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Mentoring is good for you!

SME businesses have gaps in their critical skills. They run on sparse resources (people, time and finance) all focused on lots of operational details and red tape. In addition this focus is skewed by personal passions or backgrounds.

Key issues I find in terms of business leadership in SME’s are

A lack of clear vision and direction
Focus on operational as opposed to strategic activity
No delegation due to lack of trust
No personal development time
No focus on team development
And sometimes there is no clear leader, especially in partnerships

What MD’s and senior managers need is someone who can provide

Unbiased experience and high calibre support
Robust challenges to thinking and activity – asking BDQ’s – Bloody Difficult Questions
A reality check with an opportunity to air doubts, concerns, problems and get them resolved
Pressure to focus on key issues (MD’s and managers tend to avoid difficult situations and challenges)
Self development to reflect their needs

Mentors like me do not do things

They enable their mentoring partners to do it for themselves. They realign individuals and teams to focus on what is important for them personally and their business.

If you wish to appoint a Mentor like myself then it is best to meet for an hour or so (with no obligation) to see if we can work together. This relationship issue is very important. I as your Mentor will need to become a close personal guide and that implies a lot of trust. But once this relationship is established, businesses and their staff can find themselves being transformed with improved self awareness, growth in self confidence, clarity of roles and a more strategic view of the business. One thing you can be assured of is that Mentoring is definitely good for you as evidenced by this recent testimonial!

“As a result of the one hour I spent with Nicholas, I’ve achieved more in the last 3 weeks than I did in the previous 3 months! Thank goodness for his perception, honesty, clarity of thought and encouragement”.