18. Mentoring

Full confession: in my career, I’ve not had great success with formal mentoring programs. Maybe it’s just me.

Once, I had breakfast with a “mentor” who was assigned to me. We had nothing  in common. We’d try to get a conversation going, only to have it run out of gas. I kept trying, but it was really hard.  It was the longest breakfast I ever had, and all I had was oatmeal.

A mentor is someone who knows you, who’s interested in your career, who feels a connection to you. Someone you can trust, share your concerns, go to when faced with dilemmas. It’s hard to successfully assign a match for both the mentor and the mentee.

But I have had many people mentor me. How is that possible?

One way to do this is to reach out for a conversation. Like “having a cup of coffee” with various people. So, if someone has a really interesting role, or has done some interesting things, drop them an email “Would love to have a cup of coffee/meet for lunch/meet for breakfast/just meet to talk about your career and how you got to be “fill in blank”. Would it be all right for me to set up something at your convenience?”

It’s much less stressful than the formal “will you adopt me, pay for my wedding, forever be there” mentor set ups.

Everyone says yes. It may take some time, but you won’t hear no.

This lets you get to know the person, and gradually develop a potential  mentoring relationship. At the very least, you’ll spend an hour with someone who will share their experiences with you. At the most, it might evolve to a true mentoring relationship: someone in the organization who feels responsibility for you and is there to help you. BTW, it’s great when they’re senior. But it’s also just as rewarding when it’s a colleague.

If you don’t have a mentor, and always had mentor-envy, try it and see.

15. When things go wrong….

Want to know the best way to handle a mistake, error, or problem?

Tell people immediately and take accountability.

That’s it. No matter what the problem is, big or small, this is what I observe works. Time is of the essence: the longer you wait, the worse the problem usually gets. You run out of options…or worse, it looks like you were hiding the problem.

When mistakes happen, we tend to want to blame someone.  Blame is often a waste of time.  Focus instead on the process and what the source/cause of the problem, because the goal is to fix and remediate so that you manage the risk. The clock is ticking.

Mistakes People Make About Mistakes

1. You try to get perfect information before informing anyone. You need to know enough to explain the situation, but don’t chase unnecessary details at the expense of time. The hospital doesn’t need to run 100 tests on you to know that they have to stop the bleeding.

2. You blame others

  • Nope, all you’re showing is that you’re not a leader or a team player.

3. You use voicemail or email to notify folks.

  • If it’s really important, you need voice on voice action. Live. Interrupt your manager. Escalate. Would you rely on email or voicemail if a family member was in an accident?
  • When you do send the debrief emails, you need to include everyone. Otherwise, those who are involved feel excluded….you need everyone’s help to solve the problem. Things to include: problem explanation, impact analysis, what you don’t know yet, what you know for sure.  And continue to update.

4. You don’t fix the problem fast.

  • Yes, ideally automation is a better way to fix problems. In the meantime, put the manual processes in place so you know you’ve stopped the bleeding. Figure out what’s needed to remediate what went wrong. What was the impact? Keep communicating to the necessary parties so they know what’s going on. Make sure that one problem isn’t an indicator of 50 more. Don’t forget to develop the plan for the industrial strength solution. The sneaker brigade is only a short term fix.

5. There is no post mortem (otherwise known as:What could we have done differently?)

  • I have found two valuable tools on doing a post mortem: 1) a chronology of events, and 2) a detailed description of the process. That’s what will show you what went wrong. Often it’s the process that’s flawed, not the person.
  • Your post mortem often turns into the project update for your strategic solution implementation.

Finally: move on. Things will go wrong. The key is your ability to react quickly and ensure we don’t make the same mistake again…creating a stronger organization than what existed yesterday. Then you’ve done your job.

 

When you change roles….

Throughout my career, I have changed roles: within the company or changing companies. Recently I was asked “what did you learn to help you change roles successfully?” and I realized there were some things I do that seem to help.

1. Schedule “meet and greets”.  When I start a new role, i get a sense of who my key stakeholders are: who do I need support from? Who are the naysayers? Who are the opinion makers? Once I have my list, I set up half hour meetings with each of them to introduce myself, learn more about them, and get a sense of who they are and what their perspective is.  I take notes, ask questions, and listen.

What this does is 1) begin a relationship with the person, 2) provides you with more intel on the situation, 3) indicates to the person that you’re willing to listen.  When it’s time for me to ask them for something, they’re more likely to respond.

2. Initially, focus on being liked. The first question on everyone’s mind about you is “will I like you?”  Meaning: will they trust you, find you reasonable, good to work with? Do you listen? Are you self aware? Will you fit in?  Too often, new people anxiously try to prove their value immediately by criticizing and trying to change things. We just met!  Focus on being liked first. Then you can make your suggestions.

Note: if you talk about your old company all the time, stop it.  The new girlfriend/boyfriend never wants to hear about the old one…bad or good.

3. Then add value. Once you’ve established your “likeability”, now you can start making suggestions and gathering feedback. You’re there to get a job done….so now is the time to start executing with your team and putting points on the board.

