khaled buss100

David Cottrell

Summary• Characters: David (manager) / Tony (mentor)

• Problem: Things were not going well for David who was in a slump at work. He was working harder than ever, but going nowhere. Work and family life were suffering. Health started to suffer, and he knew changes had to be made.

• Action: David decided to call Tony (a friend of his late father) to ask for help. Tony agreed to give him Monday morning mentoring sessions. What he wanted for return was for David to pass on the knowledge he gathered through these meetings to other people who need it.

………. and so, for eight weeks, David and Tony were meeting each Monday, and talked about eight crucial lessons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvFw-HD-650

Prologue major points

• Crisis is good because we have to focus on the important things.

• Career is our personal choice.

• We have to be honest with ourselves

• We need to talk to honest people.

• Crisis is a good chance to become better.

• We have to be ready for change.

First Monday: Drivers and Passengers

• Until you accept total responsibility – no matter what – you will not be able to put plans in place to accomplish your goals.

• Transitioning from co-worker to leader requires that you make different decisions.

“The First Monday: Drivers and Passengers”

Tony began by setting some ground rules to follow in order to make the best use of their meetings:

• Start and finish on time

• Tell the truth

• Try something different

David’s Issues

• Business was getting tougher. Most of his team was still intact, but some of the performance issues he once ignored were now affecting his division’s performance in a big way – and by“big” he meant they were becoming threats to his job.

• He was working hard – long hours – but the business indicators were telling him things were pretty bad. He wasn’t very happy and the people on his team weren’t happy. Their results reflected their frustrations.

Tony’s Advice

• When it comes to leading people, there are few problems that are unique.

• Anyone with experience has had to face the same issues, the same frustrations. Everyone needs people who will help us look at situations from a different perspective.

• Wanting to be liked is natural. But as a leader, David’s team should like and respect him for the right reasons.

• If David’s team likes him because he is fair, consistent, empathetic or a positive person – that’s great. But if they like him because he provides them with free dinners and drinks, what has he gained?

• If David’s goals were to get everyone to like him, he would avoid making tough decisions because of his fear of upsetting his “friends.”

• Transitioning from employee to manager or manager to leader requires making different decisions.

• David can no longer be a passenger; he must become the driver. When you become a manager, responsibilities increase, and you lose some of the freedoms you may have enjoyed in the past.

• To be successful as a leader, managers don’t have the right to join employee ‘pity parties’ and talk about upper management. They lose the right to blame others for a problem in their department.

• Managers even lose the right to some of their time because they are responsible for other people’s time as well as their own.

• A real leader spends his time fixing the problem instead of finding someone to blame.

• What happens when you place blame is that you focus on the past. When you accept responsibility, you focus on the future. Until you accept total responsibility you won’t be able to put plans in place to accomplish your goals.

“The First Monday: Drivers and Passengers”

1. Your problem is personal. But many people have the same problem. For everybody, the problem is both same and different. It’s the same because everybody wants to find his place. It is different because this place is different for everybody.

Everybody has your problem, but the key is different for everybody.

2. Be open to new things, new suggestions. Try to keep a fresh eye on things. Don’t let bad experience stop you from trying something new.

Use your good experience for the future. Accept your bad experience as a valuable lesson.

3. Assume responsibility. It’s not somebody else. It’s you. “You are the person responsible for everything that happens in your department.”

• Be the driver. Choose the road and stick to it. Use your freedom of choice and then accept your limits.

4. Be ready for change. But don’t change into other people. Stay yourself.

• The change happens in you, but it makes everything outside look different.

Major points

1. Your problem is unique but you are not alone.

2. Experience has both good and bad sides.

3. You need to balance freedom of choice and the limits set by the choice.

4. At first don’t expect any change in the outside world. Change comes from the inside first.

Second Monday: Keep the Main thing the main thing

• What is the Main Thing? • People have different

perceptions of what the main thing is.

• People quit people before they quit companies.

“The Second Monday: Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing” - David’s

• David explained that he had so many things coming at him from so many different directions, it was hard for him to get anything done and done well.

• David has fifteen people reporting to him. His department also has two open positions. David’s boss, Karen, is very demanding.

• The team seems to get less and less accomplished. As soon as they put out one fire another pops up.

