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Agile Innovation Leaders


Aug 11, 2024

Bio  

 Kerrie, a serial entrepreneur, was introduced to mentoring after her last successful business sale. Realising she had no support or guidance in what she was doing, Kerrie founded the Association of Business Mentors in 2011 to provide mentoring skills and training for those seeking to mentor business owners professionally. Kerrie’s vision for the ABM was to provide reassurance to business owners that they are in the safe hands of a trusted and experienced ABM professional business mentor. Kerrie mentors businesses of all shapes and sizes. She also mentors within the workplace, working closely with HR departments to run mentoring programmes to support the growth and development of their employees.

Interview Highlights

01:30 Give it a go or you’ll never know

03:30 Starting out in mentorship

06:30 The vision or the team?

10:30 Boundaries in business

12:30 The onion exercise

16:30 Mentoring v coaching

21:00 The mentoring door

22:00 Quietening the mind

 23:30 Embedding an organisational mentoring culture  

Contact Information  

·         ABM website (Association of Business Mentors)

·         Association of Business Mentors on LinkedIn

·         Kerrie Dorman on LinkedIn  

Books & Resources  

·         The Mentoring Manual - Julie Starr

·         A Complete Guide to Effective Mentoring (The FT Guides), Dr. Ruth Gotian, Andy Lopata

·         Henley Business School webinars

·         Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice, Matthew Syed

·         The Choice: Embrace the Possible, Edith Eger

Episode Transcript  

Intro:  Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I’m Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener.  

Ula Ojiaku  

I am very honoured to have the Founder of the Association of Business Mentors, Kerrie Dorman, as our guest on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. Kerrie, thank you so much for making the time for this conversation. I've been looking forward to it for ages.

Kerrie Dorman

You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.

Ula Ojiaku

My pleasure. So what's led you to the place where you are today and being the Kerrie Dorman that we've gotten to know and admire?

Kerrie Dorman

Okay, so actually part of my upbringing was being very much around entrepreneurship. My father was a key project manager on business ideas, primarily in Africa, and my stepfather also ran a very large family business. So I had business sort of around me from quite a young age, and I would talk to both my father and my stepfather about why things would happen and et cetera, et cetera. And so I became a serial entrepreneur from quite a young age. I think what gave me the impetus was the fact that I wasn't afraid to give something a go, and actually my motto now is give it a go or you'll never know, and if it works out, amazing, if not, then you learn and you move on. So my first business was in optics, because what I did do was get a profession behind me first, and that was a qualified dispensing optician. And so my first business was in recruitment for people within the optical industry, and I somehow managed to sell that by the skin of my teeth. And I just felt that it was incredibly satisfying, and a great sense of achievement to have been able to build something, even though it was very small, that was attractive to somebody else to want to pay for it. And so hence my entrepreneurialism streak started. So I started all sorts of businesses in all sorts of industries, I saw niches and just as I said, gave it a go. Some work just failed, and some I managed to sell, so I sort of came out vaguely on top at the end of it all, and then of course, there was the Association of Business Mentors, which is still going, and that came about because when I sold my last business, which was probably the most successful of them all, there was a new government funded mentorship program happening. It was an incubation centre, so there were young and bullish business owners wanting to be in this incubation centre to make sure that they had the best start, and so I was asked to come and share all my experiences, the successes, the failures, what I learnt, and I felt that I had a lot to share with these people, and that was my first stab at being a mentor. However, I didn't really know what I was doing, I'd never had my own mentor before, and I felt that I was getting quite frustrated with these young, inspiring people because they weren't running a business the way I had run a business. And I thought that that's what mentoring was about. There was no guidance on this scheme, and I just felt that it wasn't quite right in terms of what I was supposed to be doing. So I looked around for somewhere to hang my hat, find some other mentors, get some guidance, get some training, get some code of ethics, and the whole standard thing was really important to me. And apart from the EMCC, which is very European-centric and it was very coach-centric as well at the time. The European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), which is still going strongly to this day, and we sit with them on the Global Code of Ethics Committee. They just have a lot of kudos and I'm very, very flattered that we work alongside them. So then I just realised that mentoring was about to explode in the UK. It was very big in the States and we really needed somewhere for mentors to go and be supported and guided and also for mentees, so for business owners to go somewhere where they knew that a mentor had the guidance, had the structure, had the ethics and they were in safe hands, and that was 13 years ago.

Ula Ojiaku

Wow. And look where the Association of Business Mentors has gotten to with, I believe, thousands of members across the country?

Kerrie Dorman

We are up to, I think, two and a half thousand members at the moment. But you know what, Ula, the thing is, is that it's not just been me, it's absolutely about the team and the other people who have helped get it to where it is today. I definitely cannot take all the credit. I can take the credit for having the idea and the initial oomph to get it going, but it's really been down to all the volunteers in all the different regions, the different members of the board. It is really who you manage to bring on board with you and help you get initiatives to where they are.

