684: How to Be a Better Mentor, with Ruth Gotian

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00]:
We’ve all heard about the benefits of mentoring. In addition to receiving mentoring, great leaders give back by providing it to others. In this episode, what the research shows that the best mentors do well. This is Coaching for Leaders episode 684.Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:27]:
Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I’m your host, Dave Stachowiak. Leaders aren’t born, they’re made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. One of the conversations that almost every leader has is mentoring conversations. Whether they are formal, informal, or somewhere in between, we have all heard about the power of mentoring, and many of us now have the privilege in our careers to be mentors to others. And yet it is one of those topics that almost none of us have received any kind of formal training on, even if we’ve been involved in a formal mentoring program.

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:11]:
Today, I’m so glad to welcome back a guest expert who has so much wonderful perspective to share, not only through her research, but practice on mentoring and helping us get better. I’m so pleased to welcome Ruth Gotian to the show. She is the chief learning officer and associate professor of education and anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine. She has been hailed by Nature and The Wall Street Journal as an expert in mentorship and leadership development. Thinkers 50 has ranked her as the number one emerging management thinker in the world, and she’s a top LinkedIn voice in mentoring. She’s the author of The Success Factor and now along with Andy Lapata, The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring. Ruth, it is always a pleasure to talk to you. Welcome back.

Ruth Gotian [00:01:55]:
I am so excited to be back. How are you?

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:56]:
I am wonderful. I always love getting into your work and how much practical advice you have for us on thinking about working with high achievers and supporting them. And now through a little bit of a different lens, but so closely related mentoring. And this is a word that I think before we even get in the conversation, maybe we look at some of these terms that a lot of us tend to throw out related terms a lot like coaching, mentoring, consulting, but we don’t always think about the distinction between them. And I think there’s a real practical importance of thinking about where these terms are distinct of what’s different between coaching and mentoring and consulting. Could you paint that picture just a bit?

Ruth Gotian [00:02:43]:
You know, this is often how I start some of the keynotes on mentoring is to just give people a little vocabulary lesson on the difference, and I use role model, mentor, coach, and sponsor. And I will definitely give the differentiating factors between all of them, but I wanna first put everyone’s mind at ease. It doesn’t matter if you use the wrong term. It’s just a label. We have enough labels in our lives. We don’t need anymore. All you have to do is good work and try to make someone else’s day a little bit better. And there are different ways that can be done, and the terms are used just to give the nuances between those differences.

Ruth Gotian [00:03:28]:
So the way I often describe it, I start talking about a role model. A role model is someone you look up to, you wanna become. There’s something that they do that you wish to emulate, even if you never get to meet that person face to face in real life. So for example, I am a social scientist. I interview people. You mentioned I study extreme high achievers, so I interview the Nobel Prize winners, the astronauts, the Olympians, the NBA champions, the CEOs. Who is the best interviewer around? In my mind, it’s not a social scientist. It’s not a qualitative researcher.

Ruth Gotian [00:04:06]:
It’s someone who we all know just by her first name, Oprah, Oprah Winfrey. I have never had the opportunity to meet Oprah Winfrey. I hope to one day have that opportunity. But the way she interviews people, if it is the king of England or your next door neighbor, she knows how to make that person feel like the only person in the room and that their voice matters. And that’s something I wish to emulate with every interview that I do. So that’s a role model. Now a mentor is somebody who is your guide by your side. They are the long term partner as you develop throughout your career.

Ruth Gotian [00:04:52]:
They show you the different paths that you can take, and they let you know what stumbling blocks might be there, what doors might be there that you might not know about. And they are definitely there for the long term and in the United States, at least mentors are generally volunteers. Now a coach is more short term. It’s more nuanced. It’s to help you with very specific skills. So for example, I do executive coaching, and very often people come to me if they need help with executive presence or overcoming imposter syndrome, or they want to work on specific skills in order to get a promotion, or how can I best situate myself to be considered for a promotion? So that is a coach. Coaches are generally paid. And then a sponsor is somebody who mentions your name in the rooms you may not be in.

Ruth Gotian [00:05:49]:
They could be recommending you for choice assignments, projects, jobs, promotions, awards. They are throwing their reputation behind their words so that you can benefit from it. And that is what the sponsor is. So those are the 4 role model, mentor, coach, and sponsor.

