It’s said that it’s sometimes lonely being the boss, and CEO/MDs will often confide in me that they don’t have anyone to talk with about challenges in their business.

You’d think that this isn’t a problem when there are Co-Founders or Directors working together, but it is.

Here are some real examples I’ve encountered over the years:

• Co-Directors not being aware of each other’s plan to retire, leading to significant succession issues.
• A Founder unable to speak openly with his investors about challenges for fear of not looking in control.
• Family members not communicating with each other about the future direction of the business.
• Decisions made solely by an entrepreneur which have resulted in costly problems to clear up.

The final example is something I’ve seen many times over.

When I’ve asked the entrepreneur why they made the decision and what advice they sought it becomes clear that they just decided on their own, often on a whim.

They were in a “silo of one”.

This is one of the reasons I enjoy facilitating peer-network sessions; sharing a challenge with others in a similar position can unlock new ways of thinking about a long-standing issue.

It’s also why having the support of an external advisor or coach can be so valuable.

Sometimes, the process of working through a specific challenge with a professional is all you need.

Or you may want a regular sounding-board; someone who you can bounce your thoughts off and talk through a challenge before acting.

Whether it’s a working with a trusted paid-for professional or a more informal peer-level relationship, getting outside our own “silo of one” is important for all of us.

The concept is an environment in which an individual only encounters beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that existing views are reinforced, and alternative ideas are not considered.

And it’s also something that occurs regularly in all organisations.

Good governance processes should always be in place to prevent groupthink, but the reality is that when I work with many enterprises, there can often be a real lack of diverse thinking in senior teams.

It’s only natural.

In many smaller organisations, where the founding team and/or a small group of leaders are steering the ship (often without the structure of a formal board) this is more likely to occur.

It’s not uncommon for there to be little or no change in the senior team within small entrepreneurial and family-run businesses over a period of decades.

Next time you are sat with your leadership team – look around.

How long has everyone been in their role? How diverse is the age/gender/ethnicity, etc of your senior team?

I’m not saying here that you must appoint different people; it’s just a reality check.

It’s somewhat inevitable that in many small organisations there will be less diversity in backgrounds as it’s a reflection of things like the founding team, family, local talent pool, etc.

But that shouldn’t mean less diverse thinking.

Bob Garratt, in his book The Fish Rots From The Head, writes about the need for Directors to be continuously scanning the “changing external political, trade and social environments, through travel, consulting, personal coaching and mentoring of top people”.

Increasing the diversity of your thinking when it comes to strategic planning and key decisions is essential.

There are many practical ways that you can do this without replacing people at the top:

• Encourage your leaders to serve on a Trustee board; working with other trustees is an excellent way to develop more diverse thinking. Check out Reach Volunteering or LinkedIn for trustee roles in your area.
• Consciously network more widely than your own current sector or social circle. Think about attending a conference looking at future trends and wider issues beyond your business, such as environmental impact.
• Look at joining a Peer Network where you can draw on external viewpoints and ideas to solve specific challenges.
• Use specialists to facilitate development sessions, since they can create a space for more creative thinking.
• Hire an external coach to work with the senior team.
• Consider volunteering as a mentor to entrepreneurs or individuals (there are many non-profit organisations looking for mentors).

This is not an exhaustive list and some of these ideas require no investment other than time.

All these ideas are either about bringing in different viewpoints from the outside or seeking to develop your own thinking through exposure to new environments.

Having to provide governance, advice and support to people and organisations that are different to your own and, importantly, where you no longer have established authority, can be a great learning experience.

Gaining an independent and objective perspective when making key decisions can be extremely valuable.

We’ve written a brief guide on what to consider when looking for and selecting a business mentor.

So, let’s start with our definition of business mentoring.

What is a business mentor?

Before we get into the question of what to consider when looking for a business mentor, let’s first establish what a business mentor is.

In the context here, a business mentor is someone who works with business owners and leaders on a range of business issues.

That’s intentionally a very broad definition.

The distinction we would make about a business mentor is that mentoring is focused on both the person and the business.

Again, that’s just our definition.

