Sam Tsima Network

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...