Are you astounded by the transformative power of a mentorship? Well, you're not alone. Our guest, Scott Jeffrey Miller, Senior Advisor on Thought Leadership at FranklinCovey, also testifies to the immense influence mentorship can have on a person's life and career. From his own journey as a mentee to becoming a successful and passionate leader, Scott credits much of his success to the mentors in his life. He shares his insights and experiences throughout his impressive 25-year career at FranklinCovey.
Scott's perspective on mentorship as the most influential role outside of parenting is truly thought-provoking. He believes that mentorship is not just about guidance but is actually a strategy for retaining talents in an organization. How do you establish this culture of mentorship? Scott walks us through this process, sharing his own experience from consulting a company with a mentorship program. He reminds us of the importance of training mentors and the potential benefits it could bring to your organization, emphasizing how mentorship can improve recruitment, retention, engagement, and referrals.
In a surprising twist, Scott takes on the 'visionary' role of a mentor, challenging traditional expectations. We also discuss the fascinating concept of adopting mentors, even if they are not in your immediate environment. We illustrate the power of mentorship that transcends physical proximity. If you're looking to make the most of mentorship opportunities or aiming to foster a mentorship culture in your organization, this enlightening conversation with Scott Jeffrey Miller is a must-listen.
We need your help to get the Lead Culture podcasts in front of more leaders! There are three simple things you can do that truly help us:
Are you astounded by the transformative power of a mentorship? Well, you're not alone. Our guest, Scott Jeffrey Miller, Senior Advisor on Thought Leadership at FranklinCovey, also testifies to the immense influence mentorship can have on a person's life and career. From his own journey as a mentee to becoming a successful and passionate leader, Scott credits much of his success to the mentors in his life. He shares his insights and experiences throughout his impressive 25-year career at FranklinCovey.
Scott's perspective on mentorship as the most influential role outside of parenting is truly thought-provoking. He believes that mentorship is not just about guidance but is actually a strategy for retaining talents in an organization. How do you establish this culture of mentorship? Scott walks us through this process, sharing his own experience from consulting a company with a mentorship program. He reminds us of the importance of training mentors and the potential benefits it could bring to your organization, emphasizing how mentorship can improve recruitment, retention, engagement, and referrals.
In a surprising twist, Scott takes on the 'visionary' role of a mentor, challenging traditional expectations. We also discuss the fascinating concept of adopting mentors, even if they are not in your immediate environment. We illustrate the power of mentorship that transcends physical proximity. If you're looking to make the most of mentorship opportunities or aiming to foster a mentorship culture in your organization, this enlightening conversation with Scott Jeffrey Miller is a must-listen.
We need your help to get the Lead Culture podcasts in front of more leaders! There are three simple things you can do that truly help us:
Hey leaders, welcome to the Lead Culture podcast, part of the Art of Leadership Network. I'm your host Jenni Catron. Each week, I'll be your guide as we explore powerful insights and practical strategies to equip you with the tools you need to lead with clarity and confidence and build a thriving team. My mission is to be your trusted coach, empowering you to master the art of self-leadership so you'll learn to lead yourself well, so you can lead others better. Each week, we'll take a deep dive into a leadership or culture topic. We'll hear stories from amazing guests and leaders like you who are committed to leading well. So let's embark on this leadership adventure together Now, friends.
Speaker 1:Bad organizational culture is killing your momentum. It's costing you tens of thousands of dollars from lost productivity, staff turnover and quiet quitting. It's hindering your ability to recruit and retain the best talent. It's sapping the life and energy of your best leaders, including you. Healthy team culture is the secret weapon of the most successful teams, but many leaders don't know where to start and after years of feeling the same frustrations, I became ruthlessly committed to defining a process that will help every leader develop a thriving team so you can accelerate growth and build unstoppable momentum. That's what the Lead Culture Framework is all about. Our four-step process will equip you to assess your current culture, using our customized team culture survey and culture hierarchy of needs. Define the culture you aspire to, using our values grid to build the cornerstones of your culture, bringing clarity to who you are at your best. Three, we'll clarify the processes and rhythms that reinforce your culture at every stage of your employee's journey. And four, we'll equip your leaders with ongoing training and development that makes your desired culture a reality. Friends, every leader should be able to unleash the true potential of your team, so check out Get4Sight. com to learn more about how we can help you in that journey.
