Coach or Mentor - What's it all about ?

Again this week I saw an advertisment for yet another training program to become a business coach. I am beginning to think that the only ones making money out of coaching are those who are promoting training programs.

It is becoming too easy for people to complete a training program and then suddenly believing that they can transform themselves into trusted advisors to business exectutives or business owners etc.

In my time as dispute mediator, I have come across a situation where four individuals paid a lot of money to complete a coaching program and not one of them had secured any clients in eighteen months. They were looking to recover their initial money from the organisation which promoted the program. Unfortunate they did not read the fine print. Not one of these people had owned or operated a business of any kind before.

An effective coach is someone who is able to improve your skills and make you a more professional manager using specific business tools.

A mentor is someone who is able to bring their experince and knowledge to the fore and being able to challenge you on your thinking and thought process. A good mentor should be a catalyst for change. They should be interested in you as person first and listen more than they talk.

Mentoring has been around since Aristotle and remember " No one ever achieved real success working on their own". Families in business should look at mentoring to improve their business performance and to bring an outside perspective to the business.

Family Business Australia has established a mentors panel