Dates With My Mentors -The beginning

I had just started a job as an Intern in one of the global companies and I was overwhelmed by my great expectations and lack of information on how I would make them a reality. I had come from a one year break after I have held several dead end jobs. I was tired of job hopping and I was looking to build a stable career. I was ready and eager for corporate success. The words by the poet Mr Cullan "Do you know you can learn, What you want to learn, If you try to learn, What you can learn. " became even more meaningful. I wanted to put them into practice.

It was clear to me that I did not have the tools I needed to build a career, and so I made a conscious decision to seek people who could help me understand the journey I was determined to walk. I did not want to find myself in the same position I did five years prior, in what appeared to be yet another ´just pay your bills´ job with no potential for further growth. A treadmill with no resolution in sight.

I started looking around for people who could answer some of the questions I had about career progress. It was not an in-depth research process but more of an inquiry that stemmed from the inquisitive chats with people I would have the opportunity to interact with. When I was tasked with mainly admin work for some of the more senior people. I used every opportunity I had to interact with the senior colleagues.

It was a surprise how open people were to my questions. I didn’t have to wait long to get answers to some of the questions. I then realized as an interesting pattern in the feedback from my white colleagues versus my black colleagues .
Let me give you an example of *Robertina who was regional marketing manager of one of the multinationals. She had been with the company for five years when she shared her career journey. She related how at 20 years-old she started her career as an intern at one of the global companies. Over the next twelve years she had worked her way up in five distinct companies and has lived in three different countries, from admin, to a country manager, and global roles. She had climbed the corporate ladder quicker than most of her peers in the same age.

How? I asked and without hesitation, she gave a straight forward answer: "My mom and dad have been my key mentors and motivators, they have been instrumental from early in my career to help me make the right decisions and negotiate my roles. My dad has held various roles in multinational companies and has been a good contact whenever I need to reach out to different people. And yes it helps that my aunt is a Chief Executive Officers (CEO´s) of one of the Big 5 companies so I contact her now and again when I need to make major changes. She is younger and my parents have an old-school approach. So I would say I have a healthy balance of trusted advisers."

I was pleasantly surprised by the wealth of knowledge in her family. For me, this situation was far from reality. I had no immediate mentors who had paved the way in the formal business world and those who existed were often not within reach. There was no one who could sit me down to explain how to navigate the corporate jungle. I had no immediate network of black professionals available to coach me on the social skills needed to get through the corporate politics at the time. The few who were available were too advanced in their careers to be relatable at my level.

This was not particularly unique for me. I noticed a similar pattern among other black colleagues. In fact, the feedback I received from many black professionals differed from that of *Robertina . They did not utter words such as “My dad advised me to do this… or “ my uncle is my mentor…”, or “my aunt made a few calls to…”. Such privileges didn’t seem to exist for the average black child, and those that have made it to the top had to figure things out along the way or go to social extremes to learn new ways of being and doing things. They had to create new paradigms.

Lucky for me, I didn’t have to look far to identify a credible mentor. I met a wonderful woman at the company, who was part of the executive team. She like myself had just joined the company. She was bold, spoke the business language and made it known in a non-interrogative way she had her eyes set on the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) role. It was a pleasure to watch her navigate the company as she introduced herself to new and old people. I admired her strong yet feminine personality that made her relatable to everyone. I instantly identified her as my first mentor.
It was a match made in heaven. We would have informal discussions regularly about anything and everything related to the company and my role. Helping me to navigate a rather ambiguous environment. She wasn’t intimidated by my ambition to advance in the company instead she helped me get in contact with other mentors who could support my learning curve. People who also worked for the same company but based in other regions, to help me speed up my global skills. Leaving no stone unturned.

As my confidence to progress my career grew, I became hungry to know more about the industry and the world around me and how it related to where I was. My world appeared small. I wanted to find out how other successful people in other companies and other parts of the world perceived their journey to career growth.

I then identified people whom I had a keen interest to learn from outside the company I was working for. These were individuals I admired and respected, who would help me build a holistic view of the professional world around me. They were all at different at levels and in different lines of business. But they had something in common, a passion and desire to be the best in their business. Some were available to help and other were not easy to reach. Three of them agreed to help. We agreed to set up calls bi-weekly to have a chat or communicate via emails. On rare occasions, when their calendars when not full, we could meet for coffee. I called them Dates With My Mentors.