Archives for posts with tag: Mentoring

New Book, The People Zoo

September 23, 2020 //
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My second book, The People Zoo, is now available on Amazon as both a paperback and an ebook. Like my first one, this book is full of short, often humorous tales about Life and Business. It features stories back to my time in public accounting and through my work career at Donn Corporation, USG Corporation and IMC Global. And although I was a Chief Financial Officer for much of my career, in various stories I am a junior or senior auditor, a business President or a member of a charity Board.

A new aspect of this book is that I have incorporated some of the wisdom and values of our Native American First People. Their words and beliefs help introduce or close some chapters and add a unique viewpoint to other stories along the way. For example many First People believed we each have two wolves-one good and one evil-fighting inside of us. Which one survives? The one you feed!

The book’s major topics include:

-Mentoring both to me at critical times and others who I mentored including unlikely but successful relationships

-Dealing with Larger than Life Leaders whom I have encountered including Donn’s founder and USG’s Chairman

-Facing both personal and career crises along the way that ranged from liquidating my father’s business, to growing up after my divorce to being in NYC on 9/11.

-Working through major transitions and exits like Senior Executives good and bad exits to my own early retirement

-And using Circles and Bridges to both bring people together and to help create a philosophy for your work and personal life

-As in my first book, each chapter ends with Lessons you should Learn.

So take a look and hopefully you will enjoy, The People Zoo!

Brad

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Mentoring and Saving a Career

January 31, 2019 //
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In my forthcoming book, The People Zoo, there is a major section dealing with Mentoring. Some of the stories deal with people who mentored or assisted me at critical times in my career. Some of the stories are about how I mentored others. What follows is one of those. With the start of a new year and a world filled with uncertainty, I thought a fun story, with a message, might be perfect. As always, this is a true story, from my days in public accounting, which I call:

Saving Smelly Harvey’s Career

Well that is quite a title even for a book called The People Zoo!

This may be a story of extreme mentoring but maybe it is just an excellent example of how open, honest discussion with a young person can sometimes really help.

Harvey, not his real name, was a young audit assistant in the Cleveland office of Arthur Andersen, a fine firm that had somehow just promoted me to Senior Auditor. Harvey was one of forty young assistants hoping to work hard for a dozen or more years and climb the ladder with hopes of someday becoming one of the select, very well-paid Partners.

Young assistant auditors like Harvey worked in a range of industries and audit engagements reporting to up to as many as a dozen senior auditors over the course of a year. These senior auditors, of which I was now one, were only a couple years older but we had power since we evaluated, promoted and recommended that an assistant “pursue other interests” outside of AA&Co. A big deal at age 25!

One day a bunch of us Senior Auditors are in the office and we are comparing notes on this year’s crop of assistants. This same conversation occurs in every service organization-law firms, hospitals, and especially on television shows like Grey’s Anatomy! This type of constant evaluation and ranking also occurs throughout nature. The alpha wolves watch the younger ones and decide who can stay in their pack and who gets sent away. And just like on TV or in a wolf pack, some of the younger assistants are coming out better than others.

The conversation eventually turns to Harvey who had worked for me and several other seniors. On the positive side Harvey is considered bright, likable and a very hard and effective worker.

But there is a negative. One of the other seniors, not delicately, suggests that at the end of a long work day, Harvey smells! Even I agree with this analysis.  And this was a real problem; no one gets to Partner if they smell! It just doesn’t happen.

I nobly say that one of us must talk to Harvey!

Everyone says at once: Right, you do it, Brad!

As it turned out the next week, Harvey and I were traveling out of town together to work on a bank audit. One of the other seniors knew this and once this fact came out I was really stuck! I had to talk to Harvey while we were alone a hundred miles from our Cleveland office.

We would be by ourselves at dinner often that week, so this would be the ideal time, I concluded. But how exactly to bring the subject up? This is not taught in any accounting program at college or even at AA&Co.’s extensive training center.

I decide that at the end of dinner our last evening out of town I will just bring it up. The conversation goes like this:

Brad: Harvey, the other senior auditors and I were talking about you last week and you received high marks on all the critical technical and work areas!

Harvey: Wow! That is great. I really appreciate you telling me. Were there any areas for me to improve?

Brad: Yes, and it was a bit awkward but an issue. At the end of the workday someone suggested you smell. So, I have to ask, do you shower daily?

Harvey: Yes, I do and it’s not always easy since I live with my two brothers.

Brad: Wow. Ok. Here is a thought. Do you use deodorant every day?

Harvey (looking down, never good in a wolf pack): No actually I don’t. My family just never did.

Brad: Why don’t you try it! I use Right Guard!

Harvey: I will get some right away and thanks again for taking the time and being so honest with me!

Brad: It’s a senior job and you are a great guy with what everyone agrees is a lot of potential!

Epilogue part one: Harvey corrected the issue. We became very good friends. I was at his wedding to Sue (her real name), a wonderful woman.

Epilogue part two: A dozen years later, Harvey became a Partner in AA&Co. They moved to Cincinnati, and we sadly lost touch. Maybe he will read this story and call! Maybe even take his old mentor and his wife out to dinner! And I assume he is still using Right Guard!

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Learning while you Mentor

April 2, 2015 //
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A most unlikely source, the AARP Bulletin, gave me the inspiration for this blog. I say unlikely because it is not thought of as a traditional source of business wisdom. Retirement and aging wisdom, yes.

This article was titled “It’s never too late to learn” and dealt with a newer corporate trend of assigning younger people to help their older colleagues learn things. This is often called reverse mentoring and can range from explaining social media, such as how to use Twitter, to building better relationships with the incoming millennials and Gen Xers. As I read and thought about it, I realized that I have been informally involved in this process over the years with many of my younger mentees.

An overall concept, in which I strongly believe, is that Mentoring works best when both parities are, at least, benefiting from the process and, at best, when both parities are learning from each other. The benefit can be as simple as the the satisfaction or pride a mentor gets when the mentee gets a desired promotion. But the better benefit is when the mentor actually learns something themselves. It is not usually some technical thing, but rather some softer issue. Here are a few real life examples (without full names) that come to mind.

Y, a young, female, Hispanic manager in a large distribution firm from whom I learned what it’s like to be a double minority in a traditional old-line firm and how to deal with it.

M, a young, male business owner, who shares with me both the joys and frustrations of running his own small business. He has no college degree, yet over these last few years he has earned the equivalent of an MBA at the school of hard knocks.

J. a young, female founder of a service business, has such passion for her trade and personal drive to succeed that she could qualify to teach a graduate courses in Leadership or Entrepreneurship.

So if you have not tried mentoring, try it. And if you do mentor but feel your efforts have been mostly one sided, then try harder and learn to listen and learn from your mentee. It is not too late to learn something valuable and wonderful!

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