Norfolk Business Mentoring
As a business mentor I get to know my clients well, understand their values and beliefs; learn what is important to them and how this affects their decision making.
The great thing about having a successful mentor/mentee relationship is that you can talk about almost anything and everything. Although most of the conversations are business focussed there are times when personal pressures get in the way and become part of the mix, and that’s OK. It is often difficult to deal with business matters when there are personal issues need to be addressed first.
Business Mentoring
Q & A
What is the role of a business mentor?
Mentoring is a partnership between the mentee and mentor in which the mentor shares their knowledge and experience to support the development of the mentee.
Business mentors offer advice and guidance to help their mentees to make decisions, achieve goals and has the ability to introduce mentees to professional contacts.
What is the difference between mentoring and coaching?
Business mentoring differs from coaching in as much as it is a relationship between you, the business owner and someone with business experience who can guide you through making the difficult decisions, advise you on ways of improving your business, ask you the tough questions and motivate you to want to achieve higher levels of performance, all within the bounds of a trusted relationship. The relationship is mentee driven.
A Business Coach will help with strategic planning and will be results orientated with a focus on measuring performance and can often be structured and standardised. The relationship is coach driven.
Mentoring is relational, while coaching is functional.
Because it’s lonely at the top, business mentoring can offer you a partner in the process, a sharing of views with someone who knows the ropes.
Working with a Business Mentor will help you gain fresh insights into problems and decision making, through impartial, objective discussion and feedback.
What does a business mentor do?
The four most important things that a business mentor should do:
- Actively listen to his or her mentee.
- Empower the mentee to solve problems rather than solving or fixing the issue for the mentee.
- Provide advice and guidance.
- Provide honest feedback.
What are the benefits of mentoring?
- Gaining from the experience of the mentor.
- Develop a sharper focus on what is needed to grow the business and for personal growth.
- Receiving feedback in key areas of the business including communications, interpersonal relationships, technical abilities and leadership skills.
- Receiving feedback in key areas of the business including communications, interpersonal relationships, technical abilities and leadership skills.
- Someone who is on your side with whom you can share frustrations as well as successes.
This is the traditional model of mentoring where a mentor and mentee enter a relationship to help the mentee develop their role. Mentors and mentees often develop a strong relationship of trust, with trust comes openness which leads to better problem solving and idea generating.
Group mentoring or peer mentoring is when a group of individuals come together to share experiences, knowledge and resources and to gain mutual support, learning and growth. The role of the mentor is to act a guide and leader.
Mentors and mentees often develop a strong relationship of trust
