Maverick Mastery®

One of the tragedies of modern training and development programmes is that not everyone in the senior management team is given the equal opportunity to enhance their skills. In the age of equality it is often the case that HR professionals aren’t considered equally for training opportunities – however, this isn’t solely the fault of ‘unenlightened’ companies but HR professionals themselves.

Often with reducing budgets HR professionals choose to spend the diminishing training resources on other members of the team sometimes due to altruism or sometimes due to the misguided belief that they would never be able to justify the spend on themselves.

This can be a factor of HR not being seen as credible or serious by the organisation, even if the company funds the CIPD (seeing it similar to other basic skills training like CIMA), negotiation skills or conflict resolution training may be harder to source. Sometimes the senior team expect HR to somehow just ‘have’ the knowledge to succeed in their role without any significant training. In this, senior HR professionals are similar to CEOs (competency assumed, further training not required!), which although flattering can be disadvantageous to your career but even worse damaging to the organisation.

Almost all companies where the CEO or MD voice dissatisfaction with HR a common sentiment is that the HR professional is competent and good at their job, just that somehow they just don’t add value or are able to ‘step up’. What they are struggling to articulate is that they want more from HR than just transactional duties or ‘best practice’, they want to see HR as equal partners in the business – in the same way as Finance or Marketing.

No one expects the Finance Director to just put together the management accounts so why should the HR Director just ensure that employees are paid correctly?

There is more to running the company that just ensuring that the basics are done, and there is nothing wrong in seeking help to enable you and the company to succeed. If it’s acceptable that key individuals (like the CEO or the Marketing Director) are mentored to make them more effective and productive then my challenge to senior HR professionals to consider whether mentoring is an effective solution for them achieving the personal and/or organisational goals.

Senior HR professionals and a need for a HR Mentor

There are a number of reasons why a senior HR professional would consider mentoring rather than hiring an interim or consultant to come into the organisation and facilitate change for them. One of the reasons is that the task in hand requires the HR professional’s input and not a ‘stranger’ to the organisation. This could be due to credibility, culture or trust.

Another is professional development or a need to rapidly learn the key skill being transferred by the mentor whilst you are working on the project in hand. Finally executive coaching is not appropriate for the task in hand. Mentoring works well for more senior professionals who have the core competencies but just don’t have the specific knowledge for the task in hand.

Here are some examples of where HR mentoring has enabled HR professionals:

• Taking HR from a transactional, administrative department to an embedded, added value one

• Supporting HR become more credible to the business

• Embedding the HR Business Partner model into the business

• Enabling the HR professional to ‘step up’ and be seen as an equal partner in the business

• Having an objective person outside the organisation to discuss things with and if necessary seek guidance

Senior HR professionals that require an external mentor is best suited by someone who has a strong HR and operational background who is able to facilitate the transfer of knowledge with credibility and efficiency. It is important that this expert has knowledge outside of the HR arena.

Your mentor enables you to have the ability to confide in someone outside of the company, who is an objective sounding board. Often it’s lonely at the top! If you are the most senior HR professional in your organisation there is often no one to confide in. You are unable to share your concerns or frustrations fully with your team – whether that’s your own HR team or the senior management team.

You face many important strategic decisions and it can be beneficial to work with someone who has been in your position and knows the path that you need to take to secure success. Enabling your department or your team to ‘add value’ can sometimes benefit from an external mentor or consultant who not only has the ability to make this change happen, but can guide and advise you if you wish to facilitate this change yourself.

In the same way that training spend is invested in the professional development of the CEO and the other members of the senior team, HR professionals need to ask for the investment that they believe they need. It is perfectly acceptable for senior HR professionals to use external mentors to enable them to complete either specific tasks or enable them to facilitate big changes such as increasing the skill of the HR team or enabling the HR department to become more credible to the business.

After all, the future of the organisation is at stake

There are a number of research projects that show that the more engaged employees are the bigger the productivity increase. Research also shows that there is around 20% of the workforce out performing their peers. So it can seem to be good economic sense to have the 20% as engaged as possible. Often this is the focus of succession plans and internal mentoring schemes. Many readers will have heard of the need to concentrate on ‘high potentials’ or ‘key talent’.

