Business Coach | Management = Mentorship

This business coach post explains how management is equivalent to mentorship.

In this segment with the best business coach for business growth, we are going to look at family dynamics and how they affect management, mentoring, and business.  We live in a country where over 50% of the population has been raised in a home without supervision from two stable parents. By now, we all know that the breakdown of the traditional family is plaguing our country in endless ways. Countless news stories have been done about the problems society is beginning to experience as a result of the fatherless home epidemic. In fact, the National Fatherhood Initiative indicates 60% of America’s rapists, 72% of adolescent murderers, and 70% of long-term prison inmates come from fatherless homes. As I travel around the country working with businesses both large and small, it is always shocking to me as I witness the reality of these social trends.  This destruction of the American family is now destroying the American workplace as well.

Recently, I had one employer ask me if he should allow his employees to curse in the workplace because so many of them come from homes where cursing was common place. I also had one business owner ask me if he should change his company’s timeliness policies because such a large percentage of his employees were chronically late. Countless employers ask me about the best way to deal with employees who spend one-third of their day on their smart phones texting and updating their social media platforms. Apparently, these employees claim to need their phones for personal use or in case of an emergency, and not allowing them to bring a smartphone to the workplace would be a violation of their rights. I’ve personally dealt with an employee who hit on another employee in our office, and actually had sex with them within the first 48 hours of meeting them. Then unbeknownst to me, the female employee involved in this situation posted on Facebook that the male employee involved in this situation was beating her and her two year old child. As an employer and entrepreneur, what are we supposed to do in that situation? Where is the rule book for these types of situations?

Call centers I work with now tell me that many of their employees “don’t feel comfortable making calls and that making calls could give them an anxiety attack.” Frankly, why should an employer care whether an employee feels comfortable about making calls? My friend, our society has given out so many eighth place trophies to kids who have never actually won anything, so now we have a massive group of people who think they are incredible employees, when in fact they have no discernible skills of value. It’s amazing how many companies have told me that they struggle to find people who are willing to start entry level jobs. Human Resource Directors have explained that it seems like every new employee is “looking for something in management,” yet very few people are showing an ability to be “effectively managed.”

HR Directors and small business owners throughout the country have told me that the majority of kids coming out of college or high school now feel like they are God’s gift to every employer. Many of these business leaders have told me that over the past 20 years they have noticed a complete flip flop in certain aspects of the employee and employer relationship. In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, employees were thankful that they had a job. Today, the majority of employees entering the workforce believe that their employers should be thanking them for finding the time to come to work each day.

Because many parents and even the public school system are coddling every student, many young people now enter the workforce believing that they are the “chosen one” at their new place of employment. Employers are now witnessing recent college graduates who believe they should now be viewed as “trusted advisors.” Immediately upon their arrival at their new jobs, they believe that they are somehow smarter than their employers simply because they hold a college degree. To make matters worse, many colleges are allowing kids to opt-out of classes that they “struggle with.” I know of two situations where that happened involving people I directly know.  Two college graduates bragged about convincing a major university to allow them to pass a college course without making them ever actually pass the exams.  These student concocted a believable “learning disability” and said it was now affecting their ability to study for the first time in their lives. These two men actually convinced the college that they were victims. They convinced the school that they had “learning disabilities” that they were just now discovering which  made it “impossible” for them to pass these courses. Furthermore, students over the past decade have now effectively manipulated many colleges into believing that they were “doing their best” and that “denying them their right to a college degree would be a terrible thing to do.” How is this crap possible? In both of these situations, I knew that neither one of these two students ever studied. I knew that they never studied in high school either. However, in high school, they were bright enough to pass the courses simply by being good guessers. Since college was harder, they were now unable to pass classes using their tricks. Thus, they quickly “discovered their learning disabilities.” Earning a degree is not a right. Going to college is not a right. If you can’t pass the test, you should fail. And if you fail, you shouldn’t be given a degree as some great big consolation prize.

Many universities are out there giving degrees to anybody who qualifies for a federal student loan. And to make it worse, a 2011 article written by Michelle Flandreau and Kyle Schettler for MSNBC showed that student loan debt has surpassed credit card debt in its size. According to data they retrieved from the U.S. Department of Education, currently only about a third of student loan borrowers are current on their payments. Thus, 13.8% of student loan borrowers have defaulted on their loans within three years of starting repayment. And this time bomb of loan defaults is set to explode any minute with endless numbers of students and graduates already benefiting from the deferment or forbearance options. Essentially, we have approximately 15% of student loan borrowers defaulting on their loans and 66% of student loan borrowers who are not making payments on time. And now that all student loans are owned by the U.S. Federal Government, tax paying Americans like you and I are going to get stuck with the bill from the deadbeat debtors.

These examples demonstrate the kind of entitlement mindset that half of the workforce now brings to their first day on the job. They have a degree that many of them didn’t work hard for, which was paid for by money that they never saved and will never pay back. Now they want you to give them a “good paying job because it’s their right.” Now just a few generations ago, most American kids were aware that the Constitution gives us the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Constitution doesn’t even guarantee us happiness because happiness is an individual decision. When you and I wake up each morning, we get to decide what kind of day we are going to have. However, today’s young people are being taught that if they are not happy, it is someone else’s fault and a doctor can prescribe them something that will help. If they can’t pass a test, it’s not their fault and the government will help. If they can’t afford a phone, it’s not their fault and the government will help. If they are fat, it’s not their fault and the government will stop the mean and terrible fast food companies from taking advantage of them. Nothing is ever their fault.  It’s always the fault of somebody else. These people are being taught that there are absolutely no consequences for their actions. However the world of business is very different.

