Mentoring Entrepreneurs

Citation

Mattacks, K. (2003), "Mentoring Entrepreneurs", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 24 No. 7, pp. 419-420. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437730310498640

I was recently involved in a project to evaluate a mentoring programme for secondary school head teachers. This re‐enforced in my mind the value that a mentor can add to someone’s work and job performance. As one of the heads said: “I had been wrestling with a range of concerns – the support and experience (of the mentor) helped me focus on the really important issues and set aside the other, apparently important but actually just distracting ones!” But how do you mentor entrepreneurs in small businesses? Does the approach need to vary and are the skills required different?

This book is aimed at those who might act as mentors to owners/managers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), those who might wish to benefit from such a mentor and those wishing to set up programmes for them. It is based on the experience of the authors, Brian Doyle and Vincent O’Neill, who were involved in a mentoring programme SME’s set up by Enterprise Ireland that has delivered over 5,000 assignments – a considerable number.

Before I say more, a word about definitions. This is an area fraught with difficulty. The term “mentoring” has become synonymous with a broad and deep influence from a senior, more experienced and wise individual to another, younger, protégé. The Coaching and Mentoring Network now lists eight definitions of mentoring with a similar number of views on what it takes to be a good mentor. But when do you need a coach and when do you need a mentor? What some call coaching others call mentoring and probably either role might demand a range of different skills!

According to the authors of this book, the purpose of mentoring is to share wisdom gained from experience and learning. It is distinguished from advising, counselling, coaching and training. Mentoring entrepreneurs is also viewed as being different from mentoring others, such as graduate entrants or junior employees in a business, and may help to alleviate the loneliness and isolation, assist the general progress of the business or help to fill a skill or knowledge gap. Mentoring Entrepreneurs follows a structure not untypical of works on mentoring. It looks at the concept of mentoring, the various roles and relationships, meeting process and the organisation and the organisation of a mentor programme and the training of mentors. A useful feature of the introduction is that it suggests which chapters will be useful to different categories of reader. The two chapters on meetings use a useful style – presented as a dialogue between the mentor and the mentoree (the word the authors use for the mentee or protégé) with other parties joining in at appropriate stages in the conversation.

The chapter on organising a mentoring programme is rather sterile and concentrates on what you should do. Personally, I would have preferred an approach describing what they did and what they learned from the experience, perhaps interspersed with some case studies. The final chapter, “Quo vadis mentoring”, is a little flat. For example, although it acknowledges that the “ … possibilities of Internet mentoring are bound to be considered”, the authors don’t explore this nor make the link between this and the changes in patterns of business. It is also important to stress the impact that the mentoring process has on the mentor. As a mentor Head reported to me: “It made me clarify my own thinking about a number of issues before offering the guidance and to subsequently challenge those in my own school on similar issues”.

With over 5,000 cases to draw upon, I would have appreciated more examples from that experience to support the points that the authors make. Given the pressure on time that those running SME’s face. I would also have expected a greater focus on future developments. Mentoring Entrepreneurs would not necessarily be my first choice if I were looking for a book to give me a thorough grounding in the subject. That said, the book would be of value both to those business people seeking to get the most from a relationship with a mentor and those seeking to support them.