Todd Hudson: A couple of weeks ago, I had an opportunity to speak with Steve Trautman about the role new hires should play in learning what they need to know and how to find good mentors to help them.  Steve is a mentoring expert, who created the Peer Mentoring process and wrote the book ‘Teach What You Know.' Let's hear what he had to say.

Todd Hudson: In the work force today when new hires, especially recent college grads, are coming into a company, they've gone through the interview process, they've been promised the world and told about how great the company is, what is it that new hires can expect in companies today, particularly from a point of view of learning what they need to learn to do their jobs well?

Steve Trautman:  What's interesting is that I don't think that any new hire can expect to have the same experience as their counterpart down the road.  It's going to be a little bit different in every situation and so, what I like to say is, the only thing you can really control is your role in your own on-boarding.

My strong advice to anybody who's a new employee going in is to take a tremendous amount of responsibility for getting yourself up to speed. Look to develop a plan for getting yourself up to speed.

When I think about that, there are some questions you ought to be able to answer that will help you to get going and build the skills you need to make yourself useful as quickly as possible. One is to be very clear about who your customer is. For every job you have, you're going to have internal customers for sure, often external customers as well.  There are people who use the services of your department or your team inside the company and sometimes paying customers from the outside. You want to be able to articulate who they are. How many different kinds of customers do you have? And which one is more important than another? Be very, very clear on that as soon as possible.

And I recommend going about this very simply by asking “Who's our customer?” because that's a way for you to set the priority for the work that you're going to do. 

Second question I would ask is “What's our measure of success?  How do we know that we are doing a good job? How can we make sure that the company is glad they're paying our salary?” I also like to know “What are the services we provide?” That's a question you can ask to get clear about what we do in our team and what we don't do in our team.

You can also ask a priority question as well, for example “Which service is more important than another?” That will help you to shape some of your understanding of what I think of as the ‘Big Picture.'

By taking responsibility for gathering that information, you're better able to set a priority, make decisions, find your place and be useful as soon as possible.

Todd Hudson:  I'm thinking that some people listening to this will be thinking to themselves “Isn't this my boss's job? Shouldn't my boss be filling me in on the customers, the responsibilities and measures of success?”

Steve Trautman:  In a perfect world it's absolutely true that your manager would sit you down on your first day or two on the job, and would talk you through the Big Picture in a very clear way. In my book, "Teach What You Know: A Practical Leaders Guide to Knowledge Transfer” I strongly suggest that when you're the boss, you sit your people down and then walk them through this. But most of us don't live in a perfect world. Most of us won't be reporting to an A+ boss; most of us will be working for somebody who's a B or B- boss. And I don't say that to be too critical, I think that's just the real world. So that's why I say take the responsibility for driving them yourself. You'll never be sorry you did. And you'll be sure to get the information even if your boss isn't completely on top of it.

Todd Hudson:  So, when you're talking about asking people about who the customers are and what our measures of success are, if your boss isn't around, let's say, your boss isn't co-located with you, who else should you ask to get that information?

Steve Trautman:  One of the things you have to do when you start off in any organization is build your Rolodex (term meaning ‘list of people' named after a pre-computer product that held  and made searching for business cards easy). You have to get a sense of who are going to be the players in your department, in your immediate team, and then perhaps in a larger team as well, for example other departments you collaborate with.  So, what I recommend is in the early stage of the job you ask your manager and your immediate co-workers what to expect.

You can ask a question like “Who can I expect to be my mentor in helping me get up to speed?”  You can ask for specific kinds of mentors like “Is there somebody who could help me with some of the technology that we use or any of the tools that we use?” or “Is there somebody who will teach me the individual skills I need to do individual tasks that I have?”  I recommend trying to be as explicit as you can about knowing who your “Go To” people are, and as opposed to just hoping for the best. 

I'll give you an example. At a client, I was interviewing people who are new on the job and asking them “How do you learn what you need to know?” and one guy said “I just do what I have to do. You know, I get out of my cube and I turn right and I knock on cubes until somebody answers my question.” Even though that sounds like a practical way to take care of yourself, it also means that he was getting his answers from the person who was closest and willing to answer his question, as opposed to the person who is the best able to answer his question. So, when you think about the kinds of information you're going after, specifically seek out the mentors who are your best option for getting those answers. You have a better shot at getting the right answer as opposed to the nearest answer.

Todd Hudson:  In the workshop you teach on mentoring, you talk about what makes a good mentor. And you just brought up the first point, which is you want people that are competent. There's a second point you make about finding people who are desirous and willing to help. Could you talk about that a little bit?

Steve Trautman:  Yeah, lot of people ask me the question about who's in a position to be a good peer mentor and to transfer knowledge well. The answer is ‘Not everybody' that's for sure.

A lot of people assume that their mentor should be the person who's the most pleasant or most available or friendly. Even though that might seem straight up and down, it's not how I see it.

I like to recommend that your mentor have two characteristics. One, as you mentioned, is they're the person that you want to replicate. They're the person who's recognized by my manager and the key players on my team as the one most capable at a particular task.

The second is that they're willing. You can think about it this way... “What's in it for them? What's the benefit to my co-workers of teaching me how to do this job?”  This will also help you to be more confident in some instances in terms of going and getting information.

For example, if you were my mentor and I learned from you, then I could take on some of the work that's on your plate; which would be good for you. Or maybe it's just that if you do a good job of teaching me, then I'll ask fewer questions. Or I'll ask the question one time instead of coming back over and over again. Or maybe one of the reasons why it's good for you to be my mentor is because then I'll do this task your way, as opposed to coming up with my own way of doing it. Or maybe learning from somebody else who does it in a way that you don't think that highly of.

I encourage new hires to think of themselves as apprentices in a way that actually benefits their mentors. You're not just pesky, you know, demanding a lot of attention. You're actually getting yourself up to speed quickly so that you can carry your share of the load in the team and do the work in a way that's going to reduce the stress load for your entire organization.

Todd Hudson:  Do you find that people that are mentors are honest and straight forward about what those benefits will be to them?  Or do you have to pull it out of them in a sneaky kind of way?

Steve Trautman:  I don't know if it's an honesty issue as much as it is may be they're just not aware. When I talk to mentors and ask “Can you help this guy get up to speed up?”  they might push back initially and say “I'm too busy.” or “I don't have time.” or “I'm not sure I want to.” But if I help them think about it a little bit, help them answer that question about what's in it for them, they usually come around pretty quickly. So, sometimes apprentices have to point that out to make it easier for the whole relationship to work.

Todd Hudson:  That was Steve Trautman talking about redefining the new hires role in getting up to speed.  You can hear other conversations with Steve on our website, for example, succeeding in the multigenerational work force and strategies that you can employ to make learning from your peers and colleagues fun and effective.

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