Developmental Network: Why One Mentor Is Not Enough
A developmental network is the small group of people who take an active interest in your career and help it along.
It may include a mentor, a manager, a few peers, a former boss and someone outside your organization.
The idea comes from Monica Higgins and Kathy Kram.
They argued that mentoring at work is better understood as a network of several developers than as one relationship.
This guide covers:
- why one mentor is not enough
- how to map the people who already help you
- how to spot the gaps
- how to work on your network with your mentor
Why is one mentor not enough?
The help a career needs comes in several kinds.
No single person is placed to give all of them.
Kathy Kram’s earlier work on mentoring at work describes two broad kinds of help.
Career functions include coaching, exposure, challenging assignments and sponsorship.
Psychosocial functions include role modeling, acceptance, counseling and friendship.
Now think about who can realistically give each one.
A mentor in another department can coach you and listen without judging.
But they cannot give you a stretch assignment in your team.
Your manager can give you that assignment.
But your manager may be the last person you want to talk to about leaving.
A peer can tell you how a meeting really went.
A senior leader can mention your name in a discussion you will never attend.
A formal mentoring program typically pairs you with one person whom you meet at set intervals, often monthly.
That hour is valuable, and it is not enough on its own.
Expecting one mentor to cover everything puts pressure on the relationship.
It also leaves you short on the kinds of help they cannot give.
There is a second reason.
Higgins and Kram describe developmental networks along two dimensions:
- how diverse the network is, meaning how many different social worlds your developers come from
- how strong the ties are, meaning how close and frequent the contact is
A network of five people who all sit in your team and talk to each other gives you the same picture five times.
People from other teams, functions or organizations bring information you would not otherwise hear.
What kinds of help should a network cover?
A practical way to map your network is by what each person gives rather than by their title.
Five kinds of help cover most career situations:
- Information. How things actually work: how promotions are decided, what a role involves day to day, which team is about to grow.
- Feedback. Someone who sees your work closely and will tell you what they really think.
- Advocacy. Someone with influence who will speak for you, put your name forward or open a door. This is what is usually meant by a sponsor.
- Encouragement. Someone who reminds you what you are good at when a week goes badly.
- Introductions. Someone who connects you to people outside your usual circle.
Advocacy deserves a separate word.
Herminia Ibarra and colleagues wrote about this in Harvard Business Review.
They argued that high-potential women in their study were over-mentored and under-sponsored.
In their view, sponsorship is what drives promotion: a senior person actively using influence on someone’s behalf.
David Thomas wrote in Harvard Business Review about mentoring for minority professionals.
He reported that those who advanced furthest had strong networks of mentors and corporate sponsors.
A network full of advice and empty of advocacy is a common gap.
The guide on mentoring vs sponsorship explains the difference in more detail.
Introductions also deserve a note.
The sociologist Mark Granovetter found that weak ties, people you see only occasionally, bridge different social circles.
They carry information your close contacts do not have.
In his study, people who changed jobs often found them through contacts they saw only occasionally or rarely.
Your network does not need to be made only of close relationships.
How do you map your developmental network?
It takes about twenty minutes and a sheet of paper.
- List the people. Write down everyone who has helped your career in the past twelve months, even once. Include your manager, peers, former colleagues and people in other teams. Include people outside your organization, and your mentor.
- Note what each gives. Next to each name, write which of the five kinds of help they provide: information, feedback, advocacy, encouragement, introductions.
- Mark tie strength. Close (you talk at least monthly and they know your situation) or occasional.
- Mark where they sit. Same team, same organization, or outside.
- Hold it against your goal. Take the career goal you are working on. Ask: what help does this goal need that nobody on this list gives me?
The last step is the point of the exercise.
A network is not good or bad in general; it is good or bad for what you are trying to do.
Someone aiming for an internal move needs people who know the target team.
They also need someone with influence over the decision.
Someone deciding whether to change field needs people who work in that field.
Common patterns when people first draw the map:
- Everyone is in the same team. Lots of feedback, little new information.
