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Strategy & Business Model Section

How Much Should You Be Investing in Growth?

By Paul Blase and Paul Leinwand | Harvard Business Review Magazine | September–October 2026

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Big businesses have an investment problem. While the U.S. GDP grew by an average of 3% annually from 2014 to 2023, largely driven by technological innovation, the annual investment rate of medium to large American corporations declined by a median 16% in that time period. And this pattern is not unique to the United States. A 2025 OECD paper drawing on both national accounts and firm-level data across 17 advanced economies found that real business investment is roughly 23% below its pre-financial-crisis level on a weighted average basis.

This gap suggests that many companies are compromising their ability to grow over the long term. For some, it reflects pressure to return cash to shareholders. For others, it reflects a risk-averse investment philosophy, a vacuum of good ideas, or complex processes that prevent firms from properly allocating capital to a compelling portfolio of initiatives. No matter what the reason is, companies have to invest to grow—and they need to know how much to invest.

To help them with that calculation, the authors with their colleague Aaron Reeves analyzed the financial reports and performance of 2,900 U.S. public companies over 10 years (2014–2023). They discovered that there’s an “investment sweet spot”—a ballpark answer to the important question of how much companies should be investing in growth.

Many companies struggle to decide how much capital to deduce to growth efforts, undermining their prospects by unverinvesting or overspending ineffectively.  The authors compared the companies on two dimensions of performance that are a central focus of both leaders and investors: asset growth and return on assets.  Research on 2900 US firmst over 10 years revealed that businesses in accelerating, steadily growing and mature industries should be in the top quartile of businesses for assest growth and in the bottom quartile for ROA.  Companies in steady growth industries should be in the second quartile for asset growth and the thrid quartile for ROA.  Companies in mature industries should be in the fourth quartile for asset growth and the third quartile for return on assets.  When companies land in their sweet spots, they maximize their market value.

Identify and Rationalize Your Growth Investments.  With all the aging assets that need refreshing and technology improvements that just keep up with requirements (or what your competitors are doing), the true growth opportunities you should finance may not be entirely obvious. You must not only uncover them but dedicate capital specifically to them—something companies often neglect to do.  

Your challenge, then, is to figure out how much you’re actually investing in growth and manage your investments more effectively. To do that, take the following steps:  Calculate your growth investment rate (GIR).  Ensure that your investments are managed comprehensively.  Drive your investments with a clear purpose and logic.  And connect the investment portfolio to your strategy process.  

Create a Culture of Bold Investment.  Culture isn’t easy to change—especially when it comes to attitudes about appropriate risk and return.  Series of research over the years has shown that professional managers were, in general, very reluctant to sponsor risky projects.  In the authors’ experience the best way to counter this barrier to growth is to anchor investments in your strategy, systematically creating multiple and diverse projects that are closely monitored and reassessed as new data comes in.  Companies can also harness the creativity of their organizations using forums like innovation challenges and ideation events to surface bold ideas.  Last, leaders need to reinforce the acceptance of diverse opinions.  In most companies you can find employees who will provide the important challenger mindset that your organization needs.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Many leaders struggle with the fundamental decision of how much to invest in growing a business. Making the right call starts with accurately evaluating which investments will actually lead to growth and understanding whether and why you’re allocating too much or too little to them. For many companies this will require a complete rethink. The objective should be not to eliminate risk but rather to embrace it in a rational fashion. The ambition should be a corporate investment program that—for companies in any industry and in any situation—finds the investment sweet spot.
2. To discover investment sweet spot, the authors compared the companies on two dimensions of performance that are a central focus of both leaders and investors: asset growth and return on assets.  Research on 2900 US firmst over 10 years revealed that businesses in accelerating, steadily growing and mature industries should make different choices when it comes to investment while considering asset growth and return on investment.
3. The true growth opportunities you should finance may not be entirely obvious. You must not only uncover them but dedicate capital specifically to them—something companies often neglect to do.  Your challenge, then, is to figure out how much you’re actually investing in growth and manage your investments more effectively. To do that, take the following steps:  Calculate your growth investment rate (GIR).  Ensure that your investments are managed comprehensively.  Drive your investments with a clear purpose and logic.  And connect the investment portfolio to your strategy process.  

