Building Mentor Relationships

by Dan Portillo

Last week, Greylock Partners hosted our first ever Product Mentorship event which paired 45 senior product managers with 45 junior product managers where they could discuss the challenges, problems, and questions they face in their roles as Product Managers.

We kicked off the evening with a great talk by David Hahn, former VP of Product at Linkedin, who shared how mentors influenced him throughout the various stages of his career and how he thinks about helping the people he mentors. I wanted to share a some of what David discussed, along with some of my thoughts on the points he made.

Take the longview.

Mentor/mentee relationships should not be transactional. You should focus on building long-term relationships based on trust and respect. Pick mentors who are non-judgemental, honest and respectful. You should be able to ask your mentor any question — no matter how naive or inexperienced the question may sound — and receive a thoughtful answer.

Your mentors can only help you think through large problems when they have the appropriate context about you: your values, your experiences, and your aspirations. This requires relationship building over a long period of time — not just a quick coffee every other year.

For example, one of David Hahn’s long standing mentors is Keith Rabois. Keith and David have met regularly over 10 years, enabling David to get high quality advice that comes from deep context and trust.

Mentors like this can help you work through tough questions like, “What do I want to do next?”, “What should I focus on next in my career?”, “What is the trajectory of my current position?” These questions are almost impossible to answer without strong mentors.

Create a portfolio.

In the best scenarios, you will have more than one mentor help you throughout your career. David talked about creating a “Portfolio of Mentors” which include people both inside and outside your company, as well as people with careers you admire, and domain experts in areas where you need help.

The key reason to have a portfolio of mentors is to get a diversity of opinions and feedback about the specific problems and issues you may face. A portfolio of mentors allows you to tap into people who are strong in particular areas, gather a few data points, and then form your own opinion.

For example, if you are going through a potential career change, you would get very different advice from a CEO of a public company versus an entrepreneurial investor. Understanding the biases of your mentors will ensure you reach out to the right mentors for the right challenges.

Pick mentors who have already walked the path you are on. If you are thinking about joining a larger tech company as a PM, it would be best to talk with a mentor who took a similar path.

Start on the right foot.

One of the mistakes most people make during the first meeting with a new mentor is they come with a huge list of questions and just start asking away. The problem with this is the mentor doesn’t have any context about you, your career, your aspirations or your background. It’s very difficult to make an informed opinion without that context.

The most important thing to do during that first meeting is to focus on simply getting to know each other. You can share your aspirations, the story of how you got to where you are today, and ask questions to learn more about your mentor. The goal of the first meeting should be to establish initial trust and rapport.

The first meeting should be face to face, not over the phone or by email. It’s easiest to build trust and a relationship with people when you get to meet them and get to know them.

Understand the value to the mentor.

The main value a mentor gets from these relationships is they get to feel like they are making an impact and difference in your career. There is a big difference between just nodding and saying yes versus taking your mentor’s feedback and making decisions based on their input.

If you don’t agree with something your mentor has suggested, then you should say so. These healthy debates can lead to better decision making for you and a deeper connection between you and your mentor over the long term. If your mentor isn’t making any measurable difference in your career, then the mentorship relationship won’t be satisfying for either party.

Make your own decisions.

Don’t use mentors as a way to defer decision making. Great mentors should ask many more questions than they answer. As a mentee, use mentors to ensure you’re asking the right questions and thinking about things in the right way. Mentors are an invaluable part of development, but ultimately you have to own your decisions.