Speaker 1:All right, friends, today my guest is Scott Jeffrey Miller. Scott capped a 25-year career journey in which he served as Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President, and he's currently Franklin Covey's Senior Advisor on Thought Leadership, leading the strategy development and publication of the firm's bestselling books. Scott hosts the Franklin Covey Sponsored on Leadership with Scott Miller, the world's largest weekly leadership podcast, and C-Suite Conversations with Scott Miller, which features interviews with the world's top executives. Miller is the author of several books, including his brand new book that we'll talk about today the Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship 13 Roles to Make a True Impact.
Speaker 1:Okay, friends, this episode with Scott is just a ball of energy. You're going to love his passion, his heart for leaders, for mentorship. His stories are fascinating and just his commitment to developing others just shines through. You're going to hear about why mentorship is really a strategy for retention, why mentorship is the most influential role that you can have outside of parenting, and how mentors and mentees need to be clear about the relationship for it to succeed. So sit back, buckle up and join us in this conversation, because I think it's going to help you have, maybe, a new perspective on the power of mentorship. All right, Scott, I already can tell this is going to be a fun conversation. Thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Jenni, my honor, thank you for the spotlight and the platform.
Speaker 1:This is going to be fun. We had some preliminary conversation right before we hit record. If we had recorded that, I don't know, we might have gotten ourselves in trouble a little bit.
Speaker 2:Was the U-Step, but I was perfectly well-behaved off there. You knew whatever you wanted to my friend, this is going to be good.
Speaker 1:Hey, I would love for you to give our listeners. I gave the bio, so I did all the bio stuff in the intro.
Speaker 2:But it was impressive, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:It's a pretty impressive bio. You've done a few things. I'd love to hear some of the highlights. What are some of your favorite moments in your leadership journey so far?
Speaker 2:Well, first, I think I'm super proud of a 25-year career at the Franklin Covey company by most measures, the most trusted leadership development firm in the world. But what I'm more proud of is that after 25 years, when I left the firm, not only did I leave in good standing, but they invited me to consult back for several years and host their podcast for them. The CEO and the CFO are still very dear friends of mine. The chairman calls me for advice, and so I'm very proud of having left as an officer in a global public company, and for 25 years. Right, they were tired of me, I was tired of them, that's a long run.
Speaker 1:We're still very good friends.
Speaker 2:It was a long run, that's amazing and we still very much respect each other and I'm delighted that the personal friendships are very much intact. I'm not a wallflower, I'm not a pansy, right? I mean, I come with a lot of energy and opinions, but not only are the personal friendships intact, so is the professional respect for each other. But I'm super proud of that relationship, including the fact that I'm now launching my own brand as a thought leader, hopefully as author and speaker, and that we work peacefully, collaboratively in a similar space. I'm very proud of that association and most proud and most proud that our three sons have not yet succeeded in destroying my marriage. My wife and I are persevering through those nasty little boys in their the various attempt to move me To blow it all up.
Speaker 1:Right, blow it up.
Speaker 2:To convince those boys like plot every night in the attic. How do we destroy mom and dad's love affair and they mourn on it. But we tend to repair it every morning at five o'clock over a 20 minute cup of coffee and say bring it on, boys, we're ready for you.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. I love that. You know it's fun. It's a bit of a full circle moment knowing that you were at Franklin Covey for that long because this is fun story when I my first career was in the music business, so listeners know that a lot that I went to Nashville, worked at a record company and the, the company I worked for, was really fantastic about leadership development. But one of the first trainings they put me through was the seven habits and like it's just amazing how much that stuck with me and informed so much of my leadership journey. So so just thank you for that because it was like so formative as a young leader, like stepping into I didn't I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I stepped into people leadership and so that just stood out very significantly for me. So it's kind of fun to kind of come full circle.