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Topics:  Strategy, Business Model, Investment Decisions

When Compliance Workarounds Backfire

By Laura Reijnders and Bilgehan Uzunca | MIT Sloan Management Review | October 07, 2026

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Leaders often default to workarounds or temporary fixes when the regulatory environment threatens their business models because they preserve the existing business model while avoiding a costly redesign. But this leads companies into what the authors call the algorithmic compliance trap. In algorithmic businesses such as ride-hailing apps, such fixes expand the audit surface, increase internal complexity, and invite scrutiny that can push the company toward the very redesign it was trying to avoid.

That said, not every regulatory change or instance of enforcement calls for a complete redesign. The hard question for senior leaders is when simple fixes are sufficient or a more significant rethinking of the business model is warranted.

Based on their work on five cases of algorithmic businesses facing major regulatory challenges in Europe — Glovo, Deliveroo, Airbnb, Uber, and Meta — the authors identified four signals that can help leaders judge whether workarounds are likely to stabilize a business model or accelerate a costly redesign.

1. Tightening legal clarity. Rules or rulings close the interpretation on which the workaround depends; authorities define tests or criteria that the current response may not meet.
2. Increasingly visible harm.  Complaints become headlines; harms appear in lived outcomes, such as declining pay, housing pressure, privacy incidents, or risks to minors.
3. Intensifying regulatory scrutiny Guidance gives way to information requests, investigations, inspections, coordinated enforcement, or formal proceedings; “explain” becomes “prove”; penalties escalate.
4. Increasing internal complexity.  Fixes spread across models, markets, and workflows; side effects multiply; teams struggle to explain outcomes consistently.

These signals reinforce one another. Tightening legal clarity, visible harm, and intensifying scrutiny raise the bar for acceptable compliance, while growing internal complexity makes that bar harder to meet through additional fixes. As the gap widens, the workaround begins to shape the product road map instead of protecting it, and leaders lose control over the timing and scope of redesign.  Consider these rules of thumb when determining your organization’s next move:  Zero or one red flag: A workaround may hold. Monitor and reassess as it meets operating reality.  Two red flags: The window is closing. Start redesign planning.  Three red flags: Escalation is likely. Fund a durable redesign path now.  Four red flags: Forced redesign is likely. Treat further workarounds as a cost multiplier and move to redesign.

What to Do Next: Five Operating Moves That Preserve Management’s Options.   The algorithmic compliance trap’s greatest cost is the loss of choice. The diagnostic tells leaders when to escalate; the five moves below can be taken to change how the company evaluates, governs, and implements compliance before the outcome is known.  Start with what the rule actually tests.  Stress-test whether the change will stay contained.  Set a stopping rule before approving the workaround.  Build the proof that the compliance claim requires.  And turn recurring, separable duties into product capabilities.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Leaders often default to workarounds or temporary fixes when the regulatory environment threatens their business models because they preserve the existing business model while avoiding a costly redesign. But this leads companies into what the authors call the algorithmic compliance trap. In algorithmic businesses such as ride-hailing apps, such fixes expand the audit surface, increase internal complexity, and invite scrutiny that can push the company toward the very redesign it was trying to avoid.
2. That said, not every regulatory change or instance of enforcement calls for a complete redesign. The hard question for senior leaders is when simple fixes are sufficient or a more significant rethinking of the business model is warranted.  Based on their work on five cases of algorithmic businesses facing major regulatory challenges in Europe the authors identified four signals that can help leaders judge whether workarounds are likely to stabilize a business model or accelerate a costly redesign.  These are:  tightening legal clarity, increasingly visible harm, intensifying regulatory scrutiny, and increasing internal complexity.
3. Five moves can be taken to change how the company evaluates, governs, and implements compliance before the outcome is known.  These are: start with what the rule actually tests, stress-test whether the change will stay contained, set a stopping rule before approving the workaround, build the proof that the compliance claim requires, and turn recurring, separable duties into product capabilities.

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Topics:  Strategy, Business Model, Algorithmic Businesses

Geopolitical Risk Rarely Arrives Labeled. Where Leaders Should Look.

By Beth Sibly | Forbes | October 07, 2026

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Ask a group of senior executives whether geopolitics affects their business and every hand goes up. Ask what they will do differently on Monday and most of the hands come down.

According to the author he has seen this often.   Turning knowledge into decisions is where many organizations remain least prepared. In a 2026 McKinsey survey of 202 senior executives, only 28 percent rated their geopolitical risk capabilities as effective at supporting decision-making. Around half said they rarely or never discuss geopolitical risk with their executive boards.

