Develop real-world, adaptable, problem solving skills
A new era of business education, coaching and mentoring
At 25eight, all of our Business Growth and Innovation Programs combine three elements;
Online, self-paced, micro education
1:1 sessions with a business coach
1:1 sessions with industry expert mentor
We get you to think about your business, consider your most important goals, and do the learning before your coaching and mentoring sessions. This allows you to maximise your time with your coach and mentor to question and apply what you have learnt to your business. Not only is this more cost effective, you’ll also accelerate your progress, achieving more, in less time, and retain more knowledge over the long term.
We combine the best way to learn…
Teaching you the concepts, not just the content
Our approach to teaching and learning focuses on the big ideas and principles rather than isolated facts and procedures. The idea is that by understanding the broader concepts and how you can apply these across various contexts in your business, it will equip you with the tools to adapt your approach when conditions change - which in the business world, happens at an accelerated pace.
Not only this, but by teaching you the concepts and not just the content, then supporting you to apply this to your situation immediately, it fosters deeper learning and long term retention.
Our education is impactful and if you complete certain 25eight programs, you’ll earn study credits towards global Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs.
It is also tailored to you. We start by understanding what you already know so that we can recommend education that helps you to level up. We do this through short videos and activities designed to fit around busy schedules that incrementally help you to work towards an outcome.
The benefits of this way of teaching:
You’ll see connections between ideas and understand the relationships among different concepts, helping you to transfer your knowledge to new situations
You’ll increase your critical thinking skills as you’re prompted to analyse how different pieces of information fit together, rather than simply memorising facts
When you grasp the underlying principles of a subject, you are more likely to remember it and be able to apply it in new situations.
It helps you to build schemas or mental frameworks that help to organise and interpret information.
You get immediate impact as you can apply everything you learn in our programs to your business
The research also suggests that by understanding and applying concepts, you will develop a mindset that helps you to learn to adapt and acquire new knowledge efficiently.
You learn to ask questions and seek out answers, driving your own learning process and developing your independence from the need to be told what to do and confidence to trust in your own decisions.
We aim to help you develop an intrinsic motivation to learn as you find time to fit it into your working week and start seeing the results from your actions.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for life”
Old saying
Teach a person the concept of fishing and they are able to feed themselves even if the environmental conditions change
25eight saying
With the best form of coaching…
First principle and design thinking
Sam, our CEO and Chief Educator and Head Coach, thanks her engineering father for the continuous focus on first principle thinking (and for making her learn to code) when she was a young girl.
First principle thinking is a problem solving approach that involves breaking down complex issues into the most fundamental components. You question assumptions and understand the core principles governing a problem. The benefits of using this approach is innovative, creative, efficient and adaptable solutions.
Combine this with design thinking, a human centred approach to problem solving and you have a pretty powerful toolbox to help come up with the best solutions.
Our coaches are trained to get to the heart of your business challenges and to help you overcome them in the best possible way. And being a small to medium sized business means you have to get creative with the resources you have (no endless budgets here). Whilst the coach might know a really innovative answer, they’ll do more asking than telling to help you develop the skills to get there by yourself.
By doing this, your brain makes links so that you can apply the principles again next time you have a challenge; by asking yourself a similar series of questions to get to an innovative solution. If you had been told what to do, you (more often than not) would need to be told again to know what to do in this new situation. It feels harder to do it this way. Being told what to do is so much easier, right?! But the long term benefits for you (and your brain) far outweigh the short term gains you might get from following what someone else says.
“Thinking begins when you ask really difficult questions”
Slavoj Žižek
With the best industry expert mentors..
Mentors matched to give you valuable insights
Having worked with thousands of businesses in many different industries and domestic and international markets, the team at 25eight have a wealth of insights that they can share as mentors. And that’s just what you need to further develop your strategic capabilities, access to specific information that helps you make more informed decisions.
This could be knowledge of a particular customer, their processes, and their pain points. It could be an understanding of the upcoming needs of an industry based on the development of policies and requests for tenders. Or it could be an insight into what has worked before.
At the very minimum you’ll get access to a 25eight mentor as part of your program. However, most of our programs include access to industry specific experts. Experts chosen to provide that insider knowledge that may have been impossible to get unless you were on the inside.
Our Industry Mentors are equally passionate about helping small and medium sized businesses to succeed and value your investment in yourself and your business by you participating in the type of programs 25eight offers. You’ll meet them in a group setting and/or a 1:1 session to answer those specific questions you have and give you that incredibly valuable feedback that helps your business to stand out and succeed in your market.
In some cases, you’ll get to present your business to a panel of prospective customers to hear their feedback on how you can adapt your approach to win engagements with them.
