Entrepreneurs: a mentor can tune your skills
April 20, 2008
Angela Wright at the official launch of 2 new rides at Crealy Adventure Park, Nr. Exeter, Devon.
Seeking advice from wise heads has been second nature to Angela Wright, managing director of Crealy Adventure Parks, ever since she started out in business.
“I have always asked lots of questions and sought out the people with answers,” said Wright. “It started with my parents. They have been in business a long time and have always offered very wise counsel.”
Today she works with a personal mentor, an experienced and successful business-woman, as well as with the mentoring organisation Footdown Fifteen. Members of Wright’s local group meet once a month to help each other work on the challenges and dilemmas they are facing in their professional lives.
“The group comes from different sectors, sizes of business as well as from the public sector. They have been really helpful. It’s a bit like having a board of nonexecutive directors,” said Wright.
Her work with these mentors has helped her with a range of issues including achieving specific goals, such as improving her network of contacts. It has also helped with longer-term issues, such as getting her management team to work more productively together.
Wright’s experience of mentoring is not unique. Using a mentor can offer many benefits to entrepreneurs, according to Bob Garvey, professor of mentoring and coaching at Sheffield Hallam University.
A recent programme Garvey set up to see if mentors could help with a specific goal, ended up demonstrating much wider benefits for the entrepreneurs involved. These benefits included transferring new skills and knowledge, creating better networking opportunities as well as helping them improve their product and in some cases even going into business with their mentor.
Many of the benefits of mentoring lie not in helping them with concrete goals, however, but in making the mentored executives more rounded individuals – improving their ability to solve problems, to interact better with other people and to cope with challenges, said Garvey.
“Mentoring helped the entrepreneurs we worked with understand better how people think. It helped them improve their network, gave them new insights into their own activities as well as challenging themselves to think things through more thoroughly.”
Finding the right mentor to help you do this is important. “One problem we experienced was that some of the people being mentored were too fastidious,” said Garvey. “Matching mentors and executives for difference rather than similarity is important. A good example is the time we lined a ceramics entrepreneur up with an international banker. He was not happy with this at first but he ended up telling us how amazing the process was.”
Wright agrees that having a mentor from a different background can be valuable. Her personal mentor from Footdown Fifteen is a former chief of police for Somerset and Avon. He might not seem an obvious person to advise on running a leisure business, but his experience and insights have helped Wright to manage her business.
“I spend a lot of time with people involved in my industry, so industry-specific issues are not always what I need help with,” said Wright. “He has a broad take on humanity and knows what makes people tick. Ultimately business boils down to people.”
To get the most out of your mentor you need to have the right approach and attitude, said Garvey. “You need to be up for it and you need to be open to the idea of learning new things. In our experience, owner-managers are often their own worst enemies, being overambitious, showing a lack of tolerance to other people, being overly assertive or aggressive in their behaviour.”
Being prepared to change such behaviour is as important as wanting to learn specific skills or make particular contacts, he said. “Gaining self insights through mentoring can be more important than concentrating on improving your business performance.”
Ensuring the relationship is fruitful is ultimately down to you, however, said Wright. Working successfully with a mentor is not about being handed the answers to a problem, but about using your mentor to help look at situations and dilemmas afresh.
“Usually the solution to the problem lies in looking at it in a new way. Half of the benefit of working with a mentor comes from being made to look at the problem differently.”
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A MENTOR
-
Search widely and beyond your industry for a mentor
- Look for experienced, successful people with a few grey hairs
- Be open and honest about the mentoring relationship
- Be prepared to have your assumptions challenged by your mentor
- Don’t be afraid to find new mentors and use more than one at the same time
If you are interested in joining a Footdown Fifteen group in your area, please contact Footdown:
Solsbury Hill
Bath
BA1 7AB
Tel: 01225 858884
Or email debbie@footdown.com
Footdown Fifteen launches seventh group in Cheshire
Footdown news - 27th February 2008
The long-awaited Footdown Cheshire Fifteen has launched at a bustling breakfast meeting that brought together some of the best business minds in the region.
Leader Donald Bone’s enthusiasm for the new group is infectious: “The potential for the Cheshire Fifteen is extraordinary – with such a determined, dedicated and ingenious group of business leaders such as we have in this region we cannot help but succeed in bringing about further economic success.
