Throughout our book, we have provided rich details from the work lives of individuals who have sought out the advice, guidance, and support of a network of powerful mentoring relationships rather than leaving their career development to chance. We have traced the stories of these mentors and protégés from their initial acquaintance, to their developing closeness and intimacy, and finally to the great rewards that the relationships have brought to each party. We have shared their stories to inspire you to take advantage of your own power mentoring relationships. Therefore, it is time to think about how to plan your next steps in pursuing the mentoring relationship of your dreams. You are off on a path that will require motivation, goals, and self-determination. Oh, the places you will go!

Most career development activities ask individuals to answer questions about their own career preferences and the goals they would like to accomplish. As we mentioned previously, books such as What Color Is Your Parachute? have been popular for years and have provided many people with valuable insight into their interests and goals as an important step in career planning. These books are important, because leadership development experts suggest that effective career development begins with a good level of self-awareness.² Also helpful are self-awareness scales that reveal individuals’ preferred problem-solving styles, such as the Myers-Briggs Typology, as well as tests that reveal preferred learning styles, like Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory.³ Other types of assessments focus on determining whether individuals have appropriate skills. They may take the form of self-assessments of a person’s skill level in particular areas, or assessments that come from others who have the opportunity to observe a person’s skills. Many organizations use 360-degree assessments for their managers and leaders to help in the career development process. These assessments gather opinions of a person’s effectiveness from his or her subordinates, bosses, peers, or customers, as well as incorporating self-ratings of effectiveness. These ratings are then used to provide an overview of the person’s particular strengths and areas for improvement. If used properly, 360-degree assessments can be a very useful tool. If you have not already done so, you may wish to consider using some of these assessments as a precursor to the work we suggest here.

We combine some different types of activities to give both mentors and protégés insight into their preferences and skill sets surrounding effective mentoring relationships, as well as their own assessments of their current mentoring relationships. Some of these activities tap into a person’s mentoring preferences, while others ask the mentor or protégé to gather feedback from others to gain an even higher level of insight. Many of these exercises have been road-tested by us during our work in designing mentoring programs. You can use them just as they are, or modify them as you see fit. Our intention is to provide exercises for both the mentor and the protégé here, so if one exercise does not work for you, keep reading, because you have a lot of options to choose from. We split the RDP into three phases:

1. Getting started: Know what you want. These activities include visualizing the perfect relationship, assessing the mentoring philosophy that works for you, and identifying the types of specific mentoring relationships you would like to pursue. The result will be a comprehensive profile of the types of mentors or protégés that will work most effectively with you.

2. Getting involved: Know how to get what you need. Getting involved requires that you identify methods for attracting the mentor/ protégé, approaching the mentor/protégé, establishing rapport, and making your pitch. Before beginning this process, however, we ask you to do a number of self-assessments to identify the types of benefits you may offer in the relationship, how you stack up as a potential protégé, and how your talents and skills match up with the potential mentor or protégé you have chosen. We also ask that you assess skills that will become necessary in developing the relationship such as your level of emotional intelligence and whether you will be ready for the tests and challenges posed to you in your first meetings. The result of these exercises will be a step-by-step plan for making initial contact with an identified mentor or protégé.

3. Getting close: Know how to build and deepen the relationship. In the final phase, we give you tools to further build the relationship. There are also activities assessing current relationships and determining how they might be improved, activities for determining whether now might be a good time to bring others into the mentoring network to accomplish career goals, and activities for deciding whether to dissolve existing mentoring relationships.

Now that we have identified an overview of the general process, let’s begin.

In visualizing the ideal mentor or protégé, you may have tapped into your most important beliefs regarding the mentor philosophies that we introduced in Chapter Four. A mentor philosophy includes assumptions about the role the mentor plays and the benefits he or she offers. You may have developed your mental models of mentoring from your previous mentoring relationships, or from mentoring relationships you have been aware of and have admired.

If you are a protégé, take the quiz in Exhibit 7.2 to see what characteristics you are looking for in your mentoring relationships.

Here are a few tips on interpreting your results:

When you complete this first section of the RDP, please fill in some of your expectations for your mentors. You may find because you are interested in peer mentors, or reverse mentors, the mentoring philosophies we list do not really fit your needs at the present time. The next section is for mentors to complete; please skip over it if you are a protégé.

If you are a mentor, complete the scale in Exhibit 7.3, thinking about your own conception of ideal mentoring relationships from your perspective as a mentor.

