Reaching for the Stars: How Mentors Inspire High Performance in Minority Associates
This is the third of six articles that will be written this year as a continuation of the “Mentoring Across Differences” column, which will highlight mentoring issues and spotlight how lawyers of different racial, gender, and cultural backgrounds can build successful mentoring relationships.
Ida O. Abbott, Esq. is the principal of Ida Abbott Consulting (www.IdaAbbott.com), which helps clients create systems and environments where professionals flourish, excel, and advance. She specializes in mentoring and lawyers’ professional development. Additional information about mentoring and diversity can be found in MCCA’s Mentoring Across Differences: A Guide to Cross-Gender and Cross-Race Mentoring.
Advancement in law firms requires high performance. Associates perform better when they receive work assignments that promote professional growth and opportunities to demonstrate excellence, along with careful supervision and feedback. Associates who do not receive such assignments, supervision, or feedback experience less and learn less. They remain unsure of what the firm expects and how to meet those expectations. As a result, their performance suffers. Minority associates frequently fall into the latter group. Because of pervasive stereotypes and the fear of being called biased or "saying the wrong thing," supervisors often neglect minority associates. That is why it is so important for minority associates to have mentors who guarantee that they get the work, supervision, and feedback that will enable them to perform at the highest levels.
The most common source of mentors for associates is their supervisors. In mentoring programs, supervisors may be formally assigned as mentors to associates they supervise. But most mentoring relationships start informally and imperceptibly when the supervisor takes an interest in the associate's development and success, not just in completion of the assignment. Every supervisor is a potential mentor.
Being both mentor and supervisor affords significant power over an associate's development and career advancement. Supervisors control the quality of at least some of the associate's work assignments and guide the associate's performance through close supervision and regular feedback. Supervisors who take seriously their role as mentors ensure that the associate acquires the "Four C's"—competence, confidence, credibility, and connections. They foster competence by helping the associate acquire knowledge, experience, and skills that produce efficient and effective professional performance. They build confidence by showing the associate they believe in his or her ability to carry responsibility and do superior work. They build credibility by creating and supporting the perception of others that the associate is competent and reliable. And they help the associate feel connected: to the mentor, through their personal relationship; to the firm by making the associate feel welcome and included; and to the legal profession through introductions to colleagues and clients. As David A. Thomas has pointed out in the article, "The Truth About Mentoring: Race Matters," mentoring of this sort is especially important for minorities, but they receive less of it than their Caucasian counterparts.1
Mentors can inspire minority associates to perform at their highest potential by concentrating on four critical areas: providing developmental work assignments, monitoring work experience to prevent performance problems, reinforcing high performance through positive feedback and recognition, and correcting or improving inadequate performance through constructive feedback.
- Providing developmental work assignments. The wrong work assignments can harm an associate's career. Especially in the early years, one or two bad work experiences can derail a talented associate by creating the perception that the associate is a poor performer. Sometimes mentors try to protect minority associates against this occurrence by giving them safe work assignments that the associate can handle easily, with little risk of failure. While these mentors may be well-intentioned, their attitude is patronizing and disadvantageous to the associate. It reflects a stereotypical belief that minority associates cannot perform as well as Caucasian associates. It denies learning and growth opportunities to minority associates and eventually creates a vicious circle: If minority associates do only undemanding work, they will not acquire knowledge or develop skills as rapidly as their Caucasian peers, thereby reinforcing this disparaging stereotype.
Good mentors help minority associates succeed by seeing that their work assignments build professional competence. While a supervisor's primary concern is that an associate get the work done competently and on time, mentors also look for the developmental potential of the assignment: What will the associate learn while doing it? They urge minority associates to take tough but stimulating assignments with steadily increasing responsibilities that offer opportunities to prove—to themselves and others—how good they are. Effective mentors encourage minority associates to take reasonable work risks, coaching and supporting them during and after the assignment. In staffing discussions, they recommend minority associates for high-profile assignments, and they show the associates how to pursue such assignments when they are not being readily offered.
Positive feedback is vitally important. It builds confidence and credibility, reinforces good work, and inspires outstanding performance. Good mentors praise their mentees when they perform well. This simple act shows that the mentor is paying attention to the associate's development and offers reassurance that the associate is meeting performance expectations. - Monitoring work experience to prevent performance problems. Mentors who keep an eye on their mentees' work experience can both prevent performance problems and help associates learn how to deal with any problems that do arise. Many—perhaps most—performance problems are preventable. When a supervising partner is disappointed in an associate's work, the most common response is to avoid working with that associate again. If other partners learn about the bad experience, they also shy away from working with the associate. The associate soon finds it hard to get work, and learning declines along with billable hours. This downward spiral is especially common for minority associates. Partners are often quicker to judge them as poor performers, buying into negative stereotypes about minorities. When shunned for work assignments, minority lawyers become isolated and fall behind their peers, reinforcing stereotypes that minorities are less competent.
On the other hand, a mentor who closely monitors an associate's work can anticipate problems and intervene to stop them. By watching weekly reports of associate hours, mentors can determine if an associate's hours are low and take immediate steps to find the associate more work or remove any barriers that are keeping work away. By staying apprised of the associate's work projects, the mentor can assess if the associate is receiving suitable work assignments, and if not, find out why and help the associate obtain better work.