Whilst the intent is laudable often the implementation is not, with only a few exceptionable companies getting the results that they expected or receiving a good return on their investment. The consequence of getting this wrong is not just financial; it can also result in a lack of trust towards the company and the departure of the very people that the company wants to keep.

What is mentoring and does it differ from coaching?

Coaching begins with the premise that the answers are within the person being coached. The coach’s role is to help the individual understand that and via the use of encouraging and questioning techniques, helps elicit the solution. A coach is generally non directional and does not provide advice. Good companies with a strong empowerment culture tend to encourage its managers to have a coaching style and may even employ executive coaches for its top performers. Aspiring companies prefer to have internal coaches to improve the performance of its employees.

By contrast a mentor is an expert who provides guidance and advice within a more developmental relationship. Mentoring requires flexibility of the mentor and their ability to use a wide range of techniques to guide the mentee. Good mentors will apply coaching techniques where applicable and will be unafraid to provide detailed advice on what the mentees next steps are. Mentoring works best for senior executives and Directors – for these individuals coaching is less relevant and useful. This is especially true where it is specific ‘how to’ knowledge that is required rather than a reflective sounding board.

A lot of internal mentoring schemes subscribe to the myth that mentoring needs to be provided by an older more senior employee. This is no longer a truism, mentoring should be provided by a person that is able to provide knowledge and direction in an area that they are experts in. (Not withstanding having the right knowledge, skills, character and behavioural traits).

Often the mentor is a senior manager chosen not because of his skills or the fact that he is a role model but because he is in a senior position. This is problematic for a number of reasons:

• The senior manager does not wish to be a mentor

• The senior manager is very busy and cannot see the value of being a part of the Internal Mentoring Scheme

• The senior manager is a poor role mode

• The senior manager is not credible

Having the wrong mentor for the scheme can have a very adverse effect on the entire mentoring programme. Setting up an internal mentoring scheme without clearly defining and communicating the purpose can also be problematic. I was hired to run a workshop for a group of employees around how they felt they were treated and perceived by their managers and a discussion around why they felt they were being held back in their career. Most of the group felt that they needed an external mentor to help them learn the behaviours and skills that they needed to progress in their careers. I understood that there was an internal mentoring scheme so I queried why they were not using it. The message that came out loud and clear was that they did not trust the scheme. The perception was that it was being used to discover information to be used against them. Many employees quoted examples that they believed reinforced this idea.

The perception that internal mentoring schemes are set up for ill is more common for schemes that are devolved to all employees rather than schemes that are more ‘traditional’. This perception is however one of the reasons that corporate internal mentoring schemes or programmes does not work. There is a lack of trust in the system, especially when the organisational culture does not support the level of openness that a mentoring scheme needs to encourage.

Ill equipped mentors who have not been trained properly and who are unable to deal with the conflicts that will ensue from their role as a mentor, has the capacity not just to destroy the scheme but to irrevocably impact the trust in the organisation. It is important that mentors of internal schemes have an external supervising mentor who can provide guidance as and when appropriate.

Sometimes organisations send out mix messages about their mentoring scheme. For example not allowing the mentor and mentee sufficient time to meet to discuss issues, or by having appraisal systems that actually discourage the use of a mentor. Peer pressure can also discourage their usage as other employees see time spent with the mentor as ‘time off’ and dissuade their colleague for utilising the scheme.

Mentoring schemes are often appropriate ways to develop talented employees who need to understand the key activities that they require to achieve to complete a task, change behaviour or enhance their career. Companies need to understand the environment in which the schemes operate and ensure that there is sufficient trust engendered.

In the current economic climate, the biggest headache for most small businesses is the costs associated with managing and employing staff. Ultimately, this comes down to one key question; are businesses spending too much time carrying out activities that they are not adequately trained to do? Business Mentor and management specialist Judith Germain explains why small businesses need to review the costs of their HR activities and explains why outsourcing non-core activities is so critical in today’s competitive marketplace.

