Here's How Being A Mentor Boosts Your Company's Bottom Line: Dina Powell McCormick & Sen. McCormick

Forbes Breaking News

Dina Powell McCormick and Senator David McCormick joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss their new book, 'Who Believed In You?,' which explores the impact that mentorship has had on some of the most well-known leaders across different industries.   Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript   Stay Connected Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now

00:07is Dina Powell McCormick and Senator David McCormick, co-authors of Who Believed in You.

00:12Thank you both so much for joining me. Thanks for having us. The book Who Believed in You

00:18explores the value of mentorship through your own stories and the stories of some of the

00:22biggest, brightest, most impressive leaders today across various industries. And you both

00:28have quite an impressive Rolodex of mentors. President Bush, past CEOs of Goldman Sachs,

00:34Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Ray Dalio, just to name a few. But the most common thread and through

00:40line I saw in the book was everyone had mentors from their childhood. Dina, you had your grandmother,

00:46Senator, you had your high school football coach. Can you talk about that and the importance

00:51of those young mentors and how they shaped you to be the person you are today?

00:57Sure. Well, I'll jump in by saying thank you so much for having us. And, you know, this

01:03book actually started as a project, not a book, during COVID. Dave and I have six daughters

01:08between us, and we realized that they had lost so much during COVID, not just high school

01:14graduations or proms. They really lost almost three years of human connectivity and mentorship.

01:20And if you think about that first job and the mentor you had, or the high school coach

01:25like you referenced with Dave, or the college professor, we really were worried that this

01:29generation was losing something that's fundamental. And we certainly wouldn't be where we are

01:34today without the people that believed in us. So we started talking to our friends,

01:39amazing people from Satya Nadella to Tory Burch, to Governors Huckabee and Sanders,

01:44to Dr. Rice. And we, in the telling of these stories, we realized that even though they're

01:50famous people now, this book is about the unsung heroes that you haven't heard about,

01:56that without whom there wouldn't have been all these extraordinary leaders of different

02:00industries that changed the world. And so what we're hoping is that we're actually going

02:05to spark a mentoring movement that will actually, people, everyday Americans will realize that

02:11if I invest in one person, I can change the world. And in my case, as you said, I've been

02:17so blessed by so many mentors. It certainly started with a great family. My grandmother

02:22Nora, I'm an immigrant from Cairo, Egypt. My family immigrated to Texas when I was a

02:28young girl. I didn't speak any English, but I was five, so I learned English pretty quickly.

02:34But I like to say that Texan took me a lot longer. And my grandmother, as insecure as

02:40I was, as I was trying to assimilate, really gave me this confidence. She always said to

02:44me, God has a big plan for your life, and I believe you're going to have an impact in

02:48the world. And just that one sentence, just her faith and belief in me made all the difference

02:54in the world. And Senator, if you could, if you could share your story a little bit about

02:58how you were riding the bench playing football in high school, and then you had that one

03:03coach who believed in you, take it away. Yeah, thank you. Well, again, thanks for having

03:07us. Yeah, this was a this was a project that took, you know, sort of took on momentum over

03:12time, we realized we were on to something. And in my case, it was a football coach, Tom

03:17Lynn, Coach Lynn, I was, as you say, riding the bench as a sophomore in high school. And

03:22the coach got fired and a new coach came in Coach Lynn. And he watched all the films from

03:26the previous games. And I would always come in at the end, we were winning big or losing

03:29big. And he saw something in me. And he pulled me aside and said, I think you've got a bright

03:34future. I'm gonna, you know, you got a real shot at starting and I went through the football

03:37camp. And at the end of it, to my shock, and dismay, he made me the co captain of the

03:42team. And, and over the next couple years, I became an Allstate linebacker. And that

03:47helped me get into West Point and really changed the course of my life. And the amazing thing

03:53about it, and this is a common refrain among the people we talked to, he literally saw

03:57something in me promise leadership that I didn't know I had. And that's what great mentors

04:02do. They, they show you what you can be, they help you find your purpose. And, and we've

04:08been blessed in both both my case and Dina's. And boy, the more we talked to those those

04:14famous people you talked about Satya and Condi Rice and all of them, the more we discovered

04:20that all of them had benefited from a couple key people that changed their life. And the

04:25heroes of our book are not the famous people. They're the people you've never heard of whose

04:30shoulders they stood on. That's, they're the real heroes in this story. And it's, it's

04:34something we want to encourage for everybody to pay it forward and try to make a difference

04:38for individuals in the community by helping, helping young people find their purpose.

04:43And that was a phrase you both use when talking about your mentors, you're standing on the

04:48shoulders of those giants. And I know that you were inspired to write this in COVID. Does

04:53COVID change how young people should find mentors because a lot of the times people

04:58aren't in the office five days a week, you're not getting that face time as much as you

05:02were back in the day back in those pre pandemic days. So how should people view getting a

05:07mentor now in that post pandemic world?

