October 7, 2025 • 20 mins
In this instructive episode, Deborah Heiser, Founder and CEO of The Mentor Project, shares strategies for effective mentorship in organizations. If you struggle with leadership development or succession planning, you won't want to miss it.
You will discover:
- Why mentorship fosters generativity for stage 5 legacy
- How to implement hierarchical mentoring for team growth
- What lateral mentoring enhances cross-functional collaboration
This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 5 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz
Dr. Deborah Heiser is an applied developmental psychologist, the CEO/Founder of The Mentor Project, and author of The Mentorship Edge. She is a TEDx speaker, a member of Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches, Thinkers 50 Radar List, an expert contributor to Psychology Today, and is also an Adjunct Professor.
Want to learn more about Daphne Dickopf's work at The Mentor Project? Check out her website at https://www.deborahheiser.com/ and get a copy of her book The Mentorship Edge: Creating Maximum Impact through Lateral and Hierarchical Mentoring on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Mentorship-Edge-Unlocking-Potential-Nurturing/dp/1394267118/ref=sr_1_1
You can also connect with her on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-heiser-phd/ or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/deborah_heisertmp/
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Scott Ritzheimer (00:00):
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again
to the start, scale and succeedpodcast, the only podcast that
grows with you through all sevenstages of your journey as a
founder and I'm your host, Scottritheimer, and today, we're
going to cover a topic on theshow that I actually can't
believe we've not coveredbefore. Some of you more eagle
eyed or eared viewers might beable to spot a time that we did,
(00:22):
but I was going back through mynotes and how notes and haven't
found one. And that shocked me,because this is something that I
use with my clients very, veryfrequently, particularly those
who want to develop theirleaders faster, up and down the
org chart, wherever it is andand what I tend to use this for
a lot is helping folks tothere's lots of language for
this, but deepen their in theirtribal knowledge or their
(00:44):
institutional knowledge, or toincrease the ability for teams
to work cross functionally andcommunicate better with each
other, or to just help thembuild an organization that's
going to be here for a while andthrive for decades. So what is
this thing? This magical elixir?There's nothing magical about
it. It's mentoring. And for allyou stage five CEOs out there,
(01:05):
this could be, I actually thinkit is one of the most important
strategic imperatives for yoursuccess, but you don't want to
hear me ramble on about it. Andin fact, we've got an amazing
guest with us here today is DrDeborah Heiser, who is an
applied developmentalpsychologist. She's the CEO and
founder of the mentor projectand author of the mentorship
(01:26):
edge. She's a TEDx speaker, amember of the Marshall Goldsmith
100 coaches, thinkers, 50 radarlist, and an expert contributor
to Psychology Today. She's alsoan adjunct professor, and she's
here with us today. Deborah,welcome to the show. So excited
to have you on. Been lookingforward to this conversation. I
really enjoyed the book, and myfirst question for you here, to
(01:49):
just kind of get us all on thesame page, is actually a why
question, what inspired you towrite the mentorship edge? Why'd
you do it?
Deborah Heiser (01:57):
Because I had been hearing so many people talk
about mentorship in a way thatwas inaccurate, and the term has
sort of been taken over so thatpeople think that it has to be
that you find a mentor. It'sreally been defined in a way
that's like a coach. So peopleshould be getting coaches right,
(02:18):
but they should be havingmultiple mentors, and so people
were really utilizing itincorrectly, implementing it
incorrectly in companies, andjust not utilizing in a way that
we're built to want to engagein, and that we do for free all
the time. We just don't realizeit.
Scott Ritzheimer (02:38):
There's something that jumped out to me
as I was reading through thebook, is the your take on going
and finding a mentor, and thiskind of imperative, this drive
that we have, why is finding amentor not the right approach
and what is the better way?
Deborah Heiser (02:55):
So when people think I have to go find a
mentor, they think that personis going to solve everything
they have. Because, you know, ifyou say I'm going to go get a
coach, there's a goal with that.I want that coach to do
something or other with me, sothat if I'm in a sport, it's
that I get better at the sport,that I can win the game. If
(03:15):
you're hiring a coach for work,it is a work goal. Mentors
aren't there just to get youthrough something at work. It's
an emotional relationship thatyou're having with that person.
