Mentorship in Today’s Business World

Mentoring has long been recognized as a critical contributor to the success of an organization. It’s a way of passing on institutional knowledge, helping the next generation unlock the mysterious codes that govern our professions and workplaces. When I reflect on my own growth, I’m always reminded of the relationships in my life that have molded my character, my work, and my leadership style. 

Mentoring women, specifically, has played a key role in our diversity & inclusion efforts at Johnson & Johnson. These special relationships mentors and mentees form are important, and consistent with everything we do and say to live into Our Credo. This month we hosted two remarkable international businesswomen (Pictured Left: Jennifer Taubert and me with J&J mentees Cynthia Mugwira and Chaitali Das) as part of a mentoring program we partner with Fortune and the U.S. State Department on, and I had the great fortune to spend some time with them. It got me thinking about the way even the most traditional concept – mentoring – like technology or fashion, has evolved over time. I believe there are many ways that we can leverage these changes, but I wanted to share my top three.

1.  Advances in tech: When I think about my role as a mentor, I actually get as much out of the experience, or more, as my mentee. Technology and the way the next generation of leaders coming up in the workforce use it (it’s second nature!) is fascinating. As a mentor, I love to take advantage of being able to ask candid questions about my mentees’ experience with growing up with tech at the center of everything.
2. Go beyond coaching…be a sponsor: When you go beyond the mentoring role and decide to sponsor someone, you’re becoming an advocate for that person, and putting trust in them and their future. At Johnson & Johnson, we highly encourage our leaders to sponsor women and empower them to take on future leadership roles. This isn’t only good for the individual, but good for the business. Unique perspectives in decision making ultimately lead to improving lives of people around the world.
3. Go the non-traditional route:  What I’ve found is that you can learn from just about anyone. You don’t have to have the mentor/mentee labels to appreciate different perspectives. I often spend time with my own “millennial” children, and I learn so much about their world views and what’s important to them, and I can bring that information back to influence certain business decisions.

I’ve been extremely lucky from very early on in my career to have people take an interest in me, which often also meant taking bets on me – and that is a debt I can never repay. But now I’ve realized, you don’t have to pay it back, you just have to pay it forward.