{"id":1358,"date":"2010-02-26T08:52:07","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T08:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localenterprise.wordpress.com\/?p=975"},"modified":"2010-02-26T08:52:07","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T08:52:07","slug":"mentoring-enterprise-the-corruption-of-a-powerful-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/realisedevelopment.net\/index.php\/2010\/02\/26\/mentoring-enterprise-the-corruption-of-a-powerful-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Mentoring Enterprise – the corruption of a powerful process?"},"content":{"rendered":"
According to Tim Smit over at the School for Social Entrepreneurs<\/a> all social entrepreneurs should demand a mentor. Far be it from me to disagree with such a luminary but I think not. \u00a0 It is this kind of sloppy thinking that says we should ‘universalise the particular’ that leads to powerful processes of\u00a0creative\u00a0learning being undermined.<\/div>\n
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Entrepreneurs should seek to develop clarity on what their learning priorities (and which ‘gates’ they need ‘keepers’ to open), and they should be clear on how they are going to learn.<\/div>\n
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But the truth is that mentoring, while transformational for some, is next to useless for others.<\/div>\n
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We all have our preferences for learning process. \u00a0This truth is a problem for many enterprise support organisations who default to the ‘we’ll provide you with a mentor’ setting because they are more focussed on delivering their neatly pre-packaged service offer, agreed with funders no doubt, than they are in really understanding the needs of their service users.<\/div>\n
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Many of the mentoring enterprise schemes that I see use poorly trained mentors with even more poorly trained mentees. \u00a0There is a lack of clarity about the importance of choosing and using mentors in lifelong professional development, as the provider short\u00a0cuts\u00a0this with a ‘matching process’ to force start their own mentoring scheme. \u00a0No wonder that often the results are disappointing.<\/div>\n
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Such schemes tend to put the mentee in a passive role. \u00a0Mentoring becomes a process that is done to them rather than a process to help them find the personal and professional relationships that they need to help realise their enterprising vision.<\/div>\n
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Mentoring is an immensely powerful tool for professional development and the transmission of wisdom. \u00a0However poorly designed mentoring programmes, driven by big businesses CSR ambitions, and wads of taxpayers cash have undermined its credibility in the enterprise sector for many.<\/div>\n

All\u00a0entrepreneurs\u00a0should understand the power of the mentoring process and how it operates in the REAL world (where it is not funded by taxpayers) as it is\u00a0likely\u00a0that most of them might need mentoring at some point in their career. \u00a0 But is should never be a set component of enterprise development programmes and it is certainly not right for all.<\/p>\n

So let us stop grabbing the cash and setting up the schemes and develop an understanding of the mentoring process that will serve our entrepreneurs and our communities for many years to come.<\/p>\n