Mentoring and Making A Difference

Today’s post is all about mentoring.  I have learned in my professional career and personal life that it is important to have mentors and to be a mentor to others.  A professional mentor is someone who acts as a guiding light in your professional life, offering career advice and helping you through career decisions and navigating the ever more complicated business world.  A personal mentor does the same for your personal life.  Often the two are one and the same.  I have been blessed throughout my life with a host of great mentors, some of whom I would like to discuss today.  I have also been lucky enough to have mentored some truly talented people and they have in turn enriched my personal and professional life.

The first professional mentor I ever had was my fraternity father, David.  David and I knew each other in high school, but we did not become friends until we joined the same fraternity in college.  David was a year older than me, and was chosen to be my “fraternity father.”  During my time in Sigma Phi Epsilon, I saw a great many “father/son” pairings, but none of them developed quite the same bond as David and I.  David and I worked great together.  He would often challenge my young mind, and would question my decisions when they needed questioning.  I cannot say I was a perfect 20-year-old, but I can say that I was blessed by David’s guidance.

The greatest lesson he ever taught me was to ask myself, “would the boy you were be proud of the man you are?”  In other words, would an idealistic young Aaron be proud to know that he grows up into the adult Aaron I am today?  Think about how idealistic we are as children.  We believe our parents know everything.  We believe that there is good in everyone.  We believe that, no matter what, things will work out in the end.  As adults, we know that this is not always the truth, but we should still strive to make the world a place our ten-year-old selves would be proud to live in.  Those words still live with me today.  When a I am faced with a difficult decision, these are often the first words that pop into my head.  “Would the boy I was be proud of the man I am today?”  I can honestly say that yes, a ten-year-old Aaron would be proud of the man a thirty-year-old Aaron has become.  This is the same lesson I will teach my son someday.  When it comes time for him to make difficult decisions, he should act with his conscience, no matter what.  If everyone lived this way, I believe the world would be a far better place.

David and I grew to become best friends.  He asked me to be godfather to both of his sons and he stood by me during my wedding.  He is a lifelong friend.  I truly believe that one of us will carry the others casket at our funeral.  We still talk, less frequently, but always with the same fervent passion that has always permeated our discussions.  Whether the subject is politics, work or our family, David has always been a sounding board for me and I in return to him.  It is not just a friendship, it is a mutual mentoring relationship.

More recently, I found a mentor through work in my immediate manager, Marty.  When I was asked to move into my current position at Spirit, I found out just how difficult a job transition can be.  I was asked to take over the leadership of a team that had been in turmoil, with more than half of the team having transferred out of the group, left the company or been fired in the previous six months.  The group was aimless and needed a strong leader.  The company believed that I was that leader, and asked me to step in.  I did so, despite having no experience in purchasing airplane parts in my previous experience with the company.  Until then, all of my experience had been in non-production roles, purchasing capital equipment or MRO parts (maintenance, repair and operations, for the machinery that does the work in the factory).  The two sides of the company, as I came to learn, are worlds apart.  MRO, while challenging, casts a much wider net over what goes on at Spirit.  It touches all aspects of the business except for what goes on in the Production side.  Despite my experience in buying machinery, contracting services or buying spare parts, I was in for a radical learning curve.

Production buying is one of the fastest-paced jobs in the company, especially on the programs I was assigned to.  We currently build thirty-two Boeing 737 airplanes, two 747’s and seven 777’s each month.  Think about that for a second.  On the 737 program alone we build more than one airplane every single day, each with thousands of parts that must be in stock ready to go.  One missed part can throw the production line off, and can throw our entire schedule into chaos.  Not to sound cliche, but in this job, failure is not an option.  What I did not realize at the time was just how challenging this adjustment would be.

Marty was my manager, but he too was new to his position as manager having just been promoted at the same time I was moved into his group.  I quickly learned that he would be a valuable source of knowledge and found myself in his office every morning with a list of questions to help me through my day.  Marty’s patience in teaching me proved to be the difference-maker in my job and with his guidance, I soon found myself navigating the difficult waters of airplane production.  Within six months of taking the position, I had reached a comfort level from which all my successes have emerged.  My team ended up saving the company a great deal of money last year through a simple inventory analysis that would prove to be the standard going forward.  I owe the ease of my transition to Marty, without whom I would have had a far more difficult time being successful.

