Melissa Tan: belief

Transcript context

…Any tips on the questions? Maybe to ask a manager to help them get to this, if any come to mind and also when you're looking for someone to help you, anything specific you think that people should look for that maybe they may not be thinking about? On the questions to ask when you're interviewing for a role, I would actually ask things like I'd love to get a sense for how you think about ... I mean I think you can flat out ask, I'd like to get a sense of how you think about managing folks on your team, how you think about developing talent on your team and seeing what their responses to that. I would also ask how are you thinking about the career path for this role? And if the person has not thought about it at all or doesn't ask you, "Well, what is important to you?" I think those are some signals that it's maybe not where this person tends to spend their time thinking. And then I would also ask other people on the panel that are not going to be your manager but that work with this person, especially if you happen to talk to people that they manage, how is this person as a manager? And that ends up being also very insightful. The questions I would ask if you're looking for someone external, I always find that that relationship is best the more organic it could be. I think Cheryl Sandberg had wrote this in her book Lean She basically writes about how some people will go, "Will you be my mentor?" And I've got that question too, and it's just a lot of pressure to get asked that question really early in and you don't really know the person. And so the more it can be organic where you talk to somebody, you have actual advice that you want, some people will just reach out to me that I haven't worked with in a long time and like, "Hey, I'm thinking about a career decision or I'm in this tricky situation at work, can we talk?" And I just give them advice and they will reach out to me for advice occasionally. It doesn't have to be a recurring thing that you have to just nurture that relationship. I think that is a way to do it. Or if you are working with somebody and you want to set up some type of monthly thing, I think you asked for that as well. The only thing is I would just be respectful of the time. So if you don't have anything to talk about that month or anything like that, I'm just always willing to help people. It doesn't mean we have to be frequently in touch. And so I think it's also less about being frequently in touch and it's just going and reaching out when you actually have a problem. People that want to help others are just going to, if they have the time, they'll say yes. Tim Ferriss talks about that too. He is like, "Never ask someone to be your mentor." As you said, that's a scary proposition. You're committing to something, it's pressure versus just like, "Hey, can we just meet and can I just get some advice? And then maybe after you do that, can we meet next month also?" And just help it grow organically.…

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