Five Benefits of Working with a Coach or Mentor

Being a leader can be a really lonely existence.  Expectations are high and it can often be a real struggle to stay on top of your game and continually deliver great results.  Continuing to develop as a leader has never been so vital not least because of the major challenges facing many organisations right now.

For those at a more senior level working with a coach or mentor is often a great way of continuing to develop.  So what are the benefits?

Benefit 1: Thinking time

The pace at which leaders operate in organisations is often relentless and means that there is little or no time to stand back and take stock.  Being able to stand back from issues and challenges allows you to clearly think through the choices, look at challenges in different ways and ultimately to take better decisions.  And if you are taking better decisions it means better results for you personally and the organisation.

Benefit 2: Ongoing support

Training is great and I have been to many great training courses over the years.  Trouble is most training courses are a one shot opportunity.  What I mean by that is that you go along to the course, leave enthusiastic and an few months later find you are back where you started.  If you are a leader looking to be more effective over the long term you know that it is going to take time.  Having that ongoing support can help you make that sustained change in performance.

Benefit 3: Personal attention

In my experience of working with clients there are often some very specific areas of focus that leaders and managers want to work on.  Sometimes it might be about strategies and tactics that they can apply and other times it might be tackling areas of self doubt or misconceptions.  I also notice that they rarely need to work on all aspects of a particular topic but more on one or two areas.   The nature of the relationship means that it is much easier to tailor the programme to meet specific needs.

Benefit 4: Highly time efficient

I know that when I was in leadership and management roles, creating the time to attend a 2 or 3 day course was often a real challenge.  By comparison finding a couple of hours a month to work with a coach was much more time efficient and effective.

Benefit 5: Return on Investment

Ultimately if you are investing time, money and energy into something the return on what you have invested will be important.  Research into the benefits of coaching indicates that the return on investment is in the region of 500-700%.  Now these numbers might well look huge but let’s take a look at an example.  Imagine you are a senior manager who aspires to be a Director.  Ask yourself what’s the difference in salary and benefits?  In a field like accountancy, the differential between a number one and number two can easily be in the £30-50,000 per annum range.  If you are in the number one job for say 10 years, that could mean an extra £300-£500,000 to your earnings.  So look at your investment in terms of the lifetime value.

Bottom Line – Continuing to develop as a leader is no longer an optional extra.  If you are serious about realising your professional and personal potential, working with a coach or mentor might just be the catalyst.

How To Maintain The Momentum Of Mentoring

Mentoring program coordinators need to have ongoing communication with participants to stimulate engagement, motivation and answer questions or concerns. But how do you keep up the contact in a useful and interesting way? Many successful programs send regular Mentoring Works Tips.

Mentoring Tips could be one page, easy to read and practical. They should be designed for mentors and suitable for mentorees and managers. Consistently delivering Mentoring Tips:

  • Provides mentors with information, tools and motivation
  • Keeps mentorees engaged in the process
  • Informs managers of mentoring techniques and benefits

 

The author of this article is Ann Rolfe, and was first published 10. november 2010 on www.mentoring-works.com.

Working book for the mentee

Last week my latest book for the mentee was finished and came from print. I use «print on demand» and www.lulu.com

The book looked very god in the new design, and I have started on translate it to english. I have a good friend in the US who will do it for me. As a lawyer, writer and trainer he knows what to do.

For now the book is in norwegian, just send me an email if you want to order.

The price is Euro 16,25 + shipping.

Young Enterprice Oslo

I am going back to The Norwegian Mentor Program and a training for their mentors. They are doing a mentor program for the young leaders in Young Enterprice in Oslo and Akershus in Norway.

They are being mentors to help young students in their work as leader in their school businesses. More about this will come later.

Is Your Mentoring Strategy Working?

I got this article in a newsletter, and had to bring it on my blog.

Mentoring aims to deliver strategic value for the organisation as well as personal benefits for individuals. How can you ensure that your mentoring strategy achieves these outcomes?

The critical first step is to clarify the strategic purpose of mentoring – why is mentoring important? Without clear, and meaningful goals, you may find it hard to gain support for mentoring, difficult to promote the value of mentoring and challenging to make it a priority for people.