So that's where we lose that ifyou have just one you're gonna
get help in one area. That's it.And maybe you want growth and
development that brings youacross multiple disciplines,
(03:38):
multiple areas in your company.Maybe it's inside and outside of
work. Maybe it is that you wantto have a whole lateral fleet of
people who have your back andwho you have their back. It
makes it so that you have a muchbigger, much more fruitful work
experience if you have multiplementors.
Scott Ritzheimer (03:57):
Yeah, and I want to talk about this idea of
mentoring through two differentlenses for our audience. The
first one is, you know, whoshould have a mentor and why
from a listener standpoint. Butthen I also want to look at, how
can we use a culture ofmentorship, or mentorship
programs inside our business toscale more effectively? So let's
start with the first one. Whatare the what are reasons why
(04:21):
someone should go out and startlooking for mentors, maybe some
of the symptoms that they mightfeel, or some of the best
reasons you've seen for findingmentors.
Deborah Heiser (04:30):
It's the very smallest. Most people think I
need to go find a mentor forsome big umbrella thing. It's
the small things. I need tofinish a project. I need to go
get mentorship and how I marketthat I need to, you know,
there's going to be somebodythat has that expertise. Maybe I
want to get a point across, ormake some kind of a statement or
(04:51):
advocate for something. I wouldwant to mentor for that. So pick
something small, and when you dothat, you start to build your
group of people. So. So whenwe're looking for mentors, we
shouldn't be looking for thatone big person. We should be
looking around and saying, Whatam I not good at? Now, for
myself, personally, I go out andI say, I'm not good at a lot of
stuff, like, I'm a terriblemarketer, horrible. I need
(05:13):
mentors in that I, you know,came out. I'm a psychologist,
right? Does that make me a greatbusiness person? No, I better go
get somebody who understandsoperations, I better get
somebody who can help me withleadership. I better get
somebody who can help me withall these different things. And
mentors are available for that,and if it's a very specific
thing, you're able to tap intosomebody's expertise and it
(05:35):
doesn't feel overwhelming tothem. They don't feel like
you're going to ask to be likein an arranged marriage with
them for the rest of your life,you can get your goals satisfied
and move on.
Scott Ritzheimer (05:44):
Yeah, I like that for so many different
reasons, but this idea ofstarting small, one is they
don't have to be. One of thethings that we think a lot about
mentors is that they have to bekind of further down the road
than me in everything that Iwant to be good at. And it's
like, how many people meet thatand how much time do they have
to spend, right? And it's like,plenty and plenty, but it's a
(06:07):
little more intimidating forboth parties. But I love this
idea of, like, starting small,and because there's, there's a
lot of people who are betterthan you at a lot of things, and
that's great, great advice,especially for starting out. So,
all right, we've, we've got anidea. There's something in the
back of everyone's mind, andwe've moved it to the front.
(06:31):
They're like, I want to get somehelp with this. The next
question was, like, what doesthat look like? You know, is it,
do I have to take them to a cupof coffee? Are we going to meet
for the next 72 months? Like,what does, what does the actual
process of mentorship look like?
Deborah Heiser (06:44):
I'll give you two examples, and they're both
people who did world changingwork so and they're both in the
book. So Irene yakbus Issomebody who worked for NASA.
She's the one that pressed theLaunch button on the mission to
Mercury. She is a super amazingengineer. She moved jobs and
went to IBM. Now she should, ineveryone's mind, have no problem
(07:09):
walking in the door, but she waspetrified, just like a sixth
grader walking into lunch at thecafeteria in a new school. So
she walked in and she was like,I don't know the lay of the
land. And there was somebodythere who a couple of days in
working there, that was giving atalk in front of a lot of the
employees at IBM, and she said,hey, if anybody needs a mentor,
(07:30):
I'm around. And so Irene calledme, and she said, Oh my gosh,
I'm too intimidated. I can'tcall her and I can't say I want
to mentor. I was like, why? Shejust said she wanted to mentor
people. Like, why wouldn't youdo that? And she said, I don't
know what to even ask her. And Isaid, Tell her you want to learn
the lay of the land. You'rebrand new here. So she emailed
her, and the woman that was suchan easy ask, can you tell me the
(07:52):
lay of the land? Yeah, andthat's as simple as, where's the
bathroom? What do people do hereat lunchtime? Tell me about the
culture. And they ended up beingmentor and mentee for about four
years, and now they're friends.So that small little thing then
led to opening the door for alarger question, another and
another that ended up helping.So that's one way that you can
(08:14):
do it. Start small. If you'renew somewhere, ask for the lay
of the land. That is easy forsomebody to say, I can check
that box. Yeah. And BillCheswick was the father of the
network firewall. So he was atBell Labs, and his boss said,
hey, I want you to accomplishthis ridiculous task of, you
know, creating a networkfirewall. Well, nobody can do
(08:37):
something like that bythemselves. So what he did was
he wheelied himself in hisoffice chair down the hall to
Steve bellovin, who was acompletely different department.
