"Why a 'CoachMent' could be your best investment" - Sunday Times

Richard Harpin Sunday Times: Tuesday November 14 2023

Curiosity is essential to great leadership. That desire not just to learn, ask questions and uncover new insights but also pass them on to new generations of entrepreneurs. It’s why I’ve spent 12 days this year at INSEAD business school in France, culminating in a dissertation. Mine was about coaching and mentorship and how to get the best of both.

There are big differences between the roles. First off, mentors generally help for free. They do it because it feels good to pass on your knowledge and guidance where it can be useful. They tend to stick around for the long haul - sometimes for life.

Coaches are generally paid to help you with a particular objective - developing a specific skill, perhaps, or working through a problem that’s holding you back. It’s detailed training unlike mentoring, helping you figure out how to think about a problem, rather than solve it for you.

I think the best results come from people who can do both - hence my stint learning about coaching at Insead.

With a bit of training, we mentors can use specific coaching techniques to really understand a leader’s particular issues and opportunities, asking intelligent questions to help them reach their goals. Then, with our many years’ experience in the cut and thrust of business life, we can offer mentor-like advice. It’s a mixture of coaching and mentoring that I call ‘CoachMent’.

Think of it as being like a medical check-up. An X-ray machine diagnoses the issue (coaching), whilst a consultant uses his years of experience, and knowledge of the patient to provide personalised treatment (mentoring). Together, they’re more potent than in isolation.

I have sought mentoring advice throughout my career, and can point to specific examples where it has transformed my own fortunes.

In 2010, HomeServe’s expansion in the US had been going well from our Miami base, but I felt it could do better and decided to seek advice. Flicking through the Sunday Times Rich List, my eyes were drawn to Nigel Morris, a Brit who’d made it big over there with his Capital One credit card business.

Here was my accelerator. So, I emailed him, sent hand-written letters, even dispatched him a DHL -delivered package, but I got no response. One night at 11pm, I called the company for the umpteenth time and Nigel himself answered. ‘I recognise your name,’ he said. ‘Sorry I’ve not responded but next time you’re in Washington look me up and I’ll give you an hour.’

‘Actually Nigel,’ I said, ‘I’m there tomorrow, can I pop by then?’ Of course I wasn’t, but I bought a ticket on the first flight out of Heathrow the next morning and by 2pm was sitting in his office. Three hours later, my head spinning from the first of a few sessions, I knew what I had to do.

All it had taken was two questions from Nigel: where are you based and who’s running things?

He made me realise a couple of key factors holding us back: first, that Miami was great for a holiday but was not a place (in those days, at least) to run a US business – much better was Connecticut in the country’s more business-minded north-east.

Second, despite the extraordinary success so far of our British CEO in America, we now needed an American who would be more credible negotiating partnerships with fellow Americans.

I put our conclusions into action. After seven years in the US, we’d got to $10m annual profit. Twelve years later, we are now making $240m profit a year.

Nigel didn’t tell me what to do, but his experience helped me understand [italics] what to do. He prodded and probed, listened and analysed, empathised and argued. That’s a mentor - someone who helps to show rather than demands to tell.

It happened again after I bought Checkatrade.com in 2017. We needed to understand digital marketplaces to expand the business rapidly, so I got in touch with Jeffery Boyd and Steve Kaufer, the talents behind Booking.com and Tripadvisor. Within weeks of us meeting and chatting through Checkatrade's issues, we had transformed the business.

Even today, I’ve just recruited an amazing new mentor. Learning never ends.

After more than 40 years as an entrepreneur, complete with wrong turns, lucky breaks and some success, I would urge everyone to find a mentor - or even better, a CoachMentor, as early as possible in their career.

And, as you evolve and face fresh challenges, keep finding new ones with different skills. Try to look for those who share your values; courage, persistence and integrity are top of my list.

Second, be persuasive when trying to get them to help you. Nigel agreed to meet me because of my persistence seeking advice on how Brits can conquer America. Your mentor won’t want payment or a slice of the pie if your pitch is persuasive, they’ll just want to pass on what they know.

Third, find a way to give back. With luck, I’ve got another three decades of learning, sharing and helping others finding their way through the business world. There are plenty of others like me out there, motivated by a similar sense of duty. Our ‘CoachMent’ can be the UK’s secret weapon as we strive for growth. That is why I’m asking successful business people, when they step down from their executive careers, to mentor a few younger leaders. This will be even more effective if they take some coaching training.

So, swap the golf course for a ‘CoachMent’ course, be a driver rather than just use one. Success isn’t an end in itself, it can be the beginning of a new chapter.

Richard Harpin is Founder & Chairman of HomeServe and Growth Partner