To ensure your mentoring strategy works you have to answer the question «why mentoring?» First, you need to uncover the needs, wants and issues that mentoring will address from the perspective of the organisation and the people you want involved. Then, you can plan your mentoring strategy to deliver specific outcomes; and finally, you’ll be able to communicate the reasons for mentoring in a language that make sense to each group of stakeholders.

What Does The Organisation Need?

Most often, mentoring is used by organisations striving for:

  • Employee engagement – to attract, retain and develop people for increased productivity;
  • Knowledge management/skill building – to prevent the loss of both tacit and implicit information and develop skills, for improved capability; or
  • Culture change to influence behaviour based on values, assumptions, and common practice, for enhanced organisational performance.

You’ll need to find out exactly what the pressing needs are and be able to clearly show the impact mentoring could make. This might mean presenting a business case and/or linking to the organisational mission and values.

Why Should People Prioritise Mentoring?

You may be targeting a specific group with your mentoring strategy such as: graduates, women, emerging leaders, innovators, young professionals or indigenous people, however you need people who are not directly involved, as well as those who are, to prioritise mentoring. If they don’t it may be derailed by obstruction, competing demands or lack of support.

This is a time for two-way, rather than one-way communication. We have to get out there and listen. We can’t simply impose mentoring on people because we think it’s a good idea. They won’t buy it unless there is a personal reason that overrides other priorities. So, you will have to discover the needs, concerns and issues of the people as well as the organisation.

Develop The Strategy – Design The Program

The bottom line is that you have to know specifically, what you want your mentoring strategy to do before you can figure out how you will know that it is working. This is the foundation for designing mentoring programs. Do this to ensure that your mentoring works.

From Ann Rolfe http://mentoring-works.com/

Presentationsskills in The Norwegian Armed Force

Once again I would return to the Norwegian Armed Force for this to hold courses in presentation techniques. It would be a day course, 7 hours, including lunch Tuesday before the autumn holiday. 

 

Not only were 16 representatives from across the country learn presentation techniques, but they will go back to their counties and keep the course self to others. They should therefore first learn to make presentations and speeches in a six-hour course, and then back to the county and hold this course. And this time they will keep it for up to 70 people over two hours. Impossible you say? No, the young soldiers looked only at this as a challenge.

 

Already 15 minutes into the course was the first presentation in time, up behind the pulpit and tell your name, where you came from (birthplace), where you served and finally the expectations of the course. When we had feedback after it emerged that several had stage fright. 

 

We talked about the communication model, preparation, who is the audience, etc., etc. In addition, they had a total of 4 presentations with feedback at all times and at the same time was the difficulty level higher and higher.

 

Funniest was when they were going to make a speech on a night out, but was specific audience of me. The options were the girfriend/boyfriend, general, parents and

 friends. It is quite obvious that they are professionals in adapting what they say to the person who will listen. This is knowledge they did not show, or thought of, that they had. 

 

When they finally gave the last speech with self-chosen topics, it was all the senses sharpened, and it was a big difference from the same morning. And everyone, even       those with stage fright before, showed clearly that this did they like. They had made their own speech, with its own theme based on a well proven model. At the same time noting all the audience down on a yellow note what they did well and what they should improve on.

 

Finally as we walked through how to put up a presentation skills course in two hours, with different exercises and Icebreakers. I look forward to hearing feedback on how this course was.

 

If you have any questions about the training or wish the same training for your company or organization take contact.

 

 

The Norwegian Armed Forces

 This is the seconf time I am going to The Norwegian Armed Force (www.mil.no). This time it is a training in presentation skills on the agenda.

 
It would be a whole day for the training here in Oslo, Norway.
 
I am really looking forward to this, thank you for the opportunity.

 

More will come, with pictures and all.

20 Questions to Develop a Successful Mentoring Program

As you may know, I am conducting a lot of mentoring programs both for schools and for businesses. And it is always interesting to see how successful a program is getting. One of the critical thing is the client, not only the goal for the program but also how to implement it.

I am now working with a school and they are doing a lot of the job to get the price down. This is critical for a school and it is important for me to accept that. But the downside is that I am loosing a lot of the control. The control that I want, but in this case don`t have.

