Playing host to a robin as she gave birth to three chicks and nursed them from birth to flight over the last couple of months, lifted my family’s spirits and gave me a new-found admiration and respect for it. It became a pastime for us to watch the bird family every day as she built the nest, tended and foraged multiple times a day for food for her chicks.
The huge amount of effort, dedication and commitment the bird invested in that activity blew me away. She literally walked the neighbourhood foraging for food for her little ones and fed them one by one. Whenever the chicks wanted to pass poo, she evacuated the poo out of the nest thus keeping it clean. I was shocked to discover, one day, how she actually did it!
Observing this daily activity led me to reflect on how important it is to have someone invested in you that will care for and nurture you in life. Most times, this made the difference between success and failure and at an existential level, the difference between death and survival.
At that point, it struck me that having a “robin” in my corner could have made a huge difference in my early career in Canada.
Think of the struggles and setbacks each of us experience in the course of navigating the rough seas of careers in the office. The egos that have to be massaged and, sometimes, dirty office politics that buffet one’s career can sometimes become overwhelming and lead to a truncated career.
Early in my career, I had no idea that I needed that special someone. I had arrived in Canada with the belief that meritocracy was unfailingly the standard for rewarding hard work and excellence in the office. The first time, I discovered that someone had to speak on my behalf was when some of my peers within our team were secretly promoted. When I accidentally found out a few months later and asked for promotion, I was told that someone higher up had recommended them for promotion. The lack of transparency in the promotion smacked of nepotism and left a bitter taste in my mouth for a long time.
Another instance that I observed occurred some years later when a senior executive who was close to another of my peers, offered promotion to my colleague who had resigned to take up a job at a competitor. It was called employee retention strategy.
These events made me realize that I really needed someone to champion my cause but I couldn’t get one despite cultivating relationships with many mentors over the years through the various professional networking meetings that I frequently attended, including the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC). None of those relationships ever resulted in either getting a new job or getting promotion for a job well done.
Over time, I realized that the reason it didn’t work out for me back then was that the relationship with a mentor is less hands-on and limited to mainly providing you with advice and guidance based on their own experiences. They may connect you with their peers in their own or other organization, or even your own organization, but do not directly intervene on your behalf when hiring decisions are made.
Carla Harris, a Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Senior Client Adviser at Morgan Stanley described that special person as a sponsor and famously said at her 2018 TED Talk, “You are not going to ascend in any organisation without a sponsor.”
According to her, a sponsor is typically a senior colleague in your organization who is in a position to guide and influence your progress and help you advance in your career within the same company. The sponsor is invested in your progress and has to stake their reputation as well as spend their social and political capital in the process. This means that the sponsor has to be careful and selective in choosing whom they will take that level of risk on. This requires a very strong and personal relationship that enables the Sponsor to basically act as a character and professional reference for you. An additional benefit is that having a sponsor is more likely to earn you a premium on your compensation.
Naturally, the risks that a Sponsor takes on your behalf makes it hard to convince and attract a sponsor that will stay in your corner.
This is harder for visible immigrant minorities because they have to also overcome multiple barriers, none of which is easily surmountable: they are newbies to a corporate sociopolitical culture that they do not understand, have no established family ties that could serve as a bridge and connector to a future sponsor and, most importantly, there are limited number of visible minorities in senior positions who can act as sponsors.
Indeed, data gathered by Bloomberg and published in the June 23, 2020 edition of the Financial Post, revealed that although visible minorities are 52% of Toronto’s population, only 10% are in top executive roles and 8% in non-executive Board positions at the Big 6 banks and 2 largest life insurance companies. The shocking fact is that only 1 black person is among them. Let that sink in for a few minutes.
To make matters worse, the visible minorities that are in those senior positions are sometimes insecure of their position and may not want to stick their necks out for you for fear of jeopardizing their own career. They may have been allowed to get to their position due to the workings of tokenism.
These factors largely explain why visible immigrant minority have a very hard time climbing the corporate ladder.
The number of available sponsors of colour is likely to increase in the next few years as some black executives in Canada have created a fund from which they will make long-term investments in Black-led Canadian firms that are focused on education, health care, community support and housing to help combat the lack of diversity in corporate Canada. This is in part a response to the protests against anti-Black racism by the Black Lives Matter movement as well as calls to have more diversity in executive positions emanating from the results of the data from Bloomberg.
Despite these daunting odds, it is still quite possible to attract a sponsor.
Carla Harris, in that TED talk, gave a few tips on how to secure a sponsor, including identifying a true sponsor (someone who can champion your case and not just a senior executive), and then approaching them directly to ask them to be your sponsor.
However, what was missing in her wonderful talk is that she did not directly discuss how visible minorities, especially immigrants, can attract a sponsor. We will now look at ways that you can do that.
First, you have to develop your personal brand in the office. The one major advantage that visible immigrant minorities have is a strong work ethic and superior talent. These are qualities that fuel your personal brand and give you an edge in the competition for a sponsor.
The next step is to use your personal brand to earn the trust of your colleagues and build professional relationships to deepen your office network. This is a pivotal step because it creates a conducive setting that will help in identifying who the power players and brokers are in the office and ultimately who the sponsor could be.
You will be surprised how easy it will be to get this information once you’ve earned the trust of your colleagues. A private chat over coffee outside the office usually yields a goldmine of information that multiple discussions inside the office will not.
If you have a mentor in your organization, chances are that they would know who the power players and brokers are and use that knowledge to help you identify the right sponsor for you. You can share your plans with the mentor and ask for help in crafting your strategy and pitch to the target sponsor.
If you are lucky to have other visible minorities in the senior position that are known to sponsor people, look for opportunities to work in projects in which they are involved and ensure you go above and beyond to impress the target sponsor.
Next, approach the prospective sponsor and tell them what you want from them. It’s important to be upfront about it so that both of you have a clear idea and expectation about the relationship. Your mentor could help make the introduction for you to the sponsor.
Remember that when you do succeed in attracting a sponsor you have to work really hard to ensure that you consistently perform at a high level to keep the sponsor in your corner. This will ensure that the sponsor retains their hard-won reputation and personal brand.
Happy hunting and good luck.
We value your comments and feedback! Use the comment box to let us know your thoughts. Thanks.
———————————————————————————————————————
Ernest Onuorah, MBA, is a financial services risk consultant, author, speaker, and career coach. He had worked at consulting and financial service firms including PWC, TD, RBC, BMO, and Home Trust Company, a $2.5 billion niche mortgage lender, where he was AVP, Enterprise Risk Management. He holds the CRISC, FRM and CRM designations. His areas of expertise are Enterprise & Operational Risk Management. He can be reached at ernest.onuorah@localhost.
