Dear Lord, you did it you actually got a job….and like most people you have no idea what you’re doing for the first few days. We’ve all been there – that’s fine – it’s fine not knowing what you’re doing when you first start. What’s not fine is not knowing what you need too one year into your job – that’s annoying – to both you and your colleagues. So how do you get people to tell you things that weren’t covered in the “one week all inclusive training” that covered precisely nothing you actually needed to do your job and wasted a week of your life you’ll never get back?
“The answer might surprise you”
Well, it shouldn’t because you need to get on with your colleagues and hopefully one of them will like you enough to tell you something you don’t know and thus the mentoring process begins.
Now I’m not going to bore you with speech training, or how to study, or how to ‘be magnetic’, I’m not writing for those types of people. I’m writing for the type of person that really wants to know how to get their colleagues to tell them how to do their job.
There are 6 steps in my estimation that cover most aspects, DO three of them, DON’T DO the other three.
Do:
Be teachable, let someone help you.
“But dude, I have a masters in Biochemistry” That’s cool but do you know what the code to enter the building is??? Didn’t think so. In the real world you can’t just rely on your qualifications and education to get you places, as the adage goes “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” and you won’t know a lot of people if no one wants to speak to you. You need to be humble enough to admit you might not know everything and attentive enough to know when someone might be trying to tell you something.
Of all the people I’ve met the ones who succeed are the ones who know when they’re out of their depth and ask for help. It doesn’t matter if you’re a senior sales director or a junior team member at a call center, when you ask for help and you do it politely, concisely and show development after asking questions your colleagues and co-worker will gravitate towards you because the more they see you develop the more they will rely on you, the more someone relies on you the more they trust you. When people trust you, then you look good in their eyes and when you look good in someone’s eyes you might get a promotion, you might get trusted with more important things and who knows you might even make some friends along the way.
Don’t
Do the bear minimum,
This is not being lazy. Being lazy is deliberately or undeliberately not meeting the basic standards. Say you’re told to make $10,000.00 in sales so you go out and you make exactly $10,000.00 to the cent. Wonderful you reached your target and you won’t get fired, great. If you only ever meet the basic requirements however you won’t get people attention. Now if you don’t want people’s attention fine, but if you want to succeed, if you want people to take notice and invest in you as a person not just as an employee then you need to get your act together and prove you care. Because Jimmy who stayed an hour later every day of the week to make $12,000.00 instead of just the target, he will get attention. He might get a manager to introduce him to a big client, Jimmy might get put on special training to improve his sales pitch or a marketing course. Jimmy might be told about something that the rest of the team hasn’t, just because the manager wants him to know. Maybe just because the person in charge can see that if he invests in Jimmy he will be investing into a colleague and the business and that will improve the everyone involved.
Do:
Remember to learn,
Asking a question is great, asking the same question a thousand times is annoying. This is introspective but don’t assume that just because you’re asking questions you’re A: Learning something or B: Look like you’re trying. Don’t kid yourself, if you’ve spent more than 10 minutes around someone you can tell if they care about what they’re doing. If you can tell if someone cares then other people can too, including your colleagues. This is about your attitude towards new information.
I’ve taught plenty of people but those who take action on what they learn improve the fastest – no if’s no buts. They write down flashcards, they ask more and more complex questions, they take something they learned weeks ago and not just write it down but practice doing it. They don’t just show their desire to be taught but they put the effort in.
Imagine you go to the gym and you only ever lift 50 pounds and try to lift heavier weights. Guess what, you might be going through the motions but at some point people will notice that you’re not developing, and why should I as a mentor invest in someone who doesn’t want to develop.
Don’t
Refuse to act.
This, this is laziness, THIS is what ruffles my jimmies. People who do this should be…well let’s not get into that.
Imagine this person, they’re the perfect student, they learn, they ask questions, they study, they read text books, they do labs, they take tests, you can see them developing, they love learning about their job to the point that it’s more of a hobby than work, but, but, BUT! They only do what they want to do when they want to do it. They see a problem and they don’t fix it, they see someone asking for help and they don’t help them, they are a fountain of knowledge, information and experience but they refuse to apply it to situations where there is no immediate gain for them because ‘its doesn’t make their stats look good’ or ‘they don’t feel like it”.
People like this are either psychopaths or end up becoming pariahs because no one wants to talk to them. Why should they be invested in, they’re just hoarding knowledge for the sake of it. They aren’t investing in the reciprocal ‘game’ of life.
There is simply nothing worse, that repels and detracts me from mentoring someone than knowing they have potential and to see them actively refuse to apply what they learn to what they’re doing.
Do:
Be decisive,
It’s great to see people try. When someone genuinely tries they take a risk and succeeds. That is great to watch. It’s really motivating to see as a mentor because when you see someone act on something you told them or you see the evidence of them applying what you told them in real life (it doesn’t always have to be the work place) then that just makes my day. Its a massive green light to whoever took a risk to tell you something that A: This person cares enough to try B: This person actually learned something new (which is great by itself) C: Maybe just they’ll learn and apply something else I can teach them.
And once that ball is rolling then…you have a successful mentor/mentee relationship and in my experience that’s how you accelerate someone’s position from newbie at work to “essential team member“.
Don’t
Make assumptions:
I get it, I really do and I still do it because sometimes you have to take risks but if it’s in your power to know something, or learn something, or figure something out, but instead just make an assumption – you’re an idiot.
“Yes”, I hear you say, “But I know what I’m doing”
That doesn’t mean you’re right. When I was a kid my Dad always told me, “be careful you don’t know what you’re doing”, can you guess what I said in response “I know what I’m doing Dad”.
It took me about a decade of things but I eventually figured it out, just because you know what you’re doing does not mean you know or understand the consequences of what you’re doing. That’s the crux of this point if you understand the full ramifications of what you’re doing by all means go ahead but if you don’t you better be prepared for anything.
This is why people like those who take risks in business. People who take calculated risks are wonderful people. People who just jump to conclusions, by making assumptions, make life very difficult.
TL DR; If you make assumptions you don’t know what you’re talking about.
To wrap up all the points here cover having the right intentions. If you’re looking for a mentor take some notes and I’m sure you’ll find one. If you are a mentor or in a position to mentor someone these are the things I personally look for from day one of a new hire.
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