So when conducting a mentoring program you can use this article belov, and work with the 20 most important thing to get a successful mentoring program. I know I want that in the next program for my client.

I find this interesting article from The Lindenberger Group

To read more, click here:

www.evancarmichael.com/Human-Resources/788/Play-20-Questions-to-Develop-a-Successful-Mentoring-Program.html

Business Mentoring Works . . . Ask Rose

This is a very good example for a business mentors good work. For Entrepreneurs it should be an opportunity to get a mentor early in the business. They can help with a lot of things.

With her mentor’s help, Rose built a successful business loan application and qualified for the loan she needed to open the doors of her new store.

Read more here: www.micromentor.org

Ten Tips For Finding A Mentor

Krishna De wrote in the Sunday Times article 7. of september (http://www.krishnade.com/blog/2008/howtofindamentor/), that one of the suggestions she made to enhance your presentation skills is to work with a mentor.

But what can you do if there is no formal mentoring programme in your company?
Where might you start in finding a mentor to support your career progress?

Here are 10 tips to help you find and get the most out of working with a mentor:

1. Consider why you are looking for a mentor – Is it about helping you progress your career? Do you want to expand your knowledge into a different sector? This will help you focus on finding a relevant mentor.

2. Explore what you are looking for in a mentor – Are you looking for someone to be a great sounding board? Do you want someone that is willing to share their personal experience and expertise? This will help you be clear in your communication as you approach a potential mentor.

3. Review how important it is to have a mentor close to hand – The experience and personality of your mentor is going to be a factor when approaching someone. But how important is it for you to find someone to work with face to face – or would you enjoy working with someone by phone, by Skype or even by video conferencing making use of the new social media platforms such as Oovoo.com?

4. Take stock of what you will bring to the mentoring relationship – Are you committed to taking action? What specific experience have you had that might be of interest to a mentor? In successful mentoring relationships, both the mentor and the mentee find value in the relationship, so get clear about your unique experience that will enrich the relationship between you and your potential mentor.

5. Review your immediate network – Who is it that you already know that you trust and value? Is there someone in your workplace you could approach? Perhaps your mentor could be someone you have met in a professional network you are a member of? Or could your mentor be someone you have worked with in the past? Take the time to consider all the people you already know as a potential mentor as that will make it easier for you to approach them.

6. Focus your approach – Before approaching a potential mentor, do your research. Who do you know that has worked with the potential mentor? What’s their view on how open, challenging yet supportive this person may be? Ask for advice on how to best approach the potential mentor.

7. Prepare for the meeting – Once you have identified one or two people you would like to consider to be your mentor, approach them one at a time and request an exploratory meeting either by phone or face to face. If the potential mentor does not know you, is there someone who can make the introduction for you? Make sure you have your updated CV available to provide background detail on your career to-date.

8. Outline an agenda – Keep your request for an initial meeting to be around 30 minutes – this meeting is to connect you with a potential mentor and not a first mentoring meeting. Your goal is to outline why you are looking for a mentor and to explore if they might consider being your mentor. Don’t put your potential mentor under pressure to make a decision immediately – they may need to reflect on your request given their other commitments. Also look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dp9YdNZVGA&feature=related for how to break the ice.

9. Follow up after the meeting – After the meeting take time to follow up with the potential mentor, perhaps by sending them a handwritten note thanking them for their time meeting you. If the person you approached is not able to be a mentor for you, you could engage their support in finding a mentor.

10. Take action – If you have found a mentor to work with, then plan your first meeting and schedule it in the calendar. You can then prepare a draft agenda covering the subject areas that you would like to cover in your first meeting such as confidentiality, the way you plan you connect, how frequently you want to meet and the scope of what you would like to discuss. Seek your mentor’s input to the draft agenda – preparing for the meeting will ensure that your mentor sees that you committed to the relationship with them and will help get you off to a flying start.

Apply these ten tips and you’ll be sure to find a mentor to support you in expanding your professional success.

This article was initially published as part of a feature in Marketing Age titled ‘Get Thee A Guru’ which you can access HERE : http://www.krishnade.com/media/20080630-Marketing-Age-Get-Thee-a-Guru.pdf