Getting ahead in your career isn’t just about memorizing the company manual and mastering your daily tasks. You also need to learn your office’s informal networks, the personality clashes and synergies among your co-workers and the helpful unofficial ‘work hacks’ that make you a more efficient employee. How do you learn these things if they’re not in the papers you’re handed as a new hire? Through mentors, of course. To make the mentoring as painless as possible for office newbies, blog Tough Guide to Work recently offered a post on three common mentoring pitfalls and how to avoid them:
- Searching for ‘the one’. Obi Wan. Mr Miyagi. Dumbledore. Watching movies and reading fiction gives us the deep impression that we should be seeking some Gandalf-like figure in our professional lives. Instead we end up having coffee with an exhausted executive who it turns out has a couple of good ideas and a bunch of neuroses. We expect one person to embody everything we want to become, advise on all areas of our work and life and then it turns out instead we’ve been paired with a human being instead. How unfair. Instead of seeking one perfect mentor, I strongly advocate getting a “Board of Advisors”. Seek out a selection of mentors who can offer guidance on a specific topic. Want great advice on work-life balance, career goals, navigating politics, professional growth, building a network, influencing senior management? It’s unlikely that you will find one genius that gives you everything.
To read the full, original article click on this link: 3 Common Mistakes to Avoid With Your Mentor | BNET
Author: Jessica Stillman