4. Circle back. Once you’ve been in your role for a number of months, put together a short presentation that allows you to update those folks you met with before, but may not deal with day to day.  I like to start with “What I heard”, which tends to be common themes as a result of my meet and greets.  Then a page on what we’re doing: what, who, when.  A few exhibits if needed. A next steps page: always ending with “is there anything else I’m missing?”

Changing jobs is always a little scary.  This time, you want them to assume positive intent about you.

 

Women I love – Dr Christina Yang

For those of you who watch Grey’s Anatomy, you know who I mean.

Christina Yang is a character played by Sandra Oh: a cardiothoracic surgeon at the hospital. Meredith Grey is her best friend: another top surgeon. They have rituals: “dancing it out”, being “each other’s person”, and not going to that “dark and twisty place”. Two women passionate about professional excellence and their friendship.

Doctor Yang  is competitive, ambitious, intelligent, and at the same time, brutally honest, insensitive, aggressive and tactless.  While I’m not recommending that all her manager behaviors be emulated (how she handles the new residents…and how they love it), she is inspiring because she is who she is and is unapologetic about it.  How refreshing is that?

This past May, Dr Yang left Grey’s Anatomy.  Thank you Sandra Oh for giving us a female Asian television character as authentic and brave as Dr Yang.

 

 

 

11. Friends and family spell “love” T-I-M-E. Show up.

I get asked a lot about “work life balance” and how I do it. It’s not easy.

Personally, I don’t believe it exists if you define it as balancing work and life equally all the time. Just from a pure math point of view, if you work 5 days a week, there is no way that there can be balance from a time allotment perspective. Balance implies you have equal weight on both sides. So we feel guilty because we can’t achieve the balance, and we beat ourselves up even though it’s impossible.  And we feel bad because we’re told we can have it all. But what does that mean?

What I do believe is in work life balancing.  Continue reading →

28. Learn how to say no.

How many times have you heard this? So, there are right ways and wrong ways.

You can’t say no because you have too much to do. You can’t say no because you have no resources. You can’t say no when it’s the business or your client. You can’t say no when it’s your boss. You can’t say no because you think it’s not important. You can’t say no because your boss told you to say no. Continue reading →

24. Myth: “My work stands for itself”….

Myth: “my work stands for itself…so I don’t need to do anything. They’ll recognize that I am promotion material.”

Getting the balance between being humble but still advocating for yourself is hard. It’s hard not to take it personally when you’re not promoted, and you expected it. It’s even harder if you see peers getting promoted. So how do you navigate this space? Continue reading →

Keeping a personal notebook

I was reading an interesting blog (see here: “12 quiet rituals of enormously successful humans”). Take a read, but one that really resonated with me was:

“9, They keep some kind of personal notebook.”

For years, I have had a personal notebook. (not that I am enormously successful!)  I take it on all trips, I always know where it is. It’s a big “Black n’ Red” bounded notebook, with lined pages. But it’s not a journal. Part of it’s a journal, but I don’t write in my journal every day. So what’s in it? Continue reading →

2. Say thank you.

My first summer job when I was in business school was working for a consulting practice at a big accounting firm. My first day, I was nervous and as I entered my newly furnished office that I was sharing with another intern, I spilled my entire grande cup of coffee on the pristine beige rug. I was sure I was going to be fired. Or known as the intern who spilled the coffee.

My boss came by, introduced himself, took a look and laughed…”Boy, that’s a rough start!”. He called someone to make arrangements to clean it up and couldn’t have been nicer. I knew he was going to be someone I learned a lot from.

What I learned from him wasn’t subject matter. Not that he wasn’t brilliant: he was ex-McKinsey, had lots of degrees. There are a lot of people like that. But he was also an example of someone who was kind and really good at his job. Respected as a partner. Liked by everyone. Even the janitor.

Every night, he’d poke his head in before he left (as the lowest people on the food chain, we would be working late). He’d always say “Thanks a lot for your help today.” Every day. To interns.

I try to remember this at work. Saying thank you, sending an email, ordering pizza….all of it goes a long way to affecting people’s day to day. In general, work is hard, frustrating, infuriating, and exhausting. It can also be rewarding, inspiring, and satisfying. But when you work in an environment where you feel appreciated, and you’re thanked, it refuels you for the next day.

So say thank you.

 

5. Add value to every communication you send. If no one’s commenting, no one’s reading it.

My pet peeve are those emails that come out every week, or even every day. They have one or two lines that say “please find attached the weekly x. If you have any questions, let us know”, with an attachment. Which I can’t really open on blackberry.

Take the time and write a few sentences on the key soundbites. Why do I care? What is the report telling me that is of interest? If there’s been no change, tell me that. If there has been a deterioration in something (metrics, project status, etc.), tell me that too. Give me some indication of whether or not it’s good news or bad news. More importantly, give me the sense that you know what’s going on. Don’t make me work for it by trying to put the pieces together.

Pushing emails like this out without taking the time to summarize is an opportunity wasted. You have my attention….what do you want to tell me?