A few comments may help you interpret your results:

Exhibit 7.4 provides more detail on the mentoring philosophies explored in the previous exercise. Looking at the definitions in the exhibit, what philosophy of mentoring is most appealing to you, either as a mentor or as a protégé? As we mentioned in Chapter Four, our treatment is not exhaustive. People may mentor for other reasons; these were merely some of the more salient philosophies we uncovered in our interviews.

One last exercise we have mentors and protégés do when thinking about mentoring is contained in the worksheet in Exhibit 7.5. In training sessions, we often ask mentors and protégés to think about the perfect metaphorical image for what a mentor represents to them. Our participants come from diverse backgrounds—sometimes they mentor other managers, or sometimes they mentor students in youth programs—so we get very different answers. But they all show special insight into the various forms the ideal mentor can take. For example, one student mentioned that mentors are like pace cars in professional car racing. They come out to get the race started, but once it is going, the pace car goes back to the pits. If there is an accident or other danger on the track, the pace car will return to guide the rest of the field of cars again. To this person, mentoring was somewhat hands-off unless the person needed it; when trouble arose the mentor would spring into action to do what was necessary to solve the problem. Although not a very proactive model of mentoring, this metaphor revealed some of the ideas that this person held around mentoring.

Completing the worksheet in Exhibit 7.5 will give you further practice in identifying the types of mentors or protégés you feel would be most useful in your career. These results will be used in the next section, on targeting mentors who will meet your expectations of the ideal mentor or protégé.

Exhibit 7.8 contains a blank worksheet on which to record the characteristics of your perfect mentor or protégé for that perfect mentoring relationship. Make copies if you are targeting more than one person. So pick a person, and complete the form for him or her. If you do not have a specific person in mind, complete the form for the type of person you would like to target.

The skilled protégé makes it apparent that he or she offers some very tangible benefits to the mentor. As mentioned in Chapter Four, protégés with particular characteristics and skills are attractive to mentors. Protégés are looking for mentors who can provide a wide range of benefits that enhance their careers. As a mentor, it is important to realize the types of opportunities you could provide for protégés that would make you attractive to them in guiding their careers.

In this section, we focus on methods to assist you in attracting a potential mentor or protégé first by focusing on the particular benefits you would bring to the relationship. We specifically ask protégés to examine how they stack up as a potential protégé. Then we ask you to examine how the benefits you provide match up with the potential mentors or protégés you targeted in the last section. We give mentors advice on how they should manage these initial meetings with protégés to set the tone for the relationship. We ask protégés and mentors to make a plan and use their best skills for making initial contact with their potential partners and facing initial tests and challenges.

Now that you have gathered the perspectives from these different people, it is your responsibility to sort out what is true, and maybe what you feel is less true. As we mentioned when we introduced the RDP, many techniques exist for getting insight into your preferences and expectations. You may want to refer to other resources for more activities of these types. Here are a few other techniques you can use to accurately assess what you have to offer a mentor or protégé:

You will need to use both exhibits in completing this exercise. Mentors: If you are completing this exercise from the perspective of a mentor, you will fill out Exhibit 7.10 by checking off the types of benefits you think you could provide to a protégé. In Exhibit 7.11, you will check those benefits that you would like to receive in mentoring a protégé. Protégés: You should complete the exercise in Exhibit 7.10 by thinking specifically about the types of benefits you would want to receive from potential mentors. You should use the list in Exhibit 7.11 to identify the types of benefits you think you could provide to a mentor in a relationship.

Exercise 1: Analyze your résumé. First, take a look at your résumé. What does it say about you? In general, you want your résumé to reflect something like the words of the Saturday Night Live character, Stuart Smalley: “I am good enough, smart enough, and doggone-it, people like me!”

How well does your résumé communicate your intelligence, ambition, willingness to take risks, and the other important protégé characteristics? It would be helpful to analyze this for yourself, as well as asking friends or colleagues to do the same. (Note: This would be a terrific exercise if you are designing a career workshop.) Consider the first attribute: intelligence. We would not recommend that you list your IQ score or your designation as mentally gifted in first grade; however there are other ways of communicating that message without being arrogant. Intelligence can be communicated by your grade point average, if you are a recent college graduate, educational pedigree, work experience, or even volunteer accomplishments.