What to consider when looking for a business mentor

We believe that there are 4 key areas to consider when looking to work with a business mentor.

This holds true regardless of whether it’s an informal relationship, a mentor who’s assigned to you, or someone you’ve hired yourself to work with.

These 4 areas are:

1. Experience
2. Mentoring style
3. Chemistry
4. Scope of engagement

Let’s look at them in more detail

1)     Experience

This may seem the most obvious thing to consider, but it can often be overlooked due the broad definition of a business mentor.

To determine what experience you are looking for in a business mentor, it’s important to define the challenges and business issues that you are dealing with.

Are you an early-stage founder looking to raise investment? Are you an established business owner with an eye on succession-planning and exit?

What’s missing in your own personal competences and experiences where a business mentor may add the most value?

For example, if you are a founder without a formal sales or business development background (such as a technology or domain knowledge experts, such as a consultant) then a mentor with strong commercial acumen would be a good fit.

Or if you are looking for a business mentor who can support you with preparing your business for sale. In this case you’d want to find someone who’s been through that process (ideally more than once).

Sector experience is another interesting consideration, we often people over-estimate it’s importance.

In our experience, the majority of business issues cut across all sectors (e.g. strategy development, hiring talent, etc).

Indeed, a business mentor who was worked across a diverse range of sectors can provide a fresh perspective on the challenges you are facing.

However, in some circumstances, having a business mentor from your specific sector may be the right choice; particularly in very specialised industries.

In short, always think about the relevance of the mentor’s experience to the challenges you are facing.

2)     Mentoring style

Quite often people throw around terms such as “coaching” and “mentoring” as if they are the same.

To some they are inter-changeable labels; to others its heretical to even mention them in the same sentence.

We think it’s more useful to ignore the labels and think about the style of mentoring.

Here’s a useful diagram below to describe this.

Some business mentors adopt a more “questioning” approach, while others are more “advising”.

Similarly, an approach can be more “process-driven” or it can be more “unstructured”, allowing the flow of conversation to be driven by the mentee.

Using this model, a “coaching” style of mentoring would be in the top left of the diagram, whereas a less formal mentoring relationship (perhaps peer-mentoring with someone who’s had no specific mentoring training) would be in the bottom right quadrant.

Neither is right or wrong necessarily.

For example, let’s say that you want a business mentor who can help you understand a specific challenge (such as handling a disciplinary matter or choosing an e-commerce platform for your startup).

You may just want to “pick their brains” and quickly get to an understanding.

Working with a mentor who is more advisory and unstructured in style may be perfect for this specific issue.

Alternatively, if you want to develop yourself and are also dealing with more complex and less clear-cut business issues, then working with someone who is on the left-hand side of the diagram would be a better choice.

As a rule of thumb, the left-side suits a longer-term business mentoring relationship, covering a broader range of business issues, whereas the right-side works better on more precise and shorter-term challenges.

3)     Chemistry

This is the most subjective consideration when looking for a business mentor, and one that only you will really know whether it’s right, or not.

However, unlike when you are looking to buy a house and you get that “I just know” feeling whether it’s right or not, this is different.

You might actually want a business mentor who makes you a little bit uncomfortable.

Perhaps you need someone who will challenge your thinking?

We’ve had feedback from clients who prefer a mentor who will “hold their feet to the fire” and keep them accountable.

Equally, sometimes a client needs a mentor who is very easy to speak with and open, which can help them deal with more personal challenges.

The point is that it’s subjective and the only way to know is to meet with a potential business mentor, and ideally have one or two discovery sessions first before you commit to working together.

Any professional business mentor would be happy to do this.

4)     Scope of engagement

This final consideration is about the type of relationship that you have with your business mentor.

There needs to be a clear alignment between the business mentor and mentee.

Things to consider are the frequency of sessions and how these sessions are delivered.

Will they always be face-to-face or via video call? Or a mix of both?

How often will you work together? Will it always be within business hours, or more flexible (for an international mentoring assignment this is even more relevant to agree).

It’s important to establish this up-front as, for both parties, having a session either very early or late in the day can be sub-optimal in terms of energy levels, concentration, etc.

