HBR Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need (HBR Guide Series)

Chapter 14

Keep Learning from Your Protégés

by Hollis Heimbouch

I’m fortunate to work in publishing, a field that has long relied on an apprenticeship model of talent management and promotion. Like many of my peers, I began my career as an editorial assistant, reporting to two senior editors. They were responsible for finding and developing new book projects, which seemed to require many fancy meals and trips to glamorous locales. And I was responsible for handling all the sundry details of getting books out the door, which required lots of trips to the photocopier and the mailroom. (We’re talking late 1980s.) A recent college graduate, fresh-faced and naive, I thought I knew a lot about literature—but I knew absolutely nothing about the business ...