I recently joined a book club at my work, and the first book we’re reading is Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor: The New Way to Fast-Track Your Career by Sylvia Ann Hewlett. This book goes over how to find a sponsor and why you would want to. I’ve read about this subject before from this great StaffEng’s blog post, which I highly recommend giving a read.
Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor starts off going over what a sponsor is. In general a sponsor is someone higher up with some pull. A sponsor will believe in your ability and will help improve your career. Pushing you into greater roles and vouching for you to management. In return you, the protege, are supposed to get things done, and show that you are worth their time and investment. Unlike mentorship, sponsorship is a two way street.
According to the book the protege should have two key values; amazing performance, you can get things done and done well; and loyalty, both to your sponsor and to the greater organization. To find a sponsor you should be able to easily recite your accomplishments and make sure your work gets in front of people. The first step is getting people high up to know that you do good work. You will also need to differentiate yourself, so focus in on your strengths and any unique experiences you might have.
In general a sponsor should be at least two levels higher up; your boss’s boss, not your boss themselves. As your direct manager probably doesn’t have enough pull to help you move up. It’s also recommended to have multiple sponsors, that way if your sponsor leaves the company you will still have someone else. Specifically this book recommends a “2-1” strategy. One sponsor in your organization, one in a different organization in your company, and one outside your company all together. That way no matter what happens, one of them will be able to help you.
Once you find someone that you want your sponsor, don’t directly propose the subject. You need to impress them first. Volunteer for special projects or assignments, especially ones that are imported to your would be sponsor. Once they know you do good work, then eventually propose a quid-pro-quo; one where you help with a project and afterword they help you get the promotion you are looking for.
The overall idea of sponsorship seams like an amazing way to propel your career forward. Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor does a great job of explaining exactly how sponsorship works, and gives good tips on what to do to find a sponsor. However there is many things I do not like about this book.
With the exception of a couple academia examples, everything in this book focuses on executives and people management. All of the stories are people who were successfully sponsored and are now a VPs or C-suite. This makes me wonder if the examples, and the underlying data, are biased. This focus on executives leaves the question of how would this work for others; most people are not going to end up as a CEO, with or without sponsors, and some don’t event want to take their career that way.
The author is extremely fond of metaphors and idioms. Almost every paragraph has a comment about “touching the third rail”, “providing air cover”, or the like. These get tiresome quickly and read forced, like they had a quota to fill.
This book came out in 2013, and many of the examples given are from the 90s and early 00s. While reading I found it hard to see how some of this will work in todays world. With everyone being remote, you cannot just grab a cup of coffee or lunch with a potential sponsor. With the way the current tech job market is, it feels harder to find a sponsor, or even just a mentor.
For most people I recommend skipping Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor and instead read about sponsorship elsewhere. If you read some blogs instead and are still craving more, then maybe give this book a shot. Either way, the overall concept of sponsorship is great, and I certainly recommend trying to finding sponsors. It certainly can work wonders for people’s careers.