Why mentoring matters

Jayne Archbold

But how confident can someone be when they confront new strategies for growth or realise that they are going to have to try something different to help them succeed in their role? Where can they turn to for advice and guidance?

Mentors can make a difference

For me this is where a business mentor can really make a difference. There has been a lot of talk about mentoring over the past couple of years and Sage has done some research recently which showed that, while almost everyone thinks business mentoring delivers benefits, not that many people are actually going out and using a mentor.

Mid-market businesses across Europe are failing to take advantage of business mentors, despite the vast majority recognising that external advice would help their organisation succeed, Sage found in a survey recently.

While 93% of firms agreed that business mentoring was helpful or useful to their organisation, on average just a third (33%) actually made use of a business mentor, the research showed. For the poll 1,825 decision-makers in mid-market businesses were interviewed in 17 countries.

One of the problems is that there is still some confusion as to what a mentor is or does. I think the best basic definition is along these lines: Mentoring is a professional relationship between a more experienced person (the mentor) and a less experienced person (the mentee) where the mentor helps the mentee to develop knowledge and skills that improve their professional expertise.

Mentors have specific business experience

I would further say that the key fact in business mentoring, as opposed to business coaching, is that the mentor has the specific business experience that is relevant for the mentee's situation. A business coach has a wider, less specific set of skills and methodologies for helping a mentee.

So what are the benefits of mentoring? The most important one is that a mentor brings a degree of objectivity to the business decision-making process that may not exist within the business.

Objectivity is often undervalued, especially by owner/founders of businesses. When people set up in business, they bring passion and creativity and a particular sense of purpose. But that focus can get too narrow, especially as the business grows and looks to expand. In bigger organisations that ability to look from the outside - often from the customer's point of view - is especially valuable. A mentor can bring that bigger picture view and help surface problems and solutions that would have been overlooked otherwise.

This outside-in view can have a significant impact over business success. According to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills in the UK, 9 out of 10 businesses who had worked with a mentor said it had a positive impact on their business. It also found that nearly twice as many mentored businesses reported an increase in turnover compared to unmentored businesses.

With this strong evidence of the benefits, why the hesitation? I think that one of the most significant block for small and medium business owners using a mentor is, simply put, time. But the best mentors save businesses time, effort and money by helping them to focus on what works using the benefit of their experience.

What should you be looking for in a mentor?

Here are some of the top characteristics: