At Kith & Kin Law Corporation, the team unwittingly started reverse mentoring the day its 35-year-old founder Tan Shen Kiat hired a stay-at-home mother 15 years older than him as his first employee in 2019.
The employee, Ms Angela Teo, then 48, had been called to the bar before she became a full-time homemaker for 16 years, but never got to practise.
When she returned to the legal field, she also obtained a graduate diploma in professional counselling so she could better walk alongside individuals facing difficult situations.
The average law firm would look to law graduates, but Mr Tan wasn’t keen. For Kith & Kin’s area of specialty in estate planning and mental capacity law practice, he said Ms Teo’s background “made sense” – and her vast life experience was largely possible because of her age.
“We only deal with estate planning and mental capacity related matters. That includes (working with) people with special needs and additional needs. Additional needs will be people who can function like a healthy able-bodied human being if special arrangements are made for them. Like people in wheelchairs, who have ramps, for example,” said Mr Tan.
“This area of work requires a lot more ability to connect with people, a bit more empathy. You need the technical knowledge, but I think technical knowledge can be picked up.”
Mr Tan, who is also a practising lawyer, added that practice areas for law tend to be “quite strait-laced”, such as litigation, corporate, commercial or family law.
“Our practice area isn’t something many people would know or treat as a specialised area. But I thought of her life experience, like Angela has kids, she’s a caregiver, future care recipient … and she has a niece with special needs,” he said.
“It’s very difficult to find someone who has all these things and who also has a practising certificate, who got called to the bar. So I thought maybe we could give her a chance.”
Ms Teo is the oldest employee on the five-person team today; aside from Mr Tan, the other team members in the team range from mid-20s to early 30s in age.
LESSONS BEYOND THE WORKPLACE
In the end, whether it’s traditional or reverse mentoring, those who have been mentor or mentee argued that a good career mentorship will end up imparting life lessons too.
After more than five years, Mr Alvin Tan still holds the words of a former boss and mentor about humility close to his heart.
The MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC was working at Goldman Sachs when his boss at that time – Mr David Adelman, a former US ambassador to Singapore – taught him a lesson for life.
“He told me: ‘When I leave this post, I’m just going to be David. When you’re an ambassador, minister, or whatever, people are going to (look at you) because of the office that you have the privilege to serve in. But don’t conflate that with who you are’,” Mr Tan told CNA.
“’Ultimately, one day when you leave that office, you will just be Alvin, and I’ll just be David’,” Mr Tan recounted. “‘Don’t be beholden to all of that.’”
These words were “very releasing” for Mr Tan, who felt “free” after hearing that.
“It’s a privilege to helm a particular office for a particular time, but I don’t confuse it as ‘this is me’. (My former boss) showed me how to do it, and that it’s possible,” he said.
In his current role as a politician, Mr Tan says he has benefited from the generosity of another person he considers a mentor: Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
“Occasionally, I’m in the Treasury Building. I’ll ask him if I can tap his brains. It’s quite informal, but then I’ll just ask. He has decades of experience whereas I’m new to this. I don’t think there’s a downside to asking. He’s always been very open, and very generous with his time,” said Mr Tan.
“I don’t tell him that he’s now my mentor, but more like, he gives that time and I ask sometimes for that time. He always takes the extra effort to say, ‘How are you doing? Tell me more.’ And I thought that was very generous of him.”
Even though he has benefited from the wisdom of more than one mentor throughout his career, Mr Tan admitted he isn’t sure whether the mentor figures in his life realise he considers them mentors. Still, he has seen how mentorship has touched him and wants others to experience the same.
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