Speaker 2:Well, it's very validating, right? I mean, dr Covey wrote this book, this seven habits of highly effective people. This book has sold 50 million copies Crazy. You know. Hundreds of millions of professionals have had the privilege of attending the multi day program because their company invested in them. Like you had changed my life. I was honored to be his chief marketing officer for a decade has small part in the success of that global business, and how lovely that. That's how you're opening this kind of bringing that full circle. If he was still here he passed about 12 years ago he would be beaming to know that. You know it had some small contribution in your success.
Speaker 1:Oh so much, so much contribution to you know just my leadership journey and framing it up, it was super fun. So I would love, scott, I'd love to know. You just wrote a book on mentorship. I want to know why mentorship. You know in all the leadership you know opportunities and experience you've had. Tell us more about why mentorship, why this book?
Speaker 2:Well, my answer might be a little underwhelming, but it will be truthful. I have authored seven books in four years, which is probably four too many for their record, but I'd authored a couple of books that were very successful for Harper Collins and Harper Collins called me about a year and a half ago. Is that, hey, our research shows that we think the industry needs a more practical mentor ship book. There are a series of mentorship books out there, but they tend to be fairly ethereal and aspirational. Yeah, harper Collins wanted a more practical book. Say this, don't say that, do this, don't do that. Sure, I would have dreamed to have a publisher call you and say, hey, can I give you some money to write a book? Right, right, well, it had been about organic gardening, I would have passed, but it wasn't. They wanted a book about.
Speaker 2:Mentorship was the very essence of my entire career, having been mentored by people all throughout my career, some formally, some informally. All of my success is the result of someone who had believed in me more than I believed in myself, whether it was a headmaster, a teacher, a professor, a parent, a leader or just someone that took me under their wing and guided me and groomed me, protected me from myself. Quite frankly, I also had mentored others, and so it was a topic that I was very passionate about. I decided to identify 15 roles that I thought all mentors played.
Speaker 2:I'm after the editor passed out and said Scott, have you ever heard of the seven habits? I mean, the golden rule is seven. You can't have more than seven roles. And so, with grand compromise, I took 15 roles all the way down to 13, because I really felt like there are, in fact, 13 roles, and that's the essence of the book Not every mentor plays all 13. Sometimes you underplay them, sometimes you wrongly overplay them, and the premise of the book is that not all great leaders, big, great mentors. There is a skill set that makes you a great mentor, and I poured my heart and passion into this book, written so that people could become better mentors and thus be transition figures in the lives of the mentees that they were working with.
Speaker 1:Love that. Okay, so give us, give us perspective on what is mentorship. How do you define it? What does that mean to you? Because I think sometimes it feels kind of mysterious, like I think people don't have a good handle of what this means, so we're not sure what to do with it.
Speaker 2:Right, mainly because no one's earning a living as a mentor.
Speaker 1:We can't monetize this.
Speaker 2:Some have monetized. It's called coaching. It's a different thing, right, certifications, credentials, methodology, a process. They're different, however, I think you're right. I think it's a little bit nebulous out there, but I think that it's probably the most influential role you can play in someone's life, next to parenting, and I don't know anybody that hasn't had a successful career, Jenni, that hasn't had a series of mentors formally, or men formally. I mean some of my most influential mentors. I've never been met them more in that later perhaps, but it is a guiding similarity commonality and everyone's successful career. As an entrepreneur, they're adjourning to the C-suite, their fulfillment of their role in life.
Speaker 2:Mentorship is about helping someone define what it is they want to accomplish, and not living vicariously through them and trying them to do it the way you would do it or you had to do it, or you think they should do it, but the way they should do it based on their skills and their talents. It really is about exercising vulnerability, wisdom and the courage to share your own mistakes and your own wins, based on what happened in your life, and then decide if any of that wisdom helps to bring out what they want to accomplish. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won't. Your job as a mentor is to ignite the genius that is in your mentee and help them accomplish what it is they want to do. That's really not rocket science, right? But it's usually not trained. There's usually no formal experience.
