A Love Letter to My Mentees
By: Vivian Lee
Tags: Careers, Mentorship, Mentoring

To my beloved mentees:

I hope I have helped you as much as you all have helped me. While mentors are expected to give advice and perspective, mentors also have the exceedingly delightful benefit of tacitly (or sometimes explicitly) receiving advice and perspective from their mentees. Now with my new job and this global pandemic, we have fewer opportunities for coffee chats in the Building 37 atrium and impromptu hallway meetings, so I wanted to make a “greatest hits” list of the best advice I have received and/or given. These have been carefully shaped over six years of interacting with some of the best people I know at Microsoft — mentors, mentees, colleagues, executives, etc. None of these are original and none of these are particularly complex. Consider this a cultural anthology of success that I have put together over time. Being a great mentor is a collaborative practice and I thank every single one of you for helping me become a better mentor, for adding clarity to my values, and making me so proud of y’all every single day.

Build your board of mentors

This is the easiest piece of advice I can give. I think a lot of folks envision having a single mentor who simultaneously serves as a guru, therapist, confidante, business coach, etc. That’s a lot to put on a single person. Instead, it is your job as a potential mentee to tap into the specific and special strengths of people you admire. Over time, you will eventually build a “board” of mentors and know exactly who to tap for specific topics/problems. Your board should consist of people with different perspectives, expertise, personalities, etc. so you have a complete picture of your growth and potential. In fact, you don’t have to officially label someone as a “mentor” for them to have a seat on your board. Some people want to have a clear established relationship while others may just be colleagues that you turn to for advice. Formal or not, you will benefit immensely from having this diverse steering committee give input on different aspects of your life. Here’s what my board looks like:

Manager Mentor — If you’re lucky, you’ll have a manager who also fills the role of a mentor with ease. After all, you’re likely interfacing with them regularly and are expected to report your successes, failures, and roadblocks to them. My manager mentors helped me navigate the tactical everyday of my job — how to show up with presence in an executive meeting, how to navigate the bureaucracy of a team, how to build specific skillsets that will set you up for future roles. If your manager is not immediately a great mentor, this is where you have the opportunity to manage up and ask pointedly for advice on things you would find helpful.

General Mentor — While most of the mentors on your board will have specific expertise, one of them should be a general, catch-all mentor. This is the person whose office you can pop into when you have a bad day so you can have a good cry, the person who will celebrate your wins with you, and the person who is just chock full of great advice all the time.

Therapist Mentor — This isn’t a mentor position that I was specifically looking to fill, but I had a colleagues who eventually became a mentor because he was so phenomenal at asking me tough, soul-searching questions. His infinite wisdom lies in his ability to ask the right questions so that he empowers me with self-discovery. He is who I go to with some of my bigger existential crises.

Peer/Work BFF Mentor — The traditional notion of a “mentor” dictates that the person is older and more experienced than you, but you can also gain immense insight from someone who is closer to your age. Just like you turn to your friends for advice, you’ll want this person on board to tell it to you like it is from someone who is more likely to immediately understand your position.

Vent Mentor — Also a mentor position I was not specifically looking to fill, but sometimes you just need to grab a snack, get some tea, close the office door, and have a good vent session. For me this required someone with infinite patience, great active listening skills, the right amount of sassy commentary, and the ability to create space.

Mom Mentor — This is the person who will tell it to you like it is and tell you to know your worth. For me this mentor came in the form of a fellow small Korean woman who I could rely on for a pep talk and bonding over Korean food.

Functional Mentor — Finally, you want someone who you can learn more technical/tangible skills from. I turn to my functional mentor for what I think might be “stupid” questions about all things marketing & advertising. Your functional mentor should be able to answer day-to-day questions about the actual work you do, catch you up on the latest and greatest within your discipline/industry, and share amazing examples of work that you can aspire towards.

Be generous with your time (within reason)

General rule of thumb: investing your time in others pays dividends. Especially at a company like Microsoft where everyone knows everyone, it pays to dedicate some of your time to helping others, meeting others, and connecting others. Obviously do not go overboard and overbook yourself, but with the time you do have be willing to lend a hand. Making myself available has led to others helping me in a million different ways. This is truly karma at work.