Dave Stachowiak [00:06:12]:
Thank you for really playing out those distinctions. And, as I was thinking about what you were saying, the reality, of course, is some of us may do more than one of those for people in our lives that we mentor, that we sponsor. And I think a lot of us have had people who have done maybe 1 or more of those for us. And I really appreciate your invitation of, like, not to get too caught up in the terms I know some people say, well, coaching’s only asking questions. It’s just listening. And, you know, if you’re a consultant, you’re just giving advice. And I find it helpful to have the analogy in my own work as, like, a toolbox. Like, okay.

Dave Stachowiak [00:06:51]:
There’s there’s some coaching questions, and then there’s also maybe a little bit of advice. And maybe there’s a time that I might be the person who’s the sponsor. And I think about how do I show up in this situation of what’s gonna be helpful to this person and what’s the hat I put on in this situation to help?

Ruth Gotian [00:07:07]:
100%. And I think you should be all for, the role model, mentor, coach, and sponsor, because you can’t really do one without taking different pieces of the other and you keep growing and growing and growing. So for example, I had somebody who I mentored, and then she got to a certain point and wanted to get to that next level, and we coached on the nuances, that was all part of it. I didn’t say, okay, now I’m mentoring. Now I’m coaching. Now I’m asking questions. Now I’m guiding. And then when it was all done and she got, in this case, it was a major publication, I amplified it all over social media, and that is sponsoring.

Ruth Gotian [00:07:47]:
So you can and should be doing all of these things. And again, do not worry about the label. If you do good work and you try to help other people, rising tide raises all ships.

Dave Stachowiak [00:07:59]:
Indeed. And, speaking of labels, I think sometimes we hear the term mentoring, and we only think of the formal programs where there’s a formal agreement and a very high structure in place and that’s why this statistic in the book that you and Andy write about really grabbed me you write “only 14% of mentoring relationships commenced by asking someone to be their mentor the vast majority 61% of mentoring relationships developed organically. And then you go on repeated research of graduate students has shown time and time again that informal mentoring relationships tend to be more effective than formal mentoring pairings.” It flies in the face a bit of, like, the traditional I think, what we think of when we think of mentoring, doesn’t it?

Ruth Gotian [00:08:48]:
It certainly does. And that’s why we’re screaming this from the rooftop. People are so worried about it being formal. I don’t know about you, but I don’t wanna work with an agreement that, first of all, who’s enforcing it? And it just seems so rigid. And if we’re only focusing a question on a Thursday, do I have to wait until our next meeting on a Tuesday? And what if it’s not on the pre assigned agenda? Can I not ask that question? It just doesn’t work. And there’s a more fluid way to do mentoring that is encouraging and not stifling. And that’s what we should be after. And the research is very clear that those informal net, mentoring relationships work better than the formal ones.

Ruth Gotian [00:09:38]:
Now I will say all that, but say that formal relationships do have a very critical place in the workplace.

Dave Stachowiak [00:09:47]:
Yeah. Indeed. And I often find myself in most situations when someone’s asking advice about getting involved with the mentoring program inside of their organization as an example or an association and they haven’t done that before. I often find my bias is to encourage them to at least explore it, if not, get involved with it at least for a season. Because if it does nothing else, you get exposure to more senior people in the organization across the industry across the association and, like, what a great thing to be doing and to be following those opportunities. So I hear a both end here of, like, yes, of course, look into those opportunities and don’t close yourself off to the opportunity of the informal things that show up organically.

Ruth Gotian [00:10:33]:
Absolutely. And don’t limit yourself to just one mentor. Right? The more mentors you have, the more perspectives you get, and people have different expertise in different areas. Now, I will say that the formal mentoring relationships really work best for those who are under mentored, who don’t have the access to certain mentors. And this very often has shown in the research to be underrepresented groups that don’t always have the access. So by having a formal mentoring relationship, you have access to someone. Maybe it’s not the perfect person because very often these matches are random. Right? They’ll say, oh, 2 people from California.

Ruth Gotian [00:11:13]:
Therefore, why don’t we match you up? Because, of course, all people from California are exactly the same.