- No advocacy. Plenty of people give advice; nobody with influence knows your work.
- Only close ties. Strong support, few new openings.
- Quiet ties. A former manager who used to help but you have not spoken to in two years.
What does this look like in practice?
Three illustrative situations, composites rather than real people, each with a different gap.
A software engineer, four years in, aiming for a move into product management.
Her map had seven names:
- her manager
- three engineers on her team
- a former team lead
- her mentor from the company program
- a university friend
All gave encouragement and feedback on engineering work.
Nobody gave information about product roles.
Nobody with influence in the product organization knew her.
She made two additions.
The first was a product manager she had worked with on one release, to ask what the role is really like.
The second was the product director, via her mentor’s introduction, for a twenty-minute conversation about what a transfer would require.
Her first step was a short message to the product manager with one specific question.
An operations analyst, two years into his first job, unsure what comes next.
His map had four names, all close ties, all in his team.
His gap was information about the rest of the organization: he did not know what other roles existed.
With his mentor he picked two people from teams his work fed into.
He asked each for a short conversation about what their team does with his reports.
One of those conversations turned into an invitation to a cross-team project.
It gave him a view of a function he had not considered.
A sales team lead, eight years in, passed over for a regional role.
Her map was large and full of strong ties, including two senior leaders who liked her.
But when she asked which of them had spoken for her in the promotion discussion, the honest answer was neither.
She had mentors and no sponsors.
She worked out her next step with her mentor: a direct conversation with one of the two leaders about the next opening.
She would say what she wanted and why she was ready, and ask whether they would be willing to support her case.
How do you fill the gaps without it feeling forced?
Start with one or two people, not twenty.
A specific request is easier to make and easier to answer than a general one.
- Ask a specific question. “Could I have twenty minutes to ask how your team decides who leads a new account?” That is easier to say yes to than “Can I pick your brain sometime?”
- Show what you did with the answer. Send a short note a few weeks later, saying what you tried and how it went. That is what turns one conversation into a relationship.
- Give something back. Share an article, an introduction, or what you learned in your own area.
- Revive quiet ties. Getting back in touch with a former manager is often easier than starting from zero. A short message with a specific reason is enough.
- Do not ask for sponsorship in the first conversation. Advocacy usually follows from someone having seen your work. Make your work visible to the people who could speak for you first.
How do you use this with your mentor?
Your mentor is one person in your network and can help you work on the rest of it.
Some ways to use your meetings:
- Bring the map. Draw it before a meeting and ask your mentor what they see. People outside your team often spot a gap you have stopped noticing.
- Ask about their own network. How did their developers help with their last move? Who did they wish they had had earlier?
- Ask for one introduction, not many. If your mentor offers to introduce you to someone, prepare the question you will ask that person. Tell your mentor afterwards how it went.
- Be clear about roles. Your mentor advises; they are not automatically your sponsor. If they are senior enough to speak for you, it is fair to ask whether they would be willing. It is also fair for them to say no.
- Plan the handover. Toward the end of a program, agree with your mentor who in your network will take over which kind of help. That person steps in when your meetings stop.
The guide on setting goals with your mentor helps you write the goal you will hold your map against.
How to prepare for a mentoring meeting covers bringing a question like this into a session.
If you are still looking for a mentor in the first place, start with how to find a mentor.
Sources
- Higgins, M.C., & Kram, K.E. (2001). Reconceptualizing mentoring at work: A developmental network perspective. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 264-288. doi:10.5465/amr.2001.4378023
- Kram, K.E. (1985). Mentoring at Work: Developmental Relationships in Organizational Life. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.
- Granovetter, M.S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360-1380. doi:10.1086/225469
- Ibarra, H., Carter, N.M., & Silva, C. (2010). Why men still get more promotions than women. Harvard Business Review, September 2010.
- Thomas, D.A. (2001). The truth about mentoring minorities: Race matters. Harvard Business Review, 79(4), 99-107.