Mentoring can move your career forward faster

Whether you’re at the beginning of your career — or second career — or you’ve had years of fraud examination experience, consider entering into a mutually beneficial mentor-mentee professional relationship. This article is for both of you and everybody in between.

What do Mark Zuckerberg, Charles Schwab, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey have in common?

They’re all mentors, and they each had a champion who was a trusted counselor. Zuckerberg was fortunate early on to have Steve Jobs as his mentor. Bill Gates has Warren Buffet. Charles Schwab had Andrew Carnegie. And Oprah had the poet Maya Angelou.¹ Many other accomplished people cite family members, professional acquaintances and friends who provided valuable guidance, encouragement and wisdom that propelled their success. Even Hollywood has cashed in on making movies with a mentoring/coaching theme. (See The Top 30 Mentoring Movies of all Time, by Jean Rhodes, The Chronicle of Evidence-based Mentoring.)

Perhaps you’re at the beginning of your career (or second career), and you’re thinking of asking an experienced CFE in your organization or from your chapter to be your mentor. Or maybe you want to invest your years of experience in some budding fraud examiners. This article is for both of you and everybody in between.

Mentoring offers benefits for both parties

Mentoring programs help measure and improve employee performance. The results of a five-year mentoring study by Sun Microsystems University showed that 25 percent of mentoring partners and 28 percent of mentors enrolled in the company program received raises compared to five percent of employees not enrolled in the program. (See Bellevue University’s Human Capital Lab Case Study: Sun Microsystems University Mentoring Study.)

In a similar benchmarking study, the Association for Talent Development reported the most cited benefits of mentoring were acquisition of new perspectives (59 percent); improvement in their leadership skills (49 percent); professional development (36 percent); and greater understanding of corporate culture (30 percent). (See Mentoring Matters.)

Mentors can help place you on fast track to successful career

Years ago, the oceanographic lab director at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) volunteered to be my first mentor when I began working at the agency as a cooperative education university student. During my first week on the job, he gave me a handful of journal articles written by oceanographic researchers who worked at the lab. When I finished that assignment a week later, he asked me, “Based on what you’ve read, how do you now see your position contributing to the success of the work being done here?”

The assignment forced me to do a deeper dive on what NOAA expected of me. That assignment gave me a much greater appreciation for the outcome of the research as well firing up my eagerness to succeed. In fact, the NOAA lab promised me a full-time position six months before I graduated in 1978.

Shortly after NOAA hired me, two leading scientists at the lab took me under their wings, shared the details of their research projects and included me in their scientific research expeditions in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico. Those experiences boosted my interest and opened doors for me a few years later when I entered the oil and gas exploration field. In 1982, while working at Phillips Petroleum, that NOAA lab director provided a necessary recommendation for me when I was accepted as one of 5,000 original applicants as a mission specialist for the NASA space shuttle program.

Mentoring then and now

Mentoring relationships have evolved to align with dynamic workplace environments. Participants now construct more fluid boundaries, timelines, guidelines and expectations. In the digital age, arrangements often aren’t formal or lengthy; they can last from a few hours to a year. 
Mentors in the past could spend years helping mentees’ career objectives.

However, mentor relationships now — in the high-tech field, for example — can center around tasks in specific specialties to fulfill immediate and near-future needs.

“Just-in-time” mentoring associations, which could last only hours or weeks, might resemble coaching more than actual mentoring. The trend is to merge coaching and mentoring. (See Coaching and Mentoring: Theory and Practice, by Garvey, Stokes, and Megginson, Sage Publications.) Mentors often incorporate a Socratic questioning methodology rather than the old-school, leading-by-the-hand method. (See HBR Guide to Coaching Employees, Harvard Business Review Press.) Socrates’ methods build mentees’ critical thinking skills so they can more effectively evaluate their assumptions and actions. (See The Six Types of Socratic Questions, Michigan Engineering.)

Who can serve as a mentor?

A mentor can be anyone with expertise, skills, knowledge and experience to share with others and a willingness to serve as a trusted advisor. Manager-employee and employee-to-employee (peer-to-peer) are common mentor-mentee arrangements. (Arrangements between C-suite executives and other high-level professionals often are elevated to “advocate-protégé” relationships. See below.)

Keys for successful matchups

Except for transferring of information, telephone and in-person conversations work better than emails because vocal intonations and facial expressions and gestures communicate so much more.

