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Quote:

"Experience is the child of thought and thought the child of action"

Benjamin Disraeli

 

'Has-Been' Value - ......... A Mentors perspective

A few months ago I attended a Leadership forum which discussed various approaches to supporting the personal development of business leaders within the SME community. A presentation made at this event expounded the virtues of peer group learning for resolving member problems and referred to the 'alternative' approach of mentoring as out-dated as it was delivered by a bunch of 'has-been's'.

As a business coach and mentor myself, this is the first time (knowingly!) I had been referred to as a 'has-been'. That said, I could appreciate, from one perspective, where the speaker was coming from. Coaches and mentors do found their support services on knowledge and skills developed PARTLY on experience.

There is certainly an aspect of learning associated with 'what works' and 'what doesn't'; albeit contextualised within certain environmental criteria. Professional Coaches and Mentors keep their services 'current' via the continuous learning and personal development provided by client engagement, formal training and research activities. I know from my own personal experience and focus that I spend on average around 15% of my time researching and learning and I ensure that each engagement enables a learning curve; no matter how small.

My real disappointment in the speakers presentation was that, firstly he missed the point that there are a number of different and often complementary, approaches which affect personal development; including both peer group learning and mentoring. However, the most vital aspect missing from his projected view was that putting into practice what has been suggested and learning from the experience via the implementation process remains the most important aspect of development.

From my own 'experience' as CEO I know the values and 'pros and cons' associated with formal training peer group networking and mentoring, etc. After off site sessions, leaders are often distracted when they return to the office or find that putting into practice what they have learned within the full context of their business environment is less easy. Particularly when the 'issues' need to be in proper context with short and long term cause-effect perspective.

This is where professional Mentoring is so important as they stand with you through the implementation and learning process ensuring that perspective is maintained and aligned with the appropriate business context and that risk is identified with each considered option. After all, hindsight should be 20:20 but, isn't it better to improve our foresight?

That said, my experience also provides an appreciation that there is occasionally no substitute for 'pain' with respect to the learning process itself! I well remember being 'taught' on an IoD Director Development course (which are themselves excellent formal training programmes) that 'cash is king'.

However, whilst I had understood AND appreciated the significance of that 'message', it became much more meaningful as a 'lesson' to me when I had to steer my enterprise through an 'intensive care' process with our bank due to severe cashflow problems ...... after experiencing the 'pain' of that process, then you REALLY KNOW WHY CASH IS KING!!

To me then, the ART of coaching and mentoring is not only about using skills and knowledge to provide learning, insight and advice. It is also about using experience to achieve the right balance in HOW such support is delivered to the individual directly in context with their environment. There are occasionally a number of ways to achieve the same objective and experience can often provide meaningful insight into how this objective is best achieved and the associated risks. But learning should never be forced ..... or even considered a one-way process!

So ........... as a mentor; experienced ......... YES I am .............. a 'has-been' .............. NO I believe not!!!