Category Archives: Mentoring & Other Business

We are one week into the SEED mentoring program application
period. All application forms, resumes, and letters of
recommendation are due on 12 June. We have received 41
applications so far. We have already held two phone-in
information meetings. The calls were well attended and the
callers asked good questions. Tanya Jankot and I are answering
many questions in email also.

So far, we have a good geographic distribution of applicants:

• China: 11 [ 27% ]
• EMEA-Other: 3 [ 7% ]
• France: 1 [ 2% ]
• India: 3 [ 7% ]
• Russia: 3 [ 7% ]
• United Kingdom: 2 [ 5% ]
• USA: 18 [ 43% ]
  • Central USA: 5 [ 12% ]
  • Eastern USA: 1 [ 2% ]
  • Western USA: 12 [ 29% ]

This has been a very busy week but I hope to have time starting
tomorrow to start reading the application materials. I am almost
done recruiting the executive Selection Committee for the Recent
Hire group. Both Recent Hire and Established Staff SEED group
selections will be held on 15 June so the time for evaluation
this year is short.

The SEED (Sun Engineering Enrichment and Development) mentoring term
was announced yesterday by CTO and SEED sponsor

Greg Papadopoulos. SEED is an Engineering-wide long-term leadership
growth program. SEED program participants are expected to rise
to the top of Sun Engineering’s individual contributor or management ranks.

The Recent Hire and Established staff terms of about 35 each
will start in September 2006. All materials are due 12 June 2006.
We already have 9 applications:

• Central USA: 3 [ 33% ]
• China: 1 [ 11% ]
• Russia: 1 [ 11% ]
• United Kingdom: 2 [ 22% ]
• Western USA: 2 [ 22% ]

The SEED program is not Sun’s only mentoring program. What makes
it different is that the SEED program is

• Sun’s only program in which about 75% of mentors are Sun executives (Distinguished Engineers, Directors, Fellows, Vice Presidents, etc.)
• open to all of Sun Engineering (any group, any location), with the goal of identifying and supporting future leaders of Engineering
• focussed on accelerating participants’ career development and learning overall (not on specific skills development)
• building and strengthening connections within Sun’s Engineering Community and with the rest of Sun
• free to participants, except for a small charge if they choose to take mentor partnership facilitation training

Despite their different goals, many mentoring programs have value,
depending on what the participant and their manager are looking for.

Last Thursday, the final pair in SEED’s legacy StorageTek term
was matched. A Senior Vice President accepted one of the
Storage managers as her first SEED mentee. The participant called
me to say how happy he is and how much he hopes to learn during the
next six months.

The metrics for this term of 28 participants who came to Sun through
the StorageTek acquisition ended well:

• 75% of the mentors
  are executives: 8 Vice Presidents (including one VP/Fellow, and two
  Senior VPs), and 13 Directors (including 8 Distinguished Engineers).

• 61% of the participants were matched with their #1 or #2 Mentor Wish List choice. Another 21% were matched with their #3 or #4 choice. As has been
  true in each of the last three SEED terms, about 80% of participants were matched with one of their first four choices. The remainder were matched with a Mentor lower down on their Mentor Wish List.

• The matching cycle time was 37 days (almost exactly the same as for
  the last two terms).

• This is an experienced group of mentors:
  • 2 SEED participant Alumni are returning as Mentors
  • 11 Mentors are serving for the 1st time with SEED (that is, 61% of
    this term’s mentors have been SEED mentors before)

  • 11 Mentors are in their 2nd time with SEED
  • 2 Star Mentors are in their 3rd or 4th time with SEED
  • 4 Superstar Mentors are in their 5th or 6th time with SEED

This week the next SEED regular terms will be announced (for both Recent
Hires and Established Staff). Anyone in Sun
Engineering world-wide who meets the selection criteria is welcome to apply.
All materials are due 12 June 2006.
SEED’s general selection criteria are:

1. All Participants are in Engineering.
2. Only regular Sun employees may participate.
3. Superior annual performance ratings are preferred.
4. Manager support is required.