This was not gonna help Stevebellovin at all to help bill,
but he liked him. And he said,Sure, I'll teach you what I
know, and then let's see if thatcan get incorporated into what
you're doing. It led to creatingthe firewall so you do not have
(09:00):
to go to somebody above you,like Irene did. You could go to
somebody lateral to you, ask asmall question. Can you help me
figure this out? That person canthen say, Yeah, sure. And most
do. Most people say yes, if theydon't. So you go to somebody
else. But it's not likesomebody's gonna Can you believe
that person asked me for theirmy advice that never happens. So
(09:24):
that's really how it works, andthat's how you can do something
that's very small that turnsinto something very big.
Scott Ritzheimer (09:30):
That's awesome. All right, so starting
small, both in terms of what wewant help with, and the ask to
start there, is fantastic. Iwant to shift gears a little bit
to what this looks likeorganizationally, because
there's just a ton of content onthat in the book. And again,
highly recommend the book foranyone who's interested in this.
But what I wanted to thequestion that I had for you is
(09:53):
mentoring changes over time. Atleast I've seen you when you're
there at the ground level,there. Five people on your team,
like mentoring happens shoulderto shoulder. You might not
necessarily call it that, butit's happening. Yeah. And what
I've found is founders actuallydevelop a decent instinct at
that when they're shoulder toshoulder, but they lose that
(10:16):
when they make it to the CEOstage, because they're not there
shoulder to shoulder with Yes,right? Even their executive
team. They might be all over theplace at any given point in
time, and so in you can'tpossibly be shoulder to shoulder
with 500 employees. So what? Howdoes this change? What does
mentoring look like in ascalable framework for an
(10:37):
organization?
Deborah Heiser (10:39):
So there's a good example of how that can
look. It does work well in a lotof organizations, and it works
terribly in others. So someorganizations really do
understand the value ofmentorship. And people volunteer
to go in and say, I'd like tomentor. It's a way of
connecting. And ColgatePalmolive, their research
division, does it really well.So they have a women's network
(11:02):
that is just there for people toget together, and because it's
research, they were trying toempower women in a mostly male
dominated, you know, area, theyhave coaches. So they don't say,
Go get a coach and that will beyour mentor too, because coaches
aren't mentors. They're coaches.And then they they really
encourage people to get mentors,not just one. And the idea is
(11:26):
that it doesn't matter how highup you are. Imagine you're the
CEO and you're trying to sell awidget, and you want to and
you're a Gen Xer and you want tosell it to, you know, Gen Z, you
better understand that culture,and you're going to need to get
mentored by somebody who's Gen Zmost likely to understand that
so you can sell your widgets. Sopeople often don't think, Oh,
(11:48):
this is going to work. And JackWelch was the first person to
really say reverse mentoring issomething that's important. It's
really just hierarchicalmentoring in the opposite
direction. But that's happeningall the time, places and
organizations that realize thathierarchy is not in one
direction, that it's just apath, that that's all it is, is
(12:08):
one, that they will have peoplegoing in both directions. So
somebody at the top will beutilizing mentorship from
somebody you know at a lowerlevel. And it's not just to
learn tech, it's to learnculture, values and other things
that not don't just help to sellwidgets, but will help to
understand people coming intothe companies. Because, as
everybody knows, everygeneration, boomers will like,
(12:30):
oh, Gen X. They're the laziestgeneration. Gen X comes along
and they're like, oh,millennials are terrible. It's
because they don't understandthe culture or the values of the
other generations, and so goodcompanies will come in, and it
removes that issue that CEOsoften have, and it helps them to
be better leaders. Yeah,
Scott Ritzheimer (12:52):
I really like has so much to unpack in there,
but one of the things that Iliked was you gave a lot of the
directionality of possiblementoring relationships, and
you've referenced a couple ofthem here, so if you could just
kind of give us an introductionto that, what are some of the
different places inside of anorganization or relationships or
styles that you can look forwith mentors?