Part of the reason is that geopolitical risk rarely arrives labeled as such. It comes up as a question about where to add production capacity, or whether a promising customer brings regulatory complications that outweigh the revenue. Those are commercial questions until a supplier can no longer ship a critical input, or a technology purchase suddenly needs government approval. A company can then find that it has taken on a political risk it never chose.

Rather than try to predict the next disruption, the company assessed which routes were most exposed, mapped where activity could be rerouted or regionalized, and tested where more flexible capacity would justify the additional cost. That gave the company room to respond when conditions changed.

Who owns geopolitical risk?  Too often, no one is making that connection. Much of this is structural. Public affairs reads the regulatory change, procurement sees the supplier exposure, strategy weighs the shift in the market, and business units see the implications for customers and operations. Each sees part of the picture. What is usually missing is clear responsibility for bringing those perspectives together and placing them on an executive or risk agenda that already exists.

That rarely requires a new function or another dashboard. Some organizations need a named owner; others need a governance mechanism that forces the discussion.

Testing the assumptions.  The questions worth asking test the assumptions a strategy depends on rather than the news it reacts to:  Where are we making long-term commitments on the assumption that regulation will remain stable?  Which advantage exists only because a particular political arrangement currently holds?  What would we want in place six months before a restriction arrives, rather than six weeks after?  The value is in noticing which of these a team cannot answer with confidence.

Two methods help turn those answers into decisions. Scenario planning tests whether a strategy still holds under different regulatory or market conditions. Risk and opportunity mapping helps companies sort developments into those that need immediate action, those to monitor, and those that may create a strategic opening. Neither method predicts the next policy decision. Their use is in showing which commitments would be hard to reverse, and where keeping an option open is worth the cost.

When the consequences arrive.  Policy changes are often signaled well in advance. What arrives late is the operational consequence: a supplier with a sudden waiting list, or a planned commercial agreement held up by regulatory clearance. By then, the only choices left are the ones that can be made quickly, and they are rarely the ones a company would have chosen.

Most companies have more warnings than they use. Most of the executives can usually name the policy shifts heading toward their industry. Fewer have gone back to the decisions those shifts would affect, and that is the work worth doing now.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Ask a group of senior executives whether geopolitics affects their business and every hand goes up. Ask what they will do differently on Monday and most of the hands come down.  Turning knowledge into decisions is where many organizations remain least prepared. Part of the reason is that geopolitical risk rarely arrives labeled as such. It comes up as a question about where to add production capacity, or whether a promising customer brings regulatory complications that outweigh the revenue. 
2. Who owns geopolitical risk?  Too often, no one.  Each department sees part of the picture. What is usually missing is clear responsibility for bringing those perspectives together and placing them on an executive or risk agenda that already exists. 
3. Two methods can help. Scenario planning tests whether a strategy still holds under different regulatory or market conditions. Risk and opportunity mapping helps companies sort developments into those that need immediate action, those to monitor, and those that may create a strategic opening. Neither method predicts the next policy decision. Their use is in showing which commitments would be hard to reverse, and where keeping an option open is worth the cost.

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Topics:  Strategy, Business Model, Geo-political Risk

The playbook for seeing around geopolitical corners

Mckinsey & Company | October 8, 2026

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Geopolitical surprise has become a permanent cost of doing business—and a one-size-fits-all approach to scenario planning can’t keep pace with it. The following is based on McKinsey Podcast in which Mickinsey’s Partner and Global Director of Geopolitics Ziad Haider who joins Editorial Director Roberta Fusaro to discuss why so few companies use these tools at scale, how AI is starting to reshape geopolitical risk assessment, and why human judgment remains essential for seeing around corners.

Is scenario planning broken?   There is a methodological aspect to how you approach foresight planning that probably needs to be strengthened. Equally, it’s also about what your objective is when doing this scenario planning exercise. If your objective is crystal ball predictive clarity, that’s an unrealistic objective. Scenario planning itself needs to be demystified and understood as the art of foresight, and that there are different tools of foresight to use for different objectives.  In a survey only 30 percent CEOs said their organizations are actually using this tool.

How five tools i.e., horizon scanning, scenario planning, contingency planning, simulations, and tabletop exercises, help leaders develop foresight?  Horizon scanning is to look toward the near-term future, such as over the next year, and thinking about the big risks or opportunities that could be presented to your organization.  