What about ambition or willingness to take risks? If you do not feel that those qualities are reflected well in your work history, what else have you done that communicates those attributes? For the purposes of soliciting a mentor, you may want to personalize your résumé so that it reflects your extracurricular interests and accomplishments as well as your more traditional ones. Of course, everyone knows that personalizing your résumé is important for different jobs, but it makes sense to share with a potential mentor the side of yourself that is important for making a connection.

Exercise 2: Conduct an informational interview with a potential mentor. Approach a would-be mentor with a request to conduct a short, informational interview with them. Ideally, this should be done in person to build rapport. Informational interviews often start out as one-way queries and transition into dialogues. You can formulate questions around key attributes. For example, you might ask, How important is risk taking in this job, and can you give me an example of a risk you took that paid off for you? Then, if it seems appropriate, you can share your experiences in this area. This way you build on the similarity you have with your mentor and communicate that you have these important skills as well.

During the meeting with your mentor, be sure to communicate your high level of energy and an optimistic attitude. The best way to communicate energy is nonverbally through good eye contact, voice intonation, posture, and liveliness. The best way to evaluate how you come across in terms of energy is to videotape yourself making a presentation or having a conversation. We know this may be painful to execute, but it can be quite revealing. Studies have conclusively shown that job candidates who demonstrate high energy get considerably more job offers than their counterparts with the same academic degrees and experience.⁴

Optimism is an interesting concept and one that is highly valued these days. Research shows that optimists have lower levels of depression and other mental health problems.⁵ Traditional views of optimism suggest that optimists are those who often expect things to work out for the best on the whole. More recent studies suggest that optimism relates to how people ascribe causes for their successes and failures. An optimistic person is likely to take personal credit for the good that happens and somewhat discounts his or her own role in negative events. Pessimists, on the other hand, do just the opposite. Moreover, people often want to be around optimists, and avoid the office pessimists. Think about how you can put an optimistic spin on challenges that you have overcome and about how you can communicate this to a mentor.

When the information interview is concluded, send a thank-you note promptly. Keep in touch with your potential mentor by sending him or her news articles of interest, or updates about your progress. If the chemistry feels right, approach her with an offer of a lunch or coffee get-together. This will go a long way toward showing your willingness to take initiative. Try to think of the skills you might have that are complementary to the mentor’s, so that you can become a valuable member of his network.

Mentors, you also need to think about what makes you appealing to a potential protégé. Research shows that more effective mentors are skilled in mentoring, provide career, emotional, and role-modeling functions, and are empathetic.⁶ In our study, mentors who provided powerful connections, who devised worthwhile tests and challenges, and who worked to develop outcome-oriented relationships were very effective in the eyes of their protégés.

1. If you build it, they will come.⁷ In other words, develop a reputation for excellence. Become involved in your professional community and take advantage of opportunities for visibility. This might involve writing a column for a professional organization or by taking on a leadership role. Become media savvy by taking a class in how to perform well with the media or solicit personal coaching from a PR professional. Develop an area of expertise and then share it with others.

2. Once they come, be approachable. Once you are approached about being a mentor to someone, make sure you treat that person with respect even if their approach was not the smoothest. Most of the mentors we spoke with said they would usually talk to a potential protégé once, even if just on the phone. Then after that, they might refer them to someone else for mentoring.

3. Set the ground rules. Be approachable, but not too approachable, or else you will be deluged. Paula Madison humorously noted that whenever she went to a speaking engagement, her assistant shuddered, because Paula inevitably received a flood of requests, many from would-be protégés. Think ahead of time about what you can and cannot do in terms of time limitations. Provide alternatives to potential protégés. One of our mentors, a busy management consultant, said she refuses to have lunch because it takes too much out of her day. Instead, she designates Saturday mornings between 10:00 and 12:00 at a local Starbucks as her mentoring time, and her protégés come to her. One of our own early mentors used to tell us that our relationship was a blank check that we could cash anytime. In his view, he was here to help, but we were the ones who needed to go to the bank. We had to make “deposits” by initiating contact and following up on his suggestions.

4. Touch base. Many of our power mentors had developed a system of periodic follow-up with their protégés. This may be an electronic reminder to send their protégé an e-mail from time to time.

5. Share the wealth. Manage your growing network by referring protégés to other qualified mentors. Paula Madison likes to connect new protégés with past protégés. This is a terrific way to develop a loyal group of protégé supporters and provide both parties with opportunities to grow and develop.

