It's Time to Rethink How You Find a Mentor at Work
Any young professional woman has heard that to succeed (and especially to succeed fast) you need a mentor—someone who will show you the ropes and pave the way for your advancement. But the idea that a woman in the C-suite can teach you everything you need to know about your career and your future is right up there with believing Beyoncé is in the Illuminati. There’s no doubt that female leaders can be helpful (and we need more of them; only 5 percent of Fortune 500 companies have a female CEO). But virtually every career path today is much more complicated than the old up-the-ladder route; you need a village to navigate it all. “Modern mentorship isn’t about looking to just one person; it’s about cultivating a group of people,” says Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and cofounder of Ellevest, a digital investment platform for women. “They might be senior to you, your peer, or even your junior. They could be in your company, outside of it, male or female. Having a series of diverse perspectives is what helps you to succeed.”
New groups and technology are trying to help. OKReal brings together ambitious young women (both digitally and IRL) to problem-solve issues in the workplace from the pay gap to sexual harassment. Bumble’s Bizz mode lets you swipe to connect with powerful businesswomen (like Kris Jenner and Karlie Kloss). Women-focused workplaces like The Wing have networking baked into membership. And at Lean In circles, women gather wherever they live to swap advice and contacts. But if you don’t have access to these, or they aren’t right for your particular career, what to do? Start with these new approaches.
There’s no magic, one-stop adviser who’s going to transform your life and your career (this is a fallible human being we’re talking about, not a fairy godmother). So consider going for the specific advice you need. Shauna Duggins, the first woman to win an Emmy for stunt coordination, for her work on GLOW, has used that approach repeatedly. “I haven’t had one formal person who has been my mentor through my whole career,” she says. “Rather, I’ve had a handful of amazing men and women. I call them up and it’s like, ‘Hey, you’re great with a specific stunt, how do you visualize it with a comedy instead of a drama?’ You’re stronger as a team, no matter the industry.” Everyone has their own unique skill set—and blind spots. When Katie Sturino, founder of The 12ish Style and Megababe, was first starting out in public relations, “there was a woman in my field I was obsessed with,” she says. “I learned from her how to conduct myself in meetings and with clients, but I realized she didn’t have the best time-management skills. I’m still glad for what she taught me, but when it came time to balance my work and personal lives, I went to someone else.” Also, most people are aware they don’t know everything. So if you get into a mentoring groove with someone, it’s highly likely she’ll connect you with a colleague or someone else in her network who can help you with other skills you need.
Some of the old mentoring rules of yore still apply, like needing to do your research. But there is a new way to have a leg up on this: social media. If you have a coffee date on the books with someone you admire, do some light digital stalking (emphasis on light). If she’s posting Instagram stories about a new initiative she’s launching, look into it. Or if she’s retweeting articles on a trending topic in your industry, make sure to read up.
Not only will these tidbits make for great conversation starters; they can also open up ways that you can potentially work together. This approach worked for ClassPass executive chairman and founder Payal Kadakia, who was thrilled when she landed one-on-one time with Zocdoc cofounder Cyrus Massoumi, who she knew would have the inside scoop on how to build a health-related tech business in New York. “I came prepared with specific questions on the challenges I was tackling with scaling the company, and he provided great guidance on how to combat early growing pains,” she says. The two hit it off so much that they’ve continued to help each other troubleshoot problems they’ve both faced in the health industry. “He became an adviser to ClassPass, and I signed on as an adviser to his new investment fund,” she says.
Coming prepared isn’t the only lesson to be learned from Kadakia; she also knew that you have to give to get. Find ways that you can also help the person who’s advising you, says Shark Tank judge and real estate pro Barbara Corcoran: “If they’re going to give you free advice, offer to help them with something you know you’re good at. Whether it’s social media, or whatever it may be, it will go a long way.”
