The whole idea of mentoring and coaching benefited me when I was in the corporate world. At Apple, I was the technical guy, the engineer, and I was very good at what I was doing as an individual contributor. I was then promoted to be a manager of a group. It’s totally different being a manager versus being an individual contributor. It was managing tasks versus managing context, and I did not have a clue how to go about it.
It was a promotion that felt more like a demotion, because I was absolutely clueless on dealing with people. But I decided to take on the challenge. My manager was very supportive, and got me enrolled in a mentoring program that Apple had for high potential employees. It was an excellent program, and you get assigned to a mentor, someone who is typically higher up in the organizational hierarchy. My mentor then was a vice-president at Apple, he was a very busy man and you don’t get a lot of chances to see him, only once in a while did I get to meet him. He had some good advice for me for someone who is a total novice at managing people, which I remember to this day. I also asked for a professional coach to learn more about leadership and people management. I had a leadership coach for a year and Apple paid for it.
That’s when I took on a huge interest in people and leadership, which became one of my life obsessions. I literally studied everything about leadership, both theoretical and practical. I realized how important people skills are. I learned that people aren’t meant to be managed; they can only to be led. And to be a leader, you need to have followers. It’s a mutual relationship.
A mentor whom I have tremendous respect for and I found very inspiring is Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi professor and Socialpreneur. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and starting the movements in microcredit and microfinance back in the eighties. Grameen Bank lent money to the poorest of the poor, mostly women. Prior to Grameen, no institution, no bank would ever consider lending money to the poor. He lent them money and helped them build their own small businesses for sustaining their livelihood and family. He helped to get millions of people out of poverty. I find him very empowering and one of the great pioneers in the social space.
Another mentor I admire is Steve Jobs, a great tech visionary, although I never met him personally. You really cannot argue with what he has done.
Because of my personal experience in mentoring and how I benefited from being mentored and coached – actually how my life was transformed – the value and the great impact that mentoring can bring – I believe more than ever that mentoring when done right and at scale has the potential to be a great leveler and a tool for transformation for many segments of the society – for both the mentor and the mentee.