Differences between a mentor and a coach

We were having a discussion on the differences between a mentor and a coach

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/hr/od/coaching/differences.php 

Coaching	Mentoring
Coaches need not have first-hand experience of the coachee's line of work. The coach can be an independent external professional with expertise in coaching, or a qualified UCL internal coach.	Mentoring is customarily a planned pairing of a more skilled or experienced person (usually in the same field of work) with a less experienced person.
Line managers can use coaching techniques successfully in the management and development of team members.	Ideally mentors have no line management relationship to the mentee.
Coaches will ask 'powerful' questions and not offer or give advice..	Mentors will often provide direction and advice and should 'open organisational doors' for mentees.
A number of both internal and external coaches are available with a variety of backgrounds and expertise and the services they provide tie in with the organisation’s objectives.	Mentors can provide a neutral 'sounding board', assure total confidentiality, and have no agenda other than assisting their mentees in their development and to reach their goals.
Effective coaching is intended to help you to learn rather than by “teaching” you.  By engaging with an experienced coach, the coachee will develop insights leading to enhanced effectiveness.	Mentoring involves helping mentees to develop their career, skills and expertise often drawing upon the experiences of the mentor in the process.

Coaching	Mentoring
Relationship generally has a set duration	Ongoing relationship that can last for a long period of time
Generally more structured in nature and  meetings are scheduled on a regular basis	Can be more informal and meetings can take place as and when the mentee needs some advice, guidance or support
Short-term (sometimes time-bounded)  and focused on specific development areas/issues	More long-term and takes a broader view of the person
Coaching is generally not performed on the basis  that the coach needs to have direct experience of their client’s formal occupational role, unless the coaching is specific and skills-focused	Mentor is usually more experienced and qualified than the ‘mentee’. Often a senior person in the organisation who can pass on knowledge, experience and open doors to otherwise out-of-reach opportunities
Focus is generally on development/issues at work	Focus is on career and personal development
The agenda is focused on achieving specific, immediate goals	Agenda is set by the mentee, with the mentor providing support and guidance to prepare them for future roles
Coaching revolves more around specific development areas/issues	Mentoring resolves more around developing the mentee professional

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Value Propositon for an accountant

This is a draft 

Dr Jeff Spencer - lead 8 tour de france wins - answers 3 questions

1. Agreement is name of the game - thats the secret password. How to achieve this! 

• how do you get common agreement of a team? 
• how can you get cohesion of group through mutual collaboration and commitment. 
• once you get the team to realise that the whole is greater than sum of the parts;  
• when you get all in agreement to build the group  and holding nothing back - 
• what you stand to gain vs not letting go of the secret that you think is a point of difference. 

2. How do you inspire someone on a losing streak?

• one step at a time
• no magic answers - defer back to basic principles and implement those
• your best work is still to come - dig deeper 
• get right coach / mentor 
• as things go south - shit happens 
• no acts of desperation - los vegas syndrome!! dont feel sense of urgency - ride the wave 

3, Inspire teams when goal is so far away?

• how to stay compliant with process 
• daily audit of plan - plan check
• aspirations not driven by frustration - not too big a leap - take things sep by step, 
• plan, pacing and facts - look at schedule - \
• efforts to recovery well proportion - dont jump too far ahead - interspace efforts with recovery 
• proper nutritient, recreation, fellowship 

  4. Should You Get Tough with your coaching 

• time is of the essence 
• responsibility and taking responsibiluty is name of game 
• lay out the path and model so they know where they are and where they are headed and give them empowerment to give job done. 
• show them how to take responsibility 
• they need right support - but they need to take responsibility 

5. Why do more for others than you do for yourself?

• do for others what you cant do for yourself
• need to be part of a tribe
• more we give the morre we receive 
• choice about what we are to gain vs what you can lose
• unwavering confidence in process 
• nothing better than assisting person giving wisdom, knowledge and suppot  to achieve greatness 

6. How do champions overcome anxiety and how should they perform? 

• are our choices made from fear or anxiousness or apply strategy and tactc
• make that tactic by overcoming fear response 
• dont worry about tring to cover all bases.
• do things step by step
• make sure you practice practice practice - so you do things on automatic pilot 

12 reasons to use a business coach

                                                                             By: Dr Stephen Treloar (c) 2015
You might be asking, “why do I need a business coach” and “...anyway, what exactly is a business coach."

OK, let’s first consider what is a Business Coach?

A Business Coach is a person who is NOT an ‘expert’ in your business. You are! As the owner or manager, you know your customers’, you know your suppliers, your competition and the industry. If you like – you’re the ‘expert’ in ‘your business Pty Ltd’. So what help does a Business Coach provide?

Business Coaches are experts on the process of running businesses, including: strategic planning, finance & accounting, marketing (sales, product, price, promotion, distribution), leadership, human resources, and operations. While your focus is on your own business, an experienced Business Coach has seen scores (sometimes hundreds) of different businesses and can ‘see’ what works and what doesn’t. 

As the owner or manager, your skills are ‘technical skills of ‘your business Pty Ltd’ while your Business Coach arguably, by virtue of greater experience and training has stronger conceptual and strategic skills. It’s like, your technical ability providing the skill to ‘carefully examine, define and analyse an individual tree’ to that of a Business Coach who can ‘see’ and help re-configure ‘the entire shape of the forest’. 