Deborah Heiser (13:14):
So I encourage everyone to look to their left
and look to their right. You'relooking at your next best mentor
or or mentee, someone that youcan mentor. And an example of
this, this is called lateralmentoring, and it's the most
impactful form of mentoring.Most of us think we just need to
be pulled up by somebody. No,here's the real way that it
(13:35):
works, really, really well. Somepeople do it intuitively,
without a problem, and othersstruggle with it, because they
think if I don't get somebodyabove me, I'll never move up.
Lateral is just a waste of mytime. But here's how it really
works. Anytime you're doing astartup, if you're an
entrepreneur, this is intuitiveto most people, yeah, and that
is that if I'm a softwareengineer, I better turn to my
(13:57):
left and look at a hardwareengineer. I'm not going to be
able to make anything withoutthat. That's Steve Jobs. Steve
Wozniak, if you look at, youknow, any of the big things that
have ever happened, that'swhere, you know, you see the
lateral mentorship withincompanies and organizations.
It's where you have a safety youfeel like you can be vulnerable
around somebody who doesn't haveyour promotion or your, you
(14:21):
know, reviews in front of them.So I might be able to easily say
to somebody, Gee, I don't knowwhat I'm doing with this. Can
you help me easy? This happensin law, medicine, corporate
areas, everything. An examplethat I had from a person who's a
judge, a federal judge, ifyou're a judge, you cannot say,
(14:44):
I don't know how to do the case.So what do you do? You can't go
up, and you're not going to godown to somebody else below you.
You have to turn left or rightto lateral mentoring. And
federal judges in Iowa started alunch program so that they could
turn you know, you can't go.Hey, Jim, I have no idea what
I'm doing, and I have this casecoming up. You can go at a lunch
(15:06):
though, and say, Hey Jim, youyou had a case like this. Can
you tell me how that worked?What did you do for that you
were able to express somethingthat doesn't make you look like
you're incompetent. And we cando that in any field medicine,
it happens all the time. Andcurbside consults, it happens in
Grand Rounds in corporations.That happens. And an example is
(15:28):
for LaTanya Kilpatrick, she wentto a conference, and she was
having a huge issue at Colgatewhere they couldn't solve a
problem in oral health. So shewent to a conference, and
happened to be chatting withsomebody who worked with dog
food. Well, she turned to thatperson later and said, I know
you're working in gut biomeswith dog food. Is there any
(15:50):
relation at all that could betranslated to human beings? Her
conversation, that lateralconversation, led to a
breakthrough in oral health thatthey were able to apply that
became something that changedher division. So these are the
most powerful and mostimpactful, and most people
overlook them, or they are doingit and they don't know it.
Scott Ritzheimer (16:11):
Wow, yeah, I love that. And there's just so
much opportunity for that insidean organization, outside an
organization. Yeah, it's reallycool. And for those, again, who
haven't had the opportunity toread Deborah's book, there's a
ton of examples and storiesthroughout the book. It's really
a wonderful read, Deborah.There's another question that I
have for you before I let yougo, and that is one that asked
(16:33):
all my guests, and it's, what isthe biggest secret that you wish
wasn't a secret at all? What'sthat one thing you wish
everybody watching or listeningtoday knew?
Deborah Heiser (16:42):
That everyone has a story and that it doesn't
matter. You can pass a personand think, Oh, they're dressed a
certain way, or they present ina certain way. There's a story
in there, and that story isprobably one that can be very
helpful to you. So just look forthe story in people. Don't pass
(17:02):
people by at a conference or atwork and think there's no way I
can help them, or they can'thelp me. Everyone has a story,
and it's usually beneficial tous.
Scott Ritzheimer (17:11):
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Deborah, where
can folks find a copy of yourbook? Where can they get more
information about the work thatyou do?
Deborah Heiser (17:18):
You can find the book anywhere you buy books.