05:11Sure, well, I'll start and then I know, you know, Dave does a great job kind of talking

05:17about the four pillars of mentoring. You know, we actually did a survey with the Yale School

05:21of Management, the first of its kind 2200 young adults, and ask them what it is that

05:27is meaningful to you about mentorship? Did a mentor really help you? What are you looking

05:31for? And it won't surprise you that there were differences between what men look for and

05:36what women look for. Men look for mentors who have power and influence. Women look for

05:41mentors who will give them feedback who are authentic, and who really want to invest in

05:46them. But the common thread between men and women was that people actually are not as

05:51interested in what I would call transactional mentoring, you know, help me get that

05:56promotion, recommend me to somebody, that's all important, certainly in a career. But

06:01they're much more interested in what we define as transformational mentoring, the kind of

06:07mentoring where you have an enormous trusting relationship. It's a multi year dedicated

06:13relationship. It's two ways. The mentee also adds a tremendous amount of value to the

06:18mentor. And it's not just about what's going on at work. It's how are you dealing with

06:24life? How are you dealing with work life balance? How are you dealing with family and all

06:29these kinds of things that are so important? And they really get at the heart of what a

06:33mentor can do, which is instill a set of values in a leader. And that's the whole premise.

06:38With the right leadership in this country, we can really make a big difference. And so we

06:42really do recognize that being transformational really means an intentional

06:47relationship. And the best way to seek out a mentor is to explain that's the kind of

06:52relationship you want to be deliberative, but also to be mentorable, if you will. And that

06:59means be efficient with your very busy mentor, be deliberate about what it is you need

07:05their advice on, and how you're going to consistently communicate. I think just showing up

07:09and saying, what should I do with my life? That's like, you know, a little hard. A mentor

07:13doesn't know where to start. But if it's here's some people I'd love to meet, how should I

07:17think about, you know, where I should work and how to balance things in my life, really

07:21sort of set the relationship at the beginning with a defined set of objectives.

07:26And Senator, do you have anything to add to that?

07:29One of the things we discovered in the survey and the interviews, there are sort of four

07:32pillars of mentorship that great mentoring relationships usually have all four of these. The

07:38first is trust. You've got to trust on both sides that you can be vulnerable with one

07:42another be really forthright. That's that's the basis for any great relationship, but

07:46certainly a mentoring one. Second, shared values. And and what we're really talking about

07:51here is not again, transactional helping get the next meeting or promotion, but helping

07:55people find purpose in their life around those shared values. The third thing is

07:59commitment. As Dina said, you know, it can't be three hour lunches, but mentorship does

08:04require somebody to be available when the other person needs them. You know, when you're

08:08facing a crisis or need or really need advice. And the fourth thing is related to that,

08:13which is the ability to help a mentee find confidence. And one of the things that's

08:18universal across all these very successful people is they've all failed. I've failed very

08:22publicly. Dina's failed. That's part of success. Failure is the thing that happens before

08:29success because you learn from it, then you get to the next to the next level of

08:32achievement. But mentors help you get off the mat. They help you find your confidence.

08:37They help you take the risk. They help you learn from the mistakes. And a very candid,

08:42supportive mentorship relationship helps you build confidence. So those are the

08:46universal themes we found. And and that's what we're encouraging people to do in terms

08:51of investing in the next generation of young people. All of our futures depend on them.

08:55And I know I only have 30 seconds left, so I want to make sure I get this. And just because

09:01we're Forbes, we look at everything from a business lens here. You both served in

09:05leadership roles at Goldman Sachs as well as Bridgewater. The book shows how mentorship

09:09really is an investment. So how is mentorship good for a company's bottom line?

09:15Well, obviously, you only succeed with strong talent and the best talent. And obviously, in the

09:20two institutes, students in the private sector where we worked, it was certainly all about

09:24excellence and talent. And today, as vice chairman of BDT and MSD Partners, I see that we

09:30are successful because we have an incredible team. But you only have strong teams if those

09:35people feel that the leadership is investing in them through mentoring, through really being

09:40dedicated to them. You know, it's a two way street. And I think that the best companies

09:45really attract the best talent, keep the best talent. But you can't even begin to have that

09:50kind of great human capital without really investing in mentors. And that's why we hope

09:57people will go to whobelievedinyou.com, whobelievedinyou.com to order the book and to

10:03also see the trailer where we have a number of new people beyond ones that we profile in the

10:08book, really responding to the questions, who believed in you? Did you thank your mentor? And

10:14who are you going to invest in to change the world?

10:17Dina Powell McCormick, Senator David McCormick, thank you so much for joining me. You

10:20just reminded me to go call my mom and give her a big thank you. Thank you so much. And

10:25congrats on the book.

10:26Thank you. Great to be with you.

10:28Thank you so much for having us.

10:38Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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