“I view mentorship like being on a basketball team, where people are working toward a common goal,” says Outdoor Voices founder Ty Haney, that goal being helping you succeed, no matter your dream. Haney’s team includes Audrey Gelman of The Wing and Glossier's Emily Weiss. “We all founded millennial-focused start-ups, so there’s a lot of overlap in what we’re experiencing,” she says. “For example, I’ve called Emily for advice on building brick-and-mortar stores. Find the peers who are doing things you want to be doing, and see what they can teach you.”
Hillary Kerr, cofounder of Who What Wear, found the best mentorship from her coworkers during her early days in publishing. Today they’ve all left the industry but continue to go to one another for advice. “They not only taught me the ropes at work,” she says, “they became lifelong sounding boards. Now we’ve moved to different companies: Danielle Nussbaum is on the writing team for Casual, Susan Cernek is the director of marketing for David Zwirner’s [art gallery], and Jane Herman is the editorial director of Theory. We ask each other questions all the time, about everything from hiring to strategy, and their advice is invaluable.” So: Look to your left, then look to your right. See the people sitting on either side? Call them coworkers, call them friends, call them mentors.
If you work for a big organization or are a member of an industry group, you’ve probably seen emails advertising corporate mentorship initiatives. These matching programs have the potential to be helpful, but they can also be like a bad blind date. “When I was CFO of Citi, I was part of a formal mentoring program,” Krawcheck says. “My mentee was a perfectly nice young woman, and we met for a monthly breakfast. She’d ask questions, and then we’d spend the rest of the time staring at each other in awkward silence or small talk. Like any productive relationship, the best ones are definitely more organic.” You wouldn’t want to start off a friendship that required you to meet up for a drink once a week, no exceptions—so why would you want a mentor relationship with such strict rules? Instead Sutian Dong, partner at Female Founders Fund, thinks you should take a more natural approach. She recommends that you focus on building a relationship with a potential mentor. “It’s better when it’s not clearly labeled,” she says. Just commit to sharing advice as needed.
When Fashionista deputy editor Tyler McCall was starting out, she collected some of her best wisdom on—wait for it—Twitter. “Before I got my first job,” she says, “I tweeted at Eva Chen [director of fashion partnerships at Instagram, then a Teen Vogue editor]: ‘I don’t live in NYC, but I’m afraid to move without a job. What should I do?’ She wrote back, ‘Fortune favors the bold.’ ” In mere seconds McCall got the advice she was looking for. McCall ultimately made the move from Florida and kept in touch with Chen. (Proof that gently inserting yourself into someone’s social media orbit can help lead to an IRL meet-up.)
If your question can’t be answered in 280 characters or fewer, and you need that precious one-on-one, make sure you’re being respectful of a mentor’s time. Remember, when you two are chatting, she’s not checking email, taking calls, or getting any other shit done for the duration. Christina Stembel, founder of Farmgirl Flowers, recently had a question for Julie Wainwright of The RealReal—and knew to keep it short and sweet. “I asked Julie if she could give me 15 minutes to talk about valuation,” she says. “When we spoke, I stayed on topic, and it took less time than I even thought. Ask for only 30 minutes of someone’s time, on a specific question, and they’ll almost always say yes—since they know what they’re saying yes to.”
As with friends or romantic partners, sometimes mentoring relationships run their course. Take it from McCall, whose relationship with Chen evolved. “She went to work at Instagram and I kept working in fashion publishing, so it didn’t make sense to go to her for advice anymore,” she says. “Most human relationships are fluid, so when you get to a different point in your career, it’s totally fine to stop going to the same people.” If you feel you’ve maxed out on what you can learn from your mentor, ease up on the outreach, but keep in touch, says Brooklyn Decker, cofounder of Finery. “Just because the mentorship doesn’t work out doesn’t mean you can’t have a decent professional relationship,” she says. Because even if mentors come and go, the advice they give you lasts forever.
HANDSHAKE: KLAUS VEDFELT/GETTY IMAGES. FLOWERS: JANINA PIRES/EYEEM/GETTY IMAGES