It's available in all formats.So if you are an audio person,
it's available in audio book,Kindle and hard copy, literally
anywhere you buy books. And youcan find me at
mentorproject.org,deborahheiser.com, on LinkedIn,
Psychology Today. Just lookaround. You'll find me.
Scott Ritzheimer (17:40):
That's awesome again. The name of the book The
mentorship edge creating maximumimpact through lateral and
hierarchical mentoring.Fantastic read. And Deborah, I
appreciate you being on theshow. It was just a privilege
having you here today. And forthose of you watching and
listening, you know your timeand attention mean the world to
us. I hope you got as much outof this conversation as I know I
did, and I cannot wait to seeyou next time take care.
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again
to the start, scale and succeedpodcast, the only podcast that
grows with you through all sevenstages of your journey as a
founder and I'm your host, Scottritheimer, and today, we're
going to cover a topic on theshow that I actually can't
believe we've not coveredbefore. Some of you more eagle
eyed or eared viewers might beable to spot a time that we did,
(00:22):
but I was going back through mynotes and how notes and haven't
found one. And that shocked me,because this is something that I
use with my clients very, veryfrequently, particularly those
who want to develop theirleaders faster, up and down the
org chart, wherever it is andand what I tend to use this for
a lot is helping folks tothere's lots of language for
this, but deepen their in theirtribal knowledge or their
(00:44):
institutional knowledge, or toincrease the ability for teams
to work cross functionally andcommunicate better with each
other, or to just help thembuild an organization that's
going to be here for a while andthrive for decades. So what is
this thing? This magical elixir?There's nothing magical about
it. It's mentoring. And for allyou stage five CEOs out there,
(01:05):
this could be, I actually thinkit is one of the most important
strategic imperatives for yoursuccess, but you don't want to
hear me ramble on about it. Andin fact, we've got an amazing
guest with us here today is DrDeborah Heiser, who is an
applied developmentalpsychologist. She's the CEO and
founder of the mentor projectand author of the mentorship
(01:26):
edge. She's a TEDx speaker, amember of the Marshall Goldsmith
100 coaches, thinkers, 50 radarlist, and an expert contributor
to Psychology Today. She's alsoan adjunct professor, and she's
here with us today. Deborah,welcome to the show. So excited
to have you on. Been lookingforward to this conversation. I
really enjoyed the book, and myfirst question for you here, to
(01:49):
just kind of get us all on thesame page, is actually a why
question, what inspired you towrite the mentorship edge? Why'd
you do it?
Deborah Heiser (01:57):
Because I had been hearing so many people talk
about mentorship in a way thatwas inaccurate, and the term has
sort of been taken over so thatpeople think that it has to be
that you find a mentor. It'sreally been defined in a way
that's like a coach. So peopleshould be getting coaches right,
(02:18):
but they should be havingmultiple mentors, and so people
were really utilizing itincorrectly, implementing it
incorrectly in companies, andjust not utilizing in a way that
we're built to want to engagein, and that we do for free all
the time. We just don't realizeit.
Scott Ritzheimer (02:38):
There's something that jumped out to me
as I was reading through thebook, is the your take on going
and finding a mentor, and thiskind of imperative, this drive
that we have, why is finding amentor not the right approach
and what is the better way?
Deborah Heiser (02:55):
So when people think I have to go find a
mentor, they think that personis going to solve everything
they have. Because, you know, ifyou say I'm going to go get a
coach, there's a goal with that.I want that coach to do
something or other with me, sothat if I'm in a sport, it's
that I get better at the sport,that I can win the game. If
(03:15):
you're hiring a coach for work,it is a work goal. Mentors
aren't there just to get youthrough something at work. It's
an emotional relationship thatyou're having with that person.
So that's where we lose that ifyou have just one you're gonna
get help in one area. That's it.And maybe you want growth and
development that brings youacross multiple disciplines,
(03:38):
multiple areas in your company.Maybe it's inside and outside of
work. Maybe it is that you wantto have a whole lateral fleet of
people who have your back andwho you have their back. It
makes it so that you have a muchbigger, much more fruitful work
experience if you have multiplementors.
