Business Without the Bullsh*t: 49 Secrets and Shortcuts You Need to Know (9 page)

A mentor is a coworker or colleague, usually older and hopefully wiser, who takes a personal interest in you, provides advice and guidance, and uses his or her connections to help move your career forward.

Misconceptions surround mentoring (and being mentored), which makes it easy to think mentoring is a bigger deal than it actually is.

On the one hand, popular culture encourages gooey romanticism connected with the idea of a zen master taking a young novice under his wing. (Think Yoda and Luke Skywalker.)

On the other hand, you’ve got companies that launch “mentoring programs” that are integrated into their official employee orientation, as if there were some way to formalize a relationship that, by its very nature, is informal.

The reality lies somewhere in between. Chances are that as you proceed in your career, you’ll have a number of relationships in which another person agrees to spend his or her time and energy helping you.

Your mentors won’t be Yoda, but (if you’re lucky) they’ll be more than just some old fart whom HR assigned to be your mentor because it decided he needed something extra to do with his time.

It’s pretty obvious what you’re getting out of the mentoring relationship: access to experience, perspective, and contacts. What the mentor gets out of it is a little more complex.

Some mentors have a strong need to teach, some crave the gratitude, and others may simply want somebody in the organization who they know will watch their backs. As you work with your mentor, you’ll figure out what’s wanted in return.

The first step to finding a mentor is realizing that you’ve got a hole in your experience that you can’t plug by reading a book or taking a seminar.

Suppose you’re a natural at programming but weak at understanding people. If your goal is to be an engineering manager, you’ll need to know how to handle personnel issues. That’s hard to learn from a book but easier if somebody coaches you.

In my personal case, it was the other way around. I always understood people fairly well, but when I started out in high tech, I lacked any useful technical skills. That led to my first mentor, who taught me the basics of programming and system design.

You do not need to work in the same building, or even the same company, as your mentor. I’ve mentored (and been mentored by) people I’ve never met in person, but with whom I frequently traded e-mails and phone calls.

Asking for advice is a compliment to whomever you ask, and most people enjoy teaching what they’ve learned. However, asking somebody to be your mentor is just plain creepy. It’s like asking somebody to marry you after you’ve just met.

Mentorships develop over time. Mentors find that they enjoy providing advice and guidance and continue to make themselves
available. Those being mentored find they enjoy getting advice and express gratitude for it.

There’s no specific point at which the relationship changes from one of simply giving and receiving advice to something ongoing.

There will come a time when you no longer need the advice and guidance of your mentor. When that happens the relationship must change, which can be painful for the mentor.

As any parent who has raised children to adulthood knows, it’s bittersweet when your children no longer need you. The same thing is true of mentors. Therefore, when you’ve outgrown the relationship, don’t just dump your mentor.

Get some distance but keep the connection going. Hopefully what started as a mentoring relationship will develop into a friendship between equals.

Most of the time, getting along with coworkers is simply a matter of being a reasonably nice person and minding your own business. However, there are ten types of coworker who can be real hassles. Here’s how to deal with them:

Because they’re afraid that they might get blamed for making a bad decision, wafflers study everything to death, always seeking a mythical single last bit of information that will make everything clear.

Wafflers hope to avoid a decision until circumstances make that decision unnecessary. If the indecision creates failure through inaction, the waffler becomes indignant when held responsible. “It’s not MY fault!”

If your job or project hinges on a decision that’s in the hands of a waffler, your best move is to make the decision in such a way that he thinks he’s made it himself. Establish a deadline for the decision, with a default if no course of action is chosen.

Example: “Since I need a decision on this by [date], if I do not hear from you by then, I will proceed as if the decision is…”

There’s nothing wrong with being competitive. However, there are some people who are so competitive that they start losing perspective, so beating the other guy becomes more important than doing the right thing.

For example, suppose you have two highly competitive salespeople working for firms that are normally in competition but that now must work together to develop a huge sales opportunity that could benefit both firms.

Because the two salespeople see each other as competitors, they’ll likely spend more time jockeying for control of the account and trying to squeeze each other out than actually developing the opportunity.

To deal with a conqueror, channel that competitiveness into helping an entire team to win, rather than just the conqueror. Be forewarned, though: no matter what, the conqueror will hog the limelight after the win.

Dramatists (aka drama queens) turn almost everything into hissy fits, replete with dollops of pique and umbrage. They seem to draw energy from the drama they create even though everyone else finds the drama to be draining.

Dramatists, above all, crave being the
center of attention
. Like a ham actor on a sound stage, they exaggerate their expressions, make broad gestures, offend others, and feign outrage, all in a desperate attempt to say, “Look at me! I’m important!”

Unfortunately, giving in to dramatists only increases, rather than decreases, their appetite for attention. Your best bet with dramatists is to ignore their histrionics until they run out of steam.

No matter what the dramatist says, do not react. When the histrionics are over, casually acknowledge that the dramatist has expressed an opinion, then move on to whatever issue actually needs to be addressed.

