What is a business mentor and how can he help me?
Petar Mandić is a leading expert in business development, mentoring and coaching, with more than twenty years of professional experience, and is known as the author of the first Croatian book on mentoring – “Mentoring Stories: Ancient Skills and Contemporary Tools for Professional and Personal Development”.
Business mentoring is a process through which a mentor, an expert with relevant knowledge and experience, supports an entrepreneur or manager in developing their business, skills and thinking skills, with the aim of making the client independent and permanently improving business results. Petar Mandić, mentor and author of the first Croatian book on mentoring, in a conversation with Barbara Cerinski clearly describes the difference between mentoring, coaching and consulting and shares practical insights into the real impact of mentoring on individuals and organizations.
What is business mentoring and who is a mentor?
“A business mentor helps and supports an entrepreneur in the development and management of a business, in the development of his skills and quality of thinking. So, in everything he supports him to succeed.” Mandić points out that no entrepreneur has all the knowledge, so mentoring is an extremely important tool for the development of the organization, processes and employees. It is crucial that the mentor has concrete experience and knowledge relevant to the topic he is working on with the mentee: “Someone who has concrete knowledge and experience should do it.“
Mentor vs. consultant – main differences
While a consultant brings ready-made solutions and leaves the organization after implementation, “a mentor trains you so that you can function on your own later, so that you no longer need a consultant or a mentor. That’s the point, to make you independent, to let you master the team“. The mentor guides the mentee through the problem, suggests from his own experience, but encourages him to come up with a solution on his own, for example, “he will teach him how to fish and to think that he knows how to fish on his own in different future circumstances“, emphasizes Mandić.
Benefits of mentoring for companies
Mentoring brings measurable benefits – according to research, “people who have a mentor, say in sales, are up to 20% more effective than those who don’t.” Mandić describes a program where employee turnover is reduced to zero thanks to mentors and a buddy system. As an added benefit, mentors and mentees often later pass on knowledge, even outside of corporations – “yesterday’s mentees become mentors to new ones.” The power of mentoring also lies in transferring culture, breaking down organizational silos, and creating advocates among employees.
Storytelling as the essence of mentoring
Mentoring is inseparable from storytelling. “As the first communities gathered around the fire, so the elders told stories. And through these stories the younger ones learned. Storytelling and mentoring are inseparable.” A mentor helps a mentee tell their own story from a new perspective, empowered by experience and wisdom.
“You know, when you light someone else’s path, you’re essentially lighting your own. And now if you’ve helped someone in the organization be a better manager or lead a better team or whatever the topic was, it’s easier for you to collaborate with those people tomorrow.” A true mentoring relationship brings synergy, individual development and lasting empowerment of the organization.
This is just part of the conversation from the new episode of the DBL Podcast – watch the whole show on our Youtube channel and don’t forget to subscribe!
