Evan Williams is someone who knows that when it comes to being a mentor or a mentee, there’s no either / or choice to make. For him, mentoring isn’t a dialogue with the mentor on one side and the mentee on the other, rather it’s an activity he’s willing to get involved with in either role, depending on the circumstances, what he has to offer those around him, and the support he may himself need to access.

Having worked for Barclay’s Bank for 27 years, Evan left to set up his own training business, Evan Williams Consultancy Ltd, in early 2014. We caught up with him to talk about how enterprise mentoring became part of his professional life. While working for Barclays Bank, Evan signed up to take part in the IOEE mentoring programme his then employer was running alongside Prime Cymru. Despite completing the training, Evan left the bank soon after and never got a chance to exercise his new skills in the job. However, like many others, Evan has found that the skills he learnt on the IOEE training were transferable to many other life situations, including starting a new business:

“As part of the process of setting up a company I have used those mentoring skills, like careful questioning and active listening while talking to people who’ve done similar kinds of things with similar organisations, to gain from them insight into the pitfalls and hurdles I needed to look out for.”

As he made his way with the training business, Cardiff-based Evan once again looked to the IOEE as a source of support and expertise when he attended Meet a Mentor in December:

“Originally, I registered to attend Meet a Mentor as a mentee because I wanted to expand my business and specifically to gain some insight on how to pitch my offer to large corporations.”

Although Evan attended the Cardiff Meet a Mentor thinking of himself as a potential mentee, as often happens, he found he had much to offer in the mentoring role, as he recalls:

“At Meet a Mentor, I was sitting next to a woman who was looking to leave her existing employment and start up a business. Although we had a designated mentor on the table I ended up mentoring this lady there and then, using all the skills and practices that I’ve picked up over the last few years. That kind of fired my desire to get involved in this a little bit more. Now, I’m thinking of going into mentoring on a more formal level.”

As well as the IOEE, whilst starting out Evan turned to organisations like Careers Wales and former employer Barclays for small business support. His business delivers training to bank managers and others in the financial services industry, on how to assist customers looking for finance, as he explains:

“I train people on how to properly understand financial accounts, both the profit and loss and balance sheets, and to pose the questions customers must be asked in order to ascertain what they need the money for, whether it’s good for their business to be borrowing at a given time, the type of borrowing product that might be suitable and whether they can afford to pay back a loan.”

Evan finds that in his new combined role as business owner and trainer he often puts into practice techniques he picked up during the IOEE training he received at Barclays:

“A big part of the IOEE mentoring training focused on questioning skills and listening skills and although I had some techniques in those areas it was great to fine-tune them. For example, I think maybe I would interrupt a bit too quickly and I sometimes needed to sit back and listen a little bit more intently.”

Evan, who has himself had informal mentors throughout his banking career has been fast to recognise that one can simultaneously be both mentor and mentee; the flow of knowledge and experience can go in any direction and mentoring relationships range from the casual and ad-hoc to the formalised and carefully scheduled:

“Throughout my professional life I’ve met various people who I have used as sounding boards. When I formed my own business, I rang those people up and spoke to them about how they would want external companies to approach them. I’ve also got some friends who’ve set up their own business and I’ve used them as mentors too, in areas like VAT returns and invoicing.”

In the future, Evan intends to pursue more formal mentoring relationships, from both sides of the equation. Time will tell what added value mentoring will bring to Evan Williams Consultancy Ltd, and what personal fulfilment Evan himself will gain as an enterprise mentor.