if you are the one doing the mentoring! The sad thing is, the growing trend I see today is that there is a lack of mentoring being done by managers. There are far too many managers that do nothing to assist or guide their team members and then, at the end of the month, sit and wonder why they get poor results, over and over again.
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