IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2007 - 28

01mwie01-careerad.qxd

1/4/08

1:58 PM

Page 28

Career Advisor
Experiences from the Real World

Involvement and interaction
are essential for growth
Listen up and don't be afraid to join in

Practical Tips
from a Mega-Mentor
Johnson & Johnson's Sorensen
makes an investment in people

For many people, the end of the workweek is trumpeted by a popular theme
for Friday. There are casual Fridays, the
ever-popular pizza Fridays, and Friday
summer hours. For Karan Sorensen, CIO
and vice president of information management, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Pharmaceutical Research & Development,
LLC, in Raritan, New Jersey, Fridays are
also about enhancing employees' morale,
sans the Ragu and mozzarella but with a
pinch of mentoring.
A newly minted CIO who also is pursuing her Ph.D. in technology management and has a second job as a single
mother of three teenagers, Sorensen still
finds time-or "makes time" as she puts
it-to mentor 35 people. Every Friday,
for the entire day, Sorensen mentors J&J
employees. While some are technical like
she, others are in business functions
such as finance, sales or marketing.
Going far beyond what most J&J mentors take on, Sorensen also mentors
additional employees informally as well
as in group mentoring sessions. She
says, "It's a great way to kick off the
weekend!"
J&J's commitment to employee development supports Sorensen's mentoring
activities. She explains that, "Employee

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

development is a pervasive part of the
J&J culture, part of the DNA here. Our
philosophy is to invest in people and success will follow. Through our succession
planning process, we identify, coach, and
develop high potential employees, to be
the best that they can be, fully engaged.
As a result, employee retention is exceptionally high. I've been here for four
years, but I'm still the 'new kid on the
block' because there are so many people
who have been here for 20 or 30 years."

Grooming the Next Generation
Why does she do it? "I feel that mentoring is the most important thing I can do
for the company," Sorensen explains.
"I'm developing the next generation of
leaders. As a mentor, it is more rewarding for you than you would ever expect.
And it's amazing how fast the organization will recognize the value."
What's more, mentoring yields
results. We've all heard that most successful leaders have a series of mentors
throughout their professional lives.
Sorensen sees evidence of this everyday.
"Mentoring empowers people to give
breakthrough performance, to achieve
what they would not have before. People
sometimes need someone to believe in
them before they believe in themselves."
"Or they just need a kick in the pants.
I have seen so many people just blossom,
from good to great to 'next practices.'
They become leaders among leaders."
More concretely, she has seen sales
people significantly increase their sales

WINTER 2007/2008

and other employees receive awards,
recognition, and monetary benefits subsequent to being mentored by her.
Sorensen attributes their success-at
least in part-to mentoring.

Mentors Versus Managers
What do people talk about with their
mentors, that they can't talk to their
managers about? Actually, Sorensen does
mentor her direct reports, meeting with
each of them weekly to talk explicitly
about them, not about their projects. In
this way she ensures that she spends
quality time with her staff.
However, some employees seek
confidential assistance with things
that they just can't talk about with
their managers. Sorensen explains,
"We have an understanding that mentoring conversations are confidential.
It's a safe harbor, non-judgmental, and
we can talk about anything. The only
exception is if I hear about anything
illegal or unethical, which is rare.
Then I point the person to the appropriate support structures in the company for follow-up."
Mentoring conversations can cover
many different subjects. According to
Sorensen, "You never know where
you're going to go in these conversations. You'll talk about their hopes and
dreams and how to get there, their yellow brick road."
Employees regularly seek mentoring
from her in the following areas:
◗ reviewing performance selfappraisals before they are submitted
◗ preparing for performance review,
promotion, and raise conversations
with their managers
◗ discovering answers to questions
such as "What am I doing that
makes me be seen as a manager
and not a director? What are they
looking for?"
◗ dealing with staff performance
problems

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2007