As I mentioned before, I too have been lucky enough to mentor several young people in my career and personal life.  One of these is my close friend, Chris.  Chris and I met each other in his first year of college, after he joined Sigma Phi Epsilon.  I had graduated by then, but still remained close to many of the undergrads.  I could tell Chris was a special individual.  His outgoing personality endeared him to many and his savvy business sense showed me that he would be very successful someday.  I found myself stopping by the fraternity to sit and talk with him and we would discuss the chapter, school and his goals.  The mentor/mentee relationship developed further when Chris came to work for Bank of America, where I was working as a Personal Banker at the time.  We would often sit and bounce business ideas off of each other and I helped him develop his sales pitch to potential customers.  Chris took my lessons and excelled.  He was often, if not always, the banking center’s top referral generator.  He saw things in customers that others missed, and developed deep, lasting relationships with his customers that always turned into revenue generating opportunities.  Even after he left BofA to work at another bank, we still talked by phone and email often.  He is now a very successful banker at Commerce Bank in Wichita, and we still talk on a weekly basis.

The last mentoring opportunity I want to discuss today came in 2010 when I became a volunteer at the Tulsa Boys Home.  I was placed with a boy named John* (name changed because he is still underage) who had lived a particularly difficult life.  He had been moved from home to home and was a ward of the State of Oklahoma.  Other than that, John was a typical teenager who played basketball, listened to music and talked about girls.  I met with John once a week and we often played basketball for hours (he whooped me, the kid was 15 and played basketball every single day) or lifted weights.  I imparted some of my weight-lifting knowledge to him and he grew to trust in me and confide in me.  John was, and still is, an incredibly intelligent and gifted young man.  He was well spoken and surprisingly well adjusted considering the difficult background he grew up with.  He actually convinced the people in charge of the TBH to reconsider their policies on mp3 players for the boys.  Until then, they had been forbidden but John put together a presentation on how personal mp3 players could be beneficial to the boys and how the restrictions could be amended to allow them to be used by the boys at the top of their class.  In doing so, he encouraged other boys to work harder so they, too, could have their own mp3 players.  John told me his goal was to someday join the military and become a JAG officer, and I hooked him up with some friends who are military JAG.  After about six months, John was moved to a new home away from Tulsa.  We still keep in touch occasionally, and I look forward to the day we can see each other again.  John was, and is, a very special young man with a bright future ahead of him.

I have been truly blessed to have had some amazing mentors who taught me a great deal throughout the years.  That said, I am often surprised at how much I learn from the young men that I mentor.  The mentor/mentee relationship often turns into a reciprocal relationship with me learning just as much from my mentees as I am teaching them.

If you are a mentor, congratulations.  You have my utmost respect, because this is a truly valuable service you can provide to the people you interact with.  If you are not mentoring someone, find someone to mentor.  You can help make someone a better person and in doing so, can help yourself become a better person.  If you are in need of a mentor, go out and find one.  Don’t wait for someone to offer to mentor you, or for the relationship to develop naturally.  Go out and get it, you will be glad that you did.

Befriending Your Employees

Originally posted 3/26/11.

While trolling the internet for ideas to write about, I came across a blog called “Great Leadership” by Dan McCarthy.  I was immediately sucked in.  He was writing about a subject close to my heart (leadership) and his latest blog post about how managers and employees cannot be friends is a topic I have found to be particularly challenging during my time as both an employee and a manager.  During my ten years in the professional world, I’ve had several managers.  I have blogged about my first professional manager before, who was both a leader and a role model.  Interestingly, she has also developed into a close personal friend and professional mentor, and we still keep in touch on a monthly basis.  I’ve had several iron-fisted, micro-managers.  Not only did those relationships not last long, but the idea of being “friends” with these people was utterly repugnant.  I didn’t want to spend a minute with the guy (either of them) at work, much less outside of work.

I’ve also had managers who tried too hard to be my friend, and in doing so created a relationship that only made it more difficult when it came to professional reviews, coaching and the inevitable discomfort that came when I moved on professionally.  The manager in question was a good friend, but she made our relationship too personal, so when I was promoted to manager myself, she felt personally affronted, as if I no longer wanted to work with her.  That wasn’t the case, but I couldn’t convince her of that fact.

When I became a manager, I often felt I had to carefully balance the line between being friendly and personal with my employees and being professional.  I wonder, now, what they would say about how I managed them.  I know at the time, they told me that I was an exceptional leader and that I helped turn around struggling bank branches from underperformers to successful in both sales and employee development.  I always tried to meaningfully connect with my employees and to let them know that I was looking out for their best interests.  My goals were always to put the development of my employees first, and the results always followed.  Every single struggling branch I managed, I found that my employees were under-trained, overworked and directionless during the work day.  I found that by taking the time to personally train them to make sure they developed the skills necessary to become successful, they became more comfortable with the products they were selling and were able to sell more successfully.  We always publicly celebrated their successes, which in turn made them work even harder.  Within a year, every underperformer I was assigned to was turned into a top performer.  It’s just that easy.

