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Mentorship and Sponsorship

Lara Hogan
October 04, 2017

Mentorship and Sponsorship

To grow our technical leadership skills, it’s critical to lean on one’s network of support. We often find mentors: people who can give us helpful advice. But what can be even more valuable is finding “sponsors”, who help us find new opportunities and improve the visibility of our work. As sponsorship is especially important for members of underrepresented groups in tech, we’ll walk through tactics you can employ today to be a sponsor for those around you, too.

Read more: https://larahogan.me/blog/what-sponsorship-looks-like/

Lara Hogan

October 04, 2017
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  1. Mentorship + Sponsorship
    Lara Hogan @lara_hogan
    larahogan.me/sponsors/

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  2. Growing in our careers

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  3. Who do you lean on
    to help you grow?

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  4. “Mentorship” is a
    catch-all term for
    lots of different skills.

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  5. Mentors

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  7. Mentorship:
    Giving advice, based on
    your experience.

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  8. Mentorship is great
    when you want help
    onboarding or
    getting unblocked.

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  9. Advice is just one thing a mentor
    gives. There are residual benefits
    from visible proximity and
    tangential relationships to be
    gained.”

    — Kristy Tillman

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  11. Honesty
    Flexibility
    Reciprocity
    Active listening
    Mutual respect
    Personal connection
    Shared values
    Qualities of a successful mentor
    relationship:
    Hilary Sanfey, M.B.B.Ch., M.H.P.E., Celeste Hollands, M.D., Nancy L. Gantt, M.D.

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  12. Mentees should find
    more than one mentor.
    Hilary Sanfey, M.B.B.Ch., M.H.P.E., Celeste Hollands, M.D., Nancy L. Gantt, M.D.

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  13. Be a responsible mentor.
    Hilary Sanfey, M.B.B.Ch., M.H.P.E., Celeste Hollands, M.D., Nancy L. Gantt, M.D.

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  14. It’s okay to end
    a mentor relationship.
    Hilary Sanfey, M.B.B.Ch., M.H.P.E., Celeste Hollands, M.D., Nancy L. Gantt, M.D.

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  15. Mentoring, or coaching?

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  16. Coaching is great
    when you want help
    navigating a challenge.

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  17. Sponsorship

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  19. Illustration by Catt Small

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  20. Mentors give perspective,
    sponsors give opportunity.”
    — Cate Huston

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  21. The dashboards are slow today. Is there
    someone who knows how to fix that?
    Oh, Max fixed our dashboards before.
    Maybe ask them?
    Sara’s also been doing a lot of perf work
    recently. Ask her too?

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  22. A sponsor confers a statistical
    career benefit from 22%–30%
    (e.g. getting a stretch assignment,
    negotiating a pay raise)
    Center for Talent Innovation

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  23. Finding a sponsor

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  24. 1. Do great work
    2. Find someone who knows your work
    3. Know how you want to grow
    4. Keep them updated

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  25. 1. Do great work
    2. Find someone who knows your work
    3. Know how you want to grow
    4. Keep them updated

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  26. 1. Do great work
    2. Find someone who knows your work
    3. Know how you want to grow
    4. Keep them updated

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  27. 1. Do great work
    2. Find someone who knows your work
    3. Know how you want to grow
    4. Keep them updated
    This is the hardest step!

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  28. 1. Do great work
    2. Find someone who knows your work
    3. Know how you want to grow
    4. Keep them updated

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  29. 5. Give back!

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  30. Multiple sponsors?

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  31. Build your
    Manager Voltron

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  32. Grow your crew.

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  33. Be on the lookout for people who:
    ● will push you out of your comfort zone
    ● have different levels of experience than you (both
    more experience, and less experience)
    ● have experience in a different industry
    ● are good at the things that you’re terrible at

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  34. bit.ly/wherewithall-voltron

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  35. Being a sponsor

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  36. Marginalized people are
    over-mentored, and
    under-sponsored.

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  37. Think about the people you:
    ● Recently asked for advice
    ● Referred to work at your org
    ● Gifted a good book to
    ● Recently promoted, or suggested should
    work on a big project

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  38. With a sponsor, women are
    ● 70% more likely to have their ideas endorsed
    ● 119% more likely to see them developed
    ● 200% more likely to see them implemented
    Center for Talent Innovation

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  39. Sylvia Ann Hewlett with Kerrie Peraino, Laura Sherbin, and Karen Sumberg: The Sponsor Effect: Breaking through the Last Glass Ceiling
    (Cambridge: Harvard Business Review, 2010); Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Maggie Jackson, and Ellis Case, with Courtney Emerson, Vaulting the
    Color Bar: How Sponsorship Levers Multicultural Professionals into Leadership (New York: Center for Talent Innovation, 2012).
    Employees in large companies who are
    satisfied with their rates of advancement

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  40. Have a sponsor:
    8% of people of color
    13% of white people
    Center for Talent Innovation

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  41. Feel obligated to sponsor:
    26% of African Americans
    20% of Asians and Hispanics
    7% of Caucasians
    Center for Talent Innovation

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  42. It’s risky for URMs
    to help others like them
    Study by David R. Hekman, Stefanie K. Johnson, Maw-Der Foo, and Wei Yang

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  43. Examples of sponsorship:
    ● Share feedback with their manager to support
    their next promotion or raise
    ● Shout out/recognize their work in public settings
    ● Recommend them for highly visible projects
    ● Recommend them for company blog posts, talks
    at company meetings, open source work

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  44. Mature engineers lift the
    skills and expertise
    of those around them.” — John Allspaw

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  45. Great teammates lift the
    skills and expertise
    of those around them.
    and names

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