Will your business mentor be available “on demand” if an important issue comes up? Or is the relationship confined to agreed sessions.

These are all parameters that you should explore with your business mentor.

We have a rule to only work with clients during business hours and not at weekends.

We do this because we think that every business owner needs to make time to work on their business.

You wouldn’t expect a board meeting to take place on a weekend, would you? Isn’t a mentoring session just important for the success of your business.

Another important part of agreeing the scope of a business mentoring engagement is how long you will be working together?

When you are dealing with ongoing business issues and challenges, this can be quite open-ended.

However, it’s critical to have a period in which you jointly review the relationship and then decide on whether it’s still adding value to you and your business.

Mentor dependency is something that any professional business mentor will be aware of and, ethically, needs to be avoided.

That’s not to say that a mentoring relationship cannot be enduring over many years, but it should be consciously reviewed periodically.

We never take on a business mentoring client for anything longer than 12 months without a clear point to mutually review and honestly evaluate the relationship.

Anyone arguing against this point probably doesn’t have your best interests at heart.

Summary

So, to summarise, if you are considering working with a business mentor, whether that’s a professional or informal relationship, considering these 4 things will help you think through what’s best for you:

1. Experience – is it relevant to what you need at this time?
2. Mentoring style – do you want to solve a clear, single issue or need wider support?
3. Chemistry – do you want someone who’s a challenger or an open sounding-board?
4. Scope of engagement – how will you both work together and for how long?

And always start with one or two discovery sessions to determine whether there’s a real fit before making a longer-term commitment.

That’s important for both you and your mentor, as getting the relationship right goes both ways.

We often think of breakthroughs happening in areas such as scientific research or in athletic endeavours, but breakthroughs in performance can happen to all of us in our business, professional and personal lives.

In business terms, we typically refer to a breakthrough as a significant positive change or shift in performance, in whatever way we decide to measure it. It could a breakthrough in sales or operational performance, for example.

The key concept is that it’s a rapid and significant advance in performance, rather than an incremental change. So, if that’s what it is, how can you achieve it?

Well, the thing is… it’s not where you think it is.

Where you’re looking isn’t where you’ll find it

You see, if you’re like most businesses you’re already focused on performance. You set goals and targets, measure what you do and then manage the outputs against target to deliver results.

This is all good, and it’s at the heart of good management for any business.

But that’s not where you’re going to find breakthrough performance.

Real breakthroughs come from what you don’t know. They come from what you’re not doing.

Think of it like this: you already know what you are doing. You are also aware of what you should be doing (even if you are not currently doing it right now).

So our focus is “how can I improve X” or “I need to start doing Y”.

This all comes from a frame of awareness.

However, the potential for breakthroughs coming from your current awareness is limited.

Breakthroughs come from what you don’t know

Real breakthroughs, that is a rapid and significant advance in performance, come from what you don’t know.

The illustration above is useful to keep track of this as it can become a bit of a mind-bender.

Stop it now!

Often, the quickest wins will come from what you don’t know that you are doing.

An example in business might be that you are giving away (or more often undervaluing) an element of your product or service which you could be charging for (because “it’s always been that way”).

Or, as a business leader, you’re behaviour is negatively impacting on your team and holding back greater performance levels, but you’re just not aware of it.

These example are all things that, if you stopped doing them, you would see a significant and rapid advance in performance.

Why? Because stopping doing something will have an immediate impact.

In many ways it’s far easier to stop doing something that’s negatively impacting performance than it is to try to improve on the positive things that you are doing.

Think about it. Removing something that negatively hits yours performance has to be easier than trying to squeeze the last few drops of performance out of something that you’re already measuring the heck out of.

Here’s an example from a client that shows how this can be a powerful area for breakthrough performance.

My client was struggling to get traction in a new market that was of strategic importance to the business. Despite a significant investment in marketing the results were non-existent. This was even though they were having great success with the same service proposition in an adjacent market. Clearly, something was wrong.

We decided to investigate and conducted a rapid audit of perceptions with key stakeholders and influencers in the target market. Of the insights we uncovered, one was that the description used for the service has a negative impact with the target audience – it basically turned them off completely.