Ruth Gotian [00:11:19]:
Right? Right. That’s really how abstract it is, but it’s a starting point. And one of the things that we advocate for in the book is that it’s a starting point, but there needs to be an exit ramp. If the match is not right, if it’s not a good fit, if the person is too busy, if it’s whatever it is, there needs to be a way to get off and to get back on with someone new. They’re also some of the reasons those formal mentoring programs don’t work so well is because there’s not training for the mentors and there’s not great training for the mentees either. So there are ways that we can improve the process, but I think going for those formal mentoring relationships and having an informal mentoring relationship as well and having a mentoring team is what will really be a win win win.

Dave Stachowiak [00:12:10]:
That’s what’s so wonderful about the book and chapter 8 of the book specifically, which I’ve really zeroed in on is because there’s so much here to help us, all of us, whether we’re formal mentors or doing mentoring informally and in many cases, both. How to actually get a little better at doing this? And one of the invitations you make to us is the importance of opening up your network to your mentee. Tell me about what’s so critical about that.

Ruth Gotian [00:12:41]:
There are few reasons that this is so critical, and this is really why Andy and I partnered for this book. He’s a global expert in building professional relationships, and the heart of mentoring is a professional relationship. And it’s not just the mentee with the mentor, but it’s the mentee and the mentor’s network because the mentor will not have all the answers. There’s no one person on earth that has the answer to all possible questions or the expertise that’s needed. But people, as we know, Bob Berg, people like to work with those who they know, like, and trust. And if I’m the mentor and you’re the mentee and I see promise in you, and I like working with you, if I don’t know the answer, I’m going to introduce you to other people. Because by doing so, you are able to tap into their perspectives. And I know you’re going to make me as a mentor look good because I’ve invested in you.

Ruth Gotian [00:13:41]:
So you are now able to tap into all the people who they know, and you will see that they will open even more doors for you. Now we each know about 250 people. So not the 50,000 you may be connected with on LinkedIn, but we each know personally at least 250 people where we can pick up the phone or send them an email and connect a mentee to them. And I have never seen where that does not work.

Dave Stachowiak [00:14:10]:
One of the distinctions that I really hear loudly in the book is the distinction between listening for your mentee rather than listening to your mentee. Could you tell me a bit about that distinction?

Ruth Gotian [00:14:25]:
Yes. Very often when we’re having conversations, and this is important, not just for mentoring, but this is also for leadership. And that’s why as a subscriber of this podcast, I am so excited that we’re talking about this because you can’t be a leader if you’re not mentoring. In those conversations, very often, we are listening to respond. And when you’re listening to respond, you start to shut off your brain because you’re only thinking about what you’re going to say next. Instead, you need to listen in order to learn. You need to listen in order to understand. So when you are listening to someone, you should your next sentence out of your mouth should be a question in order to show that you are actually hearing and trying to understand.

Ruth Gotian [00:15:18]:
Because if you do that, then you can give better guidance and better advice as a mentor and as a leader.

Dave Stachowiak [00:15:26]:
You additionally, remind us to park our egos when we’re mentoring. And you write rather than impress your mentee with your achievements, let your mentee’s achievement shine and allow yourself to bask in their reflected glory. Show real belief in and enthusiasm for their projects and goals. Celebrate and enjoy their successes the same way you would their own. With their permission, amplify their achievements by letting others know. And the thing that when I think about that, and I Dave that invitation, by the way. And I think, okay. Like, that’s the ideal.

Dave Stachowiak [00:16:05]:
And I also have caught myself at times kinda sharing, like, okay. Here’s the things I’ve done well. And I wonder, Ruth, if you’ve had either the experience or seen in the research, like, how do you check yourself on that? Like, how do you know to make sure you’re sharing the achievements where it’s gonna be helpful to someone, but you’re not falling into the category of it becoming about you.

Ruth Gotian [00:16:29]:
That’s that’s a very slippery slope. Right? And I think this is where your peer mentors can really help you because they can hold you accountable and they could say, it’s a little too much. You need to you need to pull back a little bit. And the peer mentors know exactly what you’re going through because they’re going through the same thing. And you have to give them permission to do that for you and for you to do that to them. It’s not a critique. It’s an opportunity to improve. There’s a big difference.

