Sponsorship: OK, but how?
Last week, I synthesized some lessons from my deep dive on mentorship and sponsorship. This week is all about how one builds those relationships.
Because I could not find much on this topic in the academic literature, I interviewed several friends and business school colleagues to hear their stories on successfully building sponsorships.
Enabling mindsets
The first theme that came up wasn’t about the tactics they used to secure sponsors, but about the mindsets that created the opportunity.
One friend of mine described learning early on that business was personal. He said of his mom: “Every time she had an important business meeting, that meeting happened over dinner, and it happened at our house.”
Seeing her example helped him understand the importance of relationship building. When he tried to tell a colleague that he should be reaching out to senior executives, the colleague said, “I’m going to let my work speak for itself.” My friend thought, “That’s crazy.”
Another friend talked about learning to be more open as a prerequisite to building close sponsor relationships. “[I built relationships with peers easily,] but I never felt comfortable having these open relationships with people who were older. I thought I had to be buttoned up.” It wasn’t until she shed that mindset that more sponsorship relationships started to happen for her.
Finally, Carla Harris has a great TED Talk where she describes sitting in a performance review panel and realizing that it wasn’t a “fair” system. She said:
“It was that moment that I realized that this idea of a meritocracy that every organization sells is really just a myth. You cannot have a 100 percent meritocratic environment when there is a human element involved in the evaluative equation, because by definition, that makes it subjective. I knew at that moment that somebody would have to be behind closed doors arguing on my behalf, presenting content in such a way that other decision-makers around that table would answer in my best favor.”
Searching for a sponsor
In Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor, Sylvia Ann Hewlett recommends:
“Start by identifying would-be sponsors among your supporters. Good bets will be leaders who (1) are already aware of your skills and strengths, (2) stand to benefit from your help, and (3) have the clout to move you toward your goal, whatever that may be.”
For some that I spoke to, their sponsor relationships originated in close working relationships with their eventual sponsor. That said, others found their eventual sponsors by just showing up.
For example, one person heard the CFO speak to her management rotation program group. The CFO gave an open invitation for the participants to reach out to him. She said, “Few people did, and even fewer followed up after their first meetings.” She did both, and that person eventually became a sponsor.
Reflecting on her approach, she said: “I wouldn’t say that I’m particularly good at relationship building, but I am bold.”
Another person mentioned that his business school professor hosted a weekly lunch with students in his class. Every student was invited. The eventual protégé showed up nearly every week, and that was the source of his relationship with the professor who later became a sponsor. He noted that few others took advantage of that opportunity.
He also mentioned that the firm he worked at out of college had a concept of an “executive interview”—basically, you could reach out to anyone in the organization and have a reasonable expectation that they would talk to you. Again, he showed up.
In the first meeting with the global head of his division, he just asked about the executive’s life and career. He remarked, “People loooove to talk about themselves.”
That was the start of their relationship.
Building trust and showing that you’re worthy of sponsorship
Sponsorship requires a deep level of trust from the sponsor. They’re risking their own political capital by investing in your development. One friend told me: “One of the bigger mistakes I've made professionally was providing some light sponsorship to someone I later had to repudiate after they caused problems for a lot of people.”
That’s why the path from initiation of a relationship to sponsorship is about building that trust.
Sylvia Ann Hewlett writes: “Once you’ve homed in on a would-be sponsor, do not ask for sponsorship. Rather, show what makes you worth sponsoring or describe what you can bring to his or her team or project.”
And in the stories I’ve heard, showing worthiness for sponsorship was an important part of the equation.
One person said: “I was over-achieving my sales targets. And I was loud about my overachievement.” That performance helped the sponsor see him as an up-and-coming professional—i.e., a less risky bet—who could handle a bigger role (which the sponsor made happen).
Another person said: “I’m not bad at picking up sponsors. It’s probably because I have [an approach with bosses of] ‘I’m here to serve you and make your life easier.’”
That approach leads to behaviors that let the potential sponsor know that you’re there to support them, not just to do a good job for your own sake.
Formalizing the relationship when the time is right
Of course, after a trust-based relationship has been established, there’s often a moment of asking someone to be your sponsor.
It doesn’t necessarily have to sound like, “Will you marry me?”
(Then again, I also don’t really know what that sounds like because when I got engaged, I just kinda held a ring in front of my wife’s face.)
It may also sound like the sponsor asking, How can I help you get where you want to go?
Or you asking, Here’s where I need your help to make the next step. Can you provide that?
An added complication, based on conversations with my clients, is that some organizations don’t have official language around sponsorship. So if one were to ask an executive How do I get ahead here?, the answer might be banal. You need to work hard and deliver results.
Or, if asking about sponsorship directly, the answer might be We don’t have sponsorship here. We don’t play favorites.
[Yes, there is. And yes, they do.]
A practical way around this is to broach the conversation with a potential sponsor by asking questions like:
When talented and hardworking people don’t make it here, what typically holds them back?
I’ve always heard that relationships matter to upward progress. How have you seen that play out in our company?
How did you get your big breakthrough? Who helped you do that?
In those cases, the goal is to get the potential sponsor to articulate how they understand sponsorship. And even where that specific language does not exist, the content of their answer is likely to include a bunch of strategies that look like sponsorship. And that provides an opening for you to propose: I want you to do that for me, and here’s what I’m prepared to do to make it worth it.
Continuing to deliver value
Obviously, for the sponsor relationship to be valuable, the protégé has to continue to demonstrate outstanding performance. This is even more important when they’ve been given an opportunity by or with the help of the sponsor. In that scenario, the protégé is wearing the sponsor’s “brand.”
Outside of performance, there are ways the protégé can provide unique value to the sponsor. For example, Catalyst suggests that the protégé can teach the sponsor about topics that they have less experience with. In a report, they quote one sponsor saying:
“In my current case, those people are generally a few levels below me, and they open my eyes to many things going on in the organization or things that I don’t get to touch day-to-day. So I learn more about the business that I don’t see on a day-to-day basis, which just helps me be a more effective leader.”
Other research suggests that protégés can also teach the sponsor about trends they see in the marketplace, their function or geography, or even people like them (where the sponsor is of a different background).
On this last point, Sylvia Ann Hewlett recommends thinking through what unique value you bring to the sponsor’s orbit, and says it might be the ways in which you’re different. “Consider [...] that what brands you as an outsider to the flock—even painfully so—might constitute your most distinctive edge, your most valuable currency.”