The Value of Mentoring Youth

[Editor’s Note: As we enter the season of giving, I thought it might be appropriate to share an article about giving back. I have been concerned about the lack of role models and adult guidance for many of our youth and it has been demonstrated that youth who have a formal mentoring relationship do better in school, stay in school, have lower incidence of substance abuse, and lower incidence of crime, not to mention an overall better future. As I began to investigate the statistics about the value of mentoring, I found that the results are compelling. Mentoring benefits not only the individual and the community, but also employees and businesses.

Most successful people know the value of mentors – I know I have been fortunate to have had several key mentors over the course of my life and career.

One of the things my mother used to say: “If something concerns you, stop whining about it and do something to make it better.” Years ago, I was a Big Brother for several years and it was very rewarding. I wanted to have a bigger impact. So, I joined the Board of Mentor Colorado (Colorado Mentoring Partnership). In Colorado almost 300,000 young people do not have a formal mentoring relationship. Mentor Colorado (Colorado Mentoring Partnership) is the support organization for the 60+ mentoring organizations to help them in scaling their activities with adoption of best practices in recruiting, training, and supporting mentoring relationships. There are mentoring partnerships in 26 states. Mentor Colorado is one of the most recent states to form an organization. The models Colorado is following are the organizations in Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania which have dramatically increased the number of quality mentoring relationships. – dpm]

In 2015, The National Mentoring Partnership and Ernst and Young sponsored a 2015 report Mentoring at the crossroads of education, business and community about the value of mentoring to the individuals, the community, and to businesses. As the report states it, “Mentoring is changing the trajectory of thousands of young people’s lives.” 

Value to the individual and community.  Some of the benefits to the individual and the community include:

• Better school performance.  Improved attendance,  higher graduation rates, and more likely to go on to college

• Less Substance Abuse. Mentored youth are less likely to start using illegal drugs and alcohol.

• Lower Crime rate. Fewer disciplinary problems and lower incidence of criminal behavior

• Better jobs and much less likely to be dependent on entitlement programs

Value to companies.  Key reasons companies engage in youth mentoring:

• Fostering employee engagement, satisfaction and retention. Today’s employees are strongly attracted to companies that are purpose-driven and that offer opportunities for engagement.

• Cultivating and developing their future workforce. Prepare a more productive workforce

• Supporting vibrant communities (which include viable customers) 

• Branding
• Improve its image in the community
• Increase community awareness of its mission

Mentor Colorado can help your company get started.

Many organizations have a fragmented approach to not-for-profit activities. Other companies may not know how to get started. Mentor Colorado is helping sponsoring companies with the development of mentoring programs, training, and managing mentoring activities.

Become a Founding Sponsor and make a lasting difference.

To get involved:  

If you would like more information about how you and your organization can get involved (and make a positive difference), please contact Dave Mead or Executive Director, Brad Strong.

 

Ten Deadly Sins of CEOs and Business Owners¹

[Editor's Note: Being the CEO or business owner can be a lonely job. It is important to get good feedback so that you can keep a balanced perspective. Below are just ten of the deadly sins that can be committed by the guy or gal at the top. I have been at the top or owner of eight companies - and I know it's not always easy to see yourself clearly. This is a reprint of a previous Issue for Growth. I think it still holds true. As always, we welcome your comments.  - DPM]

                                                                                                                                       

Talking Too Much. You never learn by talking, but some CEOs imagine the world to be in desperate need of their constant wisdom. It is a rare subordinate who will risk stifling a CEO. Be inquisitive, ask questions, and listen at least 75% of the time.

Goals Are Too Aggressive. It is wonderful to have a BHOG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) or vision. It's another to develop overly aggressive goals on a routine basis. Unrealistic goals "demotivate," especially when compensation is involved. One CEO expected his company to continue its 30 percent annual growth rate, not appreciating that with a larger base and a rapidly maturing market their era of high growth in that market had to end. The result discouraged managers.

Personal Power Building is More Important than Value Building. Some CEOs tend to make decisions that enhance their scope and influence, even at the expense of increasing shareholder value. This can be paradoxically true even when the CEO is a large shareholder or the business owner. Dr Robert Kuhn puts it this way: "I want a CEO whose greed exceeds his ego. Good CEOs and business owners should be motivated more by amassing wealth for their shareholders rather than by building empires for themselves."

Not Respecting or Recognizing the Ideas of Others. CEOs and business owners can be egotistical. Highly successful almost by definition, many CEOs would seem to have every right to be self-impressed. However, when you hold the top spot, puffing yourself up at the expense of subordinates impedes the organization. You benefit when your people are encouraged and empowered to generate novel ideas. Recognition of these good ideas breeds more ideas.

Not Focusing on Accountability and Execution. Some CEOs and business owners love new ideas, programs, and initiatives. They introduce change for the sake of change. One company we looked at recently had seventeen (17) major strategies for an upcoming year. Focusing on a executing well on a few carefully selected strategies, developing clear objectives, and holding managers accountable, can be the difference to success.

Managing by Summaries.  A CEO should perceive the world as it truly is; if cluttered and chaotic, so be it. When information is always "high level," predigested by staffers, a CEO may perceive an artificial world, a virtual reality as it were, of cleanly manicured lawns. Most CEOs have great instincts about their businesses, and such instincts should be nourished by raw data, like, for example, call reports of customers.

Don't Fall in Love. When you sit in the corner office, follow your head not your heart. Every business must have a strategic or financial purpose, and if a business happens to make you feel good that's fine as long as your emotional attachment doesn't interfere with your rational decision-making. CEOs are notoriously vulnerable when making acquisitions.

Feeling Invincible.  CEOs must have superb track records-some are almost unblemished -so they have a proclivity to imagine themselves as invulnerable. The natural corollary is a robust confidence, even if subconscious, that past success assures future success. I can't tell you how many dozens of CEOs I've seen who refused to sell their companies at what would turn out to be, in hindsight, their peak market values, simply because they were convinced that tomorrow's prospects would mimic yesterday's triumphs. Looking backward and looking forward, a humble, healthy respect for the subtleties of serendipity is the beginning of wisdom.

Halo Hiring. In some organizations, many of the senior executives look like the CEO. I mean this quite literally and it can be very funny. Not just obvious characteristics like gender and race, but also personal traits like size and stature, political philosophy, sporting interests, demeanor, even style of dress. In a globalized world where customers and suppliers may be very different kinds of people, it is not wise for the executives of a company to be homogenous, and hence, uniform in their thinking.

Beware of Averages.  Averages can deceive. For example, assume that, in a pharmaceutical company, prices are declining for one-half of the drugs and increasing for the other half; the fact that the average price of all drugs has remained steady is worse than meaningless information. Strategies for drugs that kept prices steady might not work at all with those whose prices were decreasing or increasing. The same is true for net profitability on an individual customer basis. Averages hide meaningful information. The information extremes or "skew" is your friend.

¹Excerpted from 12 CEO Diseases and How to Treat Them, Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn, CEO Magazine, October/November.