We have repeatedly mentioned the importance of emotional intelligence (EQ) in mentoring relationships for both the protégé and the mentor. Although it comes into play throughout the mentoring relationship, EQ is very important during the initial stages when you decide to approach a potential protégé or mentor. Although very popular these days, the idea of emotional intelligence actually has a long history. It includes a number of important elements, such as the ability to handle one’s own emotions, understanding as well as recognizing the emotions of others, and the ability to delay gratification.

One instrument we have used in assessing some of the facets of emotional intelligence is called the Social Skills Inventory.⁸ This gets at a person’s level of emotional and social intelligence. Social intelligence goes further than the concept of emotional intelligence by incorporating how well people interact with others in social situations. Exhibit 7.13 includes a shortened version of that scale.⁹

Here are a few tips that may help you interpret your scores:

In thinking about your scores on the Skills Inventory, it is important to look at the three emotional dimensions and the three social dimensions together. These different dimensions have been found to be important in many areas of workplace effectiveness. For example, leaders and managers with high levels of emotional expressivity are seen as more effective. In the same vein, though, individuals also need to have a corresponding level of emotional control. If a person has high control and low expressivity, many people find it difficult to work with them because they may feel as though they never know what the person is thinking. On the social side, a similar result is seen. Social expressivity is an important attribute in today’s work world, but it also requires a good level of social control to make sure that behavior is appropriate for a given situation. Moreover, the ability to read social situations to know what is appropriate behavior is an extremely important skill. Many of us know people who can come into a social situation, read it, and act accordingly to make everyone comfortable. Regardless of your political affiliation, you’ll probably agree that both former Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan were very skilled in this arena.¹⁰

How can you improve your scores? Sometimes it just takes awareness of the importance of the different dimensions. For example, many of us are good at reading the emotions of others who do not communicate much. However, we do less well when interpreting the emotions of others who are talking all the time. Taking time to determine if a person’s facial expressions match their words is an important step in becoming more skilled. If people find it difficult to read your emotions, you may want to work on sharing those emotions more often. On the other hand, if you show your emotions constantly, people will start disregarding your input. In social settings, there are many ways to increase your skills. For example, many people enroll in public speaking courses, which not only help with public speaking, but also are a way to develop networking skills.

Lengthier scales exist that will help you assess many aspects of emotional intelligence. For example, the Hay Group has developed a scale in conjunction with Daniel Goleman to assess many facets of emotional intelligence. This scale is available on their Web site.¹¹ Emotional intelligence also plays a large role in doing well when given specific tests and challenges in the initial stages of a mentoring relationship.

Recall the following four initial tests we described in Chapter Four. We suggest that you use these in the following way. For mentors—take a look at the four initial tests and feel free to customize them for yourself. What would you add to or delete from this list? You may find it helpful to use these as a way to set expectations with your protégé in your initial meeting. Also, you can use them as a tool to evaluate a potential protégé after your first meeting with them. For protégés, we suggest that you may find it helpful to assess what type of message you were trying to convey after your first meeting with a mentor. How well do you think you performed on these first four tests?

In looking of the list of behaviors in Exhibit 7.14, think specifically about which ones are present or absent in your current relationship and what you can do to improve the support you receive. For example, as a protégé, you might talk to your mentor about other types of support you might need in the relationship. As a mentor, you might talk with your protégé about what other kinds of support you might provide him or her to improve the relationship. You may decide that for your specific mentoring relationship there are other types of behaviors you would add to the list. Regardless, using this list as a touchstone from time to time to determine whether you are in an appropriately rewarding relationship will be helpful.

Add up your scores and divide by 10 to determine the average level of trust in your current relationship. Average scores at 3 or 4 indicate a very good level of trust. Scores less than 3 but more than 2 indicate that there is room for improvement. A score less than 2 indicates a low level of trust in the relationship.

This scale can also be used to assess your own level of trustworthiness. In other words, if you are a trustworthy person in your current mentoring relationship, you would be able to rate yourself highly on all the dimensions of trust. In Chapter Five, we gave numerous examples of relationships where trust was built from simple incidents. As an individual, you will have to decide what kinds of things prove another’s trustworthiness for you. Research does show that while trust takes a while to develop in relationships, it can be lost quickly if one is not careful.

