Sam Tsima Network

Although everyone may become a mentor, we would like to advocate for the professionalization of mentoring programme. As a mentor you have huge responsibility to your protégés and sponsors of your programme. Many books have been written on Mentorship. In this series I am intending to consolidate some useful insights on the subject from various contributors. I am a practitioner Mentor-Coach, Mentor, and Coach, and enjoys sharing knowledge that can be applied immediately to the real situation. My overall purpose is to introduce, promote, and support the concept I call LIFE-LONG HOLISTIC HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT, which I have been practicing for more than twenty two years. My company, COMETSA, has evidence of many young people who went through development programmes using this concept. Mentorship is one of the main pillars of the concept.  Some of the commonly listed objectives of Mentoring are to; create opportunities for new contacts and networks; utilize the organization’s existin

The term mentoring has its roots in Greek mythology. In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero Odysseus entrusts his friend, Mentor, to look after his son, Telemachus, while he is away at war and prepare him to be king. The word Mentor came to mean teacher, educator or role model. Reading from Book Two titled, TELEMACHUS SETS SAIL, in HOMER - The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles, does confirm that Mentor did great work indeed. “When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more the true son of Odysseus sprang from bed and dressed, over his shoulder he slung his well-honed sword, fastened rawhide sandals under his smooth feet and stepped from his bedroom, handsome as a god. At once he ordered heralds to cry out loud and clear and summon the flowing-haired Achaeans to full assembly. Their cries rang out. The people filed in quickly. When they’d grouped, crowding the meeting grounds, Telemachus strode in too, a bronze spear in his grip and not alone: two sleek hounds went trotting at his h

INTENTIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: In part 2 of this series I focused on the entrepreneurship development stages that intentional entrepreneurs must be aware of and drive their journey through them. Perhaps I should explain why I am emphasizing on the word, intentional. I am suggesting that it is necessary that people are intentional about becoming entrepreneurs, develop a projected future life cycle their enterprises are to go through, determine the pace they will follow, understand the challenges and opportunities at each stage of their entrepreneurship journey, determine the stages at which they will let go and handover the running of their businesses to their successors, etc. I basically do not believe in people becoming entrepreneurs by default. If that happens they should urgently structure the progression through the stages as I explained in part 2. GOALS & ACTIONS: Let us go back to our mentor-coaching sessions facilitation model. This time I would like to look at the facil

Let me confess: No one can develop an entrepreneur unless the candidate has entrepreneurship ingredients in them. So, we should stop telling people that we have funds or resources for them to become entrepreneurs and create jobs. Secondly, no person goes into business to create jobs. The creation of jobs is a product of the successful entrepreneur requiring talent (human resources) as part of building the capacity to meet the growth challenges. No entrepreneur will employ anyone if his/her business is not growing. That is the difference between profit based enterprise and a social welfare organization like non-profit organization. Even social welfare organizations must employ within their cost constraints. Any organization that does not have control on their cost structure will fail. So, how do entrepreneurs come about? An entrepreneur has an eye for opportunities, which in most cases show up in a form of a problem or challenge to the society. He or she decides to establish an ent

Applied Mentor-Coaching for Entrepreneurship Development is a structured intervention to onboard emerging entrepreneurs and support those who are already in practice. It is facilitated by experienced and qualified mentors and coaches. They apply proven models, methodologies, and approaches over a stipulated period agreed with the entrepreneurs. The sessions could be as per plan and/or on demand. Ideally the format should be one-on-one, but could be either team or group sessions. One-on-one session is easy to facilitate and most mentor-coaches prefer it. However, it denies the entrepreneurs the opportunity to learn and develop together. The experienced mentor-coach applies mentoring and coaching methodologies interchangeably throughout the mentor-coaching programme, and during the sessions with the entrepreneurs. This is an art and only well trained mentors and coaches are able to apply it. It is easy for a professional coach to learn to become a mentor-coach, but very difficult fo

PASSION & ENTHUSIASM (21/04/2019 - 27/04/2019): Practicing REFLECTION is a powerful way to embed the knowledge in our long-term memory. We use it frequently in Coaching for the clients and during Coaches Supervision. This week of PASSION & ENTHUSIASM started with a weekly Sunday, 21/04/2019, AFFIRMATION; “I am Strong! I am Bold! I am more Courageous than I know! This was the first time ever that I endorsed an Affirmation that really made me feel like I was beating my chest with a sense of truly being me. Indeed, I genuinely felt that I am STRONG, I am BOLD and COURAGEOUS.  It spoke to me. I felt uncomfortable initially, but I have overcome the feelings and believed.  The Monday’s are my most favorite days of the week, as I post the five questions of the week. But as always it starts with a day’s INSPIRATION. Similarly, this Monday, the 22/04/2019, started with the daily quote, “Passion emerges when your essence expresses itself. How do you stop yourself from fully expressi

LEARNING BY REFLECTION: Learning is about storing content and its interpretation in our long-term memory. It is like filing a book or pages in the library in a way that you can retrieve it whenever the need arises.  Any stored information, content or knowledge that cannot be retrieved and applied is wasted and is of no use to anybody. So, reflection is necessary as it helps in the effective storing of knowledge. SUNDAY, 14/04/2019: The week started with the Sunday Affirmation; “I am learning to use my unique talents, and make the world a better place”. This affirmation reminded me of my life purpose statement and its supporting interventions. My purpose in life is to facilitate people’s achievement of greatness through human capital, management and leadership development interventions.  The tools or interventions I use to achieve this purpose are: coaching individuals and teams; mentorship of individuals and teams; advisory and supporting my clients and stakeholders; creat

Who are returnees? These are South Africans who lived, studied, and worked in foreign countries for at least more than 1 year and return to South Africa with new set of skills, insights, knowledge, newly acquired foreign language, newly acquired foreign culture, even new additional citizenship/national identity and extensive international network. And they are by birth proudly South African citizens who, like everybody else, want to contribute to the development of the country. Who are the locals? All of us, irrespective of whether you are a returnee or you have never been away from the country. The fact that you have never left the country does not make you less important or less knowledgeable. You just happened to develop yourself from home base. In South Africa, especially, have facilities and infrastructure equally advanced as any other country.  South Africa has not managed to integrate these two groupings of equally valuable citizens to its benefit. We continue sending