Scott Ritzheimer (03:57):
Yeah, and I want to talk about this idea of
mentoring through two differentlenses for our audience. The
first one is, you know, whoshould have a mentor and why
from a listener standpoint. Butthen I also want to look at, how
can we use a culture ofmentorship, or mentorship
programs inside our business toscale more effectively? So let's
start with the first one. Whatare the what are reasons why
(04:21):
someone should go out and startlooking for mentors, maybe some
of the symptoms that they mightfeel, or some of the best
reasons you've seen for findingmentors.
Deborah Heiser (04:30):
It's the very smallest. Most people think I
need to go find a mentor forsome big umbrella thing. It's
the small things. I need tofinish a project. I need to go
get mentorship and how I marketthat I need to, you know,
there's going to be somebodythat has that expertise. Maybe I
want to get a point across, ormake some kind of a statement or
(04:51):
advocate for something. I wouldwant to mentor for that. So pick
something small, and when you dothat, you start to build your
group of people. So. So whenwe're looking for mentors, we
shouldn't be looking for thatone big person. We should be
looking around and saying, Whatam I not good at? Now, for
myself, personally, I go out andI say, I'm not good at a lot of
stuff, like, I'm a terriblemarketer, horrible. I need
(05:13):
mentors in that I, you know,came out. I'm a psychologist,
right? Does that make me a greatbusiness person? No, I better go
get somebody who understandsoperations, I better get
somebody who can help me withleadership. I better get
somebody who can help me withall these different things. And
mentors are available for that,and if it's a very specific
thing, you're able to tap intosomebody's expertise and it
(05:35):
doesn't feel overwhelming tothem. They don't feel like
you're going to ask to be likein an arranged marriage with
them for the rest of your life,you can get your goals satisfied
and move on.
Scott Ritzheimer (05:44):
Yeah, I like that for so many different
reasons, but this idea ofstarting small, one is they
don't have to be. One of thethings that we think a lot about
mentors is that they have to bekind of further down the road
than me in everything that Iwant to be good at. And it's
like, how many people meet thatand how much time do they have
to spend, right? And it's like,plenty and plenty, but it's a
(06:07):
little more intimidating forboth parties. But I love this
idea of, like, starting small,and because there's, there's a
lot of people who are betterthan you at a lot of things, and
that's great, great advice,especially for starting out. So,
all right, we've, we've got anidea. There's something in the
back of everyone's mind, andwe've moved it to the front.
(06:31):
They're like, I want to get somehelp with this. The next
question was, like, what doesthat look like? You know, is it,
do I have to take them to a cupof coffee? Are we going to meet
for the next 72 months? Like,what does, what does the actual
process of mentorship look like?
Deborah Heiser (06:44):
I'll give you two examples, and they're both
people who did world changingwork so and they're both in the
book. So Irene yakbus Issomebody who worked for NASA.
She's the one that pressed theLaunch button on the mission to
Mercury. She is a super amazingengineer. She moved jobs and
went to IBM. Now she should, ineveryone's mind, have no problem
(07:09):
walking in the door, but she waspetrified, just like a sixth
grader walking into lunch at thecafeteria in a new school. So
she walked in and she was like,I don't know the lay of the
land. And there was somebodythere who a couple of days in
working there, that was giving atalk in front of a lot of the
employees at IBM, and she said,hey, if anybody needs a mentor,
(07:30):
I'm around. And so Irene calledme, and she said, Oh my gosh,
I'm too intimidated. I can'tcall her and I can't say I want
to mentor. I was like, why? Shejust said she wanted to mentor
people. Like, why wouldn't youdo that? And she said, I don't
know what to even ask her. And Isaid, Tell her you want to learn
the lay of the land. You'rebrand new here. So she emailed
her, and the woman that was suchan easy ask, can you tell me the
(07:52):
lay of the land? Yeah, andthat's as simple as, where's the
bathroom? What do people do hereat lunchtime? Tell me about the
culture. And they ended up beingmentor and mentee for about four
years, and now they're friends.So that small little thing then
led to opening the door for alarger question, another and
another that ended up helping.So that's one way that you can
(08:14):
do it. Start small. If you'renew somewhere, ask for the lay
of the land. That is easy forsomebody to say, I can check
that box. Yeah. And BillCheswick was the father of the
network firewall. So he was atBell Labs, and his boss said,
hey, I want you to accomplishthis ridiculous task of, you
know, creating a networkfirewall. Well, nobody can do
(08:37):
something like that bythemselves. So what he did was
he wheelied himself in hisoffice chair down the hall to
Steve bellovin, who was acompletely different department.
