Cliff + Jack
Show me you’re worth challenging.
Jack is now retired from a career in athletic administration, mostly in leadership roles for the high school athletic association in Michigan, including a long run as the executive director. But in the early stages of his career, Jack was “young and raw,” but “coachable.” He is a former athlete and coach himself, and a coach’s son. When he took a risk on a new job, the boss who intimidated others would soon impact his life and career.
In 1972, Jack left a high school coaching job and took an entry-level position with the National Federation of State High School Associations in Illinois. Cliff was his boss.
Mr. Fagan, as Jack still calls him, was the executive secretary (the director) of the National Federation. Cliff was a high school and college athletic administrator who had risen to a leadership role in the national organization.
In the 1970s, almost all of the staff at the Federation were male. The men wore suits to the office, and none of them addressed Cliff by his first name. For most, Mr. Fagan was intimidating. Jack, however, described their relationship as almost like a father and son, where Cliff had high expectations of Jack, but also “nurtured” him in the early days of his career. Jack—ever a coach’s son— recalls being open to, and excited by, that nurturing.
Jack’s office was across the hall from Cliff’s, where they could almost see one another when seated at their respective desks. In those early years on the job, Jack recalls Mr. Fagan would get off of important phone calls, cross the hall, and stand in Jack’s doorway to discuss some important question or decision point. On one occasion, the NCAA offered the national high schools’ federation a million dollars to play football games on Friday nights. The 1970s were a time when there were strict rules around television contracts, and there was a rigid, traditional formula: Friday night was reserved for high school games, college football was played on Saturdays, and professionals played on Sundays. At the same time, the 1970s were a period of tremendous change and upheaval, including in college football. The high schools were getting a significant offer to change this traditional formula, and the decision was largely in Cliff’s hands. Jack recalls his mentor would get off of calls related to this big decision and wander across the hall to Jack’s doorway, sharing his thinking and soliciting the thoughts of his junior colleague. When Cliff would ultimately decide to turn down the money, Jack felt part of the decision.
It was during these conversations in the doorway that Cliff started to push Jack. He encouraged his junior colleague to write more, articulating his thinking around big policy positions or the federation’s operations. Writing, Mr. Fagan said, would document the workings and history of the organization, but also clarify a man’s thinking before he spoke up in a professional setting.
Mr. Fagan was well-rounded, and encouraged Jack to expand his horizons as well. Cliff and his wife often went to the theater in Chicago, unlike many other former coaches. He encouraged Jack to read, and established a library in the office. The mentor and his wife socialized with Jack and his young wife, having dinner and talking about topics other than sports. When they traveled for work, Cliff would pick up newspapers and ask Jack, “What do you notice? Can you find the sports page?” He stressed that sports was behind the news, and lamented that too many coaches and athletic administrators never read the whole newspaper.
A key pivot point came one day when Cliff found Jack moping around the office, and called him in. The elder man asked him what was going on, Jack recalls telling his mentor “I’m not being challenged enough.”
Cliff thought for a moment. “Well, show me you’re worth challenging.”
Jack again accepted his mentor’s challenge. He said his work ethic exploded. No task was too big or too small, and Jack dove into plenty of additional jobs around the office that took additional time on nights and weekends away from his young wife.
In time, Cliff asked Jack to ride along to speaking engagements, to work lunches, and ultimately to important meetings with lobbyists and representatives of college and Olympic athletes. Jack, for his part, tried to remain “coachable,” attending these meetings alongside his mentor, observing and listening. He learned to talk business after the meal was over. Cliff eventually asked Jack to speak up and contribute. Jack learned to interject only after he had done some writing to clarify his thoughts. Later, he began attending these lunches and meetings in his mentor’s place, particularly when Cliff became ill and could no longer attend lunches or speaking engagements.
Both-And, Rather than Either-Or
In the last entry, I introduced the work of Kathy Kram and her classic book on workplace mentoring. She described mentors who play a set of dual functions for mentees, like offering them exposure, coaching, and challenging assignments on the one hand, and friendship, counseling, and role modeling on the other.
Like a lot of academic research, some branches of the published literature on mentoring have gotten increasingly narrow and specialized since Professor Kram’s book was published in 1985. Some authors have debated the goal of mentoring as being either mentorships with learning agendas versus mentorships where the relationship is the goal.
In the real-world mentorships that people described to me, this dichotomy disappeared. Mentors sometimes did more coaching and sometimes focused more on personal development, but never described a sense that they needed to drop one facet of this altogether. They were more like Cliff: imparting lessons about work and nurturing personal connection and development.
What many of the mentors did do was form relationships first. Some past research on mentoring has found that relationships that focused too early on transforming mentees either failed or proved frustrating for mentors, while an early focus on relationship building and a later focus on “transformation goals” allowed more mutual attachment and commitment to change1. Powerful mentorships start with the kind of nurturing that Jack described. In time, these relationships focus on a learning task that provides the mentorship with a direction, and ultimately creates an environment for the powerful, holistic impact. This two-part approach is what some authors have called an “instrumental perspective,” where the most powerful relationships not only develop relationships, but also introduce mentees to opportunities; they develop character and develop competence2.
In the next couple of weeks, I’ll describe several ways that mentors took these both-and approaches; I refer to them as Means. A Mean, in this case, is like a numerical average. It is a reference to the idea that the great mentors I interviewed all found a balance between several either-or choices and operated, often unconsciously, from a continuum of approaches. One person called them “dials” that mentors can adjust over the course of a relationship. The Mean is based on a concept from Aristotle, where a Mean is a virtue that is neither in deficit nor in excess.
Cliff was an intimidating figure for some men in the office, but his investment in Jack’s career and personal development—and Jack’s openness to that investment— left the mentee feeling nurtured. Cliff was paternal to Jack—caring, supportive, interested in his overall development, but also demanding, inviting him into decisions, and asking Jack to be at his best.
Cliff, in short, built a personal connection, but also worked with Jack on a task—learning to be a well-rounded person and prepared professional. As we will see in a few weeks, that investment inspired Jack to offer that same kind of nurturing to others when he became the senior leader.
Rhodes, J., Spencer, R., Keller, T., Liang, B., & Noam, G. (2006). A model for the influence of mentoring relationships on youth development. Journal of Community Psychology, 34(6), 761-707, p.700.
See Thomas Keller’s summary of research in this area in Keller, T. E. (2010). Youth mentoring: Theoretical and methodological issues. In TD Allen & LT Eby (Eds). The Blackwell Handbook of Mentoring. Wiley-Blackwell.
I enjoyed reading this. It is so true that strong mentoring is about balancing relationship with being attuned to your mentee's interests and nurturing growth.