And by the way, if you’ve been meeting with your mentor for months, maybe even years, and you’re still having those same career conversations, something needs to change. And sometimes the hardest part is just knowing how to ask for what you need, what to say when asking a new leader to be your mentor. That’s why I’ve created a free set of mentorship scripts. These are for engineers who want to be intentional about career growth and just feel stuck on knowing what to say. You’ll have the language that you can adapt to approach the right person and explain the kind of guidance that you need and that you’re looking for. Grab those scripts for free in the description, in the show notes right now, and let’s get cracking on these 3 monster mistakes. The first mistake is the most obvious one. And unfortunately, out of the 300+ leaders who I’ve coached from IC to VP across the board, it’s the most common. It’s that you don’t have world-class mentors. You just don’t have them. And there’s 2 sides to this mistake. One is having no mentors, period. The second is that they’re really not world-class. You have someone who was assigned to you by HR, perhaps you joined one of the corporate matching mentorship programs. And frankly, that person is not supporting the success that you desire. They’re not actively creating new results for you because they’re just following the formula that was laid out by someone else. And yes, they’re generous and they want to give back, they do. Uh, have a desire to see you succeed, but they may not be the actual person who you need in your corner. So whether it’s you have zero people in your life raft as a mentor supporting you, or the people who you have frankly are just riding along in that boat instead of actively rowing in support of your success, if you do not have a tribe of world-class mentors in your corner, that is a monster Mistake for you as an engineering leader, no matter what level you are at. If you’re a junior individual contributor all the way to director and VP, we all need those mentors. Mistake number 2 is that you have the mentor and you don’t actually meet. This is amazing how often I’ll say, hey, do you have a mentor? And the engineer will say back to me, yes, I do. And I’ll say, well, how often do you connect? And it’ll be twice a year, maybe once a quarter, or, oh, I don’t remember the last time that I met with my mentor. It’s like, well, that’s, that’s not a mentor. Once a year doesn’t move the needle. All right. Yes, it’s good to stay in touch with past mentors who may be able to come back and support you in a key moment, but you need cadence. All right, you need cadence and you need an environment when you meet that allows the right conversation to happen. What cadence is right will depend on what you’re seeking to accomplish. And in just a moment, I’ll share with you the importance of how those things fit together. But on the environment piece, I think it’s a huge mistake that most mentorship meetings are coffee chats or going out to lunch. Sometimes the most valuable thing you can do is bring your mentor into your work environment. Go to the Gemba, go look at the work itself and get their insights, their coaching, their mentorship, their advice right there in the thing that matters most. Mistake 1 is you don’t have the mentors. Mistake 2 is you don’t meet with the mentors you have in the right cadence and in the right way. And mistake 3? You’re there with a great world-class mentor. You’re meeting in the right environment, but you don’t have the courage to ask for what you really want. Mistake 3, you don’t ask for what you want and what you need. This is another monster mistake that mentees make all the time. You get this close to something that could have radically shifted the trajectory of your career, And you didn’t have the courage to ask for it. Or worse, you don’t know what you need to ask for in the first place. Huge, huge miss, huge bummer. It’s almost like people treat their mentors like a curated version of Google. They just ask questions and get information back, and they settle for this transactional relationship with a mentor to get information from them. That frankly you could have gotten 90% of from ChatGPT or Claude, and you’re not digging into the right topics in the right way, and you’re not asking for the support that you really need. 3 monster mistakes. You don’t have world-class mentors. You don’t meet with your world-class mentors in the right cadence and in the right way. And you don’t ask your mentors for what you really need. Want and need. I’m curious, which of those 3 best describes you? Is it 1, 2, 3, or all of the above? What is the challenge that you’ve faced with mentors in your career? And if you wanna go deeper on this, I’ve got an entire podcast episode where I take 20 minutes and unpack these 3 really deeply. If you feel stuck and trapped on these, if you’re in the audio podcast, it’s episode 175, and here on YouTube, Uh, we’ll get that linked up in the description if you want to watch that next and go deeper, but we need to make sure we’re not making these mistakes so we can move on to actually maximizing the mentors that we have. So let me show you the Mentorship Maximizer Matrix. This is a really simple and powerful tool for how you can take the mentors in your life and turn them into leaders who are supporting your success. But I need to remind you first, You’re not Alex Honnold. If you don’t know who Alex Honnold is, he’s a free solo rock climber, and he did an incredible special by that name, Free Solo, showing how he climbed El Capitan with no rope. It is absolutely ridiculous. I would encourage you to go check that out. It’s one of the greatest athletic feats of all time, and it’s the way most engineers want to run Their career. They think that they’re Alex. They meet