What is a Mentor - Do you need one (many) ?

What is aMentor ? Do you need one ?

Manypeople use the terms mentor, coach, teacher, consultant and counselorinterchangeably.  Are they actually thesame ?

I havementored many people over the years, some in the finance industry and manyothers in diverse and very interesting roles.

 In my view, a mentor is someone who provides amethod for the person who is being mentored (mentee) to discover their wisdom. PeterCook from Thought Leaders often mentions the phrase “making clever peoplecommercially smart”. 

What doesall that mean ?

HelpingOvercome Inertia

For mostpeople, not only entrepreneurs and business leaders, the biggest challenge isself limiting beliefs. I remember learning physics at school and the concept ofinertia. Inertia is (with being too technical) the force that is trying to keepthings as they are. To create a change, often all we need to do is exert aforce that is slightly more powerful than the inertia and that creates anunstoppable movement.

This isoften the role of the mentor. Helping people to overcome their self limitingbelief and exert enough force for themselves in the right direction to createmovement.

Sharingbusiness knowledge

 A mentor may be providing quite specifictechnical assistance to a person and that crosses the role line to coach andconsultant. It all depends on the methodology used.  The biggest challenge for a true mentor is toavoid saying –“ I would do it this way”. The role of the mentor is to askquestions, to assist the mentee is reaching their own conclusions. Sometimes,however, the mentee may actually struggle to get the answer due to a lack oftechnical knowledge that the mentor may have. A simple example would a medicalperson wanting to grow a practice without detailed knowledge of basic businessmanagement tools. The mentor can provide guidance and specific advice on thetopics where the mentee is lacking.

Becoachable

It’s a bigadmission, but it has taken many years of my life for me to become coachable.When looking at behavioral styles and analyzing myself (quite entertaining andeye-opening), I find that I have two very dominant styles, almost to theexclusion of the other styles. The behavioral traits of these styles (whateversystem they are in) are dominance and influence. These two required mentorsover my life to communicate in ways that resonated with me and communicatedwith my “behavioral style”

In mybook, “Dive In – Lessons learnt since business school” – there is a chapter onmentoring that begins with the following :

One of the tag lines of the ‘MasterChef’ TV show (Australia) is ‘extraordinary cooking from ordinary cooks’. That is my view on many of the people I have met and who have influenced me. There were some incredible high achievers revered by society, who helped and assisted me in numerous ways. However, the day to day interactions with people are often more important than the high achievers.

I havealways been fiercely independent. I have never been able to follow a mentor tothe exclusion of all others. However, over many years in business I have hadcountless influencers and mentors.

The ideaof a long term mentor is one who provides a framework for the mentee to be ableto grow.

What has your mentor shown you that changed your life ?