Theory You: Launches the Topic of Self-Mentoring

By Joseph J. Cronin

THEORY YOU

In work around the globe I made the observation that managers unable to manage themself were poor at managing others.
When teaching at the graduate and undergraduate level my course preparations revealed a lack of mentoring existed in many companies.
Theory You fills the void created by these two deficiencies. It is a more personal approach to management than Theory X or Theory Y. The book is designed to provoke potential managers to think and plan strategically for advancement and to serves as a refresher throughout the many points in a career.
Theory You is the breakthrough management guide that prepares an individual to manage themselves all the way to the corner office.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499022322

Joseph J. Cronin

Joseph J. Cronin is a former global advertising executive and educator. He was Vice-Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising and also held executive management positions with advertising giants DDB and BBDO. He was part of the management team at Chrysler Corporation in the early 1980’s when Chrysler fought successfully for survival and repaid the loan guarantees from the US government. In his advertising career he has been president of agencies in Los Angeles and Miami and had executive positions in New York, Boston and Detroit. His extensive global experience includes work in: Japan, United Kingdom, China, France, Argentina, Hong Kong, Belgium, Venezuela, Namibia, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil. His education experience includes two stints teaching at Northeastern University in Boston where he taught courses in both global marketing and global management. He has also spoken at many colleges and universities including: U Cal Berkeley, UCLA, USC, Stanford, U Hawaii, Emerson, U Maine, and Arizona State Thunderbird School. He resides in both Los Angeles and Boston.

Book preview

SECTION ONE

If a man is not capable, and is not to be trusted with the government of himself, is he to be trusted with the government of others?

President Andrew Johnson

If I have learned anything in a lifetime… it is the truth of the famous phrase History is biography, that decisions are made by people based on what they know of the world and how they understand it.

President George H.W. Bush

We spend the first half of a career getting raises and promotions based upon what we can do. This section of the book deals with how to improve performance to become a better employee while at the same time initiating a personal mentoring process to prepare for the second phase of a career in management. To succeed as a mentor one must first understand himself. One who can manage himself can therefore be a better manager of others.

CHAPTER I

Why You?

What is best for people is what they do for themselves.

Benjamin Franklin

Listen to me and not to them.

Gertrude Stein

Once upon a time in business young people who joined a firm eagerly sought out a mentor to help and guide them through the challenges of business and were eagerly accepted by the more senior members of the organization. The mentors proved invaluable in furthering their practical experience and steering them on a solid course to growth and success. The word mentor comes from the Greeks and represents a character in Homer’s Odyssey. Mentor was an older man Odysseus asked to guide his son. Once upon a time is the clue that those days appear to be gone in many organizations and that in today’s world Odysseus would be hard pressed to find a Mentor in his son’s company. A young employee today is often left to his or her own devices in managing the growth of their career at the firm and without an older relative or family friend to assist is completely on their own.

There are several reasons why mentoring appears to be a declining responsibility or contribution. First, management skills are diminishing or even non-existent in many US firms. People are promoted into management positions without the company’s awareness of their management skills and the firms fail to provide adequate training to assist them into growth as a manager. Too often being the boss is associated with being a manager. Over the years I’ve had many people tell me that they received the following advice from a supposed mentor when they received a promotion to management: the first thing you do is show them who’s boss. If a person uses their new position to assert themselves as boss it is extremely doubtful they will have the wisdom or confidence to use their time to develop their skills as a manager, and thus become a mentor. Instead, their emphasis is simply on denoting the pecking order in the firm. W. Edwards Deming, the American management genius stated that fear should be driven from the organization yet many American managers fly in the opposite direction and bring fear into the organization.

Second, the rise of technology is diminishing the inter-personal skills that were part of most organizations and has led to a decrease in the amount of personal contact within an organization Much of what could be passed on from generation to generation is lost and the ability to observe and learn is weakened. Emails have replaced face to face meetings, and cubicles and working at home have further reduced the inter-personal contact between young employees and their more senior managers. Thus, the opportunities for mentoring are limited. Even the opportunity to observe a good manager is reduced by the new technology. Trying to copy the boss without understanding the boss is not beneficial to one’s future and instead is a path away from one’s potential.

Third, change is rapid in business in the past two decades and new paradigms are required to succeed in the future while the old paradigms are being challenged or disregarded. The past is a great teacher but following the past is not necessarily the road to success. In the post-World War II era and into the 80’s the senior manager was expected to have all the answers and behaved in a manner that supported that position. Today, in the ever-changing global world the modern manager is no longer expected to have all the answers but is expected to know how to get the answers. The generations reading this book will be authors of the new paradigms.