Speaker 2:You're usually volunteered or volunteer told you to go and mentor your company, and it's why I wrote the book, because I think a lot of the natural leadership competencies that most mentors employ aren't usually the best for their mentee right. There's a calibration, there's an accommodation, there's a different set of circumstances. Certainly, some of the leadership skills that moved you up the leadership letterhead, so to speak, are helpful as a mentor, but not all of them, and that's why I identified 13 roles that I think every mentor should be aware of and then decide what level of calibration and adoption, if any, should they bring to their mentoring relationship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so good. So I'm curious. I don't know if this is true, so this is just a speculation, but I wonder-.
Speaker 2:Well, I am an expert, so I will go to find whether it's true or not. So bring it up. That's perfect. I'm kidding, I'm delicate, I love it.
Speaker 1:It feels like we Like the time for mentorship, like mentors maybe don't feel like they have time, mentees feel like they I almost feel like people are more inclined to you referenced it before hire a coach, then seek out a mentor, and because it almost feels like gosh, that's too big of an ask. To ask somebody to mentor me or somebody who could potentially be a mentor is like I don't have time for that, or so are we. Are we get? Is it that we're selfish and we're not making space for it? What do you see in that? I just feel like it's much. It used to feel a little more common. If I've rewind 20 years to very young me, I can name a lot of mentors in those early stages of my career and I don't know if it's a product of just the stage of leadership-.
Speaker 2:Maybe you're not having the sophistication to know, not to ask, or yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, does that make sense?
Speaker 2:It does. I actually love the way you kind of stumbled around on it, because you described it exactly how it is. It's a little bit awkward You're not sure how to make the ask. Are you in a position to make the ask? What is the ask?
Speaker 2:I think people in mid-career, as they're perhaps moving from being either an individual contributor to being a leader, or moving from a frontline, first time leadership into a mid-level, senior level, executive level leadership everyone needs a mentor and I think what's common is you should be clear on what the ask is. If you are a mentee or better, yet you are looking for a mentor, you should be very clear what the ask is. Jenni, I am a director in the company and I have always wanted to earn my way into becoming a vice president. Would you be willing to take four half an hour meetings every Friday for the next four weeks and just help me work on mindset, skill set, tool set and culture restraining forces? I made that up right, but now what you've asked me is four 30 minute sessions on how to help you learn how to move into a vice president career track. Now I'm really clear.
Speaker 2:You didn't ask me to loan you any money. You didn't ask me to be your sponsor, your advocate. You didn't ask me to be your champion or your ally. You didn't ask me to write your resume or to use 30 hours. Now you've made it very clear to me. Great, I'll give you four 30 minute sessions. I'm an expert on how to move from a director to a vice president because I did the same thing in this company. I think the more specific the ask is, the easier it is for the mentor to say yes If it's open-ended. I feel like you're gonna ask me to come to your keg party. You want me to loan you money for your bakery cupcake venture. And now I'm like, yeah, I'm out, right, right, right and tease, listen up, make it very specific and have a beginning date and an end date and have a specific request. You're the most successful barbershop in town. I am thinking of opening a barbershop 40 miles away, but I have three one-hour sessions. I'll pay for the beer over lunch.
Speaker 2:I won't ask you to share your trade secrets. I won't ask you to invest my business. What I'd love to know was what were all your mistakes? What would you gift differently? So when you know about me that, I'll tell you about what? Should I do better or stop doing or continue doing Right? That's an ask that no one can say no to.
Speaker 1:That's so good. Okay, so part of why I wrote the best book on mentoring.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. Okay, who is this guy? Who has she invited on? How much caffeine has he had today? It's just all the mints. You've just been eating all the mints. So here's what I heard in that, scott. I heard that, as the mentee, I need to know what I need, right Like I need to know what I'm asking from the mentor.
Speaker 2:Yes, or if you don't, you could say hey, Jenni, I'm considering becoming a chiropractor and you are a chiropractor, but I'm also considering becoming a commercial airline pilot, which I know you're not. I know they're different, but I'm not even sure what questions to ask. Could I have a couple of hours, if you're time, to talk about what was the journey? When do you burn out? How do you monetize that business? How do you scale? Are you taken seriously? I mean, I don't really have to know all the questions. You just have to say I'm thinking of doing what you've done. There we go. Could you help me understand what the pitfalls are, what the journey is like? What am I in for?
Speaker 1:Am I even?
