A few weeks ago, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, was asked whether it's time for her to start grooming her successor. It's said she sidestepped the question. It was insinuated that she was a bit offended by the question. However, those should not have been the emotions this savvy woman leader would experience. She would be well aware of the different phases we move through in Life and appreciated that the questions were quite legitimate.

We go through five phases in our work lives. We would do well to acknowledge them and modify our behavior to embrace the benefits that can accrue from them. They are:

1. Newcomer and Learner
2. Worker who reinforces what's been learned while developing refinements
3. Which then leads to becoming an Expert in a certain discipline (or more than one)
4. Then the responsibility arises to become a Trainer and/or Mentor who grooms the next generation of workers
5. While then moving into the role of Adviser who does more in terms of being an Administrator and Strategist.

These phases aren't single-instance lifetime occurrences. They are cyclical by virtue of the fact that we go through the need to meet new challenges to learn new disciplines as technological improvements occur and as social customs and ethics evolve. So there will be times when the young will teach the mature because the former has had time to quite literally play with new modes and assimilate the knowledge and skill to exploit them.

We begin our careers as neophytes who either have no experience nor exposure to the work world aside from the training gained in school or brief glimses of the work world gained at the dinner table conversations as our parents discuss what happened there. Once in the work world, the challenges begin on a slow and low level with patient explanations about the new task after the first is mastered. After a time, familiarity with the environment, protocols, and equipment allow for a faster pace. And there are greater challenges that are still to be met on the way to the crest of the career hill.

Sometimes the pace can be quickened (and is) with the assistance of a mentor. Isn't it interesting that mentors also need a bit of coaching if it's either their first time or they've been away from doing development for a time? Those individuals go through a period of self discovery when they ask (very important thing to do) their protege to do something that the mentor considers as easy as falling off a log. It's taken for granted that the knowledge of how to execute the task is as common as dandelion seeds. But it isn't. A little discussion of the steps for execution needs to happen. And once that discussion is started and the steps begin to be outlined, the mentor begins to gain an appreciation of how much growth they've made in their own careers as to where they were when a neophyte and where they are at the present time.

It's important to realize that skills and fluency in a particular specialty took time to develop. Whether via university studies or on-the-job training, there was a progression in the development of all the skills the mentor currently possesses. They were nurtured as part of the classroom lectures and discussions as well as while their career was unfolding. The intelligence to face one situation after another calamity or crisis was developed while standing in the fire of the situation and working through it (with the errors that come with the new ground) or with their own mentor guiding them through some of the more rugged areas and then shoving them forward to make them stand on their own two feet and feel the confidence.

Chances are many of you are wearing the shoes of being a mentor and feeling frustrated that your intern just doesn't seem to understand what they're being told to do. Step back and remember those days when you listened to the lecture in Advanced Management. Remember the one about providing an explanation about how to go about doing something? Remember the guidance your own mentor (or manager) provided and how grateful you were for the coaching that came before setting you loose on that project. Remember those times when you struck out on your own without any preliminary discussion and sent that phase of the project over budget because you were overzealous and were completely oblivious about things such as budget.

Once you get through laughing at those memories of newbie-hood (is that a word?) and had a backslapping drink with your colleagues, share parts of the story with your HR manager in training. Better yet, just tell them you completely understand their motivation and quickly segue into talking about a better way to handle some of it as you smile through the discussion.

Do you think Nancy will do as well with the person she starts grooming as the next woman House Majority Leader?

Additional Reading:

* Managing the Manager, Part 1
* Managing the Manager, Part 2
* Managing the Manager, Part 3