Tony’s Advice

There are some basic questions that require answers at this point:

1. Why do you have two open positions?

2. Why did these team members leave?

3. Why do you think everyone on your team knows they’re supposed to be doing if they’re not doing it?

4. What are your priorities?

‘Keep the main thing the main thing’

• The main thing is really three things: 1. Equip employees with the tools to be successful 2. Provide outstanding service to customers 3. Make a profit

• The ‘main thing’ is the purpose or priority.

• If everyone on the team knows the main thing, it helps everyone focus on what is important.

• Try to understand why people choose to leave a manager’s team. It’s a natural tendency to blame pay, benefits, upper management, salary administration, and other factors for someone’s resignation. People normally don’t leave because of those reasons. People leave because their manager is not meeting their needs. People quit people before they quit companies.

• For managers to be successful and provide employees with the necessary tools for them to be successful, manager and boss must work together.

• Managers need to take the time to manage their boss the same way they manage their subordinates. Both manager and boss should find out specifically what they each need from each other. They need to understand what they can do to help each other accomplish their main things.

“The Second Monday: Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing”

1. Separate important things from those that are not important.

2. It’s important to have the “main thing”: equipping employees with the tools, providing excellent service to the customers, and making a profit. Therefore, employees need proper training.

• Every action, every decision, comes with a chain of consequences. Choose well, focus, and watch the process unfold.

3. People are professionals. They choose a job that suits their talents and interests. But they work in your team because they personally like it. “People quit people before they quit companies.”

• Personal relationship is very important. You are not just a professional. You should be an ethical and consistent person.

Major points:

1. Think back. Review. Consider the past to start noticing details, changes, progress.

2. Think forward. Think about the consequences. Focus on one main thing and follow it through.

3. People choose the job professionally, but they stay in your team personally.

4. Always assume responsibility. “Circumstances” can be a convenient excuse.

Third Monday: Escape from Management Land

• Get in touch with your people.

• Your job is not to lower the bottom by adjusting and accommodating the falling stars. You should be raising the top by recognizing and rewarding superstar behavior.

The Third Monday - Escape from Management Land - David’s Update and Issues

• David spent a lot of time on the three questions he left with last week. Much of his frustration had been not knowing what the problem was – much less what to do to fix it. David thought he had made some real progress this week.

• First, he handled the resignation issue. He talked to a few people on his team. One person provided some interesting information.

• David met with each of them individually, and since they no longer work for him, there was no reason for them not to tell the truth. Both seemed surprised he was interested enough to go see them and they opened up – more than he expected.

• He was shocked by what he heard. They didn’t leave the company; they left David, their manager. It came down to three things:

1. Hire good employees - The problem was his good employees were being asked to do more and more, while others were asked to do less and less.

2. Coach every member of the team to become better - David hadn’t provided adequate feedback and direction to either of these employees.

3. De-hire the people who aren’t carrying their share of the load. There were performance issues he had ignored and those issues had an effect on the rest of the team.

• David knew there were things he could do to avoid losing more good employees. He had a meeting with his team. He prepared a paper for each team member to complete. On the paper was one sentence: ‘The main thing in our department is…...’ Each person was asked to fill in the blank.

• No one knew what the main thing was. Everyone had an answer, but there was no consistency.

• This exercise showed David that instead of clearly defined goals and expectations, he had mass confusion about their most important mission as a team.

• David realized that there are things that he controls that have contributed to his frustrations and the team’s frustrations. Now he knew that there is something that can be done within his control.

Tony’s advice

• One of the ‘main things’ for a leader to eliminate is confusion. It can paralyze a team.

• Something that may have contributed to the confusion on David’s team was a trap many managers fall into. This is the trap which Tony calls ‘management land’, where things are not always as they seem.

• In management land, simple things often become complex and people easily lose perspective.

• In management land, people are rewarded for saying only the things managers want to hear.

• Management land can be described as confusing, frustrating and sometimes comical to those on the outside. “You have to escape from management land and get in touch with your people.”

• On most teams there are three types of employees.

1. Some are superstars – people who have the experience, knowledge and desire to be the very best at their jobs.

2. Others are middle stars – they may not have the experience to be a superstar yet. Or maybe they are former superstars who for some reason lost their motivations to be the best.

3. And there are those Tony calls falling stars. Those are the ones who are doing as little as they can get away with.

• A typical team has about 30% superstars, 50% middle stars and 20% falling stars.