Ruth Gotian [00:17:00]:
And if you have a peer mentor who can help you do that, you’ll see that you’ll get the right balance.

Dave Stachowiak [00:17:06]:
I was thinking as you were saying that, we had Jacob Morgan on the show a while back and we were talking about vulnerability. And one of the things that he invited us to think about is if you’re gonna share something about yourself, what’s the reason you’re sharing it? Like, ask that question first. And if you can’t really come up with an answer as to why you’re sharing something other than you just want someone to know, that’s a pretty good indicator that maybe it’s more about you than the other person, whereas I’m sharing maybe an achievement or something that’s worked for me. And there’s a really specific reason I’m telling this person because either I’m wanting to help them do the same thing or inspire them or something like that. Like, listening for that that indicator might help too.

Ruth Gotian [00:17:50]:
Remember how I said, if you’re doing good work and helping other people, then you can’t go wrong? Yeah. Just make sure it’s more, you know, you have the right balance between helping others and helping yourself.

Dave Stachowiak [00:18:03]:
Speaking of balance, one of the really wonderful things that a mentor can do for all of us is to provide a helicopter view as you say in the book. And you write, “A mentor has the dual role of simultaneously being knowledgeable and, therefore, asking sophisticated questions, yet maintain some distance from outside groups, and, therefore, those same queries might seem barbaric to others. In adult learning, this dual role is termed a sophisticated barbarian.” I have never heard this term, so I’m really curious to to learn more about this. Tell me about that.

Ruth Gotian [00:18:41]:
This is what happens when Andy Lipotta partners with an academic. He gets these academic terms and all this work that’s well cited. It was actually some of my professors, when I was getting my doctorate who coined the term sophisticated barbarian. You wanna ask these sophisticated questions. You wanna push, push, push, push, because remember, our learning occurs outside of our comfort zone. Now, the way academics learn is by asking a lot of questions. For anyone who has ever been to an academic conference, when you have the Q and A section after a keynote, you, the speaker needs to put on this invisible armor because people will try to poke holes at what they’re saying, not because they’re mean, but because that’s how they’re learning. If I can identify the gaps, I can figure out how to fill the gaps.

Ruth Gotian [00:19:40]:
People outside of academia, this will look barbaric. This will look like you’re trying to knock someone down. But academics, we’re not trying to knock someone down. We’re actually trying to learn because we know that we don’t know what we don’t know. And by asking these kinds of sophisticated questions, we can try to begin to understand what we don’t know so that we can fill that gap. That’s sophisticated barbarian.

Dave Stachowiak [00:20:09]:
Fascinating. And I’m thinking about someone who’s mentoring someone and thinking about how they can help most and provide that outside perspective that helicopter view perhaps, particularly when something is hard. A mentee runs into a very difficult situation. That often can be the time where a mentor can really help because they can provide that 30,000 foot perspective that it’s really hard for someone to see when they’re handling something really difficult in the moment.

Ruth Gotian [00:20:41]:
Yeah. Because when we are in the middle of a project or whatever it is that we’re working on, it’s all we can think about. Right. Especially if we’re intrinsically motivated to do it. It’s our reputation on the line. We are so deep inside that jar. We can’t read the label And we need that mentor who can give us that perspective, what might seem doom and gloom and my life is over because this isn’t working. The mentor has the experience, has the perspective and says, you are just one notch in this long journey.

Ruth Gotian [00:21:17]:
If this doesn’t work, there’s 12 other things that can work, which would more than make up for this one thing that’s not working. So what can we learn from this experience and how can we do better next time? Having that perspective, having that reality check is so critical.

Dave Stachowiak [00:21:35]:
And as the person doing mentoring, like remembering to say that out loud too, like, sometimes, like, we see that and it’s so obvious to us because we’re further along in our careers than someone we’re mentoring. And yet, they don’t know. Like, they literally just haven’t had the experience, of course, as so many of us didn’t when we were in those roles. And so being able to say that out loud and actually articulate that and look at the big picture, it’s huge. And I think it’s also an argument for something you and Andy talk about in the book too, which is, I think in most situations, you generally don’t want your mentor to be someone who’s, like, in the management chain above you. And and it’s also really good to have someone who’s outside of the organization and people who are maybe even outside of your industry who are providing that perspective too.