“I am determined that the Cheshire Fifteen will look to the future – not only will we find solutions to issues that affect us as individuals, but we will also act with global awareness and a sense of conscience when it comes to the environment. I strongly believe, as do many of the people who attended our launch breakfast, that climate change is the biggest threat to both business and society, but as business leaders we hold a uniquely powerful position to be able to act and have a positive impact. We cannot ignore our responsibilities, and I am determined that through the members of the Cheshire Fifteen, we can make a considerable difference, both within the region and the wider global environment.”
Anyone wishing to find out more about the latest Footdown Fifteen should contact Donald Bone on 07966 281843
Geo-pressure
Footdown news - 18th January 2008
Footdown ’s founder and Bristol Fifteen member, Andrew Mercer, has won a remarkable fight with the government over a new form of renewable energy. And Andrew says he could not have done it without the help and support of his local Footdown group and the application of the lessons learned from the Footdown coaching model he devised.
Inspired and encouraged by a chance conversation with a fellow Footdown member, Michael Edge, Andrew created 2oc with Michael’s support in 2005. The company planned to use the geo-pressure, which comes out of the ground and drives gas around the country’s pipeline network, to create clean electricity. 2oc would place a turbine in the gas flow and generate virtually emissions-free electricity. The energy industry regulator OFGEM gave the technology a thumbs- up in December 2006 when it allowed it to become part of the Renewables Obligation (RO). This is a government price support mechanism used to encourage all forms of renewable energy. But within weeks of doing that, the government decided that was a mistake and issued a consultation paper, in which it proposed removing geo-pressure from the RO. Three years of hard work and a considerable financial investment appeared to have been wasted because, without that subsidy, geo-pressure just wouldn’t be viable.
“It was a huge blow” says Andrew, “particularly because it came so swiftly after they had given us the go-ahead. I’d signed a £300m joint venture with National Grid on the strength of our inclusion within the RO, and now they were taking it away.
Andrew began to put together a lobbying campaign to try to persuade the government to change its mind. The commonsense argument to use the technology was overwhelming, but Andrew could see there was an emotional argument, within the Civil Service and the government, that couldn’t see how this was truly renewable. “Although I had an excellent team around me at 2oc, the additional support I received from my regular sessions with Footdown, helped me through what was at times, a pretty bleak period” says Andrew. “They had faith in the idea and more importantly in me. Unlike my previous experience in the USA where I felt alone and isolated with nowhere to go for help and support, now I was surrounded by a Footdown Fifteen full of expertise, experience and excellence, who were also my very good friends. You can’t put a price, either financial or emotional, on how much that meant.”
Andrew set to work on a lobbying campaign, garnering support from green NGOs such as Greenpeace, Forum for the Future and Friends of the Earth. The majority of respondents to the government consultation agreed with them that 2oc should be kicked out of the RO. Leading from the front, Andrew bombarded the Energy Minister, Prime Minister’s office, MPs and other key stakeholders with scientific, legal and business arguments for inclusion. There was a face to face meeting in Whitehall with the lead Civil Servant, meetings with a Minister and MPs. “It was high octane stuff” admits Andrew, “but we just kept believing.”
In January 2008, the government did a u-turn. Geo-pressure and 2oc were allowed to stay within the RO and receive the vital early funding it needs to be viable. The government had listened to the arguments put forward by Andrew and changed its mind. It means that 2oc can take this technology worldwide and make a real difference in the fight against climate change.
Read more on the 2OC website.
PRESS RELEASE: New Chief Executive announced at Footdown
Footdown news - 18th December 2007
Former Bristol Police Commander Mike Roe has been appointed as Chief Executive of the leadership and mentoring organisation, Footdown.
Mike, who recently retired from the Avon and Somerset Constabulary after playing a major role in efforts to tackle drug crime in the city, has joined the rapidly expanding Bath-based company.
Footdown aims to help and support business leaders – including entrepreneurs, directors of large corporate divisions, partners of professional firms and senior public sector employees - who are committed to improving their leadership performance.
Being a leader, whilst frequently fulfilling, is demanding, sometimes frustrating
and often lonely.
Footdown is passionate about improving the quality and performance of our country’s business and public service leaders, by inspiring and informing them through a combination of individual performance coaching and group mentoring.
Members quickly come to appreciate the power of the group to make meaningful changes in their professional and personal lives, and to trust that the members of their group will never let them down.
