Dumbstruck, I conjured up a weak and wobbly yes. A month later, I started a brand-new career.
So I finally got it—sponsorship, that is. I did my utmost to never again let it go. My career journey was complicated (more on that in the final chapter). But from here on out, I knew that if I was going to amount to anything, I needed powerful sponsors.
The Sponsor Imperative
Who’s pulling for you? Who’s got your back? Who’s putting your hat in the ring?
Odds are, this person is not a mentor but a sponsor.
Now don’t get me wrong: mentors matter. You absolutely need them—they give valuable advice, build self-esteem, and provide an indispensable sounding board when you’re unsure about next steps. But they are not your ticket to the top.
If you’re interested in fast-tracking your career, in getting that next hot assignment or making more money, what you need is a sponsor. Sponsors give advice and guidance, but they also come through on much more important fronts. In particular they:
Believe in your value and your potential and are prepared to link reputations and go out on a limb on your behalf.
Have a voice at decision-making tables and are willing to be your champion—convincing others that you deserve a pay raise or a promotion.
Are willing to give you air cover so that you can take risks. No one can accomplish great things in this world if they don’t have a senior leader in their corner making it safe to fail.
It is this kind of heavy lifting that distinguishes a sponsor from a mentor. The data that underpins this book shows that sponsorship has a measurable impact on career progression. Men and women with sponsors are much more likely to rise up through the ranks and hang on to their ambition. Sponsors—unlike mentors—give you serious traction.
1
What Is Sponsorship?
Pat Fili-Krushel, chairman of NBCUniversal News Group, has come a long, long way in the super competitive and testosterone-fueled world of network news and media. Though not a journalist, she is the first woman in the American television news industry to head up a network news division, reporting directly to CEO Steve Burke. She’s been on Fortune magazine’s 50 Most Powerful Women list since 1998, and she’s been honored with a slew of other awards, including induction into the Museum of Television & Radio’s “She Made It” collection. No one would ever guess, in the presence of this poised and powerful executive, that she began her career as a secretary at ABC Sports.
“I’ve been lucky,” Pat insists when I marvel at her extraordinary journey.1 “And I’ve worked my tail off.” She pauses to reflect, then adds, “But one of the things I’ve done well—and I don’t know that it’s conscious—is that I’ve always made my boss look good. All the people I’ve worked for will tell you, ‘I like having Pat around, because I know she’s got my back.’”
One of those people was Bob Iger, now CEO of Disney, whom she met at the Xerox machine when both were starting out their careers at ABC Sports. While she didn’t initially report to Iger, her work ethic and performance won his attention and he pulled her onto his team. Whenever Iger moved up, he recommended that Fili-Krushel fill his vacancy. It was Iger who brought her over to ABC from Lifetime Television, where she’d served as a senior vice president of programming, and installed her as president of ABC Daytime television. But Fili-Krushel was quick to make good on his investment in her: she was the driving force behind “The View,” the talk show that helped vault ABC’s daytime programming to number one among women 18–49 years old. She also conceived and launched SoapNet, a 24-hour soap-opera cable network, which went on to become a multibillion-dollar business. “Do your job well, make sure your boss is fully informed, and don’t be afraid to ask for help,” she explains. “That’s how you build the trust vital to any long-term professional relationship.”
Superior performance and trust is certainly what delivered Pat to her current position with Steve Burke. She’d impressed him back when they both worked for Disney, she as president of ABC TV, he as president of ABC Broadcasting. “Pat was someone you could absolutely count on to do the right thing,” Burke told me. “She wasn’t intimidated by projects or people, and she didn’t play politics. I knew her motivations at all times—and that made her one-hundred percent trustworthy.”
So in 2011, after Comcast and GE merged with NBC and Burke found himself at the helm of a super-siloed media monolith, it was Pat he turned to for help in transforming the culture. “I knew if I got Pat, I wouldn’t have to worry,” he recalled. “I knew when she found things wrong, she would make them right. I knew that if any of our top people had exposure to her, even without exposure to me, they’d know the kind of company we were trying to create.”
Hired on as executive vice president of NBCUniversal, Pat immediately set to rights the compensation structure that had mired Burke’s team in the past. With her formidable people skills, she helped effect the collaborative culture that Burke had envisioned. When Burke decided to form the News Group, putting NBC News, CNBC, MSNBC, and The Weather Channel in the hands of one executive, it was again Pat who emerged as first choice. “I knew my decision would ruffle some feathers,” Burke confided. “Pat’s not a journalist, so how could she be put in charge of hundreds of journalists who are risking their lives all over the world? But she didn’t need to be the senior-most journalist in order to find the people who could make this new environment productive and cooperative.”
But if initially people scratched their heads at Pat’s appointment, they don’t anymore. “Everyone, from Brian Williams to staff members, has told me she’s a breath of fresh air,” Burke observed when we spoke in early 2013. “Pat’s a great executive, the kind who creates an environment where people enjoy what they do. She has my complete confidence.”
Marina, an assistant finance manager at Lloyds Banking Group of London, feels pretty well supported at work.2 She received a warm welcome when she returned from maternity leave last year. She was given the part-time schedule she’d requested—an unusual accommodation for anyone in the risk assurance department—and was assigned to a line manager she both liked and knew would look out for her.
While grateful for these developments, Marina wasn’t terribly surprised. She believed that it was all about performance, and she’d consistently delivered over her ten years at the bank. “It stands to reason,” she told me, “that the higher-ups appreciate my track record. When you have worked for a company as long as I have, your results speak for themselves,” she explained. “Once someone has seen your good work it’s hard for someone to say, ‘Oh she’s rubbish, she’s got to go,’ because people won’t believe it. People who know my skills and level of commitment will support me and make sure I’m rewarded.”
But it doesn’t seem to be working out that way. Now that she’s working a full-time schedule again, Marina is frustrated that those same people haven’t done more to fast-track her career. One of them, “a super-duper female executive” she met through the women’s network at the bank, struck her as someone who might be a champion. “She’s absolutely my role model because she also has young children and knows a thing or two about how a woman can make it big in a male-dominated environment,” Marina enthused. But their relationship has remained casual—and remote. “I thought of asking her to sponsor me,” said Marina wistfully, “but I had second thoughts. She’s my boss’s boss and there might be some conflict of interest.”
For now Marina is pinning her hopes on her long-time mentor—a senior person who has given her wise counsel over the years. He makes a point of complimenting her on her contributions, so she’s fairly sure that he has sent some work her way. “No one has said that directly, but I have a feeling that’s the case,” Marina said. “He did say to me once, ‘You’re one of those people who’s good at fixing things. You’re Mrs. Fixit.’”
Marina told me that she thinks in