The Role of the Business Mentor

The Role of the Business-Mentor
[#6 in a series of 9 articles]

Series compiled by leading business-mentor, Michael Donovan –iMentor-pro
The role of a mentor has a long, honourable and very positive history dating from Greek and Roman times. In the industrial revolution of the 1800’s and into the 1900’s with war and the advent of communism, the Great Depression, WWII and new management wisdom of the post-war years, there was maintained the concept of an older sage passing advice to the younger. The process was male dominated and had many unwritten rules of engagement based on favouritism, patronage, nepotism and such like.
Many clubs, religious groups and associations preserved similar tenants as part of their operating credo. In business, the mentoring role from the 1920’s until the late70’s was a badge of honour – both to be a mentor and to be mentored. The excesses of the 80’s and the significant changes to the way business operated saw the traditional – official and unofficial – mentoring roles disappear with restructuring. Institutional memory, culture and time-honoured processes of development, testing and succession changed.
Internal mentor relationships were seen as anachronistic, playing favourites and being an indulgent luxury. They were seen as unstructured and ad hoc, having no clear outcomes or quantifiable benefits. The exchange of experience, skill and know-how was not easily quantifiable. So mentoring was not valued in the age of business rationalism. There was some recognition that the succession-line benefited but eventually this view was regarded as a ‘boys-club’ approach and went the way of other perceived excesses.
The role of the management consultancy had some supremacy but while technically good, it did not effectively transfer into the essential relationships that underpin good people management skilling or excellence in leadership. Further, the value of old knowledge was not as appreciated as it has now become. Humans are still tribal. Access to an adviser or guide is a part of tribalism.
From the late 90’s the failure of many businesses were analysed. The lack of deep business experience, learned caution, better analytical capacity, patience and of quality leadership skills were all identified as lacking. While it was expected that sports men and women and artists has a use for a coach, it was seen as some sort of remedial fix or admission of failure in business in Australia.
In the USA and the UK, then Europe, the benefits of access to very senior level skills and experiential talent saw a resurgence in seeking out these services. Initially, only coaching surged to fill the opportunities. Some good, much of it flaky. The mental self-help genre took off. Segmentation of coaching followed into life-balance, skills-based and executive coaching (in fact there were some 60 separate segments offered in 1999 – down to fewer than 20 in 2006). The use and recognition of the capacity of a good coach was significantly aided by the Sydney Olympics. We saw what they did and how it was effective with our sporting greats. Coaching took on more acceptability as a broader source of assistance.
However, business was still wary, especially the HR Department. Learning and Development or Organisational Development executive positions were created. Psychological approaches to learning dominated. The lack of structure, process and methodology stalled greater corporate acceptance.
By 2002, the market matured further with a rising demand for successful senior-executive talent with broad-based business experience. They needed an ability to be interested in the development and success of others, over their own ego, intellect and position. They had to have the ability to listen and guide by questioning (Socratic Method or Principal) – not to provide answers but rather guide towards self-realisation and improvement in deduction, learning and application. Their business credentials needed to be exceptional and have what was coined as bandwidth – cross-functional, cross-sectoral and international capacity for thinking.
We now know that having the ability to interact with an admired, trusted and trustworthy senior head has significant effect on the ability of a person to develop good character, understand complexity, work within particular business cultures and business networks, build resilience and be emotionally more stable.
Hence the rise of the business-mentor, a step up from executive coaching, has occurred.
Recent research from Harvard also shows that a person who can access and appropriately use a good mentor, makes an earlier success of their career, does this consistently and earns more in the process. In the process their contribution to the business is more focussed and profitable for shareholders. With a parallel recognition that the best talent lies within a corporation for promotion and corporate talent stability, business-mentoring is an ideal technique for the identification, testing and support with candidates in the succession-line.
Corporations are now recognising that inside their ranks exist excellent examples of good practice, know-how and experience. To tap this, a return to the traditional role of the internal mentor has been recreated using the business-mentoring framework.
Further, the realisation that other worthwhile perspectives and innovation also exists within the broader business community, and can also be tapped professionally, has put external business-mentoring into a professional category of its own.

The content of ideas, concepts and experiences that make up this series of nine articles have been contributed from a number of sources and authors. Assembly by leading business-mentor, Michael Donovan, Managing Director, iMentor-pro 1300 720 190


The Role of the Business Mentor - To learn more about this author, visit Michael Donovan's Website.

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