a mentor at the base of the wall and they ask their mentor for some climbing tips. And they say, hey, how did you do that section up there when you climbed this really hard mountain? And then they say thank you to their mentor and they turn around and they walk to the wall and they free solo the rock face. That’s the way that engineering leaders, whether you’re a manager, director, I see it all the time. They go to their mentor to ask for climbing advice, and then they go climb on their own. Great mentorship is not like that. Great mentorship is climbing with an experienced partner who knows the route, knows where to place the anchors, and can hand you the rope to clip into. Okay? You’re gonna climb further. It’s gonna take less energy. It’s way safer. So when you slip, you don’t fall to the bottom because the truth is you’re not Alex Honnold. You’re not the one in a million engineer. You’re not that person. Maybe you think you are, and if you are, awesome. But the truth is there’s one Alex Honnold and there’s all the rest of us, and there’s no point climbing that face alone in your career. So let’s get into the mentorship. Maximizer matrix. There are 2 dimensions, and I want you to grab your notebook and draw along because you need to be marking where your current mentors are at on this matrix. The first dimension, let’s talk about this x-axis. It’s fit. It is fit. You can have a mentor who is frankly a bad fit. You and that person don’t get along. You and that person are not Really able to support each other. They cannot help you with the things that you want. And on the other end would be someone who’s a perfect fit. That’s the ideal. That’s what we want. This leader has the results that you want to accomplish. Remember, that’s the key distinction of a world-class mentor is that they have actually achieved the results that you want. So bad fit to perfect fit is really obvious in finding a great mentor. But the vertical axis on this matrix is their level of commitment to you. If you have a mentor who is low commit, that’s a problem. They’re not investing into you. And on the other end is somebody who is highly committed to your success. Highly committed. This is the problem with a lot of mentorship relationships is that you’ve got somebody who could help you a lot, but they’re not committed to helping you. And as a mentee, we just sit back and say, well, there’s nothing I can do about that because they’re the mentor and I’m the mentee. What am I supposed to do, Zach? Well, that is not true. That is not true at all. Let’s talk about what action you need to take based on where your current mentors map into this Matrix. First one, let’s talk about low commit, bad fit. It’s pretty obvious if you’re in this quadrant, if the name of your mentor lands in this quadrant, that you’ve got a problem. All right. This person is really not able to support your success, and they’re really not that invested into your success anyway. So why would we continue to use our time and energy here? The answer is simple. The action to take is move on. Move on. Have the courage to tell that mentor, thank you for the support that you’ve given me. It has been extremely helpful. I appreciate you. And I think our mentorship relationship has run its course. For me, I had this experience early in my career when I joined one of those HR mentor matching programs. I filled out a few questions. Let’s be honest, it was not Match.com. I don’t know how they were pairing people up, but somehow I ended up getting matched with a mentor who will remain nameless for the sake of protecting their reputation here. And at the end of the day, I felt there was very little this person had to offer me. Their career path had been very different than the direction I wanted to go. They did not have tremendous success or results to speak of in their own career. And the other people I was asking were like, hey, Probably wouldn’t spend too much time around that person. That’s not someone you want to hitch your wagon to. So I went through the minimum required sessions as part of that HR program, and when it came time to either continue or opt out, I said thank you and opted out. If you’re in a similar situation, just have the courage to say no, to let them know that that’s the end of the relationship, and move on. Now the next two. Quadrants are a bit trickier because you’re halfway to what you want. You may have a mentor who’s really committed. They’re willing to invest in you, but they’re not a great fit. The conversations, maybe they’re not clicking. You just don’t vibe with that person. Maybe the results that they’ve had in their career are not aligned with the direction that you want to go. So it’s not really that great. Maybe you’re on the deep technical side and they’re more on the product side and it’s not working, or the opposite. You want to move more towards the commercial and business end of the engineering career ladder, and they’re more interested in keeping you in deep technical work. Whatever the reason is, it’s a bad fit. Or the opposite, you may have someone who’s a perfect fit, but man, you just can’t get their time. You can’t get their focus and their energy. That person is unavailable, or at least so far has not been open to committing to you. When you’re in one of these 2 quadrants, it can be tough to know what to do because you don’t want to let that relationship go. Let’s start with the high commit, bad fit. I think this one is actually the more common situation that I see. When you’re in this quadrant, the action that you need to take is to dig for gold. Dig for gold. What I mean is to explore other ways that this committed mentor can help you. I remember a mentor named Steve who supported me at Whirlpool Corporation, and after I’d gotten a couple of promotions, Steve didn’t have much more