Mentors who hear complaints about their mentee from others should first find out the specific nature of the alleged problem and whether the criticism is valid. Occasionally, the wrong assignment can actually create performance problems, as when the partner-in-charge is an unreasonably difficult or ineffective supervisor. Mentors should question general conclusions, ask for factual details, and examine the surrounding circumstances: How clearly was the assignment given? How helpful or supportive was the supervisor? Was there a personality clash? Is the criticism based on valid criteria or on stereotypes or unfair standards? Mentors should confront any unfair criticism, especially if it has undertones of bias. Some of the biases that affect the way lawyers judge minority associates' performance are described in the sidebar to this article. When the facts are ascertained, mentors should discuss them with the associate to gauge his or her understanding and explanation of the problem. They should also ensure that the associate has sufficient information and guidance to address any legitimate criticism, and help the associate find strategies and new assignments that will allow the associate to demonstrate improved performance.
One excellent example of a mentor who took his oversight responsibility seriously occurred when he heard another partner criticize how his mentee handled a project. The mentor asked to have the mentee assigned to work with him on a project so that he could closely observe and assess the mentee's performance for himself, and offer the mentee real-time advice and assistance.
- Reinforcing high performance through positive feedback and recognition. Although it is easy to "catch people doing well" and tell them so, lawyers are remarkably stingy with positive feedback. They think of feedback as criticism offered to stop or correct a problem. But positive feedback is vitally important. It builds confidence and credibility, reinforces good work, and inspires outstanding performance. Good mentors praise their mentees when they perform well. This simple act shows that the mentor is paying attention to the associate's development and offers reassurance that the associate is meeting performance expectations. For a minority associate who may not be clear about what is expected, or who feels isolated or insecure, a few words of recognition and encouragement can mean the vast difference between high motivation to succeed and abject discouragement that no one notices or cares.
Good mentors also build minority associates' credibility by informing partners, clients, and colleagues that the associate is a solid performer. They emphasize the associate's strengths and achievements in performance reviews. Public expression of trust and confidence in a minority associate's ability leads others to recognize the associate's talents.
Biases Affecting Performance
Below is a listing of biases that affect the assessment of minority associates' performance.
- In-group Favoritism: Favoring associates from the same group with which the evaluator identifies and judging "outsiders" more strictly.
- Performance vs. Potential: Judging minority associates on the basis of a current performance flaw, while excusing similar poor performance by Caucasian associates because the evaluator assumes they have the potential to do better next time.
- Halos and Horns: Tendency to carry over perception of an associate's strength (halo) or weakness (horn) into other areas of performance.
- Self-serving Bias: Fear of being associated with a poorly performing minority associate leads evaluator to assess performance more favorably than deserved.
- Attribution Error: Attributing minority associates' success to luck, while attributing their failure to incompetence, laziness, or other factors within their control.
There are countless opportunities to demonstrate confidence in an associate. One laudable illustration is a mentor who invited his minority mentee to attend a client meeting. The mentee had done most of the research on a critical issue to be discussed at the meeting. When that issue came up, the mentor asked the associate to address it, telling the client, "She is the expert on this." That simple comment—plus her capable presentation—gave the client faith in the associate and enhanced the associate's self-esteem beyond measure.
- Correcting or improving inadequate performance through constructive feedback. Sometimes minority associates do have performance problems. Those associates need to know right away what the problem is and how it can be corrected. It does no one any good to withhold this information. Indeed, when beneficial advice is withheld, behaviors that could be improved are perpetuated until it is too late; the associate becomes stigmatized as a problem performer, with the negative consequences discussed earlier. Effective mentors do not tarry; they address performance problems promptly, fairly, and constructively.
Many supervisors avoid addressing a minority associate's problem performance because they fear the associate might misinterpret their criticism as biased, insensitive, or even actionable. Or they overlook or excuse poor performance by minority associates because they do not want to risk alienating or losing the minority associate. Whatever the reason, failure to give timely and meaningful feedback harms minority associates. It prevents them from correcting the problem and from countering the perception that they are less capable. Avoiding performance problems also erodes the trust and morale of majority associates who feel they are overworked while the minority associate receives preferential treatment. They lose respect for the minority associate and resent the firm for its leniency toward minorities at their expense. As a consequence, the minority associate is unable to form peer relationships and becomes increasingly isolated.
Constructive feedback must be candid and meaningful. "Tough love" can have a powerful impact when coming from a trusted mentor. And it must not simply criticize or point out flaws. Effective feedback explains with specificity why the work product or behavior is considered deficient, the impact of the problem, and concrete suggestions for improvement.
Minority associates have as much potential as any other associates to become star performers, and they are motivated to do so. Through their influence over work experience and feedback, mentors are uniquely situated to help them achieve their goals.
NOTE
1. David A. Thomas, "The Truth About Mentoring: Race Matters," Harvard Business Review, April 2001.
From the May/June 2006 issue of Diversity & The Bar®