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Career

How to Deal with an Over-Aggressive Mentor

The Over-Aggressive Mentor

I used to work with someone that I liked and respected. We became pretty good friends, getting coffee together and going to lunch occasionally. He had a few more years of experience than me and I enjoyed picking his brain for ideas every once in a while.

Once while we were talking shop, I told him that I considered him a mentor. It kind of went to his head. He apparently decided to take me under his wing and become my full-time mentor.

He would stop by my desk frequently and provide me with unsolicited advice. At least once a week I would receive emails with articles that he thought I might be interested in. He would then question me about the article perhaps to make sure I read it.
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How Your Career Advancement is Not a Zero-Sum Game

Growing up as a baseball fan in central Illinois, the big debate was whether you were a Chicago Cubs fan or a St. Louis Cardinals fan. There was the occasional Yankees or Reds or White Sox fan, but the true rivalry for that region was between the two teams in the National League’s central division. […] Continue reading →

How to Select a Mentor

In organizations with formal mentoring programs, the young, green employee is given a mentor soon after he hires on at the company. The company either feels they know best who should teach each young person or they assume it doesn’t matter and match people up based on availability. At a company where I once worked, […] Continue reading →

Why Your Legacy Matters

It’s a common career scenario. You start out working day-to-day, living paycheck-to-paycheck just trying to keep your head above water. It’s easy for that day-to-day approach to evolve to a year-to-year approach. Before you know it, you are deep into a career that is going nowhere. Your thirty years of experience is actually a year’s […] Continue reading →

I was hoping to be informed by reading The Reluctant Mentor; but, it was a nice surprise to also be entertained.

The book is a gentle narrative, weaving a story that will engage even the most reticent reader. This is an optimistic and inspiring story for GenX, Millennial & Boomers. I am a Boomer and the book gave me courage to explore some social media for my business that I had been hesitant to try.

If the reader has a need for more concrete information following the case study, the Epilogue interprets the narrated lessons in the book. I plan to recommend the book to organizations I work with.

By judycantwell

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In creating and analyzing a fictional company, Stewart Bicycle Manufacturing, the reader is taken through an evolution of employer-employee relations with real life work situations between the older and more experienced executive, the mid-level managers and the up and coming younger employee. Told in the setting of a "story", the reader gains very eye-opening insight into the generational differences of the company.What I particularly liked is gaining insight into the reasons for their miscommunications and how they eventually mentored through these. There were some real eye-openers and true "ah-ha" moments of recognition for this Generation X reader. I highly recommend anyone working in a multi-generational company or organization to read this. Invaluable people-intel here!

By cbrookewilliams (Berlin, Germany)