A message for my sponsors
Nobody does it on their own, so remember your sponsors and be one
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I consider myself lucky to have been the recipient of the help and support of a lot of people who helped me along in my career. I needed that because, let’s face it, I was born extremely dumb and without any marketable job skills. But, with the help of some people who, for some unfathomable reason, took an interest in me, I got introduced to a bigger world and got in touch with new opportunities and new ideas.
I would for instance have been lost for the world of professional toying with computers without the help of the vice principal of the secondary school I attended. He introduced computers to our school all the way back in 1985 and was hell-bent on teaching us young nerds “structured programming”. It might not sound like much today, but imagine a world where you had a simple computer with a terrible BASIC interpreter and you had to teach yourself programming from the crappy manual plus some magazines. Most of these magazines were written by people who were not much better at it than we were and there was in general little or no emphasis on writing code that was readable and well structured. We definitely needed some help and the vice principal provided it, by criticizing our crappy code, by exposing us to better programming languages and techniques, and by connecting us to like minded people all over Europe. Through him, the school provided an environment for us where we could learn how to code properly.
Then there was the neighbor of my college girlfriend, who ran an IT company with his two brothers, and who provided me with guidance and opportunities to learn how to use code to make money. He offered me an internship, gave me my first PC, and graciously employed me on a part-time basis in my last year of college, which helped make ends meet (quite royally actually). Through all of that I had opportunities to learn and grow in a professional setting and I got a glimpse of how computers integrated into the world of business.
After that, I was quite fortunate with the managers in my first and second job, both of whom took a shine to an enthusiastic young nerd who had an insatiable hunger for learning more about computers, how to use them to solve problems, and how to deliver high quality work. They gave me opportunities to take on projects that I really had no business working on, and helped me be successful in those projects. Additionally, they were both role models of professional behavior and they exposed me to a new way of working that focused on promising and delivering results.
Throughout my entire career, I continued to be the beneficiary of many people’s efforts to help me learn and grow, and become more successful in my career. When I expressed my interest in becoming a facilitator at the Google engineering leadership program (Edge), someone went out on a limb and added me to the faculty, even though I had no specific experience in that field. When Google started investing in work/life balance programs, I was given the opportunity to become one of the facilitators of the “Managing Your Energy” curriculum, which helped me broaden and deepen my knowledge of how we can be our own worst enemy and what to do about that. Then, when I wanted to become a manager, I was kindly given the chance to do so by my then boss. I learned that that was not for me, and was given the opportunity to step back again. In all of these endeavors I was given guidance and feedback on how to excel or deal with specific problems.
At every point in my career where I needed help, someone was available who liked me enough, or was kind enough, to provide that help. Sometimes in the form of coaching, sometimes in the form of advice (also read this), sometimes in the form of feedback, and sometimes in the form of a timely warning that some people who were not favorably disposed to me, were plotting something that would not have been to my advantage…
It is because of being the recipient of so much generosity that I feel obliged to “pay it forward”, as the cool kids call it these days. Consequently, in the latter half of my career so far, I made it a habit to be generous with my time, trying to help people who have questions or who are experiencing career related conundrums. On top of that being somewhat of an obligation (“noblesse oblige” and all that), I must admit that I also just like it. I might not always be the most social of people, “blessed” as I am with a social battery that runs out quite quickly in larger groups, but I am usually quite decent in 1:1 settings 🙂.
Being a career mentor is an incredibly rewarding side gig: I get to talk to interesting (mostly younger) people, learn about their challenges, help them get a perspective, and sometimes help them chart a course of action that might improve their situation. To be honest, being in these discussions is as instructive to me as it is (hopefully) to the kind people I am talking to, as I learn lots about what happens in the organization. It also forces me to collect my thoughts and experiences on the topics that they bring to the table. To be brutally honest, half of the Wednesday Wisdom articles come straight out of mentoring chats I recently had with people…
Apart from being instructive, helping out other people has also helped me build a great network that I can leverage to my advantage. I am still in touch with people from most of my previous employers which, if nothing else, allows me to keep up with how things are really going back there. And, when I need something, there is quite often someone in my network who can help me connect to the right people.
So, consider this a call to arms and an invitation: If you have been the recipient of the generosity of other people in the form of people mentoring you, people giving you valuable feedback, or just helping you in any way, why not “pay it forward” and use some of your time and energy helping other people? I promise you it will be worth it.
