Sponsorship - Part 3
This is post 3 of my three-part series on Sponsorship. If you haven’t yet read part 1 and part 2, definitely check those out in sequence before coming back here.
In this post I’ll answer some common questions I’ve been asked about sponsorship.
Q: I’m not a manager. Is this topic still relevant to me?
Yes absolutely!
Even if you are an individual contributor, you will definitely want to understand how sponsorship works so you can receive it. Everyone needs a sponsor to grow in their career and you don’t want to leave this to chance. Knowing more about sponsorship will help you craft your career journey better by seeking and keeping sponsors.
Individual contributors can also give sponsorship. Especially if you are senior engineer or higher level, you will probably be asked for peer reviews of work others have done. You may even have a more in-depth and nuanced view of junior engineers work than their managers. You can give your sponsorship to them by giving strong peer reviews with details of next-level attributes you’ve seen if you believe they should be recognized for their work.
Q: I’m interested in finding a sponsor. How do I get one?
Carla Harris talks about a few ways to find a sponsor in her talk. The first is by generating “performance currency” that comes from showing strong job-related performance. The second is through “relationship currency” that comes from the network and connections you cultivate. I’ll add a third currency - “character currency”. This is generated whenever you show your character by helping others including giving sponsorship. Even though these acts will usually be for/with/to those who won’t be in those closed rooms pounding tables for you, over time they are noticed and you build a reputation that will attract sponsors, same as performance currency and relationship currency do.
Q: How do I find out if my potential sponsor “has some juice” like Carla mentions?
This is another place where “character currency” can help. Knowing more about your potential sponsor from their other sponsees/mentees and even their current/former teammates can tell you a lot. Also watching and seeing how often do they get bigger responsibilities, promotions and other similar next-level opportunities is another good indicator of their credibility and power.
Q: I really want a sponsor who can get me {a higher performance rating / a bigger paycheck / a promotion}. Your posts only talk about small sponsorships. How do I get a big sponsor for what really matters?
Think about a sponsor as an investor and of yourself as a business. You can’t jump to the “Series E” fund raise of the big ticket items like demanding a promotion on day 1. First you have to start small and show your trustworthiness and credibility. Once you show that, you can go to the next thing and so on.
Sponsorships build on themselves. The same skip manager who helped me find a new role when I was stuck in my career was also my skip-skip previously who helped me find a desk in Mountain View when I needed to spend a few months there. And he was also my sponsor who got me Strongly Exceeds and Superb ratings in multiple calibrations. He was also my sponsor who helped me get 3 promotions at Google! But I didn’t start out by asking for a director promotion on day one!
Readers, what questions do you have on sponsorship?
Drop me a comment or a note here! If there are sufficient new questions, I’ll do another post answering them.
Thankyou Chaitali Mam, for answering all these questions so beautifully. I have another question in mind which i would love to ask - Suppose we have find a mentor/sponsor/coach as you've mentioned one person with all three multiple hats. And we have that capability to excel in life and are passionate and enthusiastic person so how could we reach out to them and make them willing to be our mentor/sponsor/coach.
In nutshell - What is the best way to approach so that they will accept us as their mentee/sponsee if they don't know us closely.
A request - Can you please come up with another article telling - What after we found our sponsor ? How to maintain good relationship with them and make them proud that their decision of choosing us was right. And what are some common mistakes that people make in their mentor - mentee relationship? I'm asking about this as this will help me to avoid doing so if I got a mentor :)
Another request - It would mean a world to me :)
I am a CMX Connect host, so can you please come as a speaker in my upcoming session cum podcast and can talk about this essential topic - "Sponsorship" or any essential one of your choice. I would be more than happy to host you.