It is inevitable that many entrepreneurs and small business owners will reach the point where they need to support the growth of their business by taking on additional staff, but many are put off doing so by the deluge of rules and regulations covering every aspect of the HR process. As a result, many businesses spend a great deal of unnecessary time and energy on managing their processes instead of running and growing their business.

In this article, we are going to look at the most common HR issues, which cause problems for small businesses and what can be done to ensure these areas are carried out more efficiently.

1. Legislation

Small businesses spend a lot of time trying not to fall foul of the increasing levels of legislation that befall them. Whilst legislation can be a good thing it can have a disproportionate effect on a small business.

For example the Disability Discrimination Act can see small businesses paying huge sums for failing to follow good processes and investigating absence claims properly. Many small businesses do not see the need for establishing absence policies believing that because the business has a family atmosphere there will not be any issues. This is beset with problems as once an employee falls ill, especially if their illness falls under the DDA, then the employee is often encouraged to claim against the employer in pursuit of the huge payouts that is perceived to be available to them. This can cause the business to spend an inordinate amount of time defending a DDA claim which is costly not only in management time but also in professional costs (ie external lawyers).

There is little understanding of the DDA amongst business owners and yet it is one of the most pervasive employment laws affecting businesses. Having a good absence policy can reduce the risk of a DDA claim and it is worth investing in getting such policies drawn up by a HR professional to ensure they meet the needs of the business and the requirements of the DDA.

2. Absence Policies

Whilst absence from work due to sickness is inevitable, businesses need to consider whether the amount of time taken off is reasonable and reflected across the wider business, as there may be underlying issues which are affecting the bottom line that are being missed or masked as ‘absence from work’.

If sickness/absenteeism levels are out of the ordinary (or relating to certain department(s) only) then it could suggest that there is a more serious underlying problem involving the management of the business. This could be due to poor management style, ineffective methods of delivery, low department morale, low motivation etc.

For example, where a department is under threat of redundancy, absenteeism is relatively low and attendance is stable (due to the fear that any days off work could mean that they are chosen for redundancy). But alongside this most organisations will find that there is an increase in absenteeism in other departments as a direct result of the redundancy threat in another department. More often than not this is due to low morale and upset about the pending redundancies.

The key challenge is to look at the company as a whole, and tackle the causes of absence and not the symptoms of it. This could mean a stronger reliance on preventative methods rather than just reactive ones. Thus ensuring that any issues with management efficiency and style as well as employee morale and motivation are identified and resolved at an early stage in order to avoid impacting on absence levels later down the line.

It is worth looking for a consultant who specialises in leadership and development issues who can come into the business and identify and resolve these issues at the core before they have a knock-on effect throughout the entire business.

3. Recruitment

Particularly in smaller businesses, the most crucial task of Recruitment is often undertaken by untrained employees. This can cause a minefield of potential dangers. It’s important to be able to recruit and retain the right employees because replacing an employee on average can cost a business between £5k – £10k.

Remember, businesses may face claims of discrimination in their recruitment process (which are unlimited). One option for small businesses looking to recruit new staff is to hire recruitment agencies to do it instead, as they can reduce the risk and overall cost of the firm doing it itself.

4. HR software for Payroll, Talent Management etc

For many businesses, HR software can bring a number of benefits, the most primary one being a significant cost reduction for the company in terms of administrative time, reduced staff turnover and HR headcount.

Significant improvements in how a company recruits and retains its employees can be established by using Talent Management software as it can provide detailed knowledge of the cause and effect of current and proposed recruitment strategies. Another area where Talent Management software comes into its own is in managing absence. Accurate record keeping, trends analysis and objective assessment can lead to increased attendance, lower costs and avoidance of expensive legislative issues flowing from contravening the DDA as mentioned earlier.

However, HR software should be treated with caution as one of the mistakes that companies make typically when buying integrated Talent Management software is allowing finance, payroll and procurement needs to influence the choice of system with limited input from a HR perspective. This often means that the significant cost savings and performance improvement that could be achieved by having a detailed knowledge of the talent of the organisation are never utilised, because they can be seen as expensive intangible factors for non HR practitioners. This can make the new system an expensive acquisition for small businesses with little practical use in managing the talent of a diverse workforce.