• If you keep piling more work on your superstars – then one shouldn’t expect them to continue to be superstars.

• Many managers actually reward their falling stars by giving them less work while acknowledging them with decent performance reviews!

• Your job is not to lower the bottom. You should be raising the top by recognizing and rewarding superstar behaviors!

• Tony asked David to write the name of each team member down and then categorize them as superstars, middle stars or fallings stars. He asked him to retrieve every person’s most recent performance review and note each improvement over the past six months.

“The Third Monday: Escape from Management Land”

1. Management Land happens each time when “people are rewarded for saying only things managers want to hear.” The Management Land can happen in almost any environment with such distribution of power and authority. The Management Land is, unfortunately, very often discovered in the times of crisis, when things are not going well, and both the manager and the employees have to be honest.

2. The author divides the employees into superstars, middle stars, and falling stars. In order to be successful, the manager needs to pay special attention to these classes of workers. But if he is in the Management Land, he will not be able to see the classes properly!

3. How can one get out of the Management Land? First, you need to be honest with yourself. Being honest with yourself means you have to accept that you have your limits and make mistakes. Second, you need to be honest with your workers. You have to try and look objectively at their performance. Then you have to reward, encourage, criticize based solely on their performance and their results.

• Solving the Management Land means dealing with your ego (personally) and trying to establish meritocracy (interpersonally).

Major points

1. Crisis definitely reveals the Management Land, but you should not wait for the crisis.

2. Management Land is both personal and interpersonal issue.

3. Possible solutions: introspection and objectivity.

Fourth Monday: The “Do Right” Rule

• Develop your action plan before you get into crisis.

• Give action plan to all employees.

• Guard your integrity like it’s your most precious management possession.

The Fourth Monday - The “Do Right” Rule David’s Update and Issue

• David felt he had been really inconsistent in how he evaluated his employees. Some of his falling stars actually had better performance reviews than his superstars. He also checked the personnel files. There were no letters of recognition and only one performance improvement documented over the past six months and it was on a superstar.

• The bottom line was that David lumped everyone into the middle as far as recognition and performance improvement.

• He continued with his team discussion on identifying the main thing, and they did make some progress in that area. Human resources was working on finding some candidates to interview as they try to fill those two open positions on his team.

• David had a major issue on his team, and it involved one of his superstars, Todd. This employee had been with the company for four years. He was really good at his job and had a good relationship with all the members of his team. He was dependable, consistent and knowledgeable. But, three weeks ago David discovered that this employee had been drinking on the job.

• Drinking during work hours was against company policy and the team’s code of behavior.

• David wrote him a warning letter stating that the next violation would lead to termination. Then, last Friday, David saw Todd drinking again. To David’s knowledge no one on his team knew about his problem.

Tony’s Advice • A manager’s job is to raise the top for long-term success, not for

short-term convenience. Short-term results are easy.

• Achieving long-term results is much more difficult. It requires establishing a code of behavior that must be followed. It requires providing accurate feedback. It requires delivering the consequences – both positive and negative – based on decisions that employees make. All of these require courage to do the right thing.

• People can be superstars in one area and falling stars in another area. Do what is right even when no one is watching!

• Sometimes it’s difficult to know what is ‘right’ when you’re in the middle of a crisis. The best decisions are normally made before you’re in a crisis. You can think more clearly and evaluate alternatives better.

• In business, from time to time we see lights flashing, indicating we have a problem. When that happens, some managers will throw a rug over the light so they can’t see it flashing, they ignore it.

• The only way to fix the problem is to go directly to what’s causing the light to flash and fix the problem.

• An action plan should have been decided upon long before the crisis developed.

• Many times the manager is the last to know about a problem on the team. What the manager sees is normally a very small part of the whole.

• EVERYTHING counts when it comes to leadership. If a leader thinks ignoring the problem doesn’t matter, they are wrong. What matters to the team is what the leader does. Everything a leader does matters because their team is watching…and depending on them to do the right thing.

• Ignoring issues puts a leader or manager’s integrity at risk. And if you lose your integrity, you won’t be able to develop or maintain trust, the very basis for relationships.

• A manager must guard their integrity as if it’s their most precious leadership possession because that is what it is.