Ula Ojiaku

Thank you for that. I'm a big believer that as long as you're learning, it's not really failure.

Kerrie Dorman

Yeah, absolutely. So it's only a failure if you don't learn, and so I think my fear of failure meant that I had to learn in order for self preservation, if that makes sense, and although it wasn't always apparent, that's definitely the case. There's a wonderful quote ‘I never lose, either I win or I learn’.

Ula Ojiaku

Now, the vision or the team, which one do you think is more important in setting up a successful enterprise

Kerrie Dorman

The team. Every single time. And do you know why? It's because visions change. Visions can change according to things outside of your control, landscape, you just have no idea where a journey is going to take you, and I think that it's quite close minded to stick to the exact same vision all the way through because you may start an initiative, a business for one reason, and then you end up delivering a solution to something completely different, which needs a tweaked and amended vision. And also, a really good team will help you to shape a vision as you grow, so that's it for me. It's team all the way.

Ula Ojiaku

And in all the businesses you've founded, how did you go about building the teams, the partnerships, the structure?

Kerrie Dorman

For me, it was all about the people that I knew, approaching them first and the like-mindedness about the core reason why I wanted the ABM to exist really was about standard support and guidance, and that was my unique selling point, for a commercial phrase, and I just found that there were lots of people out there who were just as passionate about me as those three things. And so, because I was so passionate, and so were they, it was easy to get the right people, and the people who felt that they wanted to join the movement, but didn't quite have the passion fell away along the journey. And that's sort of been a theme, I think, through all the businesses, it's about the people and about who I knew. So initially, when I would have a business idea, the idea was great, but until I had the right person in mind to help me run it, then it was a no go, but interestingly, and this conversation has been a catalyst for this thought, interestingly, it was having great people in my sort of hemisphere that sometimes often made me come to the conclusion that I needed to set up a business in a particular arena with that person. So sometimes it was the person that was the catalyst, and a great example of that, just to be crystal clear about what I mean is, one of my businesses was a beauty salon specialised in pregnant ladies and mums. So pregnant ladies, and then when they had the babies, they could come back. So it was all set up for massaging and wellbeing for mums who had bumps and boobs that couldn't ever lie on their tummies. So I got these special couches from the States and then they could have proper massages and then there was a creche so that once they had their babies, they could come back.  And so the catalyst for that business was, well A)I had a baby, but B) one of my employees in a current business was a qualified beauty therapist, and she was just having a bit of time out from the beauty world for one reason or another. And so I had my first born, and I had this employee who was really keen to get back and she was passionate about beauty and health. And for me, it then became this no brainer that the concept would work with her running it, and that's how it all started.

Ula Ojiaku

That's amazing. If you could speak to your younger self, what would you advise them to do?

Kerrie Dorman

This is a really great question and it really got me thinking. And I would sit myself down and I would say that I'd really need to ring fence my emotions. One of my downfalls has been to get too close to people that I have employed, and you know that saying ‘familiarity breeds contempt’. That actually really happened on several occasions. Ring fence my emotions, don't get too familiar. When you're in business, you have to have proper boundaries, and also, I can't stress the importance of having your eye on the numbers. You have to have your eye on the numbers all the time, not only just to make sure that you're making a profit currently, but that you have a sustainable business that can grow. So run forecasts and sense check them. Some people can get over zealous with it, but they just have to be there all the time. It's so, so important. And the fourth thing I would say to my younger self is to start delegating earlier. Took me a long time to really understand the power of delegating, and I think there was two reasons for that. A) I felt because I was quite young when I started these businesses, I just felt that I couldn't ask other people to do things for me when I was quite able to do them myself. And B) there was definitely an element of the fact that if I did it, it would probably be better than anyone else doing it. Two utterly ridiculous things, and if I'd learned that a lot earlier, then I would have been more successful, without a shadow of a doubt, and less tired probably.

So when I'm running a training for mentors, I run this little exercise called the onion exercise, and it's all about stripping back and really getting both mentor and mentee down to the nub of the onion, because that's where you feel comfortable, safe, and that's where all the good conversations start happening. And so to get people talking to each other, I get them to pair up into twos and they have to talk about something that's very personal to them, and as an example, I tell the story about the fact that I give blood very regularly and that I have one of the rarer blood groups, and one time, it was about eight years ago, and I was giving blood and the nurse came over to check that everything was working, and she said to me, oh you have special blood. I said, well, it's just one of the rarer types. And she said, no, it is one of the rarer types, she said, but it's healthy enough to go to the neonatal clinic to save the babies. And I thought, oh my God, that's amazing. So I was giving this example in one training, and this  mentor said to me, well, that's great, and it's a really interesting story, but what does that tell us in business? And it tells you actually that I have strong maternal instincts and I allow that to get in the way of my emotions and my professional boundaries, and that's, that's the power of it.

