To Achieve Professional Goals, Women Urged to Find Mentors

At the Women in Print Alliance breakfast, Kathy Korman Frey, Founder of the Hot Mommas Project, walked a packed room of women from across the printing industry through goal setting and the importance of mentorship.

Research, Frey noted, has shown that in general women are less likely to promote their own achievements at work. Two-thirds of female CEOs have said they didn’t think of going for that position until someone else advocated for them. “The good news is, there are people around us saying we can do this,” Frey said. “The bad news is that we don’t believe in ourselves.”

Setting hard goals and then seeking out mentors to help us achieve them, however, makes a difference, she said. Frey pointed out that research has also shown that women who have a mentor have both higher pay than their peers, as well as a higher status in their companies.

That said, Frey noted that mentors don’t just appear. There is no mentorship fairy. Instead, women need to seek out mentors. Frey stressed that every woman should really have more than one mentor. She said that ideally everyone will have five or more mentors, each focused on a different aspect of your goal or career. “Research shows that having five or more mentors leads to more confidence and a higher perception of success,” said Frey. “Those women are walking around already winning the game in their own minds.”

To get there, Frey suggested having a mentorship plan. First, set a goal — and not something frivolous, or something small because you feel like anything else is too challenging or out of reach. While goals can be moved, she noted, it is important to have that end-point in mind for where you want to go in your career or your personal life. Research is starting to show that Millennial women are burning out by age 30, she noted, in part because they have no hard goals, so they feel like they are constantly on the “hamster wheel.” To avoid that trajectory, start the process by first sitting down and setting hard goals.

From there, break the goal down into five areas. By breaking the goals down into pieces, you can then find a mentor to help tackle each aspect.

Next, have a mentor agenda. This ensures there is structure to the mentorship experience, and you are getting everything you want out of it. An example:

1. Set the amount of time you want to spend with your mentor on a weekly or monthly basis.
2. Have a list of the topics you want to cover with that mentor. What do you want to get out of the interaction — and what can you do to help them as well?
3. Send thank you notes — thank them for their time, and summarize everything you have learned and what your next steps are to put those suggestions into practice.
4. Follow-up with a second thank you — too often omitted  —  thanking them again and reporting on your progress, good or bad. This helps build the relationship and gives you an opportunity to either celebrate successes or get more support in areas you might be struggling with.

The most successful people, Frey noted, devote a minimum of four hours per month to mentorship, plus one weekend per year dedicated to mentorship. While not everyone will stick to that schedule exactly, that is a good guide for how much time you should be spending both giving and receiving mentorship.

Frey ended the session with a challenge to attendees. On Monday morning’s return to the office, start seeking out mentors. “They aren’t going to arrive on a silver platter,” she said. Set your goals, create a mentor plan, carve out the time to ensure you are hitting the minimum number of hours devoted to mentoring and make sure your group of mentors is diverse — “most successful people are connecting to diverse groups. Make sure your ‘board of directors’ don’t all look like you,” Frey said.

Sharing goals and mentorship, Frey said, is a superpower that every woman should be experiencing. It increases the perceived value of the goal, decreases stress and boosts the self-confidence of both the mentor and the person being mentored. “Many would not say they will go seek out a mentor,” Frey said. “They fall in line with folks who say ‘why would someone give their time to me? I don’t want to bother them.’ But people who act on behalf of others build their own self-worth. It feels good, and they are getting a psychological benefit as well.”