Iconoclasts thrive on the negative attention that comes from disrespecting other people, especially those in authority. They’ll break even the most sensible rules (social and business alike), just to show they can get away with it.

For example, I once worked with a guy who couldn’t resist describing our boss to everyone (including many people who knew the boss socially) as “shit for brains.”

Admittedly, our boss wasn’t exactly a klieg light. Even so, the constant negativity made a bad situation worse, except for my coworker, who clearly enjoyed the attention that came from verbally bucking authority.

The best way to deal with iconoclasts is to distance yourself from them while you’re at work. While they’re sometimes entertaining, iconoclasts eventually get axed, along with anybody who’s seen as part of their clique.

Droners are always ready to give a presentation—usually one that everyone has heard before. They list their bullet points on multiple slides and with grim determination read each one aloud.

The problem with droners is that, most of the time, they don’t realize that they’re boring. They may truly believe their data-rich slides are fascinating, or at least so vitally important that they deserve your full attention.

The best way to cope with droners is to try to avoid meetings to which they have been invited. If that’s not possible, find a way to
make the drone time useful. For example, you might answer e-mails on your tablet under the guise of taking notes.

If you can control the rules of the meeting, you can set a “one slide per person” rule for meeting, or better yet a “no PowerPoint” rule. You’ll be surprised how much this will force even a droner to focus on what’s really important.

A frenemy pretends to be your biggest cheerleader, your best confidant, and the only person who’s really on your side. Meanwhile the frenemy is subtly sabotaging everything you do.

Under the guise of praise, a frenemy will make a comment that’s intended to sap your self-confidence. Example: “You did so well at that big presentation that almost nobody noticed the typos.”

A frenemy is always ready to help you out with a problem, in theory at least. When it comes to actually delivering the goods, the frenemy always has a plausible excuse as to why it just wasn’t possible.

To cope with frenemies, either avoid them completely or, if that’s not possible, be polite but do nothing to encourage the “friendship.” The frenemy’s power lies in the ability to get under your skin. That’s more difficult if you keep your distance.

In business everyone sucks up to the boss, at least some of the time. It’s human nature to ingratiate yourself with those in power, and even the best bosses expect and appreciate the occasional word of homage.

However, there’s a huge difference between giving your boss the occasional kiss on the butt and permanently wedging your face in the crack. Toadies constantly praise everything the boss does, hoping to receive favors in return.

Toadies are bad coworkers for two reasons. First, they waste their
time and energy stroking the boss’s ego rather than doing productive work. Second, bosses who tolerate toadyism become impervious to any advice that’s not fulsome praise.

If you end up working with toadies, understand that the real problem is the boss. Therefore you have exactly two choices: find another boss or become a toady yourself.

Workplace vampires suck all the energy out of the room the moment they appear. Vampires always have a reason something won’t work, a story that illustrates the futility of trying, and an endless list of unsolvable problems.

Vampires aren’t depressed. Far from it. They obtain a great deal of pleasure from squishing the positive feelings of those around them. The only time they really smile is after they’ve propelled everybody else into a sulk.

Traditional vampires shrivel and die when they’re exposed to sunlight. Workplace vampires react similarly when exposed to sweet reason. Say stuff like, “Wow, that’s a pretty negative spin.” Then move on as if the negative comment hadn’t been made.

As long as you refuse to get caught up in the vampire’s negative miasma, the vampire will get frustrated and decamp to some other meeting, or some other poor sap’s office, in order to continue sucking energy.

Parasites wait to see what ideas become popular inside a firm and then, when it’s clear an idea has support and traction, position themselves as its sponsor and (by implication) the brains behind it.

This behavior (aka “finding a parade and getting out in front of it”) is extremely common in large organizations. The reason is simple: being a parasite entails far less risk than being an entrepreneur.

To thwart parasites, call them on their behavior the minute they try to get out in front of the parade. Say something like, “Since you’re completely new to the project, you might want to hold back a little until you understand what’s going on.”

Beyond that, always keep an “audit trail” of your contributions to a project in the form of regular status reports. Send them to the parasite’s manager if the parasite continues to attempt to steal credit.

Geniuses are legends in their own minds. They talk and talk about the amazing stuff they’ve done in the past and their equally amazing plans for the future. Somehow they never seem to do anything in the here and now.

Geniuses take on projects but fail to follow through. As deadlines approach they can’t be found. When the work is finally turned in (often by others who have covered for them), a genius will disappear for a while to “recuperate.”

Dealing with geniuses requires persistence. Document what they’re supposed to complete and lay out frequent milestones that the genius must meet in order for the project to be completed.

For example, suppose the genius is supposed to update the technical specifications for your sales proposal. Rather than waiting until the last minute to remind the genius it’s due, send daily reminders of the commitment to both the genius and the genius’s boss.

If this seems as if you’re being a pest, it’s because you
are
being a pest. Unfortunately, pestering geniuses is the only way to hold their feet to the fire.