Introduction

I was intrigued many years back when a very highly ranking corporate executive introduced me to his better half and said, “Paul and I are XYZ boys.” XYZ happened to be a towering figure in industry, academia and the polity. I didn’t understand the import of what he said then but the veil has since fallen off my eyes having witnessed the man’s meteoric rise to the top of the food chain. It’s amazing what a mentor can do for you.

Mentoring or mentorship or simply the mentor – mentee relationship is a subject that should interest everyone. Indeed, anyone who cares to fast-track his or her career or to progress well in life in general should put mentoring in the front burner.

I’ve been particularly enamoured by the subject of mentoring in recent times because no day passes without someone texting me to ‘be my mentor’. Sometimes I have complete strangers say ‘you are one of my mentors’. Typically I laugh it all off not knowing their motive. At the same time, knowing what I know now, I’ve taken up the mantra of mentoring as catechism.

What is mentoring?

According to Wikipedia, mentorship is the “influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and professional growth of a mentee.” The concept of mentoring dates back more than 3,000 years to the ancient Greeks.

Why Is Mentoring Important?

Writing in Forbes magazine,Christine Comaford quoted a survey that revealed that 76% of people think mentors are important, but only 37% have one. Though I can’t recall the sources, other findings indicate a person with a mentor is 4 times more likely to succeed in life than the person without one. And in a corporate setting, a person with a mentor is 5 times more likely to get promoted than a person without.

The most successful people on the planet had mentors early in life. The quote usually attributed to Isaac Newton, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”, says it all. Think about this:

• Warren Buffett was mentored by the economist, Benjamin Graham.
• Richard Branson had Freddie Laker as his mentor.
• Rich Schefren had  Jay Abraham as his mentor.
• Bob Dylan was mentored by Woody Guthrie.
• Jeff Bezos had David Shaw as his mentor.
• Bill Gates was mentored by Paul Allen.
• Steve Jobs was mentored by Nolan Bushnell.
• Jack Welch was mentored by Reuben Guttof.
• Alh. Aliko Dangote had Alh. Aminu Dantata as his mentor.
• Tony Elumelu had Ebitimi Banigo as his mentor.

While Steve Jobs’ first mentor and entrepreneurial role model was Atari’s founder, Nolan Bushnell, he also had Bill Hewlett as his mentor.  When Steve Jobs first left Apple the first person he talked to was Bill Hewlett, CEO and co-founder of Hewlett-Packard. Jobs said he wanted to run away from Silicon Valley but Hewlett advised him not to because he’d done nothing wrong. In the same vein, Warren Buffet became and remains Bill Gates main mentor.

Questions People Ask About Mentoring

If you Google mentoring, you’ll get 523 million hits in about 60 seconds. People ask questions about mentoring and mentorship, including some of the following: ‘What mentoring means?’, ‘What is mentoring and why is it important?’, ‘What are the 3 types of mentoring?’, ‘What is mentoring and its types?’, ‘What is mentorship’, ‘What mentorship really means?’, ‘What is the purpose of mentoring?’, ‘What are the four forms of mentorship?’, What is a famous quote about mentoring?’, What percentage of CEOs said that mentors were a big part of their success?, What percentage of successful people have mentors?’, What percentage of those with a mentor say mentors are valuable?’.

Who Can Be A Mentor?

Your mentor can be anybody but more than anything else s/he has to be a wise person. And his or her guidance should serve your long term career and/or life goals. Do not underestimate the mentoring role of your close relations: your dad, mom, aunty, uncle, etc. Interestingly, you don’t choose a mentor, s/he chooses you. Isn’t it funny the way life is? Sadly most people miss the signals when a potential mentor shows up. It’s important you do not mistake mentorship with friendship but the mentor relationship can blossom into a long term friendship lasting years or even a lifetime.

What Is The Difference Between A Coach and a Mentor?

While the terms ‘coach’ or ‘coaching and ‘mentor’ and ‘mentoring’ are sometimes used interchangeably they mean entirely different things. Typically you don’t pay a mentor but coaching is more often than not a paid relationship. While you need one mentor for sagely advice at different stages and dimensions of your life, you need coaches in specific niche areas such as ‘speaking’, ‘grooming’, ‘vocal variety’, ‘physical exercise’ and so on. True, your mentor and coach can be one and the same person, but for Olympian performance you need a separate coach for each niche area. As coaches don’t come cheap, choose yours very carefully.

One of the most celebrated coaches of all time was Bill Campbell, noted for coaching some of the most impactful leaders in Silicon Valley. Among those he coached were Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt (Chairman Google), Larry Page (Google co-founder), Sergey (Google co-founder), Sheryl Sandberg (COO Facebook), Tim Cook (CEO Apple), Sundar Pichai (CEO Google), Susan Wojcicki (CEO YouTube), all as they then were. Bill Campbell was so beloved that when he passed away in 2016 at the age of 75, his students wrote a befitting book, Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Handbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell, about him. According to Adam Grant, the author of Give ‘N’ Take who wrote the book’s foreword, Bill Campbell was Silicon Valley’s best-kept secret.

Mentoring at organizational level

Mentoring in the corporate settings comes in different forms, depth of structure and accountability. While most companies have no mentoring systems or processes, some have it at an informal level such as the buddy system. On the other hand top rate organizations have more formal structures with clear goals and targets. In some very well structured environments the newly employed is assigned a mentor immediately after orientation, with the process lasting an average two to three years. In some settings you can have flip mentoring, where a younger employee mentors an older one in areas such as software.   

The Lessons I Learnt From My Mentor

Almost all Toastmasters in Nigeria who came across Richmond Dayo Johnson claimed RDJ as his or her coach. Indeed, he coached everyone he came across in the fine art of public speaking. He spoke so well that a judge in Croydon, UK, once invited him to his inner chamber and whispered, “You speak with eloquence to spare.” RDJ mentored me on many areas. He once told me in a low voice that one of the greatest acts and signs of friendship is when you exchange ties. Incidentally, on that day I loved the tie he wore and he said he also envied mine, so we exchanged ties. It was magical to wear RDJ’s tie.

Summary

This has been a brief note on mentoring. In summary, get a mentor, not only for yourself, but also for your kids. Don’t stop there. Get coaches on key dimensions of your life and you’ll arrive triumphant like Julius Caesar who proclaimed, ‘I came. I saw. I conquered.’