This was not gonna help Stevebellovin at all to help bill,
but he liked him. And he said,Sure, I'll teach you what I
know, and then let's see if thatcan get incorporated into what
you're doing. It led to creatingthe firewall so you do not have
(09:00):
to go to somebody above you,like Irene did. You could go to
somebody lateral to you, ask asmall question. Can you help me
figure this out? That person canthen say, Yeah, sure. And most
do. Most people say yes, if theydon't. So you go to somebody
else. But it's not likesomebody's gonna Can you believe
that person asked me for theirmy advice that never happens. So
(09:24):
that's really how it works, andthat's how you can do something
that's very small that turnsinto something very big.
Scott Ritzheimer (09:30):
That's awesome. All right, so starting
small, both in terms of what wewant help with, and the ask to
start there, is fantastic. Iwant to shift gears a little bit
to what this looks likeorganizationally, because
there's just a ton of content onthat in the book. And again,
highly recommend the book foranyone who's interested in this.
But what I wanted to thequestion that I had for you is
(09:53):
mentoring changes over time. Atleast I've seen you when you're
there at the ground level,there. Five people on your team,
like mentoring happens shoulderto shoulder. You might not
necessarily call it that, butit's happening. Yeah. And what
I've found is founders actuallydevelop a decent instinct at
that when they're shoulder toshoulder, but they lose that
(10:16):
when they make it to the CEOstage, because they're not there
shoulder to shoulder with Yes,right? Even their executive
team. They might be all over theplace at any given point in
time, and so in you can'tpossibly be shoulder to shoulder
with 500 employees. So what? Howdoes this change? What does
mentoring look like in ascalable framework for an
(10:37):
organization?
Deborah Heiser (10:39):
So there's a good example of how that can
look. It does work well in a lotof organizations, and it works
terribly in others. So someorganizations really do
understand the value ofmentorship. And people volunteer
to go in and say, I'd like tomentor. It's a way of
connecting. And ColgatePalmolive, their research
division, does it really well.So they have a women's network
(11:02):
that is just there for people toget together, and because it's
research, they were trying toempower women in a mostly male
dominated, you know, area, theyhave coaches. So they don't say,
Go get a coach and that will beyour mentor too, because coaches
aren't mentors. They're coaches.And then they they really
encourage people to get mentors,not just one. And the idea is
(11:26):
that it doesn't matter how highup you are. Imagine you're the
CEO and you're trying to sell awidget, and you want to and
you're a Gen Xer and you want tosell it to, you know, Gen Z, you
better understand that culture,and you're going to need to get
mentored by somebody who's Gen Zmost likely to understand that
so you can sell your widgets. Sopeople often don't think, Oh,
(11:48):
this is going to work. And JackWelch was the first person to
really say reverse mentoring issomething that's important. It's
really just hierarchicalmentoring in the opposite
direction. But that's happeningall the time, places and
organizations that realize thathierarchy is not in one
direction, that it's just apath, that that's all it is, is
(12:08):
one, that they will have peoplegoing in both directions. So
somebody at the top will beutilizing mentorship from
somebody you know at a lowerlevel. And it's not just to
learn tech, it's to learnculture, values and other things
that not don't just help to sellwidgets, but will help to
understand people coming intothe companies. Because, as
everybody knows, everygeneration, boomers will like,
(12:30):
oh, Gen X. They're the laziestgeneration. Gen X comes along
and they're like, oh,millennials are terrible. It's
because they don't understandthe culture or the values of the
other generations, and so goodcompanies will come in, and it
removes that issue that CEOsoften have, and it helps them to
be better leaders. Yeah,
Scott Ritzheimer (12:52):
I really like has so much to unpack in there,
but one of the things that Iliked was you gave a lot of the
directionality of possiblementoring relationships, and
you've referenced a couple ofthem here, so if you could just
kind of give us an introductionto that, what are some of the
different places inside of anorganization or relationships or
styles that you can look forwith mentors?
Deborah Heiser (13:14):
So I encourage everyone to look to their left
and look to their right. You'relooking at your next best mentor
or or mentee, someone that youcan mentor. And an example of
this, this is called lateralmentoring, and it's the most
impactful form of mentoring.Most of us think we just need to
be pulled up by somebody. No,here's the real way that it
(13:35):
works, really, really well. Somepeople do it intuitively,
without a problem, and othersstruggle with it, because they
think if I don't get somebodyabove me, I'll never move up.
