Mentors are guides on road to success
Job interview
Sometimes it takes help to figure out professional goals and how to reach them, say several successful Rhode Islanders.
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, June 18, 2006
BY ARTHUR KIMBALL-STANLEY
Journal Staff Writer
Getting to where you want to be as a professional takes hard work, ambition and ability. But the most difficult part could be knowing where you want to go and how to get there.
Charting such a course is not always something you can do for yourself. That's why many people turn to mentors.
For Constance A. Howes, president and CEO of Women & Infants Hospital in Providence, it was older, more experienced people who had enough faith in her to give her genuine challenges that allowed her to meet her potential. "When I look at how people advance," she said, "people need to have a base level of competency, but after that they need to be given a certain amount of developmental opportunity. They need to be put in high-risk situations and that is when they rise to the occasion."
Looking back on her experience, Howes remembered one of her first bosses, a lawyer named Ted Pliakas. In 1978, fresh out of law school, Howes began working at Tillinghast, Collins & Graham, a Providence law firm. Pliakas was a partner at the firm and one of her bosses.
"I remember one occasion when I gave him something I was working on and he told me to send it out to a client before he read it," she said. "He did it to make me use my own judgment."
Knowing that she had that kind of responsibility, Howes said, forced her to do a better job. It forced her to be a better lawyer.
"It's different in a law firm," she said. "You're so busy it's not very likely you will be able to seek people out. . . . But I liked business litigation and I wanted to do more of it. They recognized that interest and let me pursue it."
Later on, after she had become a partner at the firm, Thomas G. Parris, the former CEO of Women & Infants, became a strong influence on her progression. Howes was working as general counsel for the hospital, but Parris encouraged her to do more.
"He encouraged me to take responsibility outside my job description," she said. "He invited me to come to work in health-care administration. It was a real leap of faith giving me that opportunity."
Howes said she never looked to have these people seek her out. "I just tried to do the job as well as I could," she said. "If you just do what you say you will do and do what you're supposed to do, you will stand out and people will know they can rely on you."
MICHAEL McMAHON, former executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, said the important mentors in his life taught him how to buckle down and do great work and to keep from straying into questionable territory. As a young Wall Street investment banker during the 1970s, those lessons, he said, would turn out to be incredibly important.
As a trainee at J.P. Morgan, McMahon said, he was taught by Ellmore C. Patterson, the former chairman and CEO of the bank, how important it is to keep high ethical standards in business.
"He told us that when we did anything we should make sure it was not something we didn't want our mothers to read about in the right-hand column of the Wall Street Journal," McMahon said. "What he was talking about was protecting the reputation of the firm."
Later McMahon took a job as a vice president at Lehman Brothers. At the time the investment bank was coming under new ownership and McMahon said he worried about how wise the decision to move had been. He went to a former senior partner of the investment bank named William C. Morris to ask his advice.
"I remember his advice very well," he said. "He told me there are always going to be periods of turmoil, but those who keep their heads down and work hard and continue doing a good job will always come out ahead. . . . I've given that piece of advice more than 10 times myself. Keep your head down, work hard, and do better, and you'll get ahead."
McMahon said those whom he sought out to be his mentors were those whom he wanted to model himself after. "It's a question of shared values," he said.
Much of what he learned came from simple observation, McMahon said. "You have to be very careful not to waste people's time, but when you really need advice it doesn't hurt to seek it out."
"You have to do two things," he said. "You have to follow their advice, and once in awhile inform them of what you did and how they helped. It can't be a one-way street."
Both McMahon and Howes expressed a genuine gratitude at how their mentors went out of their way to help them. According to Robin Beauchamp, director of the career center at Roger Williams University, sometimes young people have to go out of their way to find the right kind of help.
"Mentors are so very important and can mean so many different things to different people," Beauchamp said. "Whether it's just an informational interview or something more long-term, many different people get different perspectives from building that kind of relationship."
She explained that if you want to find out about a certain kind of job or find out how people advanced during their careers, there is nothing wrong with taking the first step, contacting them.
"A lot really depends on how you know those people," Beauchamp said. "So you should always be out there meeting people. Go back to your college or university and find alums that are doing things you want to do. Don't be afraid to approach people and ask them what a day in their lives is like."
akstanle@projo.com / (401) 277-7485
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