Fourth, young people today are vastly different from their parents and the peers of their parents. They want a different lifestyle and indicate an unwillingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of a career as they believed earlier generations did. Young people possess different goals, objectives and desires than the more senior members of the firm who potentially represent a mentoring relationship. Thus a mentor who instinctively wants a mentee to be just like me will find themselves with a huge disconnect. The mentees do not want to be just like them. So even if a mentor is available and willing the relationship may not be fruitful.

Fifth, the emergence of women in American business is a powerful change. Female headed households in the US have now become the majority. There are more women entrepreneurs in the past twenty years than men. The glass ceiling is beginning to be broken as more women assume the CEO role at major organizations yet the salary gap between women and men persists. President Obama included as a campaign point the salary gap still remained at $.77 for women to $1.00 for men. And in her book Lean In Sheryl Sandberg referenced the same gap of $.77 to $1.00 but noted it had improved from $.59 in 1970. Universities receive and accept more female applications than male for their MBA programs. However, as women enter the world of business they have fewer female mentoring options available to them and many still have to adopt a pioneering attitude and battle lingering umbrages.

Mentoring is a powerful tool with numerous applications outside of business. In education leading educators have found that a mentor is the best possible alternative to assisting an at risk student to remain in school and continue on towards graduation. The US Surgeon General has stated that a mentor can be a powerful ally in helping a smoker to finally quit the habit. However, without a significant mentor in business the task of mentoring your career falls to you. You must learn to mentor yourself.

Given the preceding it is important to note that no one knows you as well as you know you. You know your dreams. You know what you want in a job and career that will make you happy. You know the path you want your career to follow. And only you know the sacrifices you are willing to make to bring about that optimum career. If you understand this at the outset of your career you can achieve the success you desire.

In the Doris Kearns Goodwin book The Bully Pulpit which provides a great inside perspective of the relationship between former US presidents William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt a letter from Roosevelt to Taft indicates Roosevelt’s point of view on a decision Taft has to make about his career. Roosevelt wanted to appoint Taft to the Supreme Court and Taft was unsure whether to accept the position or continue in his political career. My Dear Will, Roosevelt wrote it is preeminently a matter in which no other man can take the responsibility of deciding for you what is right and best for you to do. Nobody could decide for me whether I should go to the war or stay as Assistant Secretary of the Navy… whether I should accept the Vice-Presidency, or try to continue as Governor [of NY]. In each defining situation he concluded in his letter the equation of the man himself must be the vital factor.

There are several tools that will help you achieve becoming your own mentor. First, approach your own mentoring with a positive attitude. Do not be discouraged you do not have a fine mentor and do not become discouraged if someone else appears to have a mentor. Remember, it may not be totally helpful for them. Be persistent in your personal mentoring program. It starts with knowing yourself, and we explore this in more detail in the chapter that follows.

Second, become an information gatherer. Talk to more senior members of your firm and solicit their input and advice on the variety of topics that you deem important. But treat them as consultants and not gurus. In their role as consultant you can evaluate their contribution to you but you do not have to follow it without careful thought. Consult with those you trust such as friends, co-workers, spouse or significant other but also keep them in a consultancy role. We will discuss the consultancy role in more detail in chapter VIII on RASCI.

Third, begin your own personal management handbook. Include as entries those observations you deem of value; advice or wisdom from others you want to retain; things you have read that can help you grow; and learning from your work that comes from meetings, projects, lunches, cocktail parties, or travel. You can learn both from those who do it properly as well as those who fail to do it up to par. Enter them in your handbook while they are fresh. For example, if you have a bad meeting dissect it immediately and determine what you can learn from it. Develop the discipline to react quickly to these instances as the entries you make will be more valuable in your handbook.

Last, begin to assess how you can apply the intelligence you’ve gained. Information is only half the battle. Knowing what to do with information or intelligence is a bigger challenge than gaining it. This will be an ongoing discipline refined by your experiences and growth. You can constantly update your handbook with these experiences.

What you begin to do for you via this personal mentoring process will be the best that you can do for you. This is a specialty that like fine wine will improve with age. And it will only improve you once you commence your personal handbook and continue to use it as you develop your career. Picasso once painted a portrait of a famous woman without her posing for it. I don’t look like that the woman complained. No, but you will said Picasso… and he was right.

CHAPTER II

Your Greatest Strength / Your Greatest Weakness

Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.

Janis Joplin

I didn’t belong as a kid, and that always bothered me. If only I’d known that one day my differentness would be an asset, then my life would have been much easier.

Bette Midler

W. Edwards Deming said in a speech: Failure to understand people is the devastation of western management. To better understand people you must first understand yourself. The task is more comprehensive than just observing yourself in a mirror. Instead, you should examine yourself via an x-ray and get totally inside yourself to comprehend what makes you the person you are today. This is a challenge that will require more than one effort and more than just your own input because often your broad assessment of yourself is not accurate. A 1997 survey conducted by US News and World Report magazine asked