I have copied a part of McCarthy’s post below and would like to address his points with my own thoughts on how to avoid these pitfalls.

“There are at least 10 reasons why it’s a bad idea for a manager and employee to call themselves friends, including:

1. It will create a perception of favoritism. Even if you think you’re being 100% fair and un-biased, you’ll always be subject to being second guessed.”

2. You may not even realize it, but other employees are probably letting your “friends” get away with more, thinking that you’re going to protect them or side with them.

These first two points are absolutely true and can become a poison in your organization.  The “peanut gallery” will often seize upon any perceived favoritism to attack your credibility and try to bring you down.  Sadly, this is too often the norm in businesses where morale is low and management is not strong.  Favoritism, even perceived favoritism, can cause morale to sink rapidly and can cause the other employees to gang up on your so-called “favorite.”

Often the case in situations like these is that the “favorite” employee is also the top performer, someone with a great deal of potential who is probably a rising star.  The manager recognizes this and often pays more attention to the high performer, perhaps giving her or him the challenging projects which often come with a high degree of visibility.  This, in turn, causes the other employees to perceive that employee to be the manager’s favorite and this is where the  problems begin.

Here’s the thing, as a manager, you have to treat your employees fairly while still utilizing their talents.  Often, it only takes paying a little more attention to the average performers (or underperformers) to eliminate any perceived favoritism.  I recommend all managers spend 5-10 minutes a week and at least an hour once a quarter meeting with their direct reports to discuss outstanding issues, project pitfalls, development, goals and other issues that may come up.  These need to be open discussions where the employee feels at liberty to discuss anything without fear of reprisal or reprimand.  There needs to be completely open communication.

I did this at the third banking center I managed and during one of these sessions, an employee looked at me and point blank told me he looking for another job.  At first I was taken aback but instead of challenging him, I started a dialogue about why he would be looking for another job.  He was unsatisfied with his career path and was looking to get into a different industry after he completed his schooling.  It wasn’t that he was unhappy with his current position or that he did not like the company, but that in the long-term, he was not fulfilled by the work he was doing.  And you know what?  That was fine.  I appreciated that he was open and honest with me about it and despite being a solid performer, I knew that the career options we had available for him were limited.  Instead of firing him on the spot like many managers would have done, I put him in connection with some people in my network and helped put him on a path which fulfilled him.  Was it the best thing for my organization?  Actually, yes.  Instead of having a high-potential employee spinning his wheels or becoming resentful, I got another four months of great work out of him before he moved on AND I had the hiring process in place to replace him once he did leave the position.  Instead of being blindsided by him when he turned in his two-week notice, I was ready for it and we moved on without missing a beat.  His performace during the months after he told me about his job search were the best he had ever had, and it was because he came to work every day and felt connected instead of feeling as though he was keeping a secret.  It worked out fantastically for everyone involved.  All of this because he felt comfortable enough talking to me about his goals because we had regular daily, weekly and quarterly dialogue about him and his career goals.  This is the type of open, honest communication you should strive for in your organization.

I would like to address the rest of McCarthy’s post, but will have to do so at a later time.  For the sake of full disclosure, I have posted the rest of his points below.  Have a great day!

3. If you allow yourself to get emotionally attached to one employee – for whatever reason – but not another, those emotions will consciously or unconsciously influence decisions around raises, layoffs, assignments, promotions, etc….

4. If you see an employee as a “friend”, you’ll have expectations of that employee that are unrealistic or inappropriate for an employee. “Well gee, a friend would never do that, or should do that, or should tell me everything, etc…”

5. On the other hand, your friend employee may have expectations of you that are unrealistic or unprofessional, such as sharing confidential information, or always giving them advance notice, or doing special little “friendly” favors for them.

6. As a manager, part of your job is to judge your employees, to give constructive feedback, and sometimes to discipline them, even fire them. Does this sound like something a friend would do to another friend?

7. Although this threat never seems to scare managers, yes, it’s true – you and company could get sued. You are exposing yourself and your company to the risk of discrimination lawsuits. Don’t think it never happens… it does. That’s why HR people are so crazy about the issue – they are trying to protect your backside.