SEED program participants are expected to rise to the top of Sun Engineering’s individual contributor or management ranks.

27 of the 28 SEED mentoring participants are matched in the
legacy StorageTek term. Most are
already working with their mentors. The unmatched participant is in
active conversations with a potential mentor and I hope to declare
that match soon. SEED held a special phone-in meeting this week
on “Engineering Career Paths at Sun” to bring them up to date on
titles and ways and means for promotion.

Tanya Jankot and I are now preparing for the next two SEED world-wide
terms, to be announced within the next ten days and to start in September.
Next step is to prepare the application forms and FAQ revision.

There were many requests in SEED’s most recent quarterly feedback
reports asking for more information on potential mentors. So, we are
revising the Potential Mentors list. Tanya converted it from HTML to
XML (so that it can be sorted electronically by the users) and we
added photos to make it more interesting and accessible. We will test
it next week.

3 weeks into our SEED mentor matching cycle, we have 25
out of 28 participants matched. Ten of the 25 are either
Distinguished Engineers or Fellows – quite a good number!
I hope to have at least one more matched today.

We are reviewing and updating SEED’s potential mentors list in
preparation for the two upcoming world-wide terms (for
recent hires and for established staff). In response to requests
in the recent quarterly reports, Tanya Jankot and I are
redesigning the list for greater usability. We are also going to
add photos for the first time.

We are starting our 3rd week of the mentor matching cycle for
the legacy StorageTek mentoring term. We matched 57% in week
one (16 out of 28 participants) and 79% in week two (22 out of
28). I am now working on finding SEED mentoring partners for
the last six participants.

Today and tomorrow are Sun’s world-wide executive Leadership
Conference (starting with the big announcement about Jonathan
becoming CEO!). It will be harder to reach some of the senior
executives to see whether they are interested in becoming a
SEED mentor this term.

It feels strange to have a new great-grand-boss after 22 years
of reporting to Scott McNealy but I very much liked what Jonathan
Schwartz had to say this morning. I
look forward to learning from him. Since I am a Director, I am
participating in the Leadership Conference over the web (only VPs
fit in the room). Still, it was very cool to see Scott’s 4 sons
and family in attendance even if I was not there in person.

One of the best things about Sun since it started has always been
its strong support
of family and balance in employee’s work life. When recent hire SEED
applicants nervously ask me about work-life balance as an
appropriate topic for
discussion with a mentor, I can point to the web pictures of
James Gosling and his daughter at the Java 10th Birthday Party and
to all of the times that Scott and Jonathan talk about how
important their kids and families are.

On Day Ten of the SEED mentor matching cycle,
we have matched 20 out of the 28 legacy StorageTek SEED mentoring
participants. I am pleased that we completed 57% of the matches in
the first week – very quick indeed! Last term, we had 25% matcbed in
week 1; the term before that, we matched 18% in week 1.

Nonetheless, we have been getting more email than we expected of the
“why am I not matched yet?” variety. Each SEED participant is by the
nature of things new to our process and of course wants to be matched
right away.

16 of those matched were accepted by the first potential mentor we
asked. There are a few participants for whom we have asked 3 mentors so far.
There are a few people for whom we are on number seven or eight of their
15 person Mentor Wish List. (Not everyone on each Mentor Wish List gets asked
because there are lots of duplicate requests and, of course, some people
are known to be unavailable.) However, most are still being considered by
someone in their top four choices. Historically, 75% to 85% of
SEED participants are matched with a mentor who is in their top four.

I have started sending out the invitations to potential speakers for
our September world-wide
SEED meeting and should be able to announce the dates soon. Tanya Jankot
and I are well into our preparations for the next world-wide regular
SEED terms, to be announced in May 2006 and start in September 2006.