1. “Can the protégé ‘put their money where their mouth is’?” was often the first significant test. In other words, when the mentor gave the protégé his or her first assignment, did the protégé complete it and if so, how well? Typically, failing at the first assignment hurts only the protégé—the only loss to the mentor is the time spent giving the advice or suggestion. Here are some types of assignments a mentor may give:

2. The second test relates to the question of whether a relationship with this protégé will hurt the mentor or help the mentor. Ultimately, the protégé’s performance on this test will be telling in terms of whether this relationship is likely to be beneficial for the mentor. How well did the protégé handle the first challenge that had direct work implications or repercussions for the mentor’s career? Typically, the second challenge is more serious, because failure can have serious work or reputation repercussions for the mentor. This challenge is often job related and really ties the protégé to the mentor’s reputation. This is very context specific, but typical examples include such things as asking the protégé to deliver a professional presentation, allowing the protégé to speak or act on the mentor’s behalf in a professional capacity, or tasking and trusting the protégé with a key piece of research.

3. The third set of challenges is based on the idea that to err is human, to forgive divine ... that is, if you learned something. This test comes into play when the protégé fails. This type of test cannot be manufactured and usually happens at the most inconvenient time possible. However, foreseeing what might go wrong and anticipating appropriate responses might be one way to avoid a relationship blowout. The following questions can be useful tools to assess your past and present mentoring relationships:

4. Can I trust this protégé to tell me the truth and really hear me? In other words, how well does the protégé provide useful opinions, advice, and/or feedback to the mentor?

5. As the relationship continues to evolve, there is a set of tests around the issue of whether the protégé is doing the work and whether he or she appreciates the mentor. Carefully examine the following diagnostic questions and assess how well your protégé is meeting your expectations:

6. The final test is about determining what the protégé is really like, as a whole person. Consider the following questions:

In completing this exercise, you may decide you need to take some action to move your relationship to the deeper relationship it can be. Alternatively, you may decide that your current relationship is not meeting all of your career needs, nor is it meeting your relational needs. If you feel it is impossible to deepen your current relationship, it may be time to move on.

How do you know if your relationship is dysfunctional or no longer useful? Individuals involved in mentoring relationships often go through ups and downs in the relationship. A relationship may feel as though it has stalled. We covered some of the negative experiences mentors may have in a relationship in Chapter Six. We revisit these ideas here and ask you to take a close look at your own relationship. To what extent is your current protégé

To what extent does your mentor

1. Start with a positive action. If possible, begin the transitional process by showering the mentor or protégé with appreciation for all they have done for you in the past. Be sincere. If the relationship has recently soured, reflect on what they provided for you initially and why you worked so well together. You may even want to put your thoughts into writing or present the mentor or protégé with a token of your appreciation. Next, depending on the situation, you may want to have a formal conversation or simply begin to lessen your contact with your mentor or protégé. If the parting of the ways seems mutual and amicable, this may be the easiest approach. However, if this relationship is characterized by confusion or rancor, then a more formal conversation may be necessary.

2. Be direct and tactful. You must be as truthful as you possibly can about why the relationship is ending. It is always better if they hear the information directly from you rather than from someone else. Just as you may have practiced “break up boyfriend” speeches with your friends in high school, you can do the same here. Talk to a trusted advisor (if not a work colleague, then a spouse, parent, or therapist). Rehearse exactly what you are going to say to your mentor or protégé and how you are going to say it. Be ready to give specific examples of behavior rather than inferences or impressions.

3. Choose your time and place carefully. Think carefully about meeting in a neutral location and giving enough time to this meeting. Prepare yourself for high emotions. Communicate your caring, yet be assertive about your need to move on.

4. Tie up loose ends. Mentors and protégés often become enmeshed in each other’s work lives. Be graceful and generous, and do not leave annoying details undone. If possible, provide alternatives or even other referrals.

5. Keep it confidential. Remember the axiom, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all”? This applies to ending mentoring relationships as well. Resist the urge to publicly debrief—if you must vent, do it in private with someone you trust very much and who is ideally outside of your work circle.

The information we have presented in this chapter can be used to enhance either the relationships you seek out on your own, or those relationships that are part of a formal mentoring program. Tools to strengthen the ties formed in formal mentoring programs are very important. Unfortunately, some individuals find the mentoring programs offered by their organizations to be frustrating, either because they had little say regarding the mentor or protégé with whom they were paired, or because the training that accompanied the program was minimal. In the next chapter we discuss many of the lessons we have learned about how formal mentoring programs can be improved. Combining the activities in this chapter with the lessons learned from some of the formal programs will help you determine if you are truly making the most of the opportunities formal mentoring programs present.