Gawande, a distinguished Harvard surgeon and author, argues that everyone needs a mentor. After working eight years as a surgeon, he realised that his operating room success had slowly reached a plateau. Soon after that realisation, he attended a medical meeting, and because he had the afternoon free, he tried to track down someone to play a game of tennis with. Finally, he went to the local tennis club and was told that he could practice his ground strokes only if he paid for a lesson and hit with the club pro. Gawande writes what happened next:
"He was in his early twenties, a recent graduate who'd played on his college team. We hit back and forth for a while. He went easy on me at first, and then started running me around. I served a few points, and the tennis coach in him came out. "You know," he said, "you could get more power from your serve." I was dubious. My serve had always been the best part of my game. But I listened. He had me pay attention to my feet as I served, and I gradually recognised that my legs weren't really underneath me when I swung my racquet up into the air.
My right leg dragged a few inches behind my body…. With a few minutes of tinkering, he'd added at least ten miles an hour to my serve.
Not long afterward, Gawande was watching tennis star Rafael Nadal playing a tournament match on TV. The camera flashed to his coach, and the obvious struck me as interesting: even Rafael Nadal has a coach. Nearly every élite tennis player in the world does …. But doctors don't. I'd paid to have a kid just out of college look at my serve. So why did I find it inconceivable to pay someone to come into my operating room and coach me on my surgical technique?"
One of the most underrated business and career principles of success is the importance of having a mentor. According to a survey by the American Society for Training and Development, 75% of private sector executives said that mentoring had been critical in helping them reach their current position. Mentors can guide you on particular projects, aid you in identifying and deploying resources, and refer you to other mentors that could help you on your path.
Professionals from various fields can attest to the important roles mentors have played in their upward climb. According to Lisa, “I once worked for a very large, global company that was very male-dominated. One of my mentors was a woman several levels above me whom I greatly admired. She helped me learn and then navigate through the layers of company politics so I could gain more support for my projects, prove myself, and then be considered for larger and more difficult jobs. Navigating the political labyrinth at work would have been almost impossible to accomplish without the help of my mentor.”
There are people who have succeeded in your chosen field of endeavour. Their experience, knowledge and referrals could be the bridge between where you are and where you want to go. Also, more businesses are also embracing mentorship as a pathway to organisational development and this is contributing significantly to efficiency, productivity and transference of organisational culture and leadership from one generation to another. As a career person, finding a mentor is a critical survival mechanism, and as a business owner, instituting mentorship programmes in your organisation will definitely be an added advantage. The Lord will open great and effective doors before you in this regard this week, and always, in Jesus’ name.