Ruth Gotian [00:22:22]:
Absolutely. And that’s what we refer to as a mentoring team. And we talk about the pros and cons of having your boss as your mentor. At the end of the day, your boss can be a mentor, but shouldn’t be your only mentor. And there are reasons for that. One reason is they could be jealous of your success. That’s never good. Another reason is if they mentor you so well that you leave to get a promotion, now they’re stuck filling your role and they may have to do your role until they can fill that role.

Ruth Gotian [00:22:54]:
So it’s sort of a double edged sword if the mentor is your boss. So we say they definitely should be a mentor, but not the only mentor. And definitely, you want people in your industry, outside your industry, within your organization, outside your organization, because that’s how you often get answers to questions. And an example that I often give, anyone who’s been in an operating room knows that before any surgery starts, there’s a checklist. That checklist came because of all the errors that were happening in the operating room before these checklists existed. Well, where did this checklist come from? The idea for the checklist in the operating room, not from someone else in health care. It came from aviation. Pilots use checklists before they take off in order to ensure that there are no errors.

Ruth Gotian [00:23:48]:
So it’s the same sort of problem, which led to a similar solution, but the healthcare people learned about it from the aviation people.

Dave Stachowiak [00:23:59]:
When you get outside of your normal frame of reference, you see things that you would never see. And, I mean, there’s so much to say about creativity and innovation there too. Yes. And, of course, mentoring and perspective, like, to be able to get to that helicopter view. And I’m so glad you mentioned checklist because when I was studying the book, one thing that came up for me that I had never thought about in the context of mentoring and it sort of like seems like duh now that I hadn’t thought about this is the importance of documentation and actually writing down challenges accomplishments as you’re working with someone and supporting them and I do that all the time with clients- I’ve done I did Dave that with direct reports when I was a manager. I never really thought about doing that with mentees either formally or informally. You’re a big advocate for it, and it sounds like it it really makes a difference.

Ruth Gotian [00:24:59]:
Yeah. And, you know, this book is filled with checklists and worksheets and all these kinds of things that people can use because we wanted to make the book actionable. And the reason that this one that you’re talking about, this checklist is so important, is because very often we forget to ask the most important question at the beginning of mentoring- what would success look like to you? Because we are always working towards something and we reach and we forget to look back at how far we’ve come to the point that we don’t even recognize that we’ve reached the milestone that we’ve set for ourselves because we’re already working on that next goal. So by documenting this, you can see what you’ve already accomplished. You can see that you’ve met your goal. And if imposter syndrome ever creeps up, you now have written documentation of everything that you’ve accomplished so that whatever has good has come your way, you have earned it.

Dave Stachowiak [00:26:01]:
Yeah. You know, I’ve been facilitating our academy for about a decade now, and one of the practices we have is when we begin, everyone creates with the group and individually a 2 to 3 year leadership vision, and we get that down on paper. And as we go, we keep coming back to that and referring to it. And then, of course, as we hit milestones, we look back on, like, what have I accomplished? And it is fascinating, Ruth, how often people forget. Not only what they wrote down, but what they’ve accomplished. And it’s interesting because everyone else in the group sees it really clearly. Oh, we’ve seen you do this over the last 6 months and how much movement you made.

Dave Stachowiak [00:26:45]:
And the thing that makes the difference is when someone goes back and reads what they wrote 3 months ago, 6 months ago, 9 months ago, and goes, oh, I I don’t even recognize some of the things I wrote because I’ve shifted so much in some of my behavior. And yet without that documentation, though, they would never see it. And I hadn’t thought about doing that from a mentoring framework too, but what a great invitation to do that.

Ruth Gotian [00:27:13]:
Absolutely. And we have all the samples in the book for people who want. So there’s no need to reinvent the wheel.

Dave Stachowiak [00:27:19]:
Yeah. Indeed. Okay. I’ve got one logistical thing to ask you on too because this is just a reality I think a lot of us spread into when we’re mentoring someone, whether it is formal or informal, is what you mentioned earlier, which is, hey. You can reach out between former interactions and have some conversation. And that is challenging sometimes if you’re doing mentoring of a lot of folks of, like, how do I help people between our formal conversations? Do I check-in? How much of my time do I dedicate to do that? How do I keep that from being overwhelming? You’ve done so much of this. You’ve watched people do it. Have you found a practice or 2 that’s helpful of just thinking about that in a healthy way and also having good boundaries to make sure that that doesn’t become too overwhelming?

