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Comment by silicon2401 | Hacker News Reader

Does anybody have advice on how to make the most of meetings with coworkers/mentors 2+ levels up the ladder from yourself? I once had a great session with a c-suite exec in an employer with 5 digits worth of employees, but I think that was as much due to his being a really motivated mentor as any prep or questions I did. I want to make sure I'm prepared for future meetings if the mentor is not as open or enthusiastic about mentorship.

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Think about purpose and benefit. A cynical view, perhaps, but the way to a good relationship is to make it part of the transaction.

What are this person's priorities (outcomes they need to make happen) for the year? How can you help make that happen?

Come to the conversation with "you're doing X; how can I help make that happen?" - and when you explain why you want to help, make it personal ("I want to get to Y, and this will help me get there"). You help with X, and they'll hep with Y.

I'm more than happy to take cynical views, I find they're often what I would consider just realistic.

That's a great breakdown and it makes total sense. I've found people respond well when you already know stuff about them. Do you think it would be even better to come in with something like this? "I know you want to achieve X this year, and I have an idea Y or a personal goal Z to help us get there. What do you think?" Or do you think that would be getting too ahead of things?

You want them to be a sponsor of your work to others. At that level of seniority they could really make a difference in your promotion and growth over time if they know who you are and what problems you're solving.

Mentorship should be about someone telling you what they did when they were in your shoes, and coaching is more like performance optimization.

This comment is gold. Even with some jobs and plenty of effort to learn career skills behind me, I feel like I'm only just starting to appreciate the value of someone higher up being a sponsor of your work. Thanks for really singling that out and explaining how it matters.

Your second point is also really insightful. That distinction is also something I've recently begun to really realize, and your wording cuts right to the point. Thanks for your advice!

As a follow up, in your experience, what kind of stuff has been received especially well by higher-ups?

Ask them what the top 3 problems they are spending time on. That will uncover areas for you to invest in understanding to uncover solutions.

People at this level are looking for help from people that are doing the real work in the organization who have a better understanding of the details. Conversely, this level has a wider view of problems that have high impact across the organization. Seek to uncover those problems and find solutions.

That's super helpful, I'll definitely make sure to do that. As a follow-up, if the mentor were way higher up the ladder than you, how would you translate the really high-level goals they see to goals that are actionable to your level? I've had a couple meetings that went along these lines, and I was a bit unsure how to take their executive/c-suite perspective into something I could work on as an individual contributor

I've found that the most useful discussions I've had are around how the people up the ladder think about the junior persons area/projects and how it fits into the bigger picture.

The junior person knows more about the details and the senior person should understand more about the strategy so both have a chance to learn from each other and to each walk away with a better overall perspective.

As a skip level manager myself it's also seems like a better use of everyones time than me answering generic questions.

That's helpful as it gives me a sense of how I can also try to bring value to the meeting. What kind of questions have you found useful/practical from these meetings? I always want to be careful not to ask something that comes off too basic or uninformed.

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