Organizational psychologist Dr. Rosalind Chow turns the concept of networking on its head, taking listeners on a transformative journey beyond the standard model of mentorship to embracing sponsorship.

We all want to build more diverse and inclusive workplaces, but many of us are struggling to figure out how. In The Doors You Can Open, organizational researcher Rosalind Chow highlights the ways in which traditional models of networking and mentorship are failing us and introduces us to a new, more effective model of support: sponsorship.

What’s the difference between mentorship and sponsorship? Mentorship involves helping a mentee change their behavior, while sponsorship involves changing how other people see a protégé. Sponsorship is as important, if not more, than mentorship in determining who gets ahead, making it a more effective way to promote social equality and inclusion in the workplace.

Chow shows us that a paradigmatic shift to sponsorship need not be scary. Most of us already engage in sponsorship in our personal and professional networks; we just haven’t had a name for what we are doing. Seeing sponsorship for what it is and knowing how to do it effectively means that we can channel those skills to build more authentic personal and professional relationships. We all have more agency and deeper networks to draw on as sponsors than we might think. Sponsoring others can lead to mutually beneficial lifelong connections rather than merely transactional interactions.