Coaching and mentoring

Introduction

You probably did not train to run a business. You are what I call an accidental business leader. You got good at something else, sales, engineering, operations, and one day you looked up and you were the one everyone reported to.

And even if you did study an MBA or something similar (as I did), you’ll probably find it helpful for the analytical stuff whilst discovering that most difficult decisions don’t fit the frameworks of the course.

That is the business leader's reality. Nobody hands you a manual for the real tricky stuff of dealing with people. That’s where coaching and mentoring comes in.

Coaching and mentoring is not a soft extra for when things are going wrong. Done well, it is one of the highest-return decisions an operational leader can make: fewer costly mistakes, faster decisions, a team that stops depending on you for everything, and a business that is worth more when you eventually want to step back from it.

I have led six businesses myself, three with up to 500 staff and revenues up to £50M. I have sat in over 800 confidential conversations with more than 300 other MDs and CEOs. I know what a good decision looks like from the inside, and I know what the expensive ones cost, because I have made some of them.

What changes when you invest in this

The businesses I work with are usually past the startup stage but nowhere near mature. I call this the adolescent business: roughly 50 to 500 staff, still running on the founder's energy and instinct, but too big now for one person to hold every decision in their head. The behaviours that built the business are frequently the same behaviours now capping it.

That shows up in specific, expensive ways:

• Growth that has plateaued or gone erratic, while costs stay stubbornly high.
• A leadership team that keeps referring everything back up to you.
• Good people you cannot recruit, or cannot keep, because the culture has not kept pace with the size of the business.
• A vision that makes sense in your head but is not landing with the people meant to deliver it.
• Decisions about exit or succession that you know you should be preparing for, but keep putting off because there is no obvious place to start.

A good coach or mentor does not hand you a framework for any of this. They sit with you while you work out your own answer, faster and with fewer wrong turns than you would manage alone. That is the commercial value: not comfort, but better decisions, taken sooner, at a stage of the business where a single bad call on people, strategy or cash can set you back a year or more.

I remember a client early in our work together who was convinced his next hire had to be a Sales Director. Two sessions in, it became obvious the real gap was operational: nobody owned delivery once a deal closed. He hired for that instead. It is a small example, but it is the kind of correction that coaching and mentoring pays for many times over, quietly, before it ever becomes a crisis.

A coach, a mentor, or both?

The words get used loosely, and that causes real confusion when you are choosing who to work with. I set out the difference between a coach, a mentor, an advisor and a consultant in full elsewhere. In short: a coach asks the questions that help you reach your own answer. A mentor has been there and shares what they learned. An advisor brings deep expertise in one field. A consultant manages the process of getting you from A to B.

I work as what I call a coach mentor. I have run businesses myself, so I bring experience, not just questions. But my experience is not yours, and my situation was never quite your situation, so I lead with the coaching discipline: listening first, questioning hard, and offering "if I were in your shoes" only once I have understood where you actually stand. That combination, gentle but persistent, tends to be what serves an operational leader best at your stage.

Choosing the right person for this role matters more than most leaders realise, and the market is crowded with people who call themselves coaches without ever having carried the responsibility themselves. I wrote up eleven tips for choosing a coach mentor covering exactly what to look for and the red flags to watch for. Read it whether you choose to work with me or with someone else. Role clarity, and choosing well, matters more than the title on the business card.

Why leaders choose to work with me

• I have done the job. Six businesses led as General Manager, Managing Director or Chief Executive. Two acquisitions completed from inception as Chief Executive. I was appointed to all three of my larger businesses specifically to address slowing or declining revenue and restore growth.
• I have sat with 300+ leaders facing the same problems you are facing. Over 800 confidential peer conversations across two decades running MD2MD. I know what the best leaders do differently, because I have watched them do it.
• I do not deal in theory. Hammers, screwdrivers and spanners, not frameworks and slide decks. Practical tools you can use on Monday morning.
• I have managed owners, not just customers and staff. I ran a family business, a listed business and a corporate subsidiary. Very few leaders have complete control of their business: most answer to shareholders, co-founders or lenders as well as customers and staff. Managing that third stakeholder group is a skill in itself, and it is one I have lived, not read about.
• My track record is verifiable. 80+ testimonials from clients and peers, most on LinkedIn, most naming a specific outcome rather than vague praise.

How working with me works

The first conversation is free, and it is not a pitch session. We talk about what is actually on your mind right now, not a sales script. If it is a good fit for both of us, we agree a regular rhythm, usually monthly, confidential, one to one. No lengthy academic frameworks, no dense methodology documents: just a structured space to think properly about the decisions in front of you, with someone who has carried the same weight of responsibility you carry now.

For current fees and formats, see the coaching section on the Fees page.