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Terms & Conditions
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who are your clients? Who can speak for you?
We work with people anywhere - individuals and teams in commercial, governmental or other public service and individual business owners - who understand the value and potential of what we have to offer. We work best with people who are committed to taking responsibility for their own long-term development. Consultants, community leaders, parents, educationists and administrators in voluntary organisations are amongst our clients.
Various clients are willing to be contacted direct, to speak of their experience with us. Contact us if you need references to them. Otherwise, the identity of our clients is a matter of confidentiality. See also Testimonials.
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How does mentoring differ from coaching, life-coaching or supervision?
Different people describe these terms differently and some use them interchangeably. We make the following distinctions.
A mentor is an experienced and trustworthy adviser, guide or tutor external to the organisation, group or work team and chosen by the client to provide confidential personalised support - especially for systematic self-development.
Mentoring is confidential support from an experienced and trustworthy adviser, guide or tutor, especially for methodical self-development.
In some professions such as nursing, medicine, social work, organisational consulting and psychotherapy, mentoring may be known as professional supervision.
Coaching is a similar process, except that a coach is usually someone from within the same organisation as the client. A coach is most often appointed, rather than chosen.
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Can you guarantee results?
No.
We succeed because of our focus on creating frameworks for self-perpetuated development, the care we take to ensure that we deal with the underlying causes of problems, the effort we put into modeling the message, the integrity of our processes, and the practical day-to-day usefulness of the insights and competencies that result from our work.
We are known for creating environments in which clients feel safe, experience themselves as treated respectfully, and are supportively and significantly challenged. Our reputation is founded on what is timeless, generic and practically useful whatever are the present or foreseeable trends.
Although we support all soundly-based innovations in organisation, team and individual development, we favour common sense above current fad.
Whether or not this approach succeeds with you, depends on very many factors including your openness, willingness and commitment to making change - and your readiness for it.
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What if my interests are not represented here or unclear to me?
Your interests not listed? Contact us to tell us what interests you.
Unsure what you want? We may be able to help you clarify the issues and you may be surprised to discover a useful change in perspective. If we cannot help, we may be able to recommend a different source of support. We do not normally charge for this service. Contact us and explain what prompted you to browse this site.
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What happens during mentoring sessions?
A mentor offers expertise, ongoing support and professional growth opportunities that enhance your skills, effectiveness and personal satisfaction. The emphasis throughout is on helping you become an expert on your own development. Mostly, you will experience this as having a discussion with and responding to questions and comments from someone who listens well and takes a lot of interest in what you have to say.
In-person mentoring is available by arrangement. Telephone mentoring is available by appointment. Online mentoring takes place over the internet and can happen whenever you are ready for it. We can participate in video-conferencing by arrangement.
We suggest that for the duration of a phone or online session, you work from a quiet and private space where you can be free from interruptions: it can be anywhere that suits your needs.
See also about mentoring.
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How much mentoring is enough?
The frequency and duration of one-to-one mentoring sessions will depend on your needs and are matters for your choice in each case. We will make clear recommendations.
You are not required to commit yourself to any number of sessions or to any length of session, and may stop the process at any point without penalty. In certain circumstances fees may be charged if you cancel firm arrangements at short notice. See Terms and Conditions (Policies).
Face-to-face appointments in person usually last between 60 and 90 minutes. Sometimes as many as 10 or more sessions distributed over 12 months are advisable; often, much can be achieved in less time. Online mentoring involves email correspondence at your own convenience.
See also about mentoring.
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What about privacy, security and confidentiality?
We are committed to the confidentiality of relationships with our clients.
We will not disclose the existence or substance of a mentoring or other working relationship you have with us to third parties outside of our organisation unless it is your express wish that we do so.
Under no circumstances will we pass information about you (including information gathered electronically about your access to our web site) to third parties without your consent.
Without your clear consent first obtained, we do not inform others that you are a customer of ours or reveal to anyone outside of our organisation, anything you may disclose about yourself or about others.
Even if you were to reveal your own unethical conduct we will encourage you to come clean about it but would not communicate the information to others. If you were to reveal someone else's unethical conduct we will support your learning how to confront it but similarly, will not communicate anything about it to anyone else.
See also our terms and conditions.
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What needs and issues respond to mentoring?
Mentoring processes can break the isolation associated with many social roles, (including management and leadership roles) in which asking for help may be seen as a sign of weakness or incompetence. They can help you maintain focus and progress when necessary support is not appropriate or sufficiently available from your colleagues, leaders, managers or within personal relationships. Our mentoring can do much to alleviate the following common experiences:
- Recurring, unsolved problems
- Group or team dysfunction
- Unproductive busy-ness, unfocused anxiety, constant dissatisfaction with progress
- Being over-burdened with (often conflicting) urgent priorities
- Lack of balance between work and other aspects of life
- Unhealthy levels of stress
- A sense of purposelessness, wasted potential or of being undervalued
- Anxiety about speaking our own truth or revealing our true selves
- Fear of failure and tendencies to be immobilised by perfectionism
- Defensiveness or despondency when given negative feedback or when events don't work out as planned
- Organisational and interpersonal bullying or disregard for human needs
- Difficulty in aligning values, thoughts, feelings and behaviour.
See also about mentoring.
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