Guest commentator: Leone Jackson, Senior Community & Citizenship Program Specialist, Turner Construction Company @turner_talk
Immediately, I would like to start with a sincere thank you. Thank you for taking the time to read, learn, and share feedback on this mentorship memo series. It has been a pleasure to provide personal insight on a topic I feel very strong about. For the final part of the series, I want to call out a few key takeaways and leave you all with a personal experience in which mentorship changed my life.
Key takeaway number one – “It is vital you are open to constructive feedback, because true growth lies in being supported and challenged.” As I mentioned in memo number one, where you are mentally before and during mentorship will determine the benefit (or lack thereof) in having a mentor.
Takeaway number two – “spend time asking one to three trusted peers for feedback from their vantage point and from one person that you find…always challenges your points.” This intentional feedback-seeking will help you ‘slow down to speed up’ while simultaneously challenging yourself to interact with people on your feedback journey.
The next two takeaways are from memo number two, where we dove into what peer mentorship looks like and the benefits of fostering rapport and genuine professional connection with people at your level that may operate differently than you.
One takeaway is rethinking what and who can be a mentor. For instance, breaking the conditioning and misunderstanding that we can only learn from people that have been in our field for their lifetime. This is important because we can learn from people who think creatively, differently, and even more critical than we do. Easiest example? 2+2=4, 1+3=4, and 0+4=4. There are many ways to achieve a goal – make sure you are open to them.
The final and potentially most important takeaway from memo number two is to “understand that even on your learning journey, you bring value to organizations, friendships, and connections.” Every single one of us bring unique and valued perspectives to dialogue, projects, work products, and more. It is important that this belief and understanding exists within your thought process, and it will help guide yourself through and tackle imposter syndrome.
The above takeaways are what have helped me on my own individual journey. This leads me to a critical moment in my life where had I not listened to feedback, I would not have grown and achieved all I have so far. It was during my time as a General Manager in retail. I worked diligently as an assistant manager in multiple locations and was later selected to support the opening of a new location. This entailed training and hiring all the staff, communicating the values, advertising in that market, and building the foundation for who was chosen as the GM. Over the three-week process, it was extremely important to me to set whoever the new leader was up for success. I accomplished that and found out a few days before the soft opening that I was setting the store up for myself.
I was overwhelmed with joy, but later that night all the pressure started to set in. I began to question my own ability – completely disregarding that I did not feel this way twenty-four hours before. Fast forward – the soft and grand opening were huge hits, and the location was doing amazing. However, I struggled balancing being an individual contributor and my newfound responsibilities as a GM. Payroll, HR, inventory, forecasting, scheduling, and merchandising were all competing with my urge to be on the floor building with my team. I valued selling, teaching, being present, connecting with customers, and supporting the team on the floor above all else. During that time, our numbers excelled greatly and we were competing against stores with much larger volume than us. I was chosen as a person that trained new GMs and the company had commemorated my achievements in a variety of ways.
I handled almost all my duties except merchandising – which I had initially believed to be trivial. After a few corporate Vice President and merchandising team visits, I received feedback that my team was amazing, but my location was not “aligned with corporate visual standards” and I was very upset. I thought ‘corporate does not understand what it takes to get the job done here’. I paid it no attention and continued until my immediate supervisor, who I truly valued, told me “Leo, the store looks [terrible]. There is no way you can keep track of inventory or sell at the capacity I know you and your team can with it this way. Imagine where you are now being the starting point, what would it feel like to be better? Because I know you are better than this.”
I was hurt – not because he was blunt, but because I really disregarded the visuals. I thought since we were excelling in every other category that maybe failing in one didn’t really mean anything. After this conversation, I stayed at the store after everyone left and looked at every single display. I was unimpressed and disappointed. I told myself ‘I will not be in this predicament again. I will learn the lesson here.’
My first thought was that I need to know when the next visit will be – that will be the timeline for me to measure my progress and any adjustments I would make. The most crucial part of this was to reach out to the merchandisers and lead with honesty. I remember my words being, “I am sure you cannot stand visiting my store and I want to change that. Do you mind stopping by so I can learn and get some feedback from you directly?” my supervisor replied “Haha – yes Leo. I will come by in a week. Work through the guides and think about what makes sense for a customer.”
I worked hard, stayed up late, researched what customers look for in stores, and I even secret-shopped the stores in the company that excelled in the area to see what I was missing. My supervisor didn’t come visit for two weeks, but I was determined for him to have barely any adjustments to make, which he did. His immediate feedback was “Leo, anything that has your focus, has your excellence” – which has stuck with me for years. I spent the next few months dividing my time evenly on all my duties and giving merchandising a bit more attention. I sought feedback from my supervisor and other store leaders whenever I thought it was perfect. I didn’t want to go backwards. My location had quite a few reschedules for corporate visits, but I was determined to be ready.
It wasn’t until the week of Black Friday that the Vice President of Operations very casually walked in with no plan, update, or communication prior. He just walked in with a “Hey Leo” and my heart sank. I took a serious deep breath and instead of looking around, I said “the store is ready” after an hour walk from display to display. Instead of giving me feedback, he asked, “So Leo, how did you do all this here? This is not at all what I expected.” My reply: “No, I had a lot of help over the last few months. This was an opportunity for me, and I didn’t want to leave it that way.” Fast forward to two months later and I received a promotion.
What is your biggest takeaway after reading this? What do you think is my biggest takeaway here? For me, it was one – how grateful I am that my immediate supervisor who I trusted took the time to be blunt and really give me the feedback I needed. Two – the fact that had I not been open to being completely wrong and had I disregarded his feedback. I believe my journey could have been stunted there. I have so many takeaways here, but my third is that in accepting being wrong so quickly, I was able to have the courage to reach out to others and share with them my shortcomings. For some, this might have been small, but for me it changed my life. I began to really take pride in my work product, reputation, and how I impacted others. Almost ten years later, I cannot imagine where I would be without actively seeking feedback and being committed to learning from the amazing people around me every day.
Final insight: Your mindset and openness (or lack thereof) can make or break your trajectory in life. Be open, seek feedback, and have the courage to change and be vulnerable. Your future self will thank you for it.
Leone Jackson is a member of the YPC Advisory Board.
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