The Importance Of Face Time With Your Mentor
Your face-to-face contact with your mentor is directly proportional to success in your career.
I got a text from my mentor today, checking in on my progress in my data science leadership career. I was going to just call or continue texting, but he chose to meet face-to-face, albeit virtually via MS Teams. I’m glad we “MS Team’ed” each other. A phone call or text doesn’t get the same amount of non-verbal communication and feedback that a face-to-face meeting can accomplish. We usually text or call, but this time, I sensed some urgency in his request to have face time.
Being the astute mentor he is, he realized that I just got promoted into a data science leadership role, and he had many tips to share on being an effective data science leader in a large organization (those tips will be another article in the future). Our usual 5 minute texting turns into hour long face time sessions in person or on Teams. That’s what face time does for you- it allows for the non-verbal communication and feedback that escapes us when texting, phoning, or emailing. Being a new data science leader, he sensed from my facial expressions and hand gestures that I needed guidance, and help with my ‘imposter syndrome.’
Very glad we met face to face, but it has mostly been that way, ever since we went to grad school together, and him being a seasoned Solutions Architect turned data scientist extraordinaire. After class, we rode the bus home together every weekday for a full year, and that’s how my mentorship began, and continues to this day, face-to-face.
All of the landmines I had to navigate, those face time sessions are where I learned of them. Landing the right data science jobs and focusing on my personal data science career roadmap- again, these were mapped out in face time. And the latest with data science leadership and strategy, definitely a must for face time with my mentor.
If you want success in your career as a data science practitioner (eventually leader), then find a mentor, and meet them face-to-face. Go have coffee…go on MS Teams…talk about data science, and progress in your career!
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