There is nothing worse than spending a small fortunue on a new piece of software only to end up never using it, so it is worth seeking advice from a HR specialist when considering the various HR software options available to ensure that the most suitable option is chosen for the needs of the business.

6. Pastoral Care

Perhaps the most cost effective and efficient means of reducing HR costs is probably the simplest and most overlooked; listening and talking to employees! A happy workforce will be productive, efficient and loyal and simply by looking after staff and ensuring that their needs are met through the business, there will be less absence, less overtime costs and less recruitment costs as staff churn reduces.

Mentoring and Coaching programmes are the most effective way of managing the personal and professional needs of employees and I have come across many situations where a simple miscommunication or misunderstanding between management and employees could have potentially had a disastrous effect on the business if it had not been nipped in the bud during an early mentoring session.

When evaluating the costs associated with managing and running a small business, it is crucial to indentify areas which take up a disproportionate amount of time and detract from the overall growth and development of the business. Outsourcing the more lengthy or risky HR activities such as recruitment, payroll etc can free up valuable time within the business to focus on more critical areas such as the development and well being of employees and their motivation and desire to help make the business prosper.

Dynamic Transitions Ltd enables companies to develop mastery in their leaders and the company’s strategic ability. Businesses want to be able to have a workforce that questions, challenges and refuses to accept a status quo which is damaging or disadvantageous to the company. It is only this acceptance of difference that can enable a company to grow and outsrtip their competitors.

Companies that are prepared to invest in developing their strategic ability are more likely to achieve their strategic objectives.

Do you run a Maverick Organisation? If so your company …

• operates in a fast moving, highly competitive market
• values difference and challenge
• haves the most talented employees in your industry
• values wilful independence
• is seen as ‘cutting edge’
• is admired by others

What you do is different …

We help organisations blend their knowledge and skills to out perform their competitors and be employers of choice. We support mastery by:

• providing innovative leadership training
• executive mentoring and coaching
• strategic consulting on talent management and leadership issues

Maverick Mastery^® is essential for organisations that are constantly evolving.

For more information contact us here.

Dynamic Transitions Ltd enables mavericks to develop mastery in how they interact with others and how they put their creativity in motion. Mavericks – the wilfully independent, are lateral thinkers and are talented individuals who are determined to succeed by influencing others.

Maverickism is a continuum between being a conformist to an extreme maverick that cannot be influenced. Neither of the continuum ends are ideal, causing poor performance and personality flaws, the ideal is a socialised maverick.

Judith Germain defines a socialised maverick as one that can be ‘brought into polite company!’ Seriously though, mavericks that are socialised understand why people behave the way that they do and have learnt to curb their natural tendencies to be blunt and hurtful towards others. Whilst these tendencies are often not planned or even noticed they need to be harnessed so that the maverick can achieve what they desire.

Recognition and success is the watch words for mavericks, socialised mavericks are well on the way to achieving these things in an acceptable way.

Are you a maverick? If so you …

• think laterally and move in unexpected ways
• believe in tough love and brutal honesty
• are blunt and impatient of others incompetence
• love ‘why’ questions and honest debate
• need to succeed and do things your own way
• refuse to compromise your own standards

You must succeed no matter what …

Mavericks already have a level of success, our role is to enable you to improve your level of success faster and more appropriately. We work with you to support you in interacting with others better and more consistently. By understanding yours and others behaviour you will become more influential therefore achieving what you want in the shortest time possible.

We will support you by:

• enabling you to interact better and raising your social intelligence
• to challenge yourselves and others appropriately and effectively
• showing you how to achieve the success you desire

Maverick Mastery® is essential for the maverick persona to enhance their creative mind.

For more information contact us here.

We enhance the entrepreneurial mindset

A maverick business owner demonstrates wilful independence and how they do this determines how well they will succeed in their endeavours. This type of person left a secure corporate job because they were unhappy trying to successfully navigate their way in corporations that could no longer contain them. They are ambitious business owners with big goals, very focused on getting more clients and delivering their core skill (training, or consulting for example). It is imperative that they concentrate on their business rather than working in it all the time. This is the only way they can achieve the stretching goals that they have set themselves.

