Thanks, Achille. So glad you found it valuable and great question.
I would recommend telling your manager you have a mentor if its a mentor at work. In this case, I was a mentor outside of their work when I was working at my previous company.
As the mentor, I made sure that any direction we were moving was always in alignment with the manager's expectations. In this case, we didn't need to adjust the growth plan because I think my mentee already had a good sense of the manager's expectations, but if the manager was to change that, then we would change on our end.
For example, there was one recommendation I had for how to structure bullets in the brag doc he showed to his manager. I was pushing for more conciseness and less nitty gritty detail. But after showing it, his manager said he WANTED the detail, which I thought was a bit uncommon, but it's more important to adjust to the manager than fight it in that case. If they want detail, just give it to them
Thank you Jordan for this article
It gives a good framework for career growth and I will try this.
Do you recommend telling your manager that you have a mentor?
What if the manager prefer a growth plan that doesn’t go in the same direction as the one you created with your mentee.
For example, the manager might want you to grow your technical skills in a domain for the team’s needs, but you are already working on another skill.
Thanks, Achille. So glad you found it valuable and great question.
I would recommend telling your manager you have a mentor if its a mentor at work. In this case, I was a mentor outside of their work when I was working at my previous company.
As the mentor, I made sure that any direction we were moving was always in alignment with the manager's expectations. In this case, we didn't need to adjust the growth plan because I think my mentee already had a good sense of the manager's expectations, but if the manager was to change that, then we would change on our end.
For example, there was one recommendation I had for how to structure bullets in the brag doc he showed to his manager. I was pushing for more conciseness and less nitty gritty detail. But after showing it, his manager said he WANTED the detail, which I thought was a bit uncommon, but it's more important to adjust to the manager than fight it in that case. If they want detail, just give it to them
Thank you Jordan for the reply.
So it is more important to align with your manager than following the initial plan.
Exactly!