“The Fourth Monday: The “Do Right” Rule”

1. The code of conduct is very important. It sets the rules in advance. The responsibility of the manager is to make sure the rules are followed. The responsibility of the employees is to follow the rules.

2. The manager who takes measures against ill-disciplined worker is working to protect other workers. He is helping preserve the value system, without which there can be no talk of merits. If one is rewarded for not following the rules, then others are indirectly punished for following them.

“Do what is right even when no one is watching.” Enforcing the rules shows the manager’s strength of character.

Major points

1. Not only managers, but employees too need to be treated as responsible persons.

2. The problem is not about mercy or compassion, but about the system of values.

3. The good system provides a second chance, because a system is never perfect and human beings are also not perfect.

Fifth Monday: Hire Tough

• The most important asset in your company is having the RIGHT PEOPLE on your team.

• Never lower your standards just to fill a position. You will pay for it later!

• Use the “Rule of Three” to hire.

The Fifth Monday - Hire Tough David’s Update and Issue

• Last week, David left his meeting with Tony and went straight to human resources to discuss the Todd issue. David had to terminate Todd for drinking on the job.

• Human resources’ advice to David was that they needed to do everything they could do to maintain Todd’s self-respect and dignity, while being firm and fair with him.

• Todd was stunned that David would terminate him for something ‘as minor as this.’ He also accused David of not having any compassion because he was going through some personal problems.

• After the session, it was time for his weekly team meeting. It turned out David was not the only person aware of the problem. His team was watching and his integrity was being challenged.

• In the meeting they finalized what the main things were for them to accomplish. Here are the three main things they came up with:

1. Treat each person on the team with dignity and respect

2. Deliver outstanding service to their customers

3. Provide profits to the company

• David realized that he should have gone to HR earlier about the Todd issue.

Tony’s advice • People are the most important resource in any company. People make the

company. Customers judge a company on the people they deal with.

• The most important asset in your company is having the RIGHT PEOPLE on your team. If you have the right people on your team you have a great chance to be successful.

• The greatest liability in your company could be having the WRONG PEOPLE on your team. There is nothing any competitor can do to hurt your team as much as having the wrong person on the team.

• The most important thing you do as a leader is to hire the right people.

• Your job is to hire tough. If you hire tough, it will be a whole lot easier to manage the RIGHT PEOPLE.

• The decision a manager has to make is to hire tough and manage easy, or hire easy and manage tough.

• When you begin the process of interviewing and hiring, understand up front that you are probably not a great interviewer. You don’t use your interviewing skills very often.

• The first mistake some people make in interviewing is lack of preparation. You shouldn’t begin preparing for the interview when the candidate is in the lobby. Every question should be prepared in advance, so you spend your time listening and evaluating instead of trying to figure out what questions you want to ask next.

• The Three Rules of Three in hiring are: interview at least three qualified candidates for every position; interview the candidates three times; and have three people evaluate the candidates.

• After the initial interviews, narrow the field down to your best nine candidates. Schedule interviews with those nine candidates at times that are different than their original interview time. In other words, if your initial interview was in the morning with one person, interview them the next time in the afternoon or evening. You’ll be working with them all day, so why not see what they are like at different times of the day?

• Never lower your standards just to fill a position. You’ll pay for it later.

“The Fifth Monday: Hire Tough”

1. To hire tough simply means respect for the company and respect for the individual. Respect for the company means that you want a good, long- term worker, and not just anybody. Respect for the individual means that the individual is not chosen by chance or a whim or without a proper talk.

To hire tough means to be thorough when hiring.

2. To hire tough goes hand in hand with tough decisions. A manager who shows responsibility will be trusted in the times of crisis. The manager who randomly chooses workers unconsciously wants to shift responsibility to the worker.

Major points

1. Randomness produces feelings of pointlessness. We should strive for the right employee, for the right word, for the right decision. Even if it is difficult, we should always strive for what is right.

2. Randomness is irresponsibility. Standing behind your choice is responsibility.

Sixth Monday: Do Less or Work Faster

• Your time is your responsibility. Take control of your time so you can take control of your life.

• Look for small increments of time by prioritizing, limiting interruptions, and effectively managing meetings.