to offer me around the idea of career development. We were actually peers on the org chart by this time, so asking him for continued advice on how to get promoted to a level he’d never reached didn’t make sense, but— Steve was committed. He really enjoyed and supported me in a great way. So I started digging for gold. What else is Steve great at? And it turns out he was a guru when it came to personal investing, understanding Whirlpool’s 401 plan, you know, personal investing and just financial strategies and financial intelligence in general. So we shifted our mentorship away from getting promoted and into me learning from him about investing strategies. If you have somebody with great experience who you connect with in some ways, but it’s just not quite a fit for your goals and what you want right now, go dig for gold. Maybe that person can help you in another way. What about low-commit, perfect fit? This is that VP, this is that director, this is that person at another company who’s a thought leader. You’ve seen them on LinkedIn. Who oh, they’re they’re the perfect person. They’re the person who you want to be when you grow up. They’re the person who has all the success, all the reputation that you want to emulate. It’s a perfect fit. But even getting in the same room as that person can be tough. Maybe they don’t even know your name yet. Well, here’s what needs to happen: the action for you to take when you’re here. It’s one of. Courage. You must have the courage to ask for more. Remember the leader I mentioned, Lisa, from the intro of this conversation today? She was invited to go along and represent a project that she was working on at a major engineering conference. The VP of product was also at the conference. This was a female engineering leader who’d made it to the vice president level, and Lisa really wanted that opportunity to have a conversation with the VP, and she got it at that conference. And Lisa was in my coaching program and she came back and was celebrating the win. She said, ha, you’re not gonna believe this. I got to go to the event and While I was there, got to have a conversation with the vice president and was celebrating that win. And so I asked as her coach, I said, amazing, what’s your follow-up plan? A few seconds of silence, no response. Lisa hadn’t even considered the possibility that a follow-up might be available, right? This was totally out of her league. This is a person who was at the time, I think, 4 levels above her. in the org chart, right? There’s no way this VP would want to mentor Lisa, right? Well, how do we know if we don’t have the courage to ask? So I said to Lisa, hey, do you want this person to be your mentor if you could? And Lisa was like, of course. I mean, that would be amazing. This is a perfect fit. This person’s career path is almost exactly the path that I would love to follow. I said, okay, it’s time to make that courageous Ask. Now’s the perfect time. You have the relationship, you just met face-to-face and had this conversation. Go ask for more. Lisa did. The VP was ecstatic to serve as her mentor, and now Lisa is in line for a director opportunity. The same could happen for you if you have the courage to do it. Dig for gold. Ask for more. If you’re currently in one of these 2 quadrants, that is your objective to push you into the place that we all want to be, the top right, where you have that perfect fit and a high commit. So what do you do in that situation? So let’s jump back out to our matrix. And by the way, if you’re thinking, I have the courage to make that ask, I just don’t know what to say, remember to grab the scripts. That are totally free there in the show description. So you can get past that hurdle of knowing what to say and just get on with the actions. But when you’re in this 4th and best quadrant, perfect fit, high commit, you’ve got a leader with results that you can aspire to and emulate and who’s helping you and actively supporting you. You have that cadence of meeting, everything’s going great. Well, what do you do now? It’s like I hit the, I hit the jackpot. I’ll tell you exactly what to do. The most generous thing that you can give a mentor is applied advice. Do what they say and make those mentors proud. Make them proud. Make that mentor proud that they invest in you. Give them the feedback. Hey, I just want to say thank you for what you’ve been supporting me on. I took the actions that you suggested. I’ve gotten these tremendous results. Things are going well for me. Things are looking up for me. And I just want to let you know how much I appreciate what you’re investing into me. And I’m going to continue to take action, to challenge myself, to grow. And I just want to let you know how much that means. Wow. That’s what you want to do. When you think about what can I generously give back To my mentors when they’re giving of themselves into me. This is what it is. Give them the pleasure of knowing that their investment into you was not in vain, that it was not a waste. Go make them proud. And I’ll tell you the other reason this is super important is because this upper corner right here of the matrix, that’s the place you want every one of your mentors’ names to end up. So that you can ask them to be your sponsor in those moments that really matter. And I’ll do a whole separate conversation, separate episode talking about sponsorship later. But for today, just know that our goal is to move our mentors up into this top right quadrant where we can make them proud. And you want every single name of your mentors to land in that box. Now, If you haven’t already, take your list of mentors and let’s plot them on this chart. If you have somebody whose name is down here in the bottom left, have them, you know, say thank you and move on. Let them go. Cut them loose. If it’s a bad fit, low