The right mentor can be “gold”

Finding a mentor was not difficult for Chayathivong. When Jeanette Brox, a senior financial consultant in the IG office, told a group of new hires that her door was always open, Chayathivong took Brox up on the offer. The two now have frequent, unscheduled meetings.

Another senior advisor, Valentin Simanovsky, showed up at a rookie meeting to offer his mentoring services. Soon, Chayathivong was booking weekly meetings with him as well.

“Good mentors have this great pool of wisdom,” Chayathivong says. “And, hopefully, they will also give you the tough love you need to help you succeed.”

Also on Chayathivong’s must-have list for potential mentors: a proven track record, a magnetic personality, a strong value system, openness, an outgoing nature, strong communication skills and the ability to give reality checks when needed.

Chayathivong says having more than one mentor gives her a broader outlook: “Take Tiger Woods: he has someone for his short game and someone else for his long game.”

If you are looking to be a mentor, particularly to a member of the Generation Y cohort, you should understand a few things about your potential mentees, says Rosemary Smyth, a business coach and founder of Rosemary Smyth and Associates in Victoria.

Tech-savvy

Gen Y, those generally aged between 25 and 34, also known as “millennials,” are known to be tech-savvy and to navigate through life differently from their baby-boomer elders, Smyth says. Millennials want more development and less direction, need to stay connected 24/7 and – no surprise – they like flexibility and immediacy. Members of this cohort also are more entrepreneurial and more likely to want to be challenged, she adds.

There also are some misconceptions about millennials, says George Hartman, managing partner with Elite Advisors Canada Inc. in Toronto. There is, for example, a belief that younger people want to “go from zero to being a full partner in a firm in 24 months,” according to Hartman. But millennials are moving faster than boomers because millennials generally start work at an older age than did boomers, who went straight to a job from university.

Put aside differences

The two generations’ differing views have to be put aside for a mentoring relationship to work, Hartman says: “If the mentor is trying to impose the beliefs and standards that he or she had 25 or 30 years ago, [that person] probably isn’t going to work as well with the younger generation.”

What will succeed? “Meaningful work and a sense of accomplishment and career progress,” Hartman says. “[Millennials] want to be taught, but also to be told often that they are doing a good job. They want their progress to be monitored and recognized.

An ideal mentor also is the go-to person to talk about new ideas, Hartman says: “If I was a young advisor, I would create a clear picture of where I saw my career going. Then, I would communicate that vision to the potential mentor and see if he or she can buy into that. If not, then I probably have the wrong person.”

Hartman has had three mentors in his lifetime, including a lawyer, a plumber and a senior executive in an investment firm. While the executive had the biggest impact, Hartman says, the other two have helped him with other aspects of his life.

Donna Worthington, financial advisor with Investment Planning Counsel Inc. in Edmonton, has put together a mentorship program for women in business and is in the midst of creating a pilot project for a similar program for women strictly in financial services.

Worthington says young people and women sorely need mentorship programs to succeed. “Women do things differently from men,” she says. “Young people do things differently from their parents.”

Worthington’s suggestion to new advisors is to “network, network, network.” She suggests then forming advisory groups in which the participants can bounce ideas off each other before collaborating and referring each other.

Says Chayathivong: “Having the right mentor is gold.”

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