These types of business owners are creative, big picture individuals who are busy but not focused. They are also impulsive and are spending their time working in the business not on it.

Maverick Business Owners do not want lifestyle businesses, they want a sustainable business that grows to be bigger than they are. Having a truely entrepreneurial mindset is keen to achieve this, otherwise the inherent traits of impulsiveness, impatience and risk taking can have an adverse effect on the business. See here.

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Many organisations are considering the best cost effective way to continuously develop their employees and establishing a peer to peer mentoring programme is an increasingly sought after solution for some companies. Mentoring specialist Judith Germain provides a step by step guide on how to embed a peer to peer mentoring programme within an internal comms department.

What is peer mentoring and does it differ from coaching?

Coaching and mentoring are quite different although a lot of practioners use the terms interchangeably. Coaching begins with the premise that the answers are within the person being coached. The coach’s role is to help the individual understand that and via the use of encouraging and questioning techniques, helps elicit the solution. A coach is non directional and never provides advice.

By contrast a mentor is an expert who provides guidance and advice within a more developmental relationship. Mentoring requires flexibility of the mentor and their ability to use a wide range of techniques to guide the mentee.

Peer mentoring takes place when the mentor is not in a position of authority over the mentee. For example an employee in an internal comunication dept might have a colleague within the same department as their mentor. The mentor will guide their colleague based on the life experience that they have gained and their professional expertise within the communication arena.

Implementing a peer to peer mentoring programme

For any mentoring programme to succeed it needs to be embedded within the culture of the organisation and be supported by the senior management team. The process needs to be transparent and be an essential part of the company’s Talent Management programme. This ensures that the mentoring programme fulfils the company’s goals and objectives and isn’t an exercise that is seen by management to be time costly, inefficient and unproductive. Neither should it be seen by employees within the internal comms department as a programme where the mentors are not role models and the programme is flawed.

Step 1 – Senior management buy in

Ensure buy in from senior management and that the peer to peer mentoring programme is part of the company’s Talent Management programme.

Step 2 – Mentor recruitment

The success of the programme relies on the ability of the organisation to recruit appropriate mentors. Each potential mentor should be interviewed against a criteria of desired competencies and required skills, an essential part of the recruitment should include a self assessment from the potential mentor as this would indicate their level of self awareness and skill level. There are a number of things that need to be considered when chosing the right peer mentor including the following:

ü Is the proposed mentor already considered a role model within the department/organisation?

ü Is the proposed mentor able to accept constructive criticism and continually learns from the experiences that they gone through?

ü Does the proposed mentor have the ability to empower others?

ü Does the proposed mentor have a good work record or one that has improved over time?

Step 3 – Mentor training

All mentors should be trained before they begin this important role and should not have to rely soley on trail and area to succeed. They should be trained on essential skills like coaching techniques, how to transfer their knowledge, the need for confidentiality, how to deal with conflict and conflict of interests for example. They should also have their own mentor to ensure that they continue to develop and know how to deal with the issues that may arise. Most companies prefer an external mentor in this role.

Step 4 – Relationship building

There should be a good match between the mentor and the mentee and they should both agree to the relationship. Many companies fail when they enforce a particular mentor onto a mentee or when either of the party does not understand the nature of the relationship or the roles that they play. There should be activities that allow the two individuals to get to know each other so that they can build a trusted relationship.

The mentor will need to assess the needs of the mentee and explain to him how the mentor will help him achieve his objectives. They should agree a time that they will meet , and a format that they will work to. They will also discuss the level of confidentiality that they hold themselves to.

Step 5 – Ending the relationship

It is very important that the mentoring relationship does not fade into inactivity over time but has a formal ending. This allows a period of review between the mentor and the mentee, a time to celebrate successes and plan for the future.

When things don’t work out quite the way you hoped …

John had been mentoring Jane for three months now and he was aware that she was not performing as expected despite the additional support that he had been providing. She was also becoming despondent and was reluctant to take on board the suggestions that he was providing without explaining why.