8. ALL employees need to complain about their bosses now and then, even the best managers. You’re kidding yourself if you think you’re immune from this. However, if you see your employees as friends, you’re more likely to take it personally.

9. Friends let their hair down outside of work and sometimes do silly things with each other. Managers are supposed to set examples and be role models. So, as a “manager-friend”, you’re either going to be a boring uptight, friend, or an unprofessional, immature manager. You pick. And oh by the way, your own manager may not appreciate those pictures of you and the gang all over employee Facebook pages.

Can you socialize with your employees? Or go out for a drink? Sure, but just make it a habit to stick to one drink and be the first to leave (to give them time to complain about you), or at least not the last to leave.

10. Some employees may find your attempts to be friends as personally intrusive, or inappropriate. They might even find your “advances” to be creating a hostile work environment, and again, exposing yourself and your company to that old lawsuit thing.

The Secret: What Great Leaders Know & Do

Originally posted 3/22/11.

I am currently reading Ken Blanchard’s book “The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do.”  It is a typical Blanchard book- long on idealism and easy solutions to complex problems, and short on overcoming obstacles and actual, real world situations.  I find Blanchard’s books to be almost fairy-tales in their setup, execution and swift, wrap-everything-up-in-a-bow mentality.  That is not to say Blanchard’s books are not valuable, far from it.  I wish more managers would take the time to read about becoming better managers.  In my fifteen years as an employee, I have had one manager who was truly great at developing people.  She was the first manager I ever had in the professional world and I modeled myself after her example.  She was also a disciple of these kinds of management books- we had FISH (another Blanchard staple) all over the walls of the employee break room and our daily and monthly meetings often revolved around team-building and setting goals.

Since leaving banking three years ago and moving into manufacturing, I have found there are fewer managers who I would consider great.  In fact, most have been downright average.  None have been bad managers by any stretch, but there have been few who were in any way inspiring to their employees.  Most of them come in, put in their 8-10 hours a day and go home.  They run around, put out fires and sit through meetings, but do nothing to help develop their employees or strengthen the team they are in charge of.  It is disappointing, really, to see so much human potential put to waste.

In my previous blog post, I talked about finding purpose in your job.  Too many managers don’t see the purpose in their jobs.  Their purpose is to inspire and lead their employees!  To help them achieve their goals and dreams.  Every single employee who comes to work has hopes and dreams.  They have goals and aspirations.  If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be coming into work every day.  It doesn’t matter if someone’s goal is to become CEO or make enough money to quit their job, it is the manager’s job to help them realize and work towards those goals.  How many people can say their manager has taken five minutes to talk to them about their goals and aspirations in the last month?  You’re probably nodding your head sadly because your manager hasn’t asked you about your goals since your last annual review.  And that is an absolute shame.

The War For Talent

Originally posted 3/19/2011.

I read this morning an article called “The War For Talent” discussing how difficult hiring has become for computer developers out in Silicone Valley, NYC and other tech hotspots around the country.  It is getting difficult enough to find and hire the best talent that companies have gone as far as twittering pictures of what a new developer gets on their first day on the job.  Here is one example:

This is the “new developer” setup at Tasty Labs, a social media company best known for it’s founder, Joshua Schachter, who founded Delicious before selling it to Yahoo and pocketing a cool $15 million.  I looked at that setup and immediately realized how completely forward Tasty was being with it’s workers, and how well it knew them that it had these thing set up for “Day One.”

First, the Macbook Air and 27” external display- the epitome of “cool” in those circles shows the potential programmer that the company is willing to spend on it’s employees and wants them to have the best hardware to do their work on.  The wireless keyboard, wireless mouse and iPhone all add to the enticing package, making potential employees drool over the “cool” factor alongside the “fun” factor that must be involved with a company who chooses all Apple products for it’s new employees.  I did the math, this setup probably costs around $2500 and as much as $3500 (depending on the options chosen) for each new employee the company hires.  For comparison’s sake, I did the math on the setup I received as a part of my first day on the job: Dell Optiplex 380 desktop and monitor: $325.  Desk phone from 1980 (I’m not kidding): It couldn’t have cost more than $10.  That’s pretty much it.

Now, I would like to consider myself a pretty valuable employee.  I show up early and work late, I am at the top of my group when it comes to productivity, development of the business, customer service and leadership, and still after 3 and a half years, I am relegated to hand-me-down hardware that was new in 2007 and a telephone that might as well have a rotary dial.  You might think that I am jealous (a little bit) or angry at my current employer (not at all).  The reason for this is that I love my job because it gives me purpose.