Speaker 2:qualified for this journey. What do I need to learn or study your perfect that I'm not currently confident at? And then the mentee needs to be quiet and just listen, take notes, absorb, ask clarifying questions, thank the mentor, be on time. Don't color outside the lines, meaning don't take advantage of your mentor, don't ask them to do things that they didn't agree to in the beginning of time. That's usually a mentor's biggest concern Is I'm just worried about Ask Creep, what are they going to? Ask me to introduce them to my banker? What are?
Speaker 1:they going to ask?
Speaker 2:me to fund the business? What are they going to ask me? Will I come to their ribbon cutting? You got to earn your way into all of that which is very important for mentors to set boundaries.
Speaker 2:This is the second role in the book. The second role is the boundary setter. So if you were to ask me to be your mentor, I would probably say yes, but I would put an uncomfortably high set of fences around us Good fences make good neighbors, right, right. And so that I make it very clear to you what you can and cannot ask me. And then I step back and I watch how you behave over the course of these mentor sessions and decide do I want to raise the wall up? Do I want to keep the wall? Do I want to raise the wall down? It might be eight sessions in. I say, oh my gosh, I want to invest in your barber shop. I got 50 grand. Let's go in it together because you've proven to be such a trusted partner. You showed up on time, you asked smart questions, you made and kept commitments. You never moved me outside the boundaries and now I'm learning a lot about you.
Speaker 2:It's one of the roles that people are the most uncomfortable with, but I stated it very clearly in the book as the mentor, make sure you set the boundaries up front, because usually your mentee is a little more junior, usually they're younger. Usually they're less sophisticated. They don't know what the boundaries should be. So you got to set them up front and then over time, based on how they develop themselves into a reputation of being competent, high on character and trustworthy, you might choose to have been less than those boundaries. It's really hard to raise them during the process. It's much easier to set them high and then lower them if warranted. Yeah, that's really big. That's really big. You can see again the genius that I brought to this book, right, Jenni? I mean, it's fabulous.
Speaker 1:I mean clearly, we all have to go read this right now.
Speaker 2:I hope your listeners are still hanging in there with us.
Speaker 1:They are. I think the thing that I hear from a lot of people is that, again, mentorship just feels kind of fuzzy, and I think what you're saying for both the mentor and the mentee is that clarity, clarity to ask what's the mentee?
Speaker 2:asking.
Speaker 1:And then the mentor being clear about those boundaries and that sets them up for a healthy relationship.
Speaker 2:It sounds like Well, it certainly puts them on a path right. I mean, mentoring can go sideways a lot if you don't, if you're not clear on both sides, clear what the ask is, clear what the give can be. But I think if you're a mentor, if you're a mentor, if you're looking for a mentor, the odds are exponentially higher that anybody you ask that's going to mentor you is going to say yes is in direct correlation with how specific the ask is. Here's what I'm looking for. Here's what I bring to the table. Here's what I will never ask you to do Bam, bam, bam, bam and bam. Here's how many weeks, how many hours, what the topic is. I promise to do this, this, this and this, and I'm willing to listen to any other of your demands that you need to place on me in order to warrant you investing in me. No one says no to that. That's like every mentor's dream, like how would you say no to that? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:I'll say it for Fridays in 30 minutes on Zoom and answer your questions, as long as you won't put me in the uncomfortable position of having to say, yeah, I won't do that, or no, I don't do that, or I'm not your therapist, or I'm not your funder, I'm not your VC, I'm not your ally. I might become all those things. I won't tell you that, but I'll be thinking about it, right. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, absolutely good.
Speaker 2:I think it's much easier to get anyone to mentor you when you make it very clear what you're not asking them. That's good. That's good.
Speaker 1:Tell us about a mentor relationship in your life, maybe somebody that mentored you or somebody that you mentored. I'd love for you to pick and just share a story with us.
Speaker 2:It's a little unconventional, I'll share one where I was the mentee. Okay, so I'm 55. I live in Salt Lake City with my wife and our three sons, but I was born and raised in Orlando, florida. I worked for the Disney Company out of college and back in the 80s there used to be a Monday through Friday talk radio program. Every Monday through Friday night, six to nine PM Eastern time. A man got on and his name was Bruce Williams.
