Finding the Right Mentor is one of the essential task in office politics surviving.most will tell you need to find Him, but non will tell you where to look.its a trial and error process. but even after you identified the mentor-the question is whether he wants to be?is he aware of it?should he be aware that you decided he is the person?
First, you need to understand that the mentors are office survivors just like you.meaning its very rare to find them. they will try to hide and give an impression that they are not that kind, up to point where they feel secured in there job. The mentor usually wont be your direct supervisor/boss.Its very hard to be in such relationship with them.It must be someone who does have some authority on you –not on daily basis but rather for short specific times where you are assigned to one of his projects.
Second, you need to understand that you assign him as your mentor. first it will be only you know about it,but as time goes on, you will start share with him some secrets(mostly stuff you hear from other departments he is not involve) and you start filling him with this information Giving away irrelevent information to a mentor is tricky but most people like to gossip and for the office survivor-the master in office politics its food to the brain.
Another good way to detect a mentor is to get hurt by one. it takes one nasty email behind your back– yes a backstabber to find out he did it to you. now, if you do some sense you will realize if you had it comming or not, and sometimes it does not matter. you may want to stick to this guy becuase he just gave you hard good lesson on how to be an office survivor.
Now, one way to learn from a mentor is to become a “copy” of him. if he has Beard, start growing your own.if he reapeat some “mantras” or has some keyword, start spreading them also. the more you copy him, the better you learn. dont forget to share with him stuff also, and from time to time, ask him directions, tips, requests, thing he can help you.
you will be suprise that the more you share , the more you can ask, the more he will give Dont ever betray him.at least for 2 years while working togheter.you can however help him to “stab” and attack your direct supervisor-of course you will need to plan this together, but the point you just help him submitting poison arrows against you direct manager, help’s you to tight your relations with your mentor.
some say thay “suck” him up-good.let them say.you still need to survive. For conclude this post, remember that for office survival-become a master if office politics, you need to learn from the best– and here we helped you first finding him.
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I have noticed the article speaks about personal mentor , but as far as i know there are 2 types of mentors :
first type , which the article speaks about a mentor that will help you to get more goals and to progress in the office using the different politics and office survival tactics.
second type , is the mentor that your supervisor assigned to you (as a new employee) in order to show you the way of work in the office — this mentor is usually a temporal and for very short period of time