Yes, I am bringing it back to purpose again.  All the cool gadgets in the world cannot replace a sense of purpose in your career, and this will make the difference between a tech company who can attract and retain the best talent, and one who is constantly throwing the latest and greatest gadgets at their employees to get them to stay.

BTW, I am not saying that Tasty does not give it’s employees a sense of purpose, I don’t know, I don’t work there nor know anyone who does.

But I do know that what I do matters.  Every time I see an airplane take off from the airport near work, I know that I helped build something on it.  Maybe not that particular airplane (I have only been doing this for three years), but for at least some airplanes, I have helped to build through the parts that I have purchased.  This is an amazing thing to consider, when you know that every day there are 87,000 airplanes in the sky (30,000 commercial flights) and those flights are carrying people, packages, freight, and many other things to their destinations.  None of that would be possible without the airplane parts that I purchased.  It is an incredibly fulfilling feeling to know that.

It is so easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of your job or your place of work- the office politics, the heavy workload, the long days with little appreciation; that it is easy to lose sight of the big picture.  We build airplanes that take people to their destinations.  We build freighter airplanes that take thousands of pounds of freight to its destinations.  The iPad 2 that I received this week made it’s way to me from Hong Kong in a Fed Ex 777 Freighter that someone doing exactly what I do every day helped to build.  That sort of thinking is what brings it home.  Purpose.  It is up to you find it, but I assure you, it is there.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention the Red Swingline Stapler sitting on the developer’s desk.  Now THAT is the epitome of cool.  Frankly, I think everyone at my company should get a red Swingline.  It would bring that little wink and understanding nod to the everyday work that is so often sorely lacking.  It would say “Don’t take things too seriously.”  That’s a message worth sharing.

What Is Purpose?

Originally posted 3/7/2011.

Saturday I brought up purpose, the third of Dan Pink’s “incentives that work” for today’s workers. Today I’d like to further investigate what purpose is and how it effects people more than money. Purpose is the idea that what you do matters, that your actions every day in your job have an effect on people and the world at large. But how do you find purpose in your day to day job? This part is all about mindset. Perhaps these three stories will help put “purpose” in perspective:

Johnny the Bagger
You have probably heard the Johnny the Bagger story before. It is a famous true story about a young man with down syndrome who found purpose in his job as a grocery store bagger through providing the best customer service he could. Johnny would insert motivational quotes into the bags of his customers telling them, “I hope you enjoy my quote of the day.” Pretty soon, everyone was waiting in Johnny’s line. They loved his quotes and enjoyed that special interaction Johnny provided.

Now, many people think this story is all about customer service, and in part it is, but it is also about finding purpose in your work, even when the work is as routine as working as a grocery store bagger. Johnny found purpose in his work, and in doing so, found far more job satisfaction and success than he ever would have had he considered the job of grocery store bagger demeaning or unimportant. Johnny proved otherwise.

Middle School Janitor
I remember another story about a middle-school janitor who took great pride in how he cleaned his school and classrooms. His reasoning was that these kids had the chance to go to school someplace that was clean, neat and tidy and that would contribute to learning, or they could go to school in a building with overflowing trash cans, dirty blackboards and grimy carpets. It was up to him to give these kids every opportunity to grow up to be successful, even though his only part in their lives was played out at night, long after the kids had left school.

Michael Gill, author of How Starbucks Saved My Life
Michael Gill is a former advertising executive who, at the age of 63, found himself unemployed, divorced and out of options. Gill ended up taking a job as a Barista at his local Starbucks and in doing so, found new purpose in his life through meaningful interactions with people on a daily basis. I read Michael Gill’s inspiring story in 2008 and was taken by how happy Gill seemed talking about his passion for a job that for many of us would seem unimportant. But to Gill, the five minutes he had with his customers was the most important part of his day- it was crucial to ensure his customers walked away having had an excellent experience.

Think about it, whether your job is the head of a corporation, a Procurement Agent buying airplane parts, the teller at a bank or the barista at a Starbucks, each of you has the opportunity each day to serve your customer in ways that will make their lives easier. Customer service is everywhere, it is not just for retail environments any more. If your job is unfulfilling, it is up to you to find something in it that will make it fulfilling. It is not your company’s responsibility to make you happy in your job. Happiness is a choice, and it is not always easy to achieve.

Now, even though it is not your employer’s responsibility to make your job enjoyable, there are things employers can (and should) do to make what is often a daily tedium more fulfilling. We will talk about some of those things in my next entry.