Are you aware of Sir Richard Branson’s Center of Entrepreneurship Caribbean?

The Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship Caribbean is a non-profit accelerator helping entrepreneurs to scale their businesses. They are on a mission to create dynamic Caribbean economies through entrepreneurship.

The “Gift of Mentoring” spans many industries and many continents. Understanding the power of mentoring is crucial to building sustainable organizations that will provide services to a global economy.

We at TalentC are delighted to report that our very own President, Doug Lawrence is one of only three mentors featured in the Branson Center of Entrepreneurship Caribbean’s 2018 Annual Report (page 33).

Doug Lawrence and TalentC are honored to be working with Sir Richard Branson’s team to create a dynamic Caribbean economy. We are collaborating with two phenomenal entrepreneurs, Christopher Boxe and Craig Hammond who are making a difference in the community they live in. Their accomplishments are a testament to the mission of the program that has been created by Sir Richard Branson and his team.  Embracing the value of mentoring has helped them in their success story.

“They [Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship Caribbean] paired us with mentors and have given us an advisory board, which acts as a great resource to share ideas about the business and management.” (Christopher Boxe)

TalentC – People Services Inc. is an organization that is focused on providing mentor training, workplace mentoring programs, mentoring at all levels of an organization on an international stage and thought leadership in the mentoring space. Our services help organizations get the best from their employees through the “Gift of Mentoring.”

Doug Lawrence is the founder of TalentC®.

Doug shows organizations how mentoring will encourage workforce culture to flow in harmony (mentors), improve productivity from employees (mentees), reducing costly employee onboarding improving the bottom line (organizations).

Doug is an International Certified Mentor Practitioner (ICMP), an International Certified Mentor Facilitator (ICMF), and has obtained his Certificate of Achievement – Mentoring and his Certificate of Competence – Mentor from the International Mentoring Community (IMC).

Doug is an international speaker and author about all facets of Mentoring. He published “The Gift of Mentoring” in 2014 with his second book set to publish in 2019.

Doug works with organizations to establish mentoring programs, influence mentoring as a culture, and provides one-on-one direct mentoring for individuals of all backgrounds and levels globally.

To contact Doug: https://calendly.com/doug-lawrence

There has been some confusion regarding what is mentoring. I see a lot of reference to the organizational contexts of mentoring obviously with a slant towards the professional growth of employees. Mentoring is defined as a two way trusted relationship where both the mentor and mentee can grow personally and professionally. The relationship relies heavily on the building of trust and the sharing of personal information in the building of that trust. The trust is further strengthen by the mentor’s ability to create a safe environment for the conversation to take place.

I have mentioned in some previous articles my concern with some corporate mentoring programs that focus purely on the professional growth of the employees. I firmly believe that we are doing a disservice to the employee but not touching on the personal growth challenges that they may be dealing with. I see those as obstacles and barriers to being able to move ahead with addressing professional growth challenges.

I recently reviewed my mentor log which has between 250 and 300 hours of mentoring over a one year time period and I found that in the majority of the mentoring sessions we touched on personal growth challenges. Those challenges were an actual obstacle or barrier to the person being able to move forward with anything on their professional/career side of their life. Let me give you an example. If you have self-esteem and/or self-confidence challenges are you going to be able to move forward and enhance your career or as an entrepreneur take your business to the next level. Chances are that you won’t be able to. I have seen a number of entrepreneurial failures that were directly attributed to a lack of self-confidence or self-esteem. To ignore the personal side of one’s life is a mistake.

Building the trust in the relationship can require the sharing of personal information that demonstrates humility on the part of the mentor. I find that when I share something personal it helps in the creation of the safe environment that is essential in fostering the dialogue required for success. Without any of this I would not be able to address any professional growth challenges.

As a mentor we need to be comfortable in building trusted relationships. It is not an easy task but if provided with the correct tools it can be a skill set that is mastered. As a mentor we need to focus on the personal growth challenges first. If we are not whole as a person it is very hard to move forward with our careers. People that we have worked with in a mentoring relationship where we have addressed the personal growth challenges have gone on to have a high level of productivity, are more positive in the workplace and have seen a change in their leadership in family, community and work environments. Removing the barriers and obstacles was key to the behaviour change. The “gift of mentoring” has many tools that you can put into use to change the culture and the environment that you work in. You need to take the first step – “can you afford not to?”