Mike comments: “I have been a member of Footdown for a number of years
now and am delighted to now take a more active role in growing the company.
The support that the group and leader can provide to members is extremely
beneficial, and significantly, we have found that when talented and
inspirational people come together they make a difference beyond their
authority. I’m confident that by the end of 2008 we will be giving this kind of vital support to many more business leaders across the country.”
The company was founded in Bath but now has groups across the country in Bristol, the South West, London, Esher, Thames Valley, Guildford and Cheshire with plans for further expansion in 2008.
For more information please visit www.footdown.com
Ends
Notes to editors:
For more press information please contact Sofie Boddy on 01275 817274 or 07766 693507, or email sofie@sofieboddy.com
Be (ing) The Change - Andrew Mercer energises the Be The Change audience with a description of how he became a low carbon entrepreneur
Footdown news - 17th November 2007
Weaving together a mix of interview clips and the Greenpeace video on Anita Roddick’s activism, with a very personal description of the events and the people who’ve influenced and helped him on his journey to becoming a low carbon entrepreneur, Andrew Mercer gave the 700 plus audience some interesting ideas on how they could “Be The Change”.
Andrew was speaking on the third and final day of the annual Be The Change conference at the Methodist Hall, Westminster. The whole event, entitled “The Sky’s the Limit” was dedicated to the memory of Anita Roddick and was focussed throughout on encouraging and helping the participants to make the changes in their lives that we all need to make to tackle both the causes and, increasingly damaging, effects of man-made climate change.
Unlike Ray Anderson who spoke so movingly at Be The Change in 2005, there was no one epiphany moment for Andrew. Instead, it was a series of increasingly large steps taken along the low carbon road, influenced at every stage by a diverse range of people. These people included: polar explorer David Hempleman-Adams; eco-architect Bill Dunster; environmental campaigners John Sauven and Jonathon Porritt; and most important of all, entrepreneur with conscience Michael Edge, to whom the presentation, entitled Postcards from the Edge, was dedicated.
Throughout the presentation, Andrew used his own experiences to stress the importance of engaging entrepreneurs like him in the fight to tackle climate change. These experiences included building the clean energy business, 2oc, pursuing his dream of building a carbon neutral home and working with the environmental NGOs, such as Greenpeace.
To make the most of their talents, Andrew believes passionately that all entrepreneurs should do three things: build low carbon businesses and/or green their existing businesses; support the work of the NGOs in tackling climate change; do what they can to reduce their own carbon footprint. But he acknowledged that the last item was often the hardest thing to do.
Re-emphasising the importance of working with others to achieve the goal of becoming a low carbon entrepreneur, Andrew left the audience with the thought that the challenges we face with climate change mean that life is no longer a marathon but a series of 100 metre sprints. Being part of a team will make it easier to get through the finish.
Be The Change (www.bethechange.org.uk) is an annual forum for discussing and designing the changes we all want to see in the world.
Launch of the Taunton Fifteen
Footdown news - 15th November 2007
"In some quarters the south west has a reputation as a sleepy hollow, fit only for those retiring or looking to buy a second home. But, as the leaders in this room know, there is a real vibrancy, a developing positive attitude and a determination to grow and prosper, but to do so in a sustainable way.” So said John Snell, the leader of the new Taunton Footdown Fifteen group, at a breakfast meeting held recently to launch the new group.
John went on to say: “We need to make sure that there are opportunities for our young people; that we are attractive to businesses big and small and that growth is sustainable both economically and environmentally. As leaders, we have a crucial role to play, we can learn from the mistakes made in other regions and we can work with each other to meet the challenge of combining growth and prosperity, with social responsibility."
Having completed a 30 year career in policing, John is looking forward to bringing the considerable leadership skills he honed during this time to the challenge of building a group to rival the success of the other Footdown groups in Bath, Esher, Bristol and London.
The new Taunton group will meet for the first time on 10th January at a location to be confirmed.
Launch of the London Fifteen
Footdown news - 25th October 2007
As the Esher and Bristol Fifteen groups, launched in the summer of 2007, begin to put down roots in their local communities, our sights move to the capital city. On 6th December, at the Royal Ocean Racing Club in St James, the first members of the London Fifteen will meet with their leader, Francis Macleod to form the fourth Footdown Fifteen group.
