Coaching, mentoring and brokering skills

Development Programme

A series of workshops for Business Advisers was designed to deliver coaching, mentoring and brokering skills for use with clients and internal Business Link teams. Consultant Nick Belcher and his team devised a tailor-made coaching programme, which was introduced to 250 Business Advisers and Specialist Advisers. The aim was fourfold:

• To develop skills in coaching, mentoring and brokering
• To enable them to coach their clients to take a more strategic view of the future
• To provide an opportunity to refresh their team work skills with clients and Business Link teams
• To improve communication skills so that projects can be progressed with virtual teams

Process

Stage 1: Research and design
Stage 2: Two day workshops on common language framework
Stage 3: Four day workshops coaching / mentoring / brokering and strategy
Stage 4: Internal coaches to support learning

Evaluation

A survey of Business Advisers who participated in the programme indicated a range of significant benefits. 91 per cent felt that, as individuals, they had made real advances in terms of understanding the new service framework and its methods and 86 per cent also felt their personal performance had improved.

One delegate commented: "The workshop helped build fresh relationships with our clients in order to bring about improved performance of their businesses. Also, team networking across the regions has improved - people feel more part of the organisation now that they know more about each other's skills and attributes”.

Sharp-end

It's at the sharp-end, with clients, that the success of a change programme like this should be measured. This can be seen in Walthamstow, East London, where the family-owned printing firm Bovince Ltd., has been operating for over fifty years.

Three years ago Peter Rosen called in Business Link to assist in producing a business plan to plot the company’s future. The success achieved has been startling. Business Link helped to grow the company's net profit by 40 per cent and stock turn has improved from 20 times per year to 130 times per year

Commenting on the success of the Business Link operation, Nick Belcher said "My job was to help Business Advisers develop skills with which they can apply with confidence to start ups and ailing or growing businesses".