Lateral is just a waste of mytime. But here's how it really
works. Anytime you're doing astartup, if you're an
entrepreneur, this is intuitiveto most people, yeah, and that
is that if I'm a softwareengineer, I better turn to my
(13:57):
left and look at a hardwareengineer. I'm not going to be
able to make anything withoutthat. That's Steve Jobs. Steve
Wozniak, if you look at, youknow, any of the big things that
have ever happened, that'swhere, you know, you see the
lateral mentorship withincompanies and organizations.
It's where you have a safety youfeel like you can be vulnerable
around somebody who doesn't haveyour promotion or your, you
(14:21):
know, reviews in front of them.So I might be able to easily say
to somebody, Gee, I don't knowwhat I'm doing with this. Can
you help me easy? This happensin law, medicine, corporate
areas, everything. An examplethat I had from a person who's a
judge, a federal judge, ifyou're a judge, you cannot say,
(14:44):
I don't know how to do the case.So what do you do? You can't go
up, and you're not going to godown to somebody else below you.
You have to turn left or rightto lateral mentoring. And
federal judges in Iowa started alunch program so that they could
turn you know, you can't go.Hey, Jim, I have no idea what
I'm doing, and I have this casecoming up. You can go at a lunch
(15:06):
though, and say, Hey Jim, youyou had a case like this. Can
you tell me how that worked?What did you do for that you
were able to express somethingthat doesn't make you look like
you're incompetent. And we cando that in any field medicine,
it happens all the time. Andcurbside consults, it happens in
Grand Rounds in corporations.That happens. And an example is
(15:28):
for LaTanya Kilpatrick, she wentto a conference, and she was
having a huge issue at Colgatewhere they couldn't solve a
problem in oral health. So shewent to a conference, and
happened to be chatting withsomebody who worked with dog
food. Well, she turned to thatperson later and said, I know
you're working in gut biomeswith dog food. Is there any
(15:50):
relation at all that could betranslated to human beings? Her
conversation, that lateralconversation, led to a
breakthrough in oral health thatthey were able to apply that
became something that changedher division. So these are the
most powerful and mostimpactful, and most people
overlook them, or they are doingit and they don't know it.
Scott Ritzheimer (16:11):
Wow, yeah, I love that. And there's just so
much opportunity for that insidean organization, outside an
organization. Yeah, it's reallycool. And for those, again, who
haven't had the opportunity toread Deborah's book, there's a
ton of examples and storiesthroughout the book. It's really
a wonderful read, Deborah.There's another question that I
have for you before I let yougo, and that is one that asked
(16:33):
all my guests, and it's, what isthe biggest secret that you wish
wasn't a secret at all? What'sthat one thing you wish
everybody watching or listeningtoday knew?
Deborah Heiser (16:42):
That everyone has a story and that it doesn't
matter. You can pass a personand think, Oh, they're dressed a
certain way, or they present ina certain way. There's a story
in there, and that story isprobably one that can be very
helpful to you. So just look forthe story in people. Don't pass
(17:02):
people by at a conference or atwork and think there's no way I
can help them, or they can'thelp me. Everyone has a story,
and it's usually beneficial tous.
Scott Ritzheimer (17:11):
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Deborah, where
can folks find a copy of yourbook? Where can they get more
information about the work thatyou do?
Deborah Heiser (17:18):
You can find the book anywhere you buy books.
It's available in all formats.So if you are an audio person,
it's available in audio book,Kindle and hard copy, literally
anywhere you buy books. And youcan find me at
mentorproject.org,deborahheiser.com, on LinkedIn,
Psychology Today. Just lookaround. You'll find me.
Scott Ritzheimer (17:40):
That's awesome again. The name of the book The
mentorship edge creating maximumimpact through lateral and
hierarchical mentoring.Fantastic read. And Deborah, I
appreciate you being on theshow. It was just a privilege
having you here today. And forthose of you watching and
listening, you know your timeand attention mean the world to
us. I hope you got as much outof this conversation as I know I
did, and I cannot wait to seeyou next time take care.
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