Speaker 2:This is like the inventor of talk radio. Before Rush Limbaugh, before Sean Kennedy, before Sally Jesse Rathiel, there was a guy named Bruce Williams. It was called the Bruce Williams Show and he was an entrepreneur, a business owner, small town mayor, and he kind of had a bit of a just call-in program on business advice right, what to do with an inheritance, what is a credit score, do I need mortgage insurance, how do I buy a home, how do I buy a business, should I quit my job and all those kinds of things? Well, all of my junior high school friends were listening to NXS and U2 on the talk radio.
Speaker 2:I was the nerd listening to Bruce Williams. Well, seven years every night, from six to nine PM, laying awake, learning about a FICO score, learning about the difference between term insurance and life insurance, my financial acumen, my business literacy, exponentiated. I was the nerd. Look at my career ups and downs, but lots of ups. Well, bruce Williams was the biggest mentor in my life. Bruce Williams never met me. Bruce Williams died having no idea I was alive, writing this best-selling book called the Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship. And so I don't think you have to define mentorship as the CFO on the fourth floor or the mayor or Beyonce, whoever it is. I think you can adopt people whose books you love, whose articles you love, whose blogs you love, whose podcasts you love, whose TV programs you love, and you make them your mentor, whether they agree or not.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, you just soak it up.
Speaker 2:Soak it up. Right, that's good. That's good. I'm sure I am mentoring people that I don't know.
Speaker 1:Oh, of course.
Speaker 2:By the way, lots of formal mentors that I've asked hey, will you mentor me? I've been asked to mentor, but I share that story just to remind everybody. You don't have to know the person for them to mentor. You Listen carefully, send them some emails. Can I share one thought with you, jenny Mm-hmm? Access is democratized. My day job is I'm a talent manager. I own a large literary speaking and talent agency. I represent 300 of the world's most well-known thought leaders and business leaders. Sure, everyone's doing the same thing. At 9.45 at night, everybody is laying in bed watching House Hunters International and they're on their Instagram and they're LinkedIn and they're seeing your message come in. So if you wanna go have Mark Cuban or Damon John or Barbara Corcoran or whoever it is mentor, you send them a message. They're all on LinkedIn, they're all on Facebook, they're all on Instagram and they're all seeing you slide into their messages.
Speaker 2:Barbara, I don't want any money from you. I don't want any endorsements from you. All I want to know is I'm doing X, y and Z and you're the smartest person in the world. Is there any way you would join a Zoom call with me? You could even be off camera. I have nine questions to ask you. I promise not to post it on social media. I promise not to say you're my mentor. I mean, what is Barbara gonna do? Say no. I mean, I know it's celebrity, but if someone were to do that and I get a few thousand emails and Instagram messages a day if someone's slid into my messages at 9.45 at night, make it nine o'clock, cause I'm probably asleep by 9.45 and someone had a very specific request.
Speaker 2:Scott, I'm trying to write a book. I noticed you published seven. Could you answer seven questions for me in 30 minutes? I'd probably say, yeah, call my guide Drew. Look at you on the calendar. Here's his email address. I'll give you 30 minutes and then in that 30 minutes, you knock my socks off, that's right and you ask me for another 30 minutes. I'll say, yeah, talk to Drew, I'll give you 30 minutes, not a problem Before I know it. Now I've given you seven 30 minute sessions. If you have done all the things that are appropriate, right. You've made a commitment, you kept it. You didn't move outside of the boundaries we set. Now maybe you asked for a second meeting. I might say no, odds are I'm not, cause it's hard to say no when you're on a Zoom call. You get the point. You can redefine, could be your mentor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really. That's fascinating.
Speaker 2:Well, and just Now, all of my clients gonna email me and say how dare you tell everybody what I'm doing at 9.45 at night, like it's not a secret? Everyone's doing the same thing they're watching Succession or they're watching House Hunters International. That's right that's right. Okay, what do I call it?
Speaker 1:I don't know I wanna hear from you more about these roles, because you hit on a couple of them. These 13 roles to make a true impact, Tell us about these 13 roles of a mentor.