Ula Ojiaku

Now, if you were to define mentoring, what would you say it's all about?

Kerrie Dorman

My definition of mentoring is based on this. So a mentor's job is to ease the pain for the mentees. So we're mentoring because we have a certain amount of experience and skills and ethics and our role is to make sure that mentees look at all the options that are available to them, explore with all the appropriate approaches that they have, and go about their business in a calm and considered manner that's got the best outcomes possible. And as mentors we can do that because we've been there, we've done all sorts of things, we can just make sure that considered decisions are made, with all options having been explored. But not only do we need the experience as mentors, we need the skills, I mean, there are questioning and listening skills and self awareness skills that do not come naturally to a lot of people. We do have to make sure that we practice those. And I know I, for one, have had to practice my mentoring skills a lot in order to get to where I mentor today, without a doubt.

Ula Ojiaku

So did you have to go through training?

Kerrie Dorman

Yep, lots of training, lots of self reflection. I went through an assessment centre twice with Professor David Clutterbuck, who told me that I needed to improve and on the back of that, I got some very special mentoring sessions with Bob Garvey, and I don't know if you've come across either of these gentlemen, but they are absolute experts in our field, and it was an incredible learning curve for me, being mentored by Bob Garvey. He was so giving and really made me look at what I was doing in terms of my mentoring practice, and that's where the real lessons came. Lots and lots of practice taking on board honest, upfront feedback and doing something about it.

Ula Ojiaku

What's the difference between mentoring and coaching?

Kerrie Dorman

The difference is that anybody can actually be a coach as long as they have the qualifications that go with coaching. Coaching is a lot more stringent and structured in terms of the need for supervision and accreditation. Anyone can call themselves a mentor if they have a little bit of experience, well, I know there's a lot of mentors out there calling themselves mentors and they've probably just read a book, but anyway, let's not go onto my rant. So the difference is, is that coaches need accreditation and qualifications, mentors need experience, as well as the training and the qualifications. So the experience is absolutely key. And the other big difference is that as mentors, we can talk about our experiences and our stories, whereas coaches, it’s more about empowering the coachee to build their own stories and use their own experience in order to develop. So actually a mixture of both is what you really want.

Ula Ojiaku

And would you also as a mentor tell them what to do or do you give them the option to choose?

Kerrie Dorman

So the golden rule is that any decisions or any way that the mentee chooses to go forward is the responsibility of the mentee. We can call our stories hindsight, advice, whatever, but actually the responsibility stops, the buck stops with the mentee, and that's very important. So there cannot be a situation where a mentee can turn around and say, well, you told me to go down this particular route, that just doesn't happen. And that's part of being a professional and having our standards, and that's making crystal clear that the mentee is responsible for their own actions and decisions.

Ula Ojiaku

And you said that you now do a lot of work through the ABM, helping, mentoring business owners. Could you share maybe a bit more about this?

Kerrie Dorman

I have a small handful of mentees now, and my focus is all about supporting, training mentors to be the best that they can be, and I also work with bigger organisations and help them to set up mentoring programs that actually provide a return to the mentor, mentee and the organisation. So that's providing the motivation and the training, the know-how, and the monitoring, just making sure that everybody's getting what they want from it, because unfortunately, due to all sorts of things, normally lack of resource and knowledge, mentoring programs are tick box exercises, and so it's my mission to make sure that the majority of mentoring programs provide a value to all stakeholders.

Ula Ojiaku

And what would you say, in the situations where you felt were highly productive, or the mentees seemed to get the most out of the relationship, what was the difference between that and maybe an average mentor mentee relationship?

Kerrie Dorman

To be honest, for me, the difference has been the ego of the mentee. I've only had a couple of frustrating mentoring relationships, luckily. So I have actually reflected on this as to why I couldn't quite break through, why I couldn't provide them what I felt that they needed, what they thought they needed, and actually it was a little bit of arrogance and big egos on the mentees side, and as soon as I realised that I wasn't going to provide any value because of those barriers, then I just called it a day. I didn't say, I can't work with you because you've got a big ego, I just positioned it that we'd come to the end of our relationship and that it was time for them to look at somebody else with a different skill set, because otherwise it's unfair and it's frustrating and we shouldn't be in that position.

I love the analogy of the mentoring door. So when both mentors and mentees turn up for their session, they go through the mentoring door, they're zapped of all the stuff that they're carrying around with them and they turn up and they're both present and they're good to go in that moment in time for mentoring, because we're all so busy and we’re all thinking about all sorts of various different things - the last meeting, the mentee that's about to do this big bid, or whatever it is. We have to be able to learn to leave all of that at the door and be present.