Armed with this new information, we ran a new marketing campaign with a subtle shift in the description and copy used by omitting the negatively perceived wording.

Where previously there was not traction over months, we now saw positive results within days, which subsequently turned into a significant pipeline of opportunities in the new market. A true breakthrough in performance – by just stopping using a few words.

What do you need to start doing?

Another area where opportunities for breakthrough performance are hidden is in the things that you don’t know that you’re not doing (I know, I did say it was a mind-bender).

Of course, this can sometimes be the flip-side of the things that you are unaware you are doing.

An example, again from sales, to illustrate this could be something as simple as agreeing the next stage in the sales process when you are at the first stage.

I cannot tell you how many salespeople (and entrepreneurs) I have met who don’t do this simple step.

So, let’s say that your sales process typically involves an initial meeting (needs analysis) and then a second meeting to present a proposal. If you know you will need to have a second meeting with a prospect then agree a date and time while you are in the first meeting.

Taking this simple extra step builds commitment (or uncovers early resistance) as well as saving a heap of time chasing a prospect for a date and time. In short, if you know what the second step is – agree it when you are at the first step. Sell the next step of your sales process first.

I remember mentoring a client (the owner of a boutique consulting firm) who they had a huge opportunity to pitch a whale of a prospect that they had been pursuing for over 6 months.

We sat down afterwards to review how things had gone and my client was telling me about how it was an excellent meeting, how she had all the key players in a room and they were really excited about the presentation she gave.

“Great”, I said, “so what’s next?”

Suddenly a blank look came over her face as she realised that she simply left the meeting on a high and forgot to agree with the prospect what the next steps were.

Opportunities such as that can be huge breakthroughs, with a major client win having the potential to transform a business.

There are many other examples of businesses and people not doing something that would have a significant impact on their performance just because they didn’t know they were not doing it.

Start doing the things you should do and stop the things you shouldn’t

So, there you have it. The secret to creating breakthrough performance is simply becoming aware of:

• things you are not doing that will improve performance
• things that you are doing that impact negatively on performance

Once you’ve brought them into awareness it’s just a matter of focusing your attention on starting doing the things you should do and stopping the things you shouldn’t.

Simple, right?

Of course, the difficulty for all of us is becoming aware of these things. As they say, “you don’t know what you don’t know.”

Time to get an external perspective

If you find yourself struggling with performance in any area of your business, professional or personal life then its time to get an external perspective.

If you find yourself revisiting the same issue or are aware of the same patterns returning then something is happening that you’re not aware of. It could be an unconscious behaviour or a step in a process that’s missing or just not working.

Either way, get an external perspective.

That could be through hiring a business coach or mentor, or just sharing ideas with a colleague. It could be from reading articles in your sector for best practice as well as insights from outside your own industry or domain of expertise (which can be a fertile ground for huge breakthroughs).

From a personal development perspective, 360° surveys can be useful for uncovering negative behaviours you are unaware of. And a similar approach with customers will uncover blind-spots in your organisation where great gains can be made.

It’s not to say that it’s impossible to “figure it out” on your own. It’s just that more often than not an external perspective can get you there so much faster.

Often, when someone points out what’s missing or shines a light on what you’re doing, it’s when we all have that “a-ha” moment.

Recently I was in a meeting with an entrepreneur talking about his strategy for growth. He had been going around in circles for several months trying to reconcile a couple of conflicting visions for his business. The problem was in the level he was thinking about his business, which wasn’t helping him visualise how he could solve the dilemma.

Very quickly it was clear to me what was happening and I gave him a new perspective on how to approach the problem.

The entrepreneur went quiet and then said “You know, what you’ve just said in the last 2 minutes has summed up to me exactly what we need to do. It’s a challenge that I’ve been getting nowhere with and wasting time on for too long.”

In the end, breakthrough performance doesn’t have to be hard. Often, the little things have the biggest impact.

It’s just that you probably don’t know what they are… yet.

If you’re currently stuck or unsatisfied with current performance – contact us to find out how we can help.