commit, let’s move on. If your mentors’ names are up here where they’re really committed, but it’s a bad fit, it’s time for you to take a new action in how you engage. To go dig for gold. If it’s in the ask for more bucket, go get the scripts, get clear, get courageous, and make that ask. Don’t just settle for whatever they gave you as their way of doing mentorship. I’ve heard this a lot. Yeah, but Zach, my mentor said they’re only available to meet quarterly. I get it. We’re going to be very respectful of that boundary For them. And we’re also going to ask them and invite them to something more. Let them say no. Don’t say no on their behalf. And if you have mentors in this make ’em proud box, then let’s push it all the way as far as we can so that you have a list of mentors who, even after the mentorship is over, you can go back to and pick up the conversation and asking for advocacy. And sponsorship in those moments that matter. This is how you maximize mentorship. If you activate this, I promise you, you’re gonna be ahead of 99% of other leaders out there who don’t have mentors, don’t meet with their mentors, and don’t ask for what they want and need. And I can tell you from my own experience that this works. I had a mentor named Josh. Josh and I were together for years. I kept asking him for more and more insights. I kept digging for gold if it ever felt like we were running out of things to explore. No matter what stage I was at in my career, Josh continued to invest in me. He was giving me time. He was up there in that top right, and I kept doing everything possible to make him proud. And when a key moment came that Whirlpool went through a reorg, Josh became that sponsor for me who helped me to land my first senior manager of engineering role. When who knows what would’ve happened otherwise. You see, investing in that relationship and asking for the things that I wanted and needed, making sure that Josh knew the direction I wanted to steer my career led to a huge promotion, a huge pay raise, and a huge opportunity for me at a really young age in my engineering career. This works. Mentors matter. And please remember, you are not Alex Honnold. Go and build that tribe of mentors for you. And notice, when you look at this diagram, every kind of mentor relationship you have sits in one of these 4 boxes, and every box has a next move. None of those moves is sit back and wait. Get proactive, go take action, and create the mentorship that you need. So let’s do a rapid recap. There’s 3 monster mistakes mentees make, and I don’t want you to make them. Number 1 is you don’t have world-class mentors. Number 2 is that you don’t meet with them on a regular cadence or in the right way to create momentum. And number 3 is that at the end of the day, you just don’t ask for the things that you actually want and need to get to where you want to go. And then you can take the names you have and put them onto the Mentorship Maximizer Matrix. Be honest with yourself. Score those mentors by name. This is not conceptual. This is with names, not with theoreticals, not with nice-to-haves. Take the names of your mentors, score them on fit. Is it a bad fit or is it a great fit, a perfect fit? Do they have the results, the skills, the experiences that you want? Can they impart that? And do they share your values? Is it fun to meet with them? All right, use your vision and values as the basis for fit, not their job title. And then score on the commitment. How much time and energy are they actually investing into you? Be honest with yourself. And remember, please, once a year coffee is not high commitment. That is a low commit. So you’re going to score each of the names on this Mentorship Maximizer Matrix. And your job is to make the quadrant move that’s listed here this week. Is it time to move on? Time to dig for gold? Ask for more or make them proud. Take that action now. Put the action in place. And look, if you have no names, if you’ve got an empty matrix, then it’s time to go fishing. It’s time to start building that tribe of mentors. All right. And if that’s you, go back and check out my episode on the life raft because you need to stop thinking you’re Alex Honnold and start Filling your life raft with the people who can support you. Now, my guess is if you’ve listened this far, you’re aware that a story like Lisa’s or a story like mine with Josh, yes, the mentorship is a critical factor to helping us create those inflection points and the success, but there’s more to the story. There’s an entire set of systems and strategies required for you to create rapid momentum in your engineering career to get that next promotion. It’s not just about mentorship. Your success requires a whole host of strategies, systems, and tools. And if you want to see that complete picture, if you want to see all of what it takes, then I’d encourage you next to go check out my Director Promotion Plan. It’s the fastest way that I know to help you achieve that next promotion that you’re looking for in a way that’s aligned with your vision, your values, your purpose. Whether you want to make it to director and beyond, or you’re still a senior engineer looking for that first manager role, the Director Promotion Plan is going to walk you through all of the strategies, the systems, the barriers, the things that I’ve seen that hold people back from getting to that next level. Go check that out. It’s absolutely free, and it’s the most comprehensive look at the way that we approach coaching here within the Oasis of Courage. So check out the Director Promotion Plan if you want to see how mentorship fits into the complete picture of your career success. And until next time, don’t forget, get out there and crush comfort, create courage, and let’s do this.
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