The Mentor's Wisdom

It’s human nature to look at the effects and think about how we can change them.  Less common is to look at causes.

A good mentor for leaders and businesspeople will answer your questions with different questions – and shift your attention to the causes.

If you have been trying to fix a problem over and over, maybe you are asking the wrong questions about it. What is the real cause?

Find it, then face it.

Does immigration take jobs from Americans?

Is the number of jobs fixed?  Since the 1950’s, the number of American workers has tripled as women have come into the workforce and the population has grown organically, and via legal and illegal immigration. If the number of jobs was fixed, we’d have massive unemployment. 

New workers take jobs, yes; but they spend their money on products and services and create new jobs.

Human capital is poorly deployed in most countries where immigrants come from.  For example; if you take a Haitian out of Haiti and put him in the United States, his output and income will go up 10X.

This adds to world GDP (Gross Domestic Product – the total value of all goods and services produced).  The country that these immigrants go to is the one who benefits from this increased economic activity.

In industrialized countries where the living is easy, people have less babies and populations slowly go down, and the economy struggles as a result.  Immigration is a way to keep the population rising and the economy growing with more producers and more consumers.

Best Space Scenario

The environment your people work in matters.  It helps or hinders the team’s attitude and productivity and affects your recruiting ability.

Are you in the “Best Space Scenario”?

Don't mistake movement for progress

Just because you worked a bunch of hours today, and knocked out a lot of “stuff”, doesn’t mean you made tomorrow better. Tomorrow may be exactly like today.

As a leader, it’s how much you did today to make the future better that counts. Smart strategic decisions, team building and development, putting the right people in the right seats, and smart capital allocation is the kind of work that effective leaders focus on most of the time.

What did you do yesterday?  

What’s on your schedule today?

Clarity and Unity Among Leaders

Does your organization’s leadership team members all have the same vision and direction in mind?

If not, thats the first place to fix.

How can the whole team all pull in the same direction if leaders don’t agree?

"Bringing out the best in man"

“We need a system that demands and rewards the best in man” – Ayn Rand

Are your organization’s expectations, communications, and incentives set up to bring out the best in man?

One of you is enough

We don’t need another you, we already have one of those.

Don’t try to reproduce yourself.  Try to get others to be the best version of themselves they can be.

The Leaders Transformation

In order to have transformation of a business or a department, you need either a new leader or the transformation of the existing one.

Which is it in your business?

Social Validation

Most employees put on a pretty good face when the boss is around. This is why you have to pay attention to what the employees who work with them say about them. If there is a pattern of negative feedback, you have to pay attention to it.

Removing a bad employee or a stuck manager can release the brakes on a department or a whole business.

What about your place?

Reduce Friction, Increase Momentum

What has to be done in your business to reduce friction?

What has to be done to increase momentum?

You’re the leader, and the only one who can make these things happen.

When?