Other important considerations:

• Reserve blocks of time for meetings and commit to them.
• Respect each other’s workloads and schedules.
• Define clear objectives and realistic, attainable goals where feedback is needed from both parties.
• Mentors should provide sound advice based on expertise and experience — not personal opinion.

‘Reverse mentoring’ opportunities on rise

Younger employees who are familiar with digital technology and social media applications can mentor senior executives who are deficient in those areas. (See Reverse Mentoring.) Reverse-mentoring participants often meet once per month for up to one year. The mutual benefits are obvious: Mentors gain access to senior executives, and mentees learn high-tech techniques for promoting their organizations’ brands.

Be prepared for mentor-mentee relationship

When I received multiple requests for mentoring during my career, I had to ask myself, “How do I decide who to mentor?” I loved helping younger employees, but I also needed to get my work done. Other questions as you judiciously choose mentees include:

• How motivated is the mentee to move their career forward?
• How large is the gap from where they are now to where they want to be? (Generally, the wider the gap, the less effort required by the mentor.)
• Am I the best person available to help with their request?
• What does the mentee want to learn? How do they think my specific experience or expertise will help them achieve their goals? Directly ask the mentee to determine whether you’ll be a good fit.

It’s a good idea to first ensure that potential mentoring partners are sufficiently motivated and have a clear understanding of what they want from the mentoring arrangement before agreeing to engage in the mentor-mentee partner relationship.

Some simple rules will keep mentoring relationships productive and professional:

• Exchange common courtesy for chivalry lest such actions be misinterpreted.
• Allow mentees to decide when and where to meet and other logistical details.
• Stay focused on the work, skills, talents and the potential professional benefits both parties might receive.

What if your mentor isn’t available?

Heavy workloads and home-schedule conflicts are the bane of 21st century living. If you have your heart set on a possible mentor, but that person just isn’t available, offer to have coffee or lunch together occasionally. You don’t want to be a pest, but the connection could evolve into a rewarding, productive mentoring relationship. If the prospective mentor appreciates your congenial tenacity, they might want to make you part of their reoccurring schedule.

Beyond traditional mentoring: advocate-protégé relationship

When a traditional mentoring relationship runs its course, what other options might be available to stay on the fast track? In some organizations, this higher level of personal professional development — known as the advocate (or sponsor)-protégé relationship — might be available informally. (“Protégé” means “one who is protected.”) We can find scores of books, videos and blogs on mentoring, but little is available yet about this advanced relationship.

I’ve never engaged with an advocate, but I’ve witnessed several advocate–protégé arrangements from a distance. Such high-level relationships are more leveraged (using executive-level “capital,” such as position, influence and connections to receive personal or professional benefits) than mentor-mentee connections. Both parties must carefully consider the necessary work to make this type of years-long relationship successful.

Talented advocates often look for likely protégés with potential — often fast-track mid-level executive leaders — to groom for the C-suite. It’s likely that Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, Andrew Carnegie and Maya Angelou were serving more as advocates than mentors with their respective protégés because those protégés were already quite successful.

Junior executives on the rise might want to have more than one advocate as a fail-safe because not every would-be advocate is cut out to assume that role.

Understanding the advocate-protégé relationship

The advocate-protégé relationship is symbiotic and reciprocal with give-and-take benefits for both. These arrangements can contribute toward stronger and stable succession planning for an organization.

Many advocate–protégé relationships have unspoken quid pro quo arrangements where an advocate grants favors to a protégé (access or exposure to other high-level executives or initiatives) but might call them in later by expecting exceeding loyalty. Therefore, ideal advocates and protégés should have integrity, so advocates place the interests of protégés above their own, and protégés have the fortitude to not become sycophants.

Such cooperative professional relationships can greatly accelerate every facet of a young leader’s professional advancement ranging from promotions and raises to greater job fulfillment. Many advocates foster protégés because they enjoy “paying it forward” as others have done for them and want to encourage protégés to do the same.

On the downside, those not familiar with advocate-protégé connections can sometimes perceive them as political favoritism when the arrangements aren’t clearly based on merit.

I’ve observed that an advocate might continue to help a protégé if the protégé fails once. But if the protégé fails consistently, the advocate will likely (and quickly) sever the relationship because they’ve staked their reputation and political capital on the protégé’s success.

Therefore, keep your eyes wide open if you enter an advocate–protégé relationship.