John was perplexed and was concerned that his own reputation as a mentor would be affected as well as the way that Jane’s morale was spiralling. He had received little training and was unsure what to do next, he felt bound by his confidentiality agreement with Jane and didn’t feel like he had anyone to discuss his concerns with.

Fortunately the company had recognised that their peer mentors needed additional help. They had realised that they didn’t have the expertise in house to mentor the mentors or deal with their concerns around confidentiality.

John contacted his external mentor and discussed with her the concerns that he was having and explored the options that he had available to him. He realised in his mentoring session that there were a number of things that he had overlooked when he was working with Jane.

He had believed that because he was Jane’s mentor she should do exactly what he told her to do in the manner that he directed. This did not take into account Jane’s learning style or her motivations. John was getting frustrated by her lack of response which was making him more dictorial in his manner.

John didn’t recognise the pressures Jane was under in internal comms nor did their have a relationship that would support open disclosure on both sides. John worked with his external mentor on these issues and was over time able to become a better and more effective mentor. His mentor also advised the company to initiate mentor training for all peer mentors to ensure that this error was not duplicated. Jane was allocated a more suitable and experienced mentor and her performance steadily improved.

Peer to peer mentoring is an extremely valuable tool for organisations looking for ways to continuously develop their teams, however it is vital to ensure the both the mentor and the mentee receive the appropriate support and guidance if the organisation is to reap the long term benefits of this approach.

In my opinion, CEOs are extremely brave people. After years of establishing expertise in one or two key functional areas or industries; they take up a role in which they are expected to be able to understand and master all the different aspects of the business! From day one, CEOs have all the accountability in defining the company, ensuring that they have an efficient and effective Board. They also need to have an employee culture that empowers the employees and satisfies the customers, and a business model that really works. This requires a high level of aptitude across a number of competencies, failure in any one area can have a disastrous effect on the company.

Often the success of a company rests on the leadership abilities of the CEO. When in situ they are expected to need little professional development, to be a charismatic leader, an effective manager, knowledge of their industry and emerging trends and an ability to understand the differing activities of the business that makes up the whole. The more complex the company is, the higher the level of expectation that is placed upon them.

But to make things worse, new CEOs typically have on average just 2 years to deliver!

To ensure that they deliver what is expected of them, productive CEOs must ensure the successful marriage of their own management and leadership skills. In this context, management can be defined as the ability to make good decisions and leadership as the ability to execute those decisions through others. These CEOs often hire the services of an external mentor.

What is mentoring and does it differ from coaching?

Coaching begins with the premise that the answers are within the person being coached. The coach’s role is to help the individual understand that and via the use of encouraging and questioning techniques, helps elicit the solution. A coach is non directional and never provides advice.

By contrast a mentor is an expert who provides guidance and advice within a more developmental relationship. Mentoring requires flexibility of the mentor and their ability to use a wide range of techniques to guide the mentee.

Why do productive CEOs think mentoring is essential to their success and their business?

There is a high expectation from shareholders, the Board, employees and other stakeholders that the CEO is always able to clearly assess the optimum direction of the company. He is always self assured, confident and has high self esteem and can easily handle difficult situations with the Board without doubt and with aplomb.

CEOs face many important strategic decisions and to confide that they are uncertain can signal a vulnerability that may weaken their position, and cause doubt in their subordinates. This can be disastrous especially in times when the company is going through major change such as a merger or acquisition, downsizing, a strategic re direction or restructure.

There can be times when the CEO is unsure of whom to trust in his organisation especially if he is experiencing doubt in a decision that he needs to make. It can be lonely at the top especially if there isn’t someone trustworthy to confide in.

Having an objective sounding board

Often a productive and efficient CEO wishes to try out or test new ideas prior to sharing them with his fellow Board members. This enables him to ensure that new ideas are fully assessed and are in sufficient shape prior to the scrutiny that he will receive from his Board.

By working with his mentor he is able to role play the likely resistance that he may receive and therefore be more prepared when it comes to discussing his ideas. He can ensure that he is taking an objective stance rather than an emotional one and is being as strategic or operational in outlook as the situation requires.