Alternatively, if you like, the Business Coach can help take you on a ‘helicopter ride’ of your business. The old maxim of ‘working on your business, instead of working in your business’ still applies.

So what’s the difference between a Consultant and a Business Coach?

A Consultant will often scope the project, diagnose the problem, consider alternatives and (generally) implement the changes or recommendations. 

A Business Coach (as does a coach in a sporting sense) shows the business owner or manager HOW to do it themselves. 

Whereas Consultants solve certain problems or issues (or make recommendations), a Business Coach equips the owner or manager to resolve it themselves (and serves as a backup when needed). Many successful Business Coaches have their genesis as a former consultant but later transcend into business coaching. It is also fair to suggest that a Business Coach makes greater reliance on psychological skills, knowledge (and application) of motivational theories, and change management concepts to that of a Consultant.

The 12 Reasons - Why you should use a Business Coach...

1. You realise that you have not developed a clearly enunciated vision into the future of the business. Where will the business be in 3 and 5 years time, including: revenue projections, bottom-line, financing, cash flow, acquisition strategy, or possibly even an exit strategy (i.e. sale of business)?
2.  You are a business owner or manager and experiencing that lonely feeling at the top. Intuitively, you know it would be good to have someone to act as a ‘sounding board’ to test your ideas, provide new dimensions in thinking, or suggest different paradigms. Maybe even, to hold you accountable for developing plans and milestones – and keeping you ‘honest’ to achieve them.
3.  You have become a ‘captive’ of your business. Instead of the business working for you, you are ‘working’ for your business. This means you are taken away from the more pleasurable pursuits of being a business owner, including maintaining a better work-life balance. Maybe your family life is suffering, and you want more out of being a business owner?
4. You are “fighting fires” everyday and doing day-to-day tasks without looking ahead to the future and planning for the growth of your business.
5. Your business has either ‘hit a wall’; maybe you’re experiencing cash-flow problems, and it is “all getting a bit too much." Every business is different and requires an individual or customised approach. We call this a bespoke approach to coaching.
6.  You need assistance in achieving new and additional business revenue, maybe by increasing your use of the Internet driven e-marketing (e-com), social media, Google, Ad words, SEO, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. It is tantamount to say that if your business is still doing things the same way as it did 10 or even 5 years ago, chances are you are being left behind by your competitors.
7. Maybe, you are at the start-up stage of business and need assistance in planning and preparing all those things that are necessary. It can be overwhelming, and you need guidance.
8. Maybe, you have a large project to complete such as: relocation, acquisition, or downsizing project and need assistance. There is much to be done and need some assistance and guidance in considering the options. 
9. You never seem to have sufficient time during the day to do all those things that need to be done. “Everything becomes urgent” and maybe you need some assistance in project management, time management and priority setting (or maybe it is a delegation issue).
10. There are ‘risk management’ issues of lingering concern, this might include changes to Workplace Health & Safety legislation (what’s my exposure?), general risk management and governance issues.
11. You have some staffing or human-resource issues? It could be in recruitment, staff performance, employment agreements, dispute matters, in short, any issue involving staffing. 
12. It could be; you are thinking about one day, selling the business, handing the business down to a family member, or maybe even considering a complete career change. There are many options and you need assistance working through them, in order to make the best choice.

Written by

Dr Stephen TreloarDirector of Postgraduate Studies. Senior Lecturer; Executive Coach; Keynote Speaker.

Business Builders Group – BBG Chapters Launched in Sydney

Andrew GotleyBusiness Enhancement Professional

This week the four BBG Chapters formed in Sydney kicked off their first group meetings. Braving the early morning weather to get to the meetings, the members convened at the BSI Group offices in Martin Place, Sydney to participate and experience what BBG is all about.

 With a unique structure and process, BBG connects members with other members and their networks. The process builds on the Know, Like and Trust principles of networking to allow the group members to make better quality, easier and more referrals. Better Quality and More Referrals come from the process where Chapter members get to Know, Like and Trust the other members of the Chapter. Easier Referrals are facilitated by the Referron App and the relationships formed between the members. The whole process is facilitated by a Mentor who has attended and passed the BBG Mentor Accreditation Course.

Having attended three Chapter meetings this week (out of four) and mentoring one of these groups, there were a number of exciting and powerful results witnessed. The Chapter members commenced building business relations before, during and after the meeting. They got to know some of the member’s businesses from member presentations followed by question and answer sessions. After the meetings, there have been numerous conversations, emails and phone calls between members where they have been exploring ways of helping each other’s businesses via referrals.

Within the group I facilitated, I have seen over 50 emails from the group members. I can only imagine the number of emails and phone calls took place outside the BBG meeting between the chapter members. This has been repeated over the other three Chapters that have met this week.

BBG is a very powerful process for generating High Quality Referrals for Business. It is not limited by the industry, profession, business model, organisation size, etc. and can be applied to anyone looking to grow their business or address issues in their business.

For more information or to join a BBG Chapter, please message Andrew via LinkedIn or visit the websites www.bbg.business or www.asgstrategies.com.au

Andrew is a Business Enhancement Professional backed by solid academic record, wide ranging industry experience and a successful 35-year career in General Management, Sales & Marketing and Engineering.

Written by

Andrew GotleyBusiness Enhancement Professional