As leaders and entrepreneurs, it is easy to have a myopic attitude about business relationships; between work tasks and our personal lives, we have little remaining bandwidth for extraneous communication. With our heads down, attending to our specific circumstances, we may not even see the opportunity for relationships that don’t directly serve our businesses.
I wasn’t looking for a mentoring relationship when I met Howard Rambin, III. He is the founder, CEO and managing partner of Moody Rambin and was speaking about the state of commercial real estate in Houston at an event I was attending. After communicating about his primary subject, he used the remaining time to share his real passion: mentoring young business owners.
In his mid-70’s, Howard had experienced the full range of success and failure, both in business and in his personal life. After trying retirement and finding himself unfulfilled, he realized that it was time for him to give back and share his hard-won wisdom. So, after work in the mornings, he devoted his afternoons to mentoring younger business professionals.
Howard was committed to mentorship because he knew what so few business owners are willing to admit: as humans, we aren’t naturally self-aware. We tend either toward self-deprecation or self-aggrandizement, and therefore create huge blind spots in our leadership. We need someone like Howard, a mentor or a coach to:
- Help us see what don’t naturally see
- Ask us the hard questions
- Serve as a neutral sounding-board
- Provide accountability
- Share business contacts/resources
After contacting Howard and sharing my story with him, we began a mentoring relationship that was immensely helpful to me for the season that we met together. That relationship, and others I’ve had in my business career, have me convinced that everyone needs a mentor.
So how does one identify a mentor?
- A mentor should be someone outside your organization, so that your conversations can be honest – there are no potential consequences for sharing and challenging
- A mentor should have distance from your work – this gives them a unique and neutral perspective
- You can find a mentor by (1) using a professional organization that connects mentors and mentees or (2) asking people in your network if they know of someone who might be a good fit
Not only does everyone need a mentor, everyone needs to BE a mentor to someone else. In other words, you should be receiving from someone ahead of you, and giving to someone behind you.
Like Howard, all of us have success and failures that have taught us valuable lessons that can be shared with other leaders – you have something to give, and a responsibility to give it.
So how does one identify a mentee?
- Get involved in opportunities and organizations that communicate your availability
- Use your network – ask who might be a good fit, and keep your eyes peeled for business leaders who wants, or would be open to, a mentor
Business can often feel overwhelmingly competitive, but mentoring relationships are a powerful reminder of how valuable connection is to business success.