The Sixth Monday - Do Less or Work Faster David’s Update & Issue

• David had made some real progress. He and Kim (HR) interviewed all 20 candidates for the open positions. They narrowed the 20 down to nine possible candidates. David is taking the hiring process much more seriously. It has been a time-consuming process.

• David explained to Tony that even though he had made a lot of progress during their sessions, his time continues to be consumed by things outside his control. He admitted it is frustrating because he would like to spend more time with his team…and his family.

Tony’s Advice • A manager’s time is his responsibility. A team depends on their manager to be

there for them, and that includes solving personal problems.

• One of the major sources of stress, anxiety, and unhappiness comes from feeling like out of control. A manager needs to figure out ways to take control of his time so that he can take control of his life.

• No one has two three hours a day they could save by doing one thing better. However, many people find an hour or two a day they could use better by doing a few things differently.

• There are two ways to spend time better. You can do less or you can do things faster. Those are our only choices. Of course there are some things we could eliminate and just say no to.

• Most executives have three areas where they can make changes that will lead to major time improvements: prioritizing, organizing interruptions, and meetings.

• The biggest time waster is meetings. If everyone is prepared on-time and focused – most meetings can be accomplished in half the time the meeting is currently taking. Make your meetings productive, but short.

1. Always begin a meeting by covering the most important items first.

2. When people show up late, don’t recap what you’ve covered.

3. Start and end your meetings on time.

“The Sixth Monday: Do Less or Work Faster”

1. Time is limited and naturally it is very important. Managing time needs knowledge of the processes. The more we know about the processes, the more we know how much time they will take.

2. Knowledge of time is mostly the knowledge of the processes and the people who run these processes.

3. The better I know myself, the better is my knowledge of what I can achieve and what I cannot.

4. Planning comes right after becoming knowledgeable about myself, others, and the processes. Careful planning should become a habit.

For a successful management of time, we need to know: our skills, other employees’ skills and the nature of the processes. The aim is to produce a

company culture of respecting time.

Major points

1. Knowledge of processes and skills is paramount to respecting Time.

2. Habits are time-savers. They no longer use conscious mind which can be directed to the more essential things.

Seventh Monday: Buckets and Dippers

• 4 Ways to fill buckets: − Know the Main Thing − Give feedback on performance − Provide recognition − Communicate the team score

• The more buckets you fill, the more your bucket is filled.

The Seventh Monday - Buckets and Dippers David’s Update and Issue

• Last week was a much better week for David. He and Kim completed the interviewing and made job offers to the best three candidates. Two of them accepted and start in a couple of weeks.

• David also tried several of the time management tips. He kept a log of where he was spending his time and discovered he was spending a lot of time on things that weren’t important.

• David felt like he was in more control of his time.

Tony’s advice • Tony suggested that David approach two of his departed stars about the

open position. He already knew that they were superstars and would fit in with the team.

• Next Tony focused on how David could coach every member of the team to become better. This involved recognition of, and communication to, everyone on the team.

• Here are two important facts :

1. Your score as a leader is the result of your team. You are needed; you are important. But you get paid for what your subordinates do, not necessarily what you do.

2. You need your team more than your team needs you. The people on a team accomplish much more than any individual.

• Every person has a bucket of motivation. That bucket can be filled to overflowing, or it can be empty and desperately need filling.

• Sometimes the buckets have leaks…and those buckets lose motivation as fast as you can try to motivate. Every person also has a dipper.

• Dippers represent cynicism, negativism, confusion, stress, doubt, fear, anxiety, and any other thing that can drain someone’s desire and motivation.

• As a leader, your job is to keep everyone’s bucket filled, and the best way to fill buckets is with excellent communication. In fact, there are four things you have to do if you’re going to keep your team members’ motivation buckets full.

1. First, a full bucket requires knowing what the main things that are important to doing a good job. A leader with focus and direction fills buckets. A leader who creates confusion and inconsistency has a dipper that drains people’s buckets.

2. To keep buckets filled, you need to provide the bucket holders with feedback on how they’re doing.

But here’s a warning: you can have great intentions to fill buckets and yet be draining buckets if you don’t follow the rules of effective feedback.

a) Be sincere.

b) To fill buckets, your feedback has to be specific.

c) Feedback must be timely.

d) Feedback must be aligned with the receiver’s value system.

• 3. Let your team members know you care about them and the job they do. Find those bucket fillers that work best with your team, then use them to fill their buckets often.

