Coaching, Mentoring
Mentoring programs intend to twin start-up-, less
experienced or less competent entrepreneurs with experienced
businesspeople. An entrepreneur often has a strong demand to discuss
business issues with a competent person of his/her trust. This person
may be a relative or a friend with extensive business experience. But
often an entrepreneur has neither of them available. Moreover, business
consultants or advisors of SME support organizations cannot play
precisely the role expected from a mentor. A mentor is supposed to
bounce off ideas, not to give specific, detailed advice on how to deal
with a specific business problem.
Starting and running a mentoring program involves a
number of distinctive steps, each of which gives raise to a number of
issues:
Preparation
Let us assume that you are an official in a business
promotion agency or a business chamber / association, and you want to
launch a mentoring program. The first question is: What exactly is your
motivation, and what do you want to achieve? It is important to start a
program without raising unrealistic expectations. A mentoring program
cannot substitute for a basic training program in business skills. It
also cannot substitute for specialized business and technical
consultancy. Therefore, it is essential to clearly state the objective
and the target group.
A second question involves the time horizon. For how
long do you expect the program to run? In fact, there are two different
issues. Once you have launched the program successfully, you may have it
running for many years. But this does not mean that each mentor/mentee
couple stays together for many years. It is rather useful to establish a
fixed term for the mentor/mentee relationship, such as one year. If
after that year the two persons decide to continue their relationship -
fine. But it is important to establish a deadline as otherwise ending
the relationship may become awkward, and mentors or mentees may hesitate
to get involved in a relationship for exactly that reason. It is also
useful to define a number of mentor-mentee relationships you want to
create in a given time period.
Identification of mentors and mentees
In terms of identifying mentors and mentees, different
issues are involved with respect to either group.
Regarding mentors, a key issue regards their personal
interest in getting involved in the scheme. The motives of the mentors
for engaging with the program will typically fall into four main
categories:
-
Towards the end of working life and seeking to
"put something back"
-
Testing the waters for eventual late career in
non-executive directorships
-
Seeking potential investment opportunities
-
Consultants seeking to promote their services
It is important for the program to define which
motives are acceptable, and which are not. The fourth motive should be
unacceptable, and the screening process must be designed appropriately.
The third motive may be controversial, but it must not disqualify a
potential mentor.
Regarding mentees, it is important to organize the
screening process in such a way that persons a identified for which
coaching adds critical value. Some candidates may display vast gaps in
terms of basic business skills which they hope to fill via the coaching
effort, which would be an unrealistic expectation. Mentees must be
reasonably skilled businesspeople which a viable business.
Moreover, the program needs to be explicit with
respect to whom it is providing a mentoring service: the individual or
the business. At first glance, the distinction may appear to be a moot
point. But it may happen that personal mentee development is being
judged by a set of business-type indicators (build stronger, high
growth, more sustainable businesses). Clarity on this point will help
identify performance indicators for evaluation.
Matching of mentors and mentees
The purpose of the matching process is not only to
identify the objective skills and interests, and to match people with
compatible interests and experience. It is also about person issues: you
want the chemistry between mentor and mentee to be as positive as
possible. When it comes to organize the matching of mentors and mentees,
you have basically two options.
One option is to do this in a scientific way,
employing methods such as psychological profiling. However, experience
seems to indicate that this approach may have an unfavorable
cost-benefit-ratio. It involves a very substantial effort, and the
results are not necessarily good. Another problem is that the mentors
and mentees may not appreciate an effort which they may perceive as
being to bureaucratic and overorganized.
The other option is to leave the matching process to
people. Obvious candidates are very experience, highly skilled human
relations professionals who have the touch and feel for people. They
will use a certain set of objective criteria, but when it comes to
chemistry they will rely on their experience and gut feeling. As long as
you are dealing with no more than a few dozen mentors and mentees, this
is probably the most efficient approach.
Kick-off conference or workshop
The kick-off event may be the place where the
effective matching is done. In any case, it is important as an occasion
to officially start the relationship. It is also very important in terms
of discussing the variations in expectations and objectives, and the
character of the relationship between mentor and mentee. Some important
issues are the following:
-
Mentors should not be the "captain of the
ship" or white knight; nor should they give instructions;
should be discussive and development of options around a mutual
respect.
-
Mentees often want instructions to act upon;
others do not want advice at all but a confidant or friend in a
lonely time; it is a strategy for coping and making own decisions in
stressful or uncertain situations.
-
Some mentees want regular contact, others want
hardly any but knowledge that it is a phone call away.
Implementation
During the execution of the program, a number of
points have to be taken care of, and issues may come up.
It is important to keep in touch with mentor and
mentee. They should be called at least once per month. This is to make
sure that the relationship works, to assess the support given by the
executing organization, and to be able to respond quickly if things go
wrong. Moreover, if the executing organization is offering a variety of
business development services, this may be a good opportunity to
advertise other offers.
As mentees develop, and as their company matures, the
nature of the relationship is bound to change in light of the mentee's
changed circumstance. Not all relationships will be able to last the
putative 12 months and prolonging the issue may lead to some
disaffection with the program. A new phase in the mentee's life may need
the skills of a new mentor and this provides BMS with an opportunity to
grow with the mentee through the provision of a dynamic service.
Mentees may seek to deepen the relationship with their
mentor and there may be a drift towards seeking business advice. There
needs to be a recognition of the potential for such a drift towards a
business advisory role for some relationships. For an organization
running the coaching scheme, it may be important to have appropriate
liability insurance in case a deepened and extended mentor-mentee
relationship runs foul.
It may be useful to organize meetings, not just for
the whole group but also for the persons on either side. In particular,
it is unrealistic to expect that, based on the acquaintances made during
the kick-off event, spontaneous networking between mentors occurs. Since
it is desirable to have exchange between mentors, the organization which
manages the program is well-advised to organize this in an explicit way,
for instance via a quarterly dinner. This is even more relevant as
experience shows that mentors and mentees are too busy to use new but
not very efficient tools such as chat rooms or interactive websites.
Evaluating
coaching schemes
An evaluation of an existing coaching program found
that it contributes to the mentees' businesses in the following ways:
-
Providing a "sounding board"
-
Providing "a different perspective"
-
Adding weight to the business
-
Appraising business plans
-
Specific assistance resulting in improved company
efficiency
Appraising the contribution of a coaching program
according to these aspects, addressing the satisfaction of mentees, adds
an important dimension to simple quantitative criteria such as growth of
turnover and employment.
The same evaluation found that many mentees were open
to the suggestion that, once the program had proved is efficacy, the
executing organization might charge for participation in the program.
![](../image/pixelblau.gif)
next
chapter: networking, business contacts
last
chapter: agribusiness
back to:
SME promotion
top