Trust in the goodness of others

On a related note, I truly believe that your career grows and thrives when you trust in the goodness and kindness of others. And when you believe that about other people you end up reflecting goodness back. Some may say this perspective is naïve, but I have constantly approached people with the assumption that they have some good in them and found that to be true. You’ll be surprised at the amount of wisdom and advice you receive for free when you approach networking and relationship building with this philosophy.

Every job is an opportunity

The most common theme across my mentees is that everyone is somehow looking to make a positive difference in this world, but a lot of us were thrown into the rat race of recruiting for jobs like tech, finance, and consulting and realized just a little too late that we were actually selling our souls. What I do want all of you to know is that being at Microsoft, no matter what your role is, is a privilege in and of itself. Think about all of the incredible resources you have at your disposal from big marketing budgets and great healthcare to a vast network and job stability. Things aren’t so bad…but how do you start pivoting towards opportunities that align closer to your goal of doing something good? The first step, and a key step, is to get the most out of the job you’re in. Even if your current job doesn’t seem directly related to what you eventually want to do, you’re likely building a skillset that will help you get there and will help you thrive in that dream job. Sometimes it’s technical — for example, through the various roles I’ve had I have built up a pretty impressive array of marketing tactics. Sometimes it’s more soft skill oriented — for example, one of the biggest skills I learned in my role is how to lead a campaign team comprised of people with different business priorities. I’m not telling you to be complacent in your jobs. In fact, I’m telling you to do the harder task of doubling down and squeezing all the juice of or your current while while simultaneously continuing your search for what’s next.

Be on that side project hustle

Another fantastic way to start moving towards what you’re actually passionate about is by shamelessly pursuing a side project. Just like a side hustle where you’re doing a gig outside of your immediate day job, doing a side project/passion project internally stretches you outside of the confines of your day-to-day job description. Passionate about D&I? Volunteer your time to join an employee resource group and find out how you can get involved. Want to learn a new skill? See if you can shadow someone you admire in a different organization. When I was working in advertising, I really admired some of the social good work that was being done on the brand team. After digging around a little bit and finding a champion on the brand team, I worked with my manager to carve out some time to help that team with a campaign I was passionate about. Like with most things in life, all you have to do is ask. The worst they can say is no and then you move onto looking for a different side project! The beauty of being at a company like Microsoft is that it’s kind of like college in a lot of ways — you have your classwork (your 9–5 job) but you also have a lot of amazing extracurricular activities to choose from.

Give back your skills, talents, passions

Now that we’ve talked about side projects inside your company, let’s talk about looking outside the office walls. With all of that great professional clout you are gaining from doing side projects and building your board of mentors, you are poised to help another organization out there thrive. I would encourage every single one of you to find a non-profit organization that you’re passionate about and see if they have any board openings or volunteer opportunities. This is an easy win-win — you’re able to continue building on your skills and expanding your network while also contributing your skills to an organization that needs them. More to come on this in a future piece, but for now I would recommend even a simple www.volunteermatch.org search to get things started.

Orient yourself by your values — keep your eye on the prize

And finally, the best piece of advice I can give — orient your career by your values. Trust me, I know how easy it is to get sucked into the daily drudgery of your job. And of course, knowing all of you, you want to do well in the current job you’re in. HOWEVER! That shouldn’t stop you from guiding yourself through your career journey with your eye on the prize. Whether you want to eventually land a job in social impact, switch industries, go to grad school, run for president, etc., do something for yourself regularly to remind yourself what your ultimate goals and values are. Talk to a mentor, journal, network inside and outside the company, find side projects…do what you have to do to stay true to your passions. No one else can dictate that for you so you owe it to yourself to look inward and figure out how to manifest those dreams into reality.

I’m sharing this with the hopes that you’ll find this helpful and also to keep myself accountable. It is an active journey to take some of these and put them into action. I should also note that while I find these generally helpful, they’re certainly not one size fits all so if you ever find yourself needing to delve into these philosophies further, know that I am here for you to help you in whatever way I can. I love all of you and miss you dearly.

Love,

Vivian