Mentoring Seen as Key to Success, Benefit of NABA - 2019 Spring Spectrum Magazine

NABA NEXT MENTORING Seen as Key to By Ruth E. Thaler-Carter Success, Benefit of NABA Evidence-based research has found that whether you While she has a workplace mentor, most of Morgan’s are in business, a student, an athlete, a scientist, or a mentors have been from outside the company, primarily new parent, having a mentor can help you achieve your through NABA. Mentoring leads her to “people whose goals sooner, stay in the job longer, or simply experience attributes I can look up to or for, and who provide career less frustration with work and family matters. NABA advice,” she said. has provided mentoring resources since it began, and members have always seen that aspect of the association For Morgan, mentoring is a two-way street: She not only as invaluable. has mentors, she is one as well. “I see being part of NABA as “It’s always good to have someone you can count on, not only for initial career advice, a way of mentoring,” she said. “In addition to helping but throughout your career — to help a colleague, I’ve found that I can learn from a you work through office politics, difficult mentee who’s in a different line of business. colleagues, making the right decisions, You also have to be on your Ps and Qs to be learning how to develop yourself and a mentor. I use the relationship to practice improve your skills,” said Tysheba L. my coaching skills, so it helps me develop Morgan, CPA, a senior vice president as a leader. This is especially important in the Global Financial Controls because there weren’t very many people Organization of Bank of America in around to show me what I needed to Charlotte, North Carolina, who is also a know and understand. Everyone needs national director of NABA. to have a support system; we can all learn Morgan had the good luck of a mentor in from each other’s mistakes so we don’t the accounting field from her very early days — a make the same ones.” relationship that has lasted essentially throughout her lifetime. “My uncle, who is a CPA, was my mentor,” she Morgan’s advice to colleagues, especially anyone recalled. As the only one of eight siblings to finish college, still in school or just entering the profession, is to “find he was an excellent example of what a determined person a mentor — look for someone already in the profession could achieve. “I was good at math when I was young and before you start your career or go into the profession. You he encouraged me. He’s retired now, but still gives me don’t know what you’re getting into, so try to live through career and life advice.” your mentor to learn what is involved, what it’s like.” Morgan has also benefited from a workplace mentoring program, she noted. “Bank of America has a formal Morgan’s commitment to mentoring and giving back mentoring program,” she said. “It has a database that is extends beyond her workplace. She has worked in the part of a matching process. You can search the database Baltimore, Maryland, area and is a founding board member to find someone based on skills or line of business.” Her of LiL’ Laughs Inc., a nonprofit organization that partners mentor is a finance executive in Consumer Banking; with elementary, middle, and high schools in Baltimore an example of using mentoring to learn about how and uses comedy as a vehicle for developing anti-bullying other parts of a company work and what other kinds of programs. No matter what, Morgan said, newcomers to the information might be useful. profession or a company should remember to return the gift of mentoring. “It’s always important to give back,” she said — to live the NABA motto of Lifting As We Climb by helping others on that upward path. ▲ SPRING 2019 | SPECTRUM 31