The wrong advocate can sideline a protégé’s career advancement within an organization because the protégé didn’t conduct sufficient due diligence.

For more information on the advocate–protégé relationship, see The Relationship You Need to Get Right, by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Melinda Marshall and Laura Sherbin, Harvard Business Review, October 2011.

Mentoring is…

To paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton, mentees stand on the shoulders of giants. An ideal mentor doesn’t remake a mentee in their image. Instead, they give the mentee knowledge, tools and encouragement to shape their own futures.

A mentor freely distributes wisdom that their successes, failures and experiences have honed. They’re a trusted advisor who can help correct a mentee’s navigation through the shallows and shoals. They offer the gentle but sometimes necessary nudges when a mentee’s self-doubts, uncertainties and fears immobilize their progress. Fraud examiners succeed when battle-tested CFEs invest in their professional lives.

Donn LeVie Jr., CFE, a Fraud Magazine staff writer, has been a presenter and career and business engagement/positioning strategist at ACFE Annual Global Fraud Conferences since 2010. He speaks on what he calls Presence-Driven Leadership™ through keynotes and corporate programs. LeVie is the author of several award-winning professional advancement strategy books. Visit his website at donnleviejrstrategies.com. Contact him at donn@donnleviejrstrategies.com.

ACFE offers Mentoring Program

You’re eager to pass on your years of fraud examination experience and knowledge to the next generation. Or you’re a new fraud examiner and you need guidance. The ACFE Mentoring Program could be for you.

The second six-month program, which will begin mid-January 2019, is a platform for CFE mentors and mentees to connect and develop professional, two-way learning relationships.

Mentees first search for potential mentors in the ACFE’s online mentor directory. (Mentors can’t request mentees.) If a mentor accepts a request from a prospective mentee for mentoring, they schedule a “discovery call” to determine if they’re a good fit. Both parties must agree to a mentoring relationship to move forward. Participants can choose to meet by phone, video chat, email or in person, and must commit to one hour per month.

CFE mentors, by participating in this program, are committing to the professional growth of mentees and investing in the overall future of fraud detection and deterrence.

Mentees are ready to take the next steps to grow in their careers and to transform their professional goals into realities.

Visit connect.ACFE.com/mentoring to study the program requirements and mentee and mentor guidelines, and sign up for the second six-month program.

Here’s what some ACFE members are saying about the ACFE Mentoring Program:

Melissa Frausto, CFE, PI: “I was in the process of starting my own practice and saw the ACFE Mentoring Program as an opportunity. … The biggest benefit so far is the guidance and encouragement. … I’m better positioned now to tackle the future [and] it’s great to have someone to bounce an idea off of or ask a quick question who understands.”

Janet Miller, CFE: “The ACFE Mentoring Program gives me the opportunity to share my experience and expertise and possibly help shape someone’s career. The biggest benefit I’ve received so far is from the self-reflection and self-inventory I’ve conducted, realizing how far I’ve come in my own career, how successful I am at what I do, looking back and sharing some of the obstacles I had and how I overcame them. I have two mentoring partners and, surprisingly, they both voiced the same concern: ‘What careers are available to me?’ … As a direct result of the ACFE Mentoring Program, my career ambition has been reinvigorated, and I truly realize the value I add to my profession, my career and aspiring professionals.”

Brenda Buetow, CFE, CAMS: “Giving back to the profession is very important to me. Just as important is remembering how my past mentors have enhanced my career and now I can ‘pay it forward’ to someone looking for that special connection. I have two mentoring partners with very different needs that range from discussing current events to tips for studying for the CFE exam. … Having a credential that is globally recognized and the ability to reach out to CFEs outside the U.S. is the perfect fit for my career. Discussing similarities and differences in conducting business in our countries and the fraud risks that need to be mitigated is a great way for both of us to grow.”

1 Steve Jobs’s Early Advice to Mark Zuckerberg: Go East, by Ilan Mochari, Inc.com, Sept. 29, 2015; Inside the 27-Year Friendship of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, Who Didn’t Even Want to Meet and Now Have Each Other on Speed Dial, by Shana Lebowitz, businessinsider.com, July 9, 2018; Corporate Citizenship Perspectives: Fostering a More Promising and Productive Future Through Mentorship Programs, by Stewart Rassier, corporatecitizenship.bc.edu, Jan. 19, 2015; Oprah Remembers Her Mentor, Maya Angelou, by Leslie Messer, abc.com, May 28, 2014.