In the world of business, we do directly experience the consequences of our actions. If we make great products, customers come back and buy from us time and time again. In the world of business it’s black and white, and it is our fault if the client is not happy. If our company delivers a crappy product or service, it is our company’s fault and the customer will choose to buy from someone else. And no, they won’t give us a second chance. In business if we are late, our customers will get irate and then they will buy from our competitors. Consumers don’t care about what “personal problems” we are having at home. In business if we can’t get the product and service done right, our customers, who do not care about our learning disabilities, will simply take their money and their business somewhere else that can get it right. And that is the “great debacle” that many American businesses are beginning to experience in epidemic proportions. How can you grow a business with a workforce filled with people who have never been held accountable for their actions? How do you grow a business with an army of employees who believe they can’t do a pushup because of the evil fast food companies? Who can’t take criticism because they believe they are victims? Who believe they can’t show up on time because of the personal issues they are having at home? That is what we’re now going to tackle with two simple business coach rules.

Business Coach Rule #1 – Diligently assess potential employees before you hire them and if they are not already “A Players” or “B Players,” DON’T hire them. If you thought someone was an “A Player” or a “B Player,” and you soon find out that they are in fact a “C Player” soon after hiring them, fire them. Refer “C Players” to a church, a counselor, the Job Corps, the military, or somebody who is willing to kick their butt until they get their life together, but don’t waste your time trying to life coach bottom feeders into becoming productive citizens. Your business exists to produce great products, service, and profits. Your business simply cannot afford to invest time in slackers and people who have alibis for their excuses and justifications for their failures. In business coach sessions, I always tell my people, “Don’t hire people who suck at life.”

Business Coach Rule #2 – Mentor your “A Players” and “B Players.” Understand that most of the people you are hiring didn’t have a good family life or a school system that made them accountable for anything. However, somehow these people made it through the system and have become a functional human who is not a slacker. This in and of itself deserves some praise. However, because these people didn’t have good mentorship growing up, they are going to need to get mentorship from you, and they are going to need to get it in 4 ways:

1. Modeling – You are going to have to model the behavior that you want your employees to do. If you want your employees to be polite, you are going to have to be polite. If you want them to be on time, YOU CAN NEVER BE LATE. If you want them to read books, you are going to have to read books. Most of today’s employees simply will not follow the rules just because you say to. They will follow the rules if you earn their respect and if they know why the rules are in place. Respect for leadership is no longer a given in today’s society where kids are allowed to talk back to their parents. You must hold yourself accountable to a higher standard if you want your employees to follow your systems and instructions.
2. Public Praise – You must catch your employees doing something well. Since these people have all be coddled and shielded from consequences, they emotionally cannot process constructive business coach and criticism the way that they should. Thus, in order to get them to be receptive to the feedback you and clients are giving them, you must look for reasons to praise them for the good things that they actually do. Whenever they do something well, smile, shake their hands, high-five them, beat a drum, or just do something to share with everyone how good of a job they did.
3. Assign Required Reading – Today’s employees can update their social media on their smartphones and can probably control a space station from their personal computer, but most of them struggle with reading, writing, comprehension, and critical thinking skills. Essentially, they are unable to study successful people or systems that work and apply these principles into their own lives. Thus, you can’t assume that they are even able to understand what your company memos mean as it relates to them. Many employees have hidden behind their computer screens so long that they now struggle to verbally express themselves in an effective manner. Assign these books for your people to read and hold them accountable to reading them and your business culture will exponentially improve:  How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, The World’s Greatest Salesman by Og Mandino, and Who Owns the Ice House? by Clifton Taulbert
4. Candid Feedback Presented With Love – You must let your employees know that you are on their team and that you are 100% committed to seeing them develop into great people. John Maxwell, the leadership guru has said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” This is true. And your people will simply not listen if they think your focus is only on the business coach and tasks. Most of these people have grown up in small families where their opinion was super important. Most of these people have been told by every guidance counselor in the world, “You are special and you have great potential!”

When you tell your employees they did something wrong, this information will rock their minds. The school system has never forced most students to ever be accountable for anything and now you are asking them to take ownership of a problem they caused. This concept might very well break the brain of many employees. Remember, these people have been told that if they are fat, it is the evil fast food company’s fault. They’ve been told if they don’t do well in school, it’s because they have a learning disability. They’ve been told if they fail to earn a good job out of college, it’s the education system’s fault. Trust me on this. This concept has the potential to absolutely demoralize some people. We actually had one woman who worked for us and took terrible photos during training. When her trainer told her that her photos “needed a lot of work,” she cried. Then after she got it together and composed herself, she started crying again. Then she wrote me a super long “Facebook Message” explaining to me that she simply “could not work in an environment where her trainer was so mean.” In an office environment, I’ve literally witnessed dozens of people cry when they were told by their supervisor that their work needed improvement in some areas.

When you give your people feedback, you must let them know that first and foremost you are committed to helping them succeed as a person and you must mean it. You must hug before you kick. Don’t candy-coat your feedback, just make sure you go out of your way to tell them that you care before giving them candid feedback.

To make business coach and mentorship work for you, here is what you need to do:

1. Refuse to hire “C Players.” Tell your kids, tell your wife, tell your team, and tell everybody that “C Players” will not work for you.
2. Set up a “Buddy System” at work where all new employees have to shadow someone who sets a good example for how to do things the right way.
3. Put a line item into your weekly staffing meetings to “Publicly Praise” people who did a great job during the past week.
4. Put the required reading materials into your “New Hire Employee Packet” and set up a strong reward for reading them (a cash bonus) and a strong penalty (a cash fine) for not reading them.

If you need help implementing any of these management principles, contact us at thrivetimeshow.com/  We help entrepreneurs grow successful and profitable businesses every single day. We love to help you grow your business too.