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 1:I'm sure pick a couple of them at least for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, real quickly. Here's the run through the revealer, the boundary setter, the absorber, the questioner, the challenger, the validator, the navigator, the visionary, the flagger, the distiller, the activator, the connector and the closer, I'll pick one, the visionary. Okay.
Speaker 1:Can I pick that one and go after it? Yeah, go after it. I was like which one do I wanna hear about?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, well, I can talk about any of them because I wrote the book. The visionary appeals to me because it's counterintuitive. When we think of being a visionary, we think of someone that brings a contagious sense of possibility, of awe, of wonder, of what if this and what if that, and what if this and what if that. I thought about this, and that's right, and it's also wrong, because you can vision someone into like submission. You can vision someone and crush them.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes, a visionary is painting a vision for their mentee that is really a vision for themselves. Here's what I want to do, here's what I can do, here's what I should have done, and it's the golden rule of mentorship is you can never say to your mentor well, if I were you, I would do this. You're not them. You don't have their traumas, their fears, their passions. They don't have your credit score, your 401k, your stock options or your income or your confidence Right. And so it's really important that when you're painting a vision for a mentee, that it is a vision you think is something they're capable of, that is progressing their goal, based on their fears and their skills. It's a common trap that mentors fly in. That's huge Fall into and it's counterintuitive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really big, because I think sometimes as a mentor, you can feel the pressure of needing to have the answers. Maybe I think we get trapped into that as leaders in general. Sometimes we feel like all that responsibility.
Speaker 2:I think it's a balance right, because what you don't want to do is be the mentor that just asks questions. Well then what? And what if you did this, and then what? And then you might get fatigued. At some point the mentee might want you to say well, what do you think I should do? That's a role it's called the activator.
Speaker 1:It's got a heavy responsibility.
Speaker 2:Because if someone thinks they're going to be either a chiropractor or a commercial airline pilot last time I checked those are a little bit different schools of education that's right. And so if you say, well, I think you ought to be a chiropractor, but you do, that 30 minutes in it probably is irresponsible. There's a balance between being a pharmacist and a physician. They're different, right. And so you have to know when are you prescribing, when are you asking questions, when are you dispensing, when are you listening?
Speaker 2:It's why I think the book has proven to be a successful tool, because it really helps for mentors to say to themselves you know what? I never thought of it that way. I'm going to be more cautious of that. Or I'm used to asking these kinds of questions as a leader, but the fact is they're all from my own frame of reference. I'm going to ask questions that are more from my mentees frame of reference, based on what they've told me about their journey. That's good. The book has just meant to kind of be a series of gates, to not master all of the roles, but to create an awareness of them, to know which role should I be playing right now and which one should I not spend too much time on.
Speaker 1:That's yeah, that's great, that's great. Okay. One quick question before I wrap us up. If an organizational leader is listening right now, so maybe they're senior leader, executive team. They have influence over the whole team or the department that they lead. How do you create a mentorship culture? Should it be a program? How do you help facilitate this in your organization?
Speaker 2:Obviously I have a bias because I had not just have a book on mentorship. I keynote about it and at my website, greatmentorship. com, I have a 90-minute certification program that companies buy to put their mentors in. I actually think mentorship is one of the most valuable things you can do to create a culture where people come and stay, come and stay and grow, come, stay, grow and refer, in a culture where you've got quiet, quitting going on and you've got all kinds of issues going on where people may not feel engaged. I've written a lot of books on leadership and culture and career development. I don't think mentorship is the only solution to every company, but I can envision a company, a not-for-profit, a government agency, a small entrepreneurial journey that doesn't have some level of mentorship going on, informally or formally. I think it should be both. I do think that you ought to match people up and then you ought to train the mentor. Because can I share a short story with you? This is why I wrote the book Beyond HarperCollins inviting me to do so, which was obviously an honor.
