(Forget a Mentor) Find a Sponsor: The New Way to Fast-Track Your Career
Sylvia Ann Hewlett
Harvard Business Review Press (2013)
How and why mentors help prepare for opportunities but sponsors create privileged access to them; both are invaluable.
The title of this book is somewhat misleading because it could be interpreted to suggest that success in life is all about having one or more sponsors and that mentors and/or coaches have little (if any) value. That is clearly NOT what Sylvia Ann Hewlett had in mind when writing this book. On the contrary. So ignore the title and focus instead on how specifically a mutually beneficial relationship with an appropriate sponsor can help fast-track one’s career. Moreover, for those who have not as yet read this book, it is important to understand that the information, insights, and counsel that Hewlett provides can be valuable to both men and women, and, to both those preparing for a career and to those only recently embarked on one. I think the material in this book can also be of incalculable value to those who now mentor protégés or will one day do so.
As I read this book, I was reminded of several others in which their authors discuss leader/follower relationships that must also be mutually beneficial. Great leaders and great followers have significant differences in terms of their respective obligations and responsibilities. The same is true of great mentors and great protégés. Heweltt carefully explains how differences between mentors and protégés nourish their symbiotic relationship while specifying the responsibilities and obligations of each. One point is so important I feel obliged to repeat it: as with healthy leader/follower relationships, healthy mentor/protégé relationships are mutually-beneficial.
Several passages caught my eye. Here is a cluster of mini-profiles of exemplary relationships:
o Unnamed sponsor and Brady Dougan, then at Bankers Trust (27-30)
o Jane Shaw and Rosalind Hudnell, Intel (Pages 43-46)
o Cathie Black and Joanna Coles, Cosmopolitan magazine (56-61)
o Cherie Booth QC, Cherie Blair Foundation for Women (65-69)
o John W. Rogers, Jr. and Mellody Hobson, Ariel Investments (110-111)
o Katherine Phillips, Columbia University Business School (160-163)
o Sallie Krawcheck, formerly at Sanford C. Bernstein, Citigroup, and then BOA/Merrill Lynch (173-178)
However different these six mentors and their protégés may be in most respects, their relations were based on mutual respect and trust as well as pride and principle. Yes, egos are inevitably involved, as are career ambitions. However, the best mentor/protégé relationships are actually win-win-win, with the third “win” gained by the given enterprise.
These are among other subjects that Hewlett explores:
o “The Sponsor Imperative” (Pages 11-12)
o “Sponsor versus mentor,” Figure 1-1 (Page 31)
o “What is a sponsor?” Table 2-1 (30)
o “What is a protégé?” Table 2-2 (39)
o “Road Map for Protégés” (49)
o “The Eight-Hundred Pound Gorilla” (139-141)
o “How to Make Yourself a Safe Bet” (144-149)
o “Distrust of Each Other as Risky Bets” (157-160)
o “What Is Executive Presence?” (170-172 and 178-179)
o “A Stricter Code for People of Color” (182-185)
o “Putting It All Together” (193-195)
o All of the Epilogue (197-212)
I also appreciate Hewett’s skillful use of a “Nail the Tactics” section (in Chapters 4-9) that helps her reader to apply whatever material is most appropriate to the given enterprise. These calls to action also encourage reader interaction with the material throughout the lively and rigorous as well as eloquent narrative.
No brief commentary such as mine can possibly do full justice to the quality and value of the material that Sylvia Ann Hewlett provides in this volume. However, I hope I have at least suggested the scope and depth of her coverage, encouraging those who read my review to allow her to help them fast-track their careers, meanwhile achieving personal growth and professional development.