Methods-based mentoring of entrepreneurs

Generally speaking, there are 2 types of effective consultants in the world.  First, there are subject matter experts, those who have deep experience in some industry or technology domain, who have “been there, done that”.  Second, there are methods-based consultants who use multi-disciplinary methods to work across industries and technologies. Their skills are rooted in common patterns and techniques that work “universally”; by using these methods everywhere they gain learning cycles that make them efficient and effective.  I’ve never done a formal survey, but in my travels it seems that the former are 10X more common than the latter.

I’m decidedly in the latter category, a generalist, systems thinker, “methods guy” who has refined a set of decision patterns over 20+ years of consulting.  Not surprisingly, I think that NOW is the time for methods-based consulting and mentoring to be widely applied to entrepreneurship.  And when I talk about methods, I make a clear distinction between the methods-engine that gets at the heart of helping the entrepreneur think quickly, clearly and innovatively and the process frameworks (e.g. stage-gate processes) that monitor and validate that such thinking has been done with appropriate due-diligence as a gate to the next phase of a business launch.  My focus is on the value-creating decisions that happen between the gates; accelerating these decisions and uncovering superior solutions in them.

I don’t lack confidence as a methods-based consultant; I can facilitate any project that has high complexity or solves new problems with new technologies.  My challenge has always been scaling the power of the Decision Driven® method engine “down”; simplifying it so it can be more widely used with less training and less consulting and mentoring oversight.  I’m not trying to work myself out of a job as a consultant and business mentor, but rather trying to expand the range of businesses that can take advantage of decision patterns to accelerate their vision.  That’s why I spent over a year developing the Decision Driven® Strategy web service, to make these proven decision patterns (and an easy-to-learn, easier-to-use decision management methods engine) widely available at low cost.  My goal is to reduce my consulting or mentoring “footprint”; deliver more value to clients with less of me in the flesh. 

This is particularly crucial to entrepreneurs; launching a new business is a decision-making fire-drill.   Having a decision pattern can help the entrepreneur take control and fills the gaps in their experience.  With the launch of Decision Driven® Strategy, I’m “hanging out my shingle” as methods-based mentor to entrepreneurs.  Let’s talk about it.