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What is Business Mentoring |
The words coaching and mentoring are used to describe just about every sort of external support and have become useless as a description of service.
We at Silent Partners would like to nail some flags to the wall and explain our view: IN SUMMARY Business Coaching = Challenging the client and helping very capable people focus on the correct actions. No advice is given. Business Mentoring = Challenging but some advice and possible options given when required. Business Consultancy = Telling the client how to solve a problem or meet an objective. Even implementing the action if required. Very few SME's want pure coaching, they want a mixture of coaching, mentoring and consultancy supplied at the appropriate time. Unfortunately, with such confusion in the market place it is left to the SME owner to understand what support they need and then ask the supplier if they can actually deliver it. THE DETAIL: Business Coaching: The sports analogy can be used to answer this question. No matter how much talent an individual has they will never succeed in their chosen field without the aid of a coach. Todays top sport coaches do not "tell" anymore. They set challenges, they watch the results and listen to the feedback, they constantly push their charges to higher achievements. They create an environment in which the sports person is able to develop their unique skills and talent and realise their full potential. We believe that Business Coaching is based on the same principle. An effective coach works through a structured process with an individual or team, enabling them to solve problems and implement new ideas. But they do not provide any advice. The person being coached has all the knowledge and skills required, they just want support in helping them focus and someone to challenge them. Therefore a coach does not need to have any knowledge or experience of the subject being discussed. Business Mentoring: An effective mentor acts as a "sounding board" and supporter to an individual or team who seek to develop within their business role. The mentor has relevant knowledge and experience and thus able to offer suggestions and advice at appropriate times. This enables the individual or team to move forward at a quicker pace. Therefore the Mentor must have knowledge and experience of the topics being discussed Business Consultancy: A business consultant tells the client how to do something and could actually implement that solution as well. This is neither coaching nor mentoring although many consultants call themselves coaches. If the consultant doesn't have knowledge and experience of the topics being advised on - you are stuffed! Give us a call on 0118 988 3435 VISIT OUR WEB SITE - CLICK HERE |
