Recent research into role model and mentor selection reveals that the best choices are counter-intuitive. You’d think that a top expert or an exceptional performer would make for the best role model or coach. That, however, is patently false—and it could hurt you.
Both role models and mentors can be so far removed from your day-to-day work that they are of little value to you. Instead, you want folk who have recently walked in your shoes and can give you relevant, practical, concrete insight into your work.
Second-best makes
a better role model
Alina Tugend of the New York Times summarized several
studies on role models and reported on a number of problems with using
exceptional performers as role models. As she writes, we Americans tend to
fetishize the guy who’s number one—certain that that if we do what he or she
does, we’ll be successful. But the research doesn’t support that.
Two profs from the University of Warwick (U.K.), Chengwei Liu and Jerker Denrell, drew their conclusions from simulated data. They studied how average skill levels differ with the number of successes achieved. They found, surprisingly, that workers who achieved exceptional success had an average skill level lower than those with fewer successes. Typically, the most impressive over the long term are the moderately successful rather than the exceptional performer.
Why do the exceptional performers have less skill than the moderately successful? In short, luck—those chance events outside the control of individuals. Furthermore, those at the pinnacle of their field may have taken huge risks—risks which are dangerous to imitate. Indeed, exposure to “illustrious” models often causes us to think we’re not at all like that.
In sum, when choosing a role model, focus on someone who’s second-best and a little closer to home.
If you need a
mentor or coach, forget the experts
Studies on mentor or coach selection from within the
organization follow a rule not unlike the above. Mentors and coaches, too, can
be so far removed from your day-to-day work experience that they are of little
value to you. As I blogged in If you need a mentor, forget the expert, often the difference between an early
career person and an expert mentor is similar to that between a kindergartner
and a college professor who’s never had kids or taught them. The college prof
has no experience putting the cookies on the bottom shelf, assumes language
above the kindergartner’s vocabulary, uses abstractions instead of concrete,
simple words, draws conclusions that make no sense to and offers big-picture
insights that connect no dots whatsoever for the kid. He even lacks the good
sense to get down on his knees and look the kindergartner into his eyes when
he’s talking to her. And the child is not at the place where she can formulate
relevant questions.
There’s also a very painful downside to trying to work with mentors far removed from your day-to-day needs. The relationship goes nowhere or breaks down quickly because the mentor and mentee are reading from different sheets of music. Inevitably, the VP expert views the communication failure as the manager’s problem rather than his own. So he interprets the failure as lack of follow-through, motivation, intelligence and savvy. Guess what’s just happened to that mentee’s future.
When selecting a coach or mentor, go for those with just a little more experience and expertise than you. Those are the folk who have recently walked in your shoes and can give you relevant, practical, concrete insight into your work and your career. And talk with you in your vocabulary.
Mentors and coaches, more than role models, are key to personal success. If you check around, you’ll find that consistently successful leaders have all been mentored. Sheryl Sandberg was mentored by Larry Summers, her professor and thesis advisor in economics. (She was an economics major, Summers’ discipline.) She’s also had a number of other male mentors.
Did you notice? I just wrote about an exceptional role model. But you won’t be able to get Larry Summers--or Janet Yellen--as mentor. And, yeah, they’d probably be intimidating. But you certainly have peers and managers just a level or two above that can coach or mentor you. Take advantage of them.
So put this on your front lobes: nearly all successful leaders have been mentored and coached. It should be no surprise that those who’ve been mentored are socialized into the organization, make more money than their colleagues, get more opportunities than more and are promoted—all faster than other employees. Mentors and coaches are yours for the asking. Just look around.