Ula Ojiaku

Are there practices to help you with this?

Kerrie Dorman

Yeah, so I quite like Julie Starr. She wrote The Mentoring Manual. So she talks about quietening the mind, and it's about just taking as long as you need. So everyone's different, someone could walk through that mentoring door and have a quiet mind, just like that. Other people might need five minutes. Other people might need 20 minutes. It's up to you to know your own limitations, but when you walk through the mentoring door, the ability to take a breath and quiet your mind, and be present. That's my question to myself - is my mind quiet? And am I ready to take on the next lot of information that's about to be divulged to me. So that's a key phrase for me, quietening the mind, and she's got a couple of exercises in there actually. And the other one is the one that's just come out by Andy Lopata and Ruth Gotian is the Financial Times Guide to Effective Mentoring It's got some fantastic real life case studies in there and lots of people have been interviewed, myself included actually, I'm in there, and it's really good effective reading for mentors and mentees.

Ula Ojiaku

So, as leaders, how can we make sure that, one, we're effective as mentors in our organisations, and two, how can we make sure that that culture of mentoring is embedded in the organisation?

Kerrie Dorman

Two great questions. So the first one, how do we make sure that we are as effective as possible as mentors? So the only way is to keep self-developing and learning new exercises, having new tools and really getting involved with peer to peer discussions, and learning from each other. I really enjoy the webinars that come out of Henley Business School. There's a whole mentoring library there, and so I try and listen to one every six weeks as a minimum so that I'm just gaining a new perspective, making sure that I am actually on top of my game, but it takes work, because again, we're busy and we've just got to make sure that we do it. So I diarise Friday mornings to do that, and it's very rare that I'll give up that time unless I'm facing a deadline of some sort. It's rare that I'll give up that time to self-develop or network. So it's about giving ourselves the space in order to grow and to keep developing.

How do we shout about it inside an organisation and make sure that it's effective? Well it's our responsibility as mentors to ensure that our time is providing a return, and the only way an organisation can do that is by monitoring and getting the results, and there's all sorts of ways that we can do that, but getting feedback and scoring and making sure that mentors are getting what they need to get out of a mentoring relationship as well as the mentees is absolutely key. So when I'm running an initiative inside of an organisation, I get mentors and mentees to fill out a feedback form at the end and getting quite specific, but also to score one to 10, 10 being highly beneficial, and so we get a hardcore number at the end so we can see and where it's not providing value for somebody, then you go in and we find out how, what we can do to improve. Again, it's just continuous development. So really as mentors, it's about making sure that there is a return and that it's monitored, and if it's not, shout about it.

Ula Ojiaku

What other books have you recommended the most to people and why?

Kerrie Dorman

So apart from Julie Starr's Mentoring Manual, the one I have suggested the most frequently is Bounce by Matthew Syed. So the reason why I love Bounce so much is because he provides an argument that we are not born with talent. It is absolutely something that we have to work at, and the whole book is about his research to prove that. And in my journey as a mentor, I know I've had to put in the hours and the purposeful practice and the self-development to be the mentor that I am today. We are not born natural mentors, and I'm quite happy to be challenged on that, so that's the reason why I shout about his book, because it's all about keeping at it and building up your hours to be an expert in your field, and I feel very strongly about that. The other book is a book that I read during the pandemic during lockdown and it did amazing things for me as a person, not just as a mentor, but as a person, and it's The Choice by Edith Eger, and she's still alive. She is an Auschwitz survivor. She's in her nineties now, and it's her story about the choices that we make, the choices that are open to us and, and how we make them, and she links it to the choices that she had in Auschwitz and as an escapee. Powerful, powerful stuff, but written beautifully, and really resonated with me. So yes, they're my two favourites, Bounce by Matthew Syed and The Choice by Edith Eger.

Ula Ojiaku

And if the audience wants to get in touch with you, how can they do so?

Kerrie Dorman

My details are all over LinkedIn, obviously all over the ABM website on my profile, and I really welcome anybody to get in contact with me for a chat, for discussion, run anything by. I love talking about mentoring, about the power of it, how we can use it to help all sorts of people and situations. So please don't ever hesitate to get in touch.

Ula Ojiaku

Thank you so much for that, Kerrie. Do you have any final words for the audience that you'd like to leave them with for this episode?

Kerrie Dorman

Yes. If you're not mentoring, then get at it, and if you don't have a mentor, then find one, because no one is above having a mentor, and it's one of the most rewarding experiences, that we can experience in life.

Ula Ojiaku

Thank you so, so much, Kerrie. I really have learned a lot and I appreciate the time you've made, the wisdom that you've shared with us. So thank you again.

Kerrie Dorman

Thank you for having me. I've loved chatting with you.

Ula Ojiaku

That’s all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I’d also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!