Chapter 13

Mentoring for Gen Xers

by Tamara Erickson

If you’re a member of Generation X (born between the early 1960s and the late 1970s), you may worry that Gen Ys (born after 1980) will get all the mentoring love at work, but don’t: You’re actually in a pretty good position.

For starters, you’re armed with more experience, which you can use to attract good mentors. Think of all that experience as a stack of poker chips acquired for being an effective, valuable contributor over the years—chips that you can now cash in to get the specific career advice and support you need.

Your Gen Y colleagues, no matter how “golden,” often receive indiscriminant, same-for-all counsel. Like college freshmen, they have to study the core curriculum before they can spend much time concentrating on a major. So they may sit in on group sessions to learn more about the corporation’s values and strategies, for example, or receive coaching on writing effective memos. Much of their mentoring is either broad orientation or basic tactical learning. As a result, it covers a wide range of skills and knowledge, and can be hit or miss—more like the rewards from a slot machine than a payout for a poker game well played.

Now that you’re well into your thirties or forties, you need mentoring that’s tailored to your individual strengths and career goals. And at this point, you’ve earned it. But don’t expect the company or your Baby Boomer bosses to think of it on their own—you’ve got to be the one to make it happen. How? By playing to your strengths, building a network of mentors who can help you achieve your goals, and working with those mentors to optimize your current role.

Playing to Your Strengths

Earlier in your career, it made sense to try a bit of everything and to push yourself to improve in areas of weakness. Though self-improvement is still an admirable goal, now is the time to consolidate your efforts and focus on what you do best. You’ll deepen your expertise and, just as important, attract the attention of mentors who can help you grow and advance in your areas of strength. Ask yourself:

“Am I pursuing opportunities at work that demonstrate my strengths?”

Consider Jonathon, a software specialist at a large distribution firm, who had come to realize that his ability to manage projects well set him apart from his colleagues. (All examples in this article are drawn from my research on Gen X.) He began to seek work assignments that allowed him to highlight that skill set. Because he was organized and good at meeting deadlines, he frequently offered to lead projects. Over time, the VP of his company’s project management office took note and began to send increasingly challenging opportunities Jonathon’s way. To set him up for success, the VP also mentored Jonathon by sharing the tacit knowledge he’d gained over the years—tips for handling negotiations with difficult stakeholders, for example, and ways to access scarce resources.

“Do my external activities reinforce my professional strengths and reputation?”

When you sign up for responsibilities outside work, try to choose ones that build on your expertise. If you’re good at managing large projects, consider joining the school building committee in your district. Or if marketing campaigns are your bailiwick, offer to develop one for a local animal shelter.

Susan, a human resource generalist, was fascinated by the strategic issues associated with talent management and realized she wanted to specialize in that area. As part of her career development plan, she volunteered to serve on the long-range strategy committee of a local arts organization. Helping this committee consider the impact a changing workforce would have on the organization gave her strategy-development experience relevant to her field—and a number of stories she could inject into watercooler conversations at work. She posted updates and lessons learned in her profile on the company’s social network. Her reputation for big-picture planning spread quickly. Soon her enthusiasm attracted the attention of several senior managers, who were willing to invest time in mentoring such an obviously dedicated individual: They shared their own experiences and best practices with her, gave her assignments that required an innovative look at future trends’ implications for the company, critiqued her work on those assignments, and supported her requests for corporate funding for additional education.

Building a Mentoring Network

At this stage in your career, it’s critical to broaden your perspective and increase your access to career-advancement opportunities—and you can do both by building and tapping a network of multiple mentors.

Of course, younger employees create networks of contacts, too, but not typically for the kind of mentoring you’ll benefit from. Theirs are often designed to help them get necessary information for immediate tasks or guidance on specific challenges, like delivering effective presentations. Given where you are in your career, your networking goal should be much larger than that: to open doors for growth and advancement.

Ben, a specialist in procurement, worked in a corporation that had several strong, decentralized divisions. He had a solid relationship with his department head, but no contacts in other parts of the company. However, by asking his mentor for targeted introductions, he formed a cross-unit network of influential, in-the-know people within the operational functions in multiple divisions. That’s how he learned about a plum opportunity to move into a broader operational management role when it came up in another division.

And then there was Laura, a star in sales who had a long-term goal of moving into marketing. She worked with her mentor to understand which aspects of her past experience would be most applicable to marketing roles (her detailed understanding of the distribution channels, for instance)—and then to position herself as a potential marketer in conversations with others in the firm. Her mentor also introduced her to people who coached her on skills she lacked, such as conducting market research. With confidence in her base of experience and exposure to some new skills, Laura made a successful move into a product manager role when the next one opened up.

Start building your mentoring network by creating a personal relationship map. Identify all the people you need to collaborate with in order to do your current job successfully and everyone who might help you achieve your next job or career goal. Ask yourself which of those individuals you need to know better, and leverage your current mentors to form stronger relationships with them. For example, ask existing contacts to provide key introductions, as Ben’s and Laura’s mentors did, and have them fill you in on people’s backgrounds and interests. Work with your mentors to identify issues or projects your target contacts are working on: Maybe you can offer relevant expertise or ideas, or find ways for your team to assist theirs.

Optimizing Your Current Role

Many midcareer challenges you’ll face as a Gen Xer are likely to stem from a mismatch between your tried-and-true approaches to work and your changing roles over the course of your career. In your earlier roles, success probably depended on acquiring knowledge, gaining technical proficiency, and working hard to produce whatever your company produced. But now you may be responsible for managing processes, activities, or other people. Or perhaps you’ve moved into a senior role, where your job is to establish and reinforce the company’s values, strategies, policies, and leadership behaviors. Success, in either case, now depends on your ability to create an environment where other people can shine.

Making such transitions is tough because knowledge and skills that previously served you well no longer apply. One of the most important roles mentors play at this point in your career is to help you see yourself clearly and modify your behavior appropriately as you strive to meet new expectations. It’s difficult to get this perspective yourself—and the kind of honest feedback that’s required is not something a casual colleague is likely to provide. You need trusted mentors, invested in helping you succeed.

Take Barbara’s situation. Based on her terrific work as a research analyst, she was viewed as a rising star at her company and promoted at a young age to a senior position that involved managing many others. Her new direct reports were also acknowledged stars or eager to become recognized. Barbara’s role abruptly shifted from producing content as an individual contributor to creating context where other contributors could perform well. Fortunately, a mentor helped her adjust her focus and tone—for instance, by doing some role-playing with Barbara to prepare her for difficult types of conversations. From such exercises, Barbara learned that she needed to soften her tone and adopt a more nurturing attitude. Her mentor showed her how to convey genuine respect and caring for her direct reports through word choice and body language, and explained the importance of gaining their trust by acknowledging their accomplishments and their need for recognition.

Mentoring for Gen Xers is a reinforcing circle: The more you use your experience to build your reputation and your network, the easier it will become to attract effective mentors. And by working with those mentors, you can leverage the knowledge and skills honed in your current role to grasp the next big opportunity.

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Tamara Erickson works with corporations to more effectively engage the changing workforce. She is the author of a trilogy of books on the generations: Retire Retirement, Plugged In, and What’s Next, Gen X? (Harvard Business Review Press, 2008, 2008, and 2010). She was named one of the 50 leading management thinkers in 2009 and 2011 by Thinkers50.