Much is expected of this flagship group and Francis, who has a wealth of experience coaching and mentoring groups of leaders, is excited by the challenge of working with the members of the new London group: 'The quality of the inaugural members of the London Fifteen will ensure a high benchmark of performance within the Group from the start. We aim to have a wide range of organisations represented, from FTSE 100 companies to dynamic, entrepreneurial new generation enterprises. The eclectic mix of excellence in the group will guarantee very high levels of energy and originality in its outcomes. It is an honour to lead this group, and to play a part in driving forward its work of enabling its members to be the best they can be.'
For more information on the group and the inaugural meeting, contact Francis Macleod on 07918 195557.
Recruitment of new group leaders goes to plan
1st July 2007
With the recent launch of two new groups, and more planned in the autumn, Footdown, the Bath based leadership mentoring company, is well on track to have seven active groups by June 2008, and a total of ten groups by the end of the year.
The new groups are modelled on the first, the Bath Fifteen, whose members will celebrate its 4th anniversary later on this year. The Esher Fifteen and the Bristol Fifteen have already held their first meetings, while the new Thames Valley group will meet for the first time in September. In addition, Footdown has recruited two further leaders who will be launching groups later in the year in London and Taunton.
Key to the success of the recruitment drive has been the Footdown website, new in 2006, and a short film on leadership featuring many Bath Fifteen members describing both what it means to be a leader, and how their membership of the group has supported their development and growth.
While Footdown has used the services of a number of leading executive search companies, to help them with their recruitment drive, word of mouth is playing an increasing role in bringing potential group leaders to Footdown.
Launch of the Bristol Fifteen
28th June 2007
Sahar Hashemi, who founded Coffee Republic, provided a brilliant platform for the launch of the new Bristol Fifteen group when she used her talk to the group to inspire each member to think about what constituted successful leadership. Drawing extensively on her experience of building Coffee Republic into one of the UK’s most recognised high street brands, she provided plenty of examples of the challenges leaders face each day and prompted lively discussion and debate.
The leader of the Bristol group, the second new group to be formed since May 2007, is Anne Summers. Anne, a former director of the Strategic Command Course, the top development programme in the Police Service, has a passion for working with senior individuals to improve their leadership skills. She honed her own leadership skills during a 30 year period of frontline policing, which included a period as Deputy Chief Constable of West Midlands Police where she was instrumental in reshaping and refocusing the Force and changed its performance from the worst to the best in the country.
At the end of her first meeting, Anne explained “I joined Footdown because I shared their desire to help leaders be the best that they can be. All of the founder members of the new Bristol group are already successful in their own field and are good leaders. They know at first hand the vital contribution that leadership makes in their organisations which is why they value the opportunity to use the power of the new group to improve their own skills. Our first meeting was just the start of the next phase of this exciting journey.”
Interested in joining the Bristol Fifteen? Then contact Anne Summers on 07785 397699.
Launch of the Esher Fifteen
16th May 2007
The inaugural meeting of the Esher Fifteen recently took place at the Royal Automobile Club’s Woodcote Park Clubhouse in Epsom. Led by James Dubois, best described as an “entrepreneur accountant” and managing partner of an Esher-based firm of chartered accountants, the group comprises senior decision makers from a wide range of organisations across both the commercial and public sectors in the Surrey area. All members are committed to using the power of the group to maximise and fulfill their leadership potential.
The Esher Fifteen now has eleven members with room for four more. “Any senior executive wishing to sign up for this enlightening and invaluable experience should get in touch with me quickly,” says James Dubois.
Anyone interested in joining the Esher Fifteen should contact James Dubois on 07899 995421.
Midge Ure urges Bath entrepreneurs to act on climate change
27th April 2007
On a sunny April evening at the Roman Baths in Bath, Midge Ure reprised his pivotal role in pricking the nation’s conscience over famine in Ethiopia by urging an audience of entrepreneurs and other businesspeople not to “let it go” in the fight to tackle climate change.
During the evening, guests were invited to pledge offers of financial and other support to three environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) prominent in the fight against climate change – The Climate Group, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. A number of guests did so on the night and more have done so since. But many guests also took away the message that tackling the global long term problem of climate change offers unprecedented business opportunities for those with the far-sightedness to spot them. As Steve Howard, Founder and CEO of the Climate Group, has said: “What a brilliant opportunity to look at the greatest challenge of the 21st century, and there are business opportunities.”
Entrepreneurs with Conscience website
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