Receiving support and advice on team dynamics

Not every Board is as productive or efficient as it should be. This may be because of the way that the CEO is interacting with the other members. If this is the case then the mentor can provide objective advice on how he can be more effective in this arena.

Sometimes the team itself is dysfunctional and is therefore unable to achieve its strategic goals, whilst the CEO is usually able to analyse the reason for the dysfunction he is not always sure how to address the problem. This can be especially true when the reason for dysfunction is due to the personalities of the team, or particular loyalty to their own department.

It is common for mentors to attend the occasional Board meeting (or key meeting) to observe the way the CEO interacts with his team as well as how the team interacts as a whole. The insight that the mentor provides can enable the CEO to clearly see how to improve the dynamics of the team and improve its productivity and efficiency.

Staying ahead of the game by receiving knowledge from other industries

The best mentors work across industries therefore easily transferring best practice from one industry to the next. This enables the CEO to remain fresh and able to more closely identify emerging trends within his own area, through more objective thinking.

The CEO broadens his horizons and experience by working with an external mentor. One way of achieving this is by leveraging the knowledge of the mentor and being able to challenge what is perceived as the only effective way to get something done.

Continuous CEO development

Once an executive becomes a CEO it is often assumed that he no longer needs any further development. This can be a flawed assumption especially when contemplating the role and responsibilities that the CEO faces, often in a challenging and competitive environment. Mentoring enables the CEO to recognise their own abilities and limitations in a safe environment therefore ensuring that their abilities are enhanced and limitations developed into strengths. Where necessary, tasks are delegated to enable the CEO to fulfil his strategic role successfully.

An external mentor ensures that the CEO remains challenged, motivated and constantly learning/developing. This enables the company to reap the benefit of a CEO continuously challenging their own assumptions, someone with a clear strategic focus and who can expertly marry the need to demonstrate clear leadership, efficient management and effective communication.

A more successful and sustainable company

Numerous research studies show that how a company is led is what makes the difference between successful and sustainable companies and failures. External mentors have the unique ability to assist the CEO and at times the leadership team in taking a more objective and strategic approach. They enable employee development, clarity of thinking and enhanced communication skills and team dynamics.

Does mentoring always work?

There are only two main reasons why mentoring doesn’t work. If there is a bad fit between the mentor and mentee or if the CEO is not ready to be open and honest with his mentor and be willing to move out of his comfort zone.

For example, I was working with an established CEO who had recently moved to a new company. The company was very dysfunctional; his top team was inefficient beset with personality and competency issues, poor morale issues amongst the employees and severe union issues. To add to his problems they were losing key customers, haemorrhaging money and the shareholders were not happy. They gave him a very tight timescale in which to achieve turnaround results.

The CEO was unable to confide in his team and was unclear as to where the true starting point was and whether there was a common root to the company’s issued.

By working closely together he was able to see clearly the issues that were faced by the company. To segregate the problems caused by his top team and the consequences of devalued and de-motivated employees. By tackling these key areas, he understood that these were the causes of customer dissatisfaction and poor bottom line results.

He learnt that his own leadership style was adding to the problem and how best to interact with others to ensure that he got the results that he wanted. He understood how to get the best out of his team and how to implement the best processes to deal with the technical deficiencies.

Under his tenure the company improved its fortunes, his team increased their competence and the union difficulties improved as they saw the employees being better treated. This had a positive effect on the bottom line. The CEO benefited from having a trusted advisor who was removed from the company, who could provide objective guidance and advice.

Mentoring is often much more beneficial to CEO’s than traditional coaching practices as it provides senior management with an external sounding bound, someone who can practically assess and advise on the problematic issues within the organisation as a whole, and will not just sit back and wait for the answers to ‘come from within’. Mentoring works when the CEO understands the needs to be challenged and to continue his personal development to realise his achievements and to ensure the likelihood of his company’s success.

I was interviewed by Zhana Brooks from Black Success radio on her Success Strategies show about Economic Self-Empowerment for the Black Community. It aired at 8pm UK time. To hear the interview please click here.