Managing the sponsor relationship

- One thing that's different in mentorship versus sponsorship is with sponsors you are in the driver's seat, so you have to articulate what you want from that relationship. Now, typically, and it has never happened in my career that I've actually gone to a person and said, "Will you be my sponsor?" It's all about how can I help you achieve your goals, and what do I want if I achieve your goals, right? And that has to be the communication. Many times we think that because we are helping someone out, if there is an opportunity that arises, that person would, by default, think of us, but that's not true. So with sponsors, you have to be really clear where you want to go, right? What are you looking for? Are you looking for horizontal growth? Are you looking for vertical growth? What are the areas in which you would like to excel? So for example, I was good at project management, and when I was talking my senior executive team, I didn't want them to focus on project management for me. I was really interested in account management, the business side of it, because that's what gave me the thrill. So you kind of navigate your conversation in such a way in terms of the roles that you're looking at. Because other otherwise, by default, they would assume that you want to grow in the role that you are in. I actually escaped an arranged marriage from India to come to United States, and that's one of the reasons why I wanted to move to the US, but my sponsors didn't need to know that. They needed to know that I had the skill to come to the states and be productive at a client's side and get them repeat business. And that's what my conversations were, and I was very clear that I wanted to relocate from India to United States on a project, so my sponsor never knew about the personal struggles that were going on in my life, and the focus was entirely on what I bring to the table, my superpower, and how I will help him achieve his sales quota. So when the opportunity arose, he gave me that opportunity to move to United States, and that's how I moved from India to United States, and kind of, you know, escaped the arranged marriage.