Making Mentorship a Mutually Beneficial Experience

CSN: Carly, how would you say being mentored has benefited you in your career?

LaBeau: It's benefited me greatly. I have direct access to somebody like Bob [who] also started at the store, so he's literally been in my shoes before. That's been very nice. He helps me enhance my skills, whether that's my daily work or how I now supervise. That's been very beneficial because he's done it all. 

He helps me set my career goals, paints the picture for me even if I wasn't ready for it or I didn't think that I was ready, and makes sure that I'm realistic with everything. Also, I think a really key part is the fact that I have a motivator. When you have somebody who is motivating you, it helps you to do better as well because if somebody sees that good in you, then show the world.

CSN: Bob, how would you say that being a mentor has enriched your career?

Carnicom: In my time here at Beck, I was here in the early 90s and then I left for a position at Wawa … [where] it was kind of instilled in us as managers to make sure that you grew your people because they needed folks on the bench. And so, it was second nature to hire somebody with talent and foster that talent and get them to the next level because it turned into not only a good feeling on my part, but kind of a feather in your cap sort of thing. So, when I came back to Beck and saw Carly and her potential, it just kind of settled in on what I needed to do for her.

How that's benefited me is it just shows that you can grow people, you can invest in people, you can get things off your plate … that delegates authority. If not, you're doing everything by yourself. Just today, [Carly] took on something that I've been doing for the last five years that I, as CFO, really shouldn't be doing. That's how it benefits my career. I get probably an hour, maybe two hours [back], at a critical time of the month. So, it's benefited my career to have her help me and be able to do things at a much higher level. And that doesn't happen unless you take the time to invest in your people, teach them and grow them, or else you'll be doing everything yourself. And that's not the way to grow an organization.

CSN: Bob, based on your experience as a mentor, what would you say are some of the most important dos and don'ts when mentoring others?

Carnicom: Let's start with the dos first because I think the dos are the hardest to do. For me, it was making time. Obviously as CFO, I’m busy and Carly was on the other side of the building, which meant that if I wanted to talk to her in-person, I had to get up out of my chair, walk over there and pull her away from her job and have a conversation. And [so], the hardest thing was to invest the time. She made it easy because she just gets everything done and then there's always extra time before we need to move on to the next thing and that opens the door. But I think the [other] dos are to foster people, feed their energy and feed their enthusiasm. 

And the don'ts are don't criticize. I think one of the worst things that I might have done in the past is, maybe not come down too hard on Carly, but maybe put a damper on her enthusiasm by saying something that I didn't need to say or didn't even want to say, so it might have been kind of corrective coaching. But let that stuff go. I mean, if someone's doing so well, just keep feeding that and you can get past the little nuances of, well, that's not how I would do it if I were in her shoes. Get over that because you're not in her shoes. She's in her shoes, and you have an end goal for both of you in your careers. Just bring that along.

CSN: That’s fantastic advice. Carly, from the seat of the mentee, what would say are the most important dos and don'ts for the person that's being mentored?

LaBeau: I'm going to go ahead and start with the don'ts. Don't expect all the answers. I mean, the person is there to guide you, but if they're just giving you all the answers, you're not going to learn on your own and you need to go through the experiences mostly on your own to fully learn. I think another big thing is don't be defensive. Like Bob was saying with the criticism, take it as constructive criticism. You know they have walked in your shoes even though they're not you; they've made mistakes in their career and watched other people either make those mistakes or succeed. So, try not to be defensive. They're just trying to help you get your stuff done easier. 

I think an important do is you have to be proactive. ... Bob comes to me and he's like, 'Hey, here's this opportunity,' or 'Maybe this should be your goal.' But you also have to be proactive yourself and really work on those things. Think about what you want for your future. You have to show appreciation. I think that's really big because like Bob said, these things are time consuming and depending on what position your mentor is in, that extra time is really valuable for both them and you, so show appreciation. That will get you pretty far. 

I think you have to be open. Just like being proactive, be open to their ideas. It might not be something you ever thought of, but there's a reason they're bringing it to you. There's a reason why they think you would be a good fit for it. So, take everything that they say and truly think about it because it could be a really great opportunity for you.

CSN: Carly, what advice would give to someone who's interested in finding a mentor, but their company doesn't have a formal mentorship program? 

LaBeau: I think you have to first define what your goals are. That's going to make it so much easier because if you know what your goals are, you kind of have that path of who you should start talking to. I think it should always start as a genuine relationship. You kind of have to know somebody to know if it's going to mesh well. So, just building that relationship from the beginning is going to really help. I think we have to remember that you don't just have to have one mentor. You know, Bob is very good at all things, but if he wasn’t, I could just come to him for the accounting side and have somebody else for the people portion of it. You can take on different mentors. So, just keep an open mind and know that there's multiple people out there for you.

CSN: Bob, what advice would you give to someone who's interested in being a mentor? 

Carnicom: If you want to be a mentor, you have to put yourself out there and just kind of start looking to see who might be a good fit, and it's not everybody. ... So, it might not be your first try. Like Carly said, it is about a relationship. So, you do have to understand the person at their level and what they're going through and kind of walk in their shoes if you haven't, and then try to put that into a way of fostering growth and enthusiasm, and determine what it is they want of their career and life, too. ... Finding out what they’re looking for and if there's a need and you can fill that need and you have the ability to grow people through the different levels of the organization, then yes, you should do that.

An on-demand replay of the "Unlock the Power of Mentorship" webinar is available here.