Ruth Gotian [00:28:08]:
Sure. I tell people, email the questions and think it through before you send the email, And that always helps. I said, update. I’d love getting updates. And very often, I don’t need to respond to those. Right? And I think what I recommend to people is at the very top in bold, write, no response needed or response requested. Because if no response is needed, this is just an update. I got the award, I got the promotion, I got right.

Ruth Gotian [00:28:39]:
So it’s not something that’s urgent. It’s just to keep your mentor apprised of what is happening, which is so critical and not enough people do. But if you have a question, right, let’s say you, have a question on a Thursday, because on Friday you were invited for an exploratory interview for a potential promotion. You might want to run some things by your mentor and just say, time sensitive, this is what’s happening, anything I should think about or consider, say or not say. And sometimes the mentor will say, let’s hop on a quick call, or they’ll just write something back. But giving context and giving time of how much time is needed is so helpful in those conversations because sometimes things are time sensitive.

Dave Stachowiak [00:29:28]:
Yeah. And if I play that out thinking about the other side too, as a mentor, maybe at the start of the relationship or as you’re doing the work, you might even make that suggestion of, hey. I’d love to hear from you between our conversations. And you might even think about framing them as, like, here’s just an update. Or when something comes up and it would really be helpful to have a quick chat, like, here’s the way to tell me that. What a great way to frame that so people know how to communicate and reach out, and you can really honor each other’s time well.

Ruth Gotian [00:29:58]:
Yeah. And then you don’t have to worry about text messages in the middle of the night if you’re on different time zones.

Dave Stachowiak [00:30:03]:
Yeah. Indeed. There’s so many resources in the book. As you’ve mentioned, we’re just talking about one small piece of this. I’ve got 2 invitations, for folks if they want to get in further. 1 is to go to mentoring-guide.com. Ruth and Andy and their team have prepared an assessment so you can get a sense of how you’re doing as a mentor. Right, Ruth? Is that that that’s the framework of it.

Ruth Gotian [00:30:26]:
Yes and how that relationship is working out and what could be done better.

Dave Stachowiak [00:30:29]:
So that’s one place to go and if you’ve heard something from Ruth today that’s been helpful to you Ruth has been so gracious of talking with so many people in our community. Thank you, by the way, for listening to podcast all these years too. I’m really grateful If her expertise would be helpful at a conference or speaking for your organization, she’s a great person to reach out to, and I know you do a lot of coaching. In fact, you were just telling me, earlier today that one of our academy members had reached out to you for some coaching. Thank you for everything you’re doing to support our community as well. I really appreciate it.

Ruth Gotian [00:31:01]:
As a subscriber, this is fun. Yeah. We were talking that I’ve been listening for about a decade to this podcast, so it’s an honor to be a guest on it.

Dave Stachowiak [00:31:11]:
Well and I think to come back to what we’ve been talking about, which is a mentoring team, I think of you as a mentor for me. Like, you’ve introduced me to gosh. I I’ve lost count of how many people who have come on as guests on the podcast. And I think about so many of my mentoring relationships stay. When I think about that statistic of 61% of mentoring is organic. I think today and I’m not the best example because I’m in a kind of a different role, but, like, a 100% of mine are organic. Things that have happened. And what a great thing to get to a place in your career where you have so many people you’re being able to learn from and provide support from.

Dave Stachowiak [00:31:49]:
So, anyway, all that to say, thank you. And, of course, since you listen to the show, you know I’m gonna ask you what you changed your mind on. As you’ve been working on this book and thinking about mentoring, of course, a ton in the last couple of years and doing the research, I am curious. What if anything have you changed your mind on on mentoring?

