Pinney Allen believes in the power of mentoring.
She graduated from Harvard Law School in 1976 and became the eighth woman to join the Atlanta-based Alston & Bird law firm. She would spend almost 29 years there, the last 22 as partner. Then in midlife, she launched a second career in education. She now heads the Atlanta Girls’ School, a college preparatory institution dedicated to developing the full potential of girls and young women.
“I don’t think I would be where I am today if it were not for the personal concern and caring of the many mentors I’ve had along the way,” said Allen. “A mentor can teach you things that it would take you years to learn on your own.”
She credits her mother with setting the example of working hard and always doing her best, professors with guiding her along the way, and mostly male lawyers with teaching her the nuts and bolts of charting a legal career.
“One in particular always talked to me about his book club. That showed me the importance of friendships in building a full and productive life,” she said. It was peer mentoring from her college roommate and other friends that gave her the courage to leave the legal field and move into the academic field.
“You can never really see yourself through another’s eyes, but a mentor is as close as you can get,” she said. “Someone who cares for you and is willing to listen to your deepest fears and greatest hopes, someone who can help you bridge the gap to what you won’t know until you’ve gone through it, can provide invaluable perspective.”
She advises her students to actively seek mentors throughout their careers, and to look in unexpected places. “We think that someone who doesn’t share our experience or look like us couldn’t possibly relate to us, but the person who seems different, who offers a unique opportunity for learning, might be your gold mine.”
Finding mentors who "look like them" has traditionally been a greater challenge for women in the workplace. Fewer women hold positions higher up the career ladder. “Unlocking the full potential of women in the U.S. economy 2011,” a McKinsey & Company special report produced for The Wall Street Journal, notes that women make up about 53 percent of new hires (according to the Center for Work-Life Policy), but only 37 percent of them become managers, 26 percent vice presidents and senior executives, and 14 percent top executives, according to Catalyst.
Asked to be part of The Wall Street Journal’s 150-expert task force on Women in the Economy to discuss the McKinsey report in April, Helene L. Lollis was gratified to have the importance of mentoring confirmed. “Mentoring and sponsorship are critical at all stages of women’s careers if they are to move forward and reach their full potential. It was one of the top five recommendations made by the group,” said Lollis, partner and president of Pathbuilders, an Atlanta mentoring and professional employee development firm.
Since 1995, Pathbuilders has focused on creating external and internal mentoring programs for women at four distinct stages of their development: in entry-level positions, as new managers, as midlevel managers with senior executive potential, and for senior executives. Many of their custom solutions, such as pairing students in the Georgia State University executive master’s in IT management program with local CIOs, also include men.
“In our external programs, we create matches that wouldn’t happen normally for people, and the match is driven by the development needs of the mentee,” said Lollis. Pathbuilders might match someone in finance who wants to improve her interpersonal communication skills with a mentor in marketing or human resources.
“Great mentors ask great questions that will lead mentees to ‘aha’ moments they wouldn’t have on their own. Their role is to poke you in the side, not pat you on the head,” said Lollis, who speaks from experience.
As a chemical engineer at Amoco and BP, her first jobs were highly technical, but she wanted to move into marketing and business management. “My mentor helped me look at myself and my organization differently, and to apply for positions that I wouldn’t have otherwise considered. With his encouragement, I was able to move into marketing management within a year.”
A good mentoring program is based on four things, Lollis said:
1. There has to be a clear rationale for how you match people.
2. You need good training for mentor and mentee roles and a structure of common expectations.
3. You need to periodically check in with participants and intervene if there are issues. “Follow-through is where many company programs fail. Mentees often don’t speak up if a senior leader isn’t making time for them,” she said.
4. “There needs to be good content, seed questions and suggestions for discussion so that the conversations are rich and effective.”
Michelle Boyea, vice president of talent acquisition in the Atlanta office of McKesson, a leading health care and information technology services company, said, “The matches have always been spot-on with Pathbuilders, so that I can use my expertise and leverage my knowledge.”
Embarking on her third tour as a mentor, Boyea also has encouraged McKesson to enroll 30 high-potential women in external mentoring programs in four years. The company also has started a women’s employee resource group, the Georgia chapter of OWN IT (Outstanding Women Networking, Inspiring and Taking Charge).
“One of the purposes of being a mentor is to help the mentee look at situations through a different lens. A manager may just want her to achieve the goals of the job. I’m a safe harbor to explore what else she wants to do and what she needs to learn,” said Boyea. “Answering tough questions and sharing best practices also keeps me on my toes and my own skates sharp.”
Good mentoring is always a two-way street, said Sharon McDaniel, who has found mentoring others rewarding. The tax director of Zep Inc., an Atlanta-based global supplier of chemical and janitorial products, was recently Boyea’s mentee in the yearlong Achieva mentoring program for upcoming senior women executives.
“I wanted to hone my executive presence, my leadership perception and my communications skills, and her experiences in human resources were exactly what I needed to learn,” said McDaniel. She also benefited from the educational materials, seminars and peer group mentoring shared with the 60 other mentees in the program.
“I feel much better prepared for taking that next opportunity,” she said. “Mentoring is critical to everyone’s success.”
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