Speaker 2:I was consulting with a company that had a mentor program. They had about 700 employees. They had about 70 mentors and 70 mentees they matched. I don't know how, but through their genius they had matched a 22-year-old female project marketing coordinator in the government services division, a person was responsible for emails and social media and proposals selling this company's services to the federal government, supporting a sales team. They had matched her as the mentee with a 60-year-old director of the travel division, the guy that was the director of booking all the hotels, all the conferences, all the airline flights. He was a savant. If you want to know what hotel room in Singapore to book, he'll tell you. He knows Lord 7, ritz Carlton, room 212 or whatever it is. It means savant.
Speaker 2:The challenge was, although he had unparalleled expertise in travel, he lived in travel. He never left travel. He had three travel agents that worked for him, super confident, super competent, but he knew nothing about marketing, about federal government. He knew nothing about how to build a career in the organization. He would be calling me asking me could I help him mentor the person? I had this epiphany. What I realized is he has no idea how to mentor, but he could learn. I wrote a book to give him.
Speaker 2:What happened is the young lady who had enormous talent left the company three or four months later. Do I think that she left because he was a bad mentor. No, do I think she would have stayed had he mentored her better. Maybe, possibly, because it's possible that he might have gone over to the operations leader or to the COO or to the general manager in the London office and said hey, I know this cracker Jack person. I've been mentoring her. She's stagnating over here. I think you want to pick her up and move her to the London office and groom her, because she could absolutely be the vice president of marketing, not a coordinator. Let's keep her in the firm for 20 years. That's a huge lost opportunity. That's right.
Speaker 2:If you're a leader and you're looking to improve your recruitment, your retention, your engagement and your referrals, you've got to establish a mentor program. By the way, the added benefit is there is a lot of leaders who are burnt out. They might get a little bit of a pick me up by mentoring someone. It might also increase the longevity of your leaders as well, because if you don't think they're being recruited every day on LinkedIn by your competition, you are asleep at the wheel. You've got to give your leaders a reason to not just give their mind but to give their heart and inoculate them against your competition that it is so much easier to pay them $20,000 more than you are, because it costs them $60,000 to train someone, and you've already trained them. Inoculate your leaders by giving them a reason to feel connected to your company and have them be mentoring the people along the way.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant, so good, scott. Okay, you told us greatmentorship. com. It's one of the places we need to go. Where else can we stay connected with you, learn more about what you're doing, get the book, all the things? Where do we need?
Speaker 2:to go. My wife says I am hard not to find and that's not a compliment from her. So you can follow me on LinkedIn, instagram, tiktok, twitter, youtube, facebook. I'm everywhere my books are sold. I have seven of them. They're sold on every book retailer website and in books and more stores. You can visit me at ScottJeffreyMiller. com. I host the world's largest weekly leadership podcast, called On Leadership, with Scott Miller. You can subscribe to that on iTunes and Spotify and everywhere, and I again appreciate you asking such smart questions. I thoroughly enjoyed our time.
Speaker 1:Likewise, scott, thank you for investing in leaders, for helping us lead better and for teaching us how to be mentors today. This was fantastic, thank you Absolutely my honor.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Jenni.
Speaker 1:All right, friends, was I right? Did Scott's ideas give you just a new perspective on mentorship? I hope it got you thinking like it did me. I think sometimes I overcomplicate mentorship and I think what I loved most about this episode was his recommendations and his coaching for us on how to set the boundaries that as mentees, we need to be very clear about what we're asking, and that as mentors, we need to be clear about what those boundaries are and what we're able to contribute. So I just thought that was super practical, really helpful. And then the idea that mentorship is really a retention strategy is really powerful, because if I'm hearing anything from a lot of the teams that we serve with is that younger leaders are begging for more support and direction, like they're. They are asking for that council that support some, some career support and and coaching, and I think that's what good mentoring does is it helps give those relationships and pathways for growth for younger leaders. So I want to encourage you to digest that, think it through and think about what the application might be for you and your team.
Speaker 1:All right, well, I hope this episode was helpful for you. If it was, would you let me know? You can connect with us on Instagram and Facebook and on LinkedIn at the 4Sight group. So and or you can reach out to me at Jenni Catron, and I would love it if you would share this episode with another leader. Maybe there's another leader on your team that you're like. You know what we need to think more intentionally about mentorship. Maybe it's another co-worker or friend. But share the episode and have a good conversation with another leader.
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