Ruth Gotian [00:32:10]:
It’s on mentoring and collaboration. This was my first collaboration with a non academic and Andy and I had not met in person until after we submitted the manuscript. And I wasn’t sure what it would be like to collaborate with someone who was so different than me, lived in a different continent, different industries, etcetera. But what I have learned is that through collaboration, you can develop a very strong peer mentorship. And what is your challenge might be somebody else’s area of strength and they can teach you enough where you’re no longer paralyzed and you’re willing to take the chance and learn something new. And I think there is great power in that pure mentorship that comes from collaboration, which I had not appreciated before working on this book.

Dave Stachowiak [00:33:13]:
Ruth Gotian is coauthor of the Financial Times Guide to Mentoring. Thank you so much as always for your work, Ruth.

Ruth Gotian [00:33:20]:
Thanks for having me.

Dave Stachowiak [00:33:29]:
If this conversation was helpful to you, 3 related episodes I’d recommend. One of them was the last time Ruth was on the show, episode 591, how to build a network while still doing everything else. Ruth and I talked about the reality that many of us recognize the importance of having a strong network. We all want a strong network, and yet, how do we actually work it into all of our professional and personal responsibilities? It’s one of those things that’s important, but it never seems urgent. The reason I talked with Ruth about that is she is masterful at building relationships, has a strong network, has helped me to expand my network in recent years, including some of the past guests who’ve been on the podcast in the, last year or 2. I I wanted to find out from her, how does she do it? What are some of the principles that work? We talked about that in episode 591, a great compliment to this conversation. And one of the folks that she introduced me to was on episode 599, the art of mentoring well. Robert Lefkowitz was my guest on that episode.

Dave Stachowiak [00:34:26]:
Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. Not only him, but also one of his mentees shared the prize. We talk about how does he as a Nobel Prize winner now as a mentor, as a senior practitioner in his field? How does he mentor new practitioners, graduate students? A fascinating conversation about mentoring. So many things that I took away from that conversation. I still think about in mentoring. You should if you are interested in getting to be a better mentor, you should go right now to listen to that episode. It’s a great follow-up to this. Again, that’s episode 599.

Dave Stachowiak [00:35:00]:
And then finally, I also recommend episode 614, the way to get noticed by key stakeholders. Daphne E. Jones was my guest on that episode. Dave that mentors and thinking about how do you take advice from mentors, when mentors and thinking about how do you take advice from mentors, when do you set it aside, how do you position those relationships so that you get noticed and considered for future opportunities? She has so many wonderful things to say on that. Episode 614 for more there. All of those episodes, of course, you can find on the coachingforleaders.com website. I’m inviting you today if you haven’t already to set up your free membership at coachingforleaders.com. It is the entry point to even more inside the website so that you can find exactly what you’re looking for. And if you are looking for more on mentoring, one of the topic areas inside of the episode library area is mentoring.

Dave Stachowiak [00:35:56]:
So you can find all the episodes we’ve done over the years on mentoring, mentoring programs, how to be a mentee, how to be a mentor. So many different perspectives there that’ll help you in your journey, plus so much more dozens and dozens of other topic areas. So you can find what’s most relevant to you right now. If you haven’t set up your free membership, it’s one of the key benefits of the free membership is being able to access that entire library. Just go over to coachingforleaders.com. And if you’re looking for a bit more, we’re an entirely member supported platform. Everything that I’m doing is through the lens of helping our members get more value. And one of the first steps in getting more value from coaching for leaders is Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Dave Stachowiak [00:36:42]:
Every single month, myself and a group of our academy and pro members sit down with one of the past guests who’s been on the podcast recently. Most recently, that was Jeff Wetzler. He was on the show here about a month ago talking about how we can do a better job at discussing hard things and making it easier for people to discuss hard things with us. We sat down with Jeff, and rather than me asking the questions, our members ask questions directly of the experts. We recorded the conversation. It is now part of Coaching for Leaders Plus. Every single month, we are adding a new recording to the library, plus years of recordings of guest experts, including, by the way, Ruth Gotian from the past as well, sharing their perspective with our members directly and in conversation with them. Those expert chats are part of Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Dave Stachowiak [00:37:31]:
If you’d like to find out about that and more, just go over to coachingforleaders.plus. Coaching for leaders is edited by Andrew Kroeger. Production support is provided by Sierra Priest. I’ll be back next week for our next conversation this coming Monday. Have a great week and thanks as always for the privilege to support you.