One of my favorite sayings from perhaps my very first mentor was "Don't let school interfere with your education.” I have been fortunate to have had mentors my entire life essentially spanning all of the developmental stages, but also in different capacities. We tend to think about mentors as people who guide our professional careers, which they are. However, mentors can come in different roles and for different purposes. For example, you can have a mentor who helps you with your professional development, but you can also have a variety of short term mentors who are skill focused. There was a period of time that I had a mentor, who was a distinguished English professor at a local state university, who greatly assist assisted me with writing. When I was interested in learning a specialty area of psychology, I was also mentored for a year by a Harvard professor.

 

If you already have a mentor, you may want to think about identifying a short-term skill based mentor. To get started, you should address these questions:

 

1) What I am seeking to develop as an area of expertise?

 

2) Is this a specific skill, or set of skills, or a broader strategy?

 

3) What kind of experience and skills would the ideal mentor have?

 

People sometime struggle finding a mentor, or even knowing how to go about identifying one. This is a classic challenge, but not without solution. The key to finding a mentor is your network, starting with family and friends, and then expanding out to colleagues in your workplace, and even reaching out to your alumni office if you attended university. If you make time to diligently speak with these people, articulate your interests, and ask for input to identify a mentor, you will surely get connected with one. I’ve seen it happen over and over. You can start brainstorming with your Linked-In connections as well, followed by virtual or in-person meet-ups. The most important pre-meeting work is to be clear about the type of mentor you are seeking.

 

Some new trends that have been successfully implemented in various companies include bi-directional mentoring in which a young professional is paired with a senior professional with the underlying premise that both can learn from each other. This helps break down generational workplace barriers and creates opportunities for new insights. Another is time-limited informal mentoring, which when successfully implemented, pairs employees up for time-limited mentoring sessions to receive specific feedback on a particular objective or skill. It is easy to implement and leverage in an organization because it can simply be a one-session commitment.

 

As you develop professionally, the types of mentor you can benefit from will change depending where you are on your career journey. Perhaps you need a mentor help you plan retirement or succession planning. This is very different than the one who got you started in your career. In sum, mentors are an asset who can facilitate continuous improvement. Don’t go too long without one.

 

The Exercise:

Identify the profile of a short-term skill based mentor. Revisit these questions:

1) What am I seeking to develop as an area of expertise?

2) Is this a specific skill, or set of skills, or a broader strategy?

3) What kind of experience and skills would the ideal mentor have?