• 4. The fourth and final bucket-filling requirement is for the team to know how well it’s doing as a team. The more buckets you fill, the more your bucket is filled.

“The Seventh Monday: Buckets and Dippers”

1. The manager is the supervisor, but it’s the team that does most of the actual work. The success of the team depends on their individual qualities, the way they are being orchestrated, and their motivation.

• Doing well takes the whole person, not only brain but heart as well. It’s not only about professional ability to complete a certain task but also about personal feeling of the task’s worth.

2. The manager should protect this feeling of things being worth doing. The manager should devote time to his employees, praise them, show them how much he appreciates their qualities. The manager must take care to always keep the activities worth doing. He should show that they are not in vain, that they do lead to success, that they do mean something deeper than just ‘doing one’s job’.

Major points

1. We have to be ready to devote ourselves to our work, appreciate it no matter how small it might look.

2. In a meaningful setting everyone and everyone feels they are at the right place and the right time. To feel the meaning of something is almost the same as to feel the purpose of something.

Eighth Monday: Enter the Learning Zone

• Get out of your comfort zone • Read 10 minutes a day • Listen to people • Give back • Set goals • Stay positive

The Eighth Week - Enter the Learning Zone David’s Update and Issue

According to David, the new hires were doing great. They were full of enthusiasm. He shared Tony’s analogy of the bucket and the dipper with the team. Then, they brainstormed some rules for bucket-filling and what to do when someone gets their dipper in your bucket.

Tony’s Advice

• Focus on what you can do to achieve the goals you have for yourself. A forceful enemy to your potential is your comfort zone.

• To be the very best, you cannot allow yourself to become complacent in your comfort zone. You need to be reaching for improvement.

• To fulfill your potential, you need to move out of your comfort zone and into ‘the learning zone.’ There are three rooms in the learning zone.

the reading room

• You learn more by reading more. If you decided to read one book a month on management or leadership. During the next year, you’d have read 12 books.

• The question is not if you have the time or money. The question is: do you have the DISCIPLINE to set aside time every day to read?

the listening room

The principle reasons executives fail are arrogance, out-of- control egos, and lack of sensitivity. They forget to take the time to listen to their people. Soon they become insensitive to the needs and desires of the individuals on the team.

Arrogance, out-of-control egos, and insensitivity are part of the management land trap.

the giving room

You cannot succeed without giving back. But nothing is going to change unless you set specific goals for improvement. Goals can become the strongest force for self-motivation. Yet less than five percent of all people set specific goals, and fewer than five percent will write their goals down on paper.

four main reasons why people fail to set goals

1. they don’t know the importance of goal setting. 2. they don’t know how to set goals. 3. they don’t set goals because they are afraid of failure. 4. they don’t want to leave their comfort zone.

Failure is a prelude to success. To become more successful, we have to fail.

“The Eighth Day: Entering the Learning Zone”

1. As we explore the world and others, we also explore ourselves. It is no wonder, then, that we learn about ourselves so much when dealing with other people.

• We need to keep in mind that whatever we are doing, it is a chance to know ourselves.

2. Falling into the comfort zone is natural to humans, because habits are natural and in fact good for humans. The same can happen with more complicated actions, such as management styles. They too can become habits. This means they become invisible to our conscious mind. We no longer notice them. This also means that if these habits have some defect, we will not notice. We will keep having bad results, but we will not understand why.

Major points

1. All knowledge is also self-knowledge and all teaching is, therefore, also self-teaching.

2. Balance is the key. Practice makes perfect, but the idea of perfection does not come from any kind of practice.

Epilogue

The meetings with Tony changed David for the better. Things turned around at work, and he was able to

spend more quality time with his family.

“So much of Life is about attitude and how we handle what life throws our way. Life is good – even when a situation appears to be the worst.”

Adapted from:

• https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/ext-employees/new-employees/ndsu-extension- service-staff-mentoring-program-1/county-mentoring-program- information/monday-morning-mentoring-excerpts

• http://ucd-advance.ucdavis.edu/sites/main/files/file- attachments/mondaymorningleadership.pdf?1476212372

• https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/ext-employees/new-employees/ndsu-extension- service-staff-mentoring-program-1/county-mentoring-program- information/monday-morning-mentoring-excerpts