Scenario planning is probably the best understood tool. The idea behind scenario planning is to think about multiple futures and outcomes, like how the world would react to trade relations between the US and China or to the conflict in the Middle East. Scenario planning should inform your strategy, positioning, and global footprint.  

Contingency planning is the cousin of scenario planning, but it’s the sharp end of the stick. It’s not about thinking of multiple futures that could potentially play out, but about thinking of the most intense future that could occur and how you will handle it.  

The objective of a simulation is to move from simply laying out a bunch of scenarios or contingencies on paper to making your leadership team live it. Imagine putting your whole team in the room. You have a facilitator. Across the room, you have your head of North America, your chief risk officer, the head of a few other key regions, and the rest of your leadership team. You’re feeding them information in the form of questions like, “X event has happened, how would you respond?” It forces the leadership team to grapple with how they would react.

Fundamentally, the idea with a tabletop exercise is that it’s almost an educational tool for the audience in the room. Typically, in a tabletop exercise, you’d be role-playing two sides in a conflict. You want to ask, “What would they do? What tools would they reach for? Will they use things like sanctions, export controls, or blockades?” All of that questioning informs the audience observing this exercise, and sometimes participating in it, as a contingency planning exercise.

You pick the instrument of foresight based on the objective, which is shaped by a range of factors, including a temporal dimension. Are you looking near, medium, or long term? Are you thinking about strategy? Are you thinking about resilience? Are you thinking of it as a way to create alignment in your organization? Some themes cut across all of them. Being clear about the objective before you reach for the instrument is important, because oftentimes we jumble all of this into the elastic phrase “scenario planning,” whereas you have a tool kit to choose from.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Geopolitical surprise has become a permanent cost of doing business—and a one-size-fits-all approach to scenario planning can’t keep pace with it. The following is based on McKinsey Podcast in which Mickinsey’s Partner and Global Director of Geopolitics Ziad Haider who joins Editorial Director Roberta Fusaro to discuss why so few companies use these tools at scale, how AI is starting to reshape geopolitical risk assessment, and why human judgment remains essential for seeing around corners.
2. There is a methodological aspect to how you approach foresight planning that probably needs to be strengthened. Equally, it’s also about what your objective is when doing this scenario planning exercise. If your objective is crystal ball predictive clarity, that’s an unrealistic objective. Scenario planning itself needs to be demystified and understood as the art of foresight, and that there are different tools of foresight to use for different objectives.  Five tools i.e., horizon scanning, scenario planning, contingency planning, simulations, and tabletop exercises, help leaders develop foresight.  You pick the instrument of foresight based on the objective, which is shaped by a range of factors, including a temporal dimension. 
3. There’s no substitute for a human when developing scenarios, which is an art of creativity and imagination when talking to a wide range of individuals, like policymakers, think-tank experts, and your peers in other businesses. AI will have a growing role, but the richness this skill requires will always rely on some component of human-to-human intelligence, gathered through classic methods of information gathering.

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Topics:  Scenario Planning, Strategy, Business Model

Personal Development, Leading & Managing Section

Why the AI age calls for ‘founder mode’

By Alyson Shontell | Fortune Magazine | October/November 2026 Issue

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AI anxiety hit a fever pitch this September, when a former Anthropic researcher warned on X that the technology could destroy humanity—and accused major frontier labs of “gambling with our lives.” The outcry had the feel of a cultural turning point, reminiscent of February 2020, when the COVID pandemic hit—the moment when a danger that experts had been warning about suddenly became impossible for the public to ignore.

The following is based on the author’s interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about the real risks that AI poses for humanity; how quickly models are improving; and what he would do if he concluded that AI could not be built safely.

For corporate leaders, AI’s threat is no abstraction. It is already reshaping talent, supply chains, and the very definition of good leadership. Increasingly, the era of the cautious, data-driven technocrat is giving way to the approach known as “founder mode.” The term doesn’t apply only to founder-CEOs; it refers to a hands-on, conviction-driven form of leadership—one that resists inherited assumptions, stays close to the work, and acts quickly to address problems.  

As General Motors CEO Mary Barra told the author when he interviewed her, “Agility is a superpower now.”  That is the posture required in a world being reshaped at astonishing speed. The winners will not merely develop an AI strategy, they will rethink what their companies can become in this era.

That is exactly the challenge facing Apple, where Tim Cook’s extraordinary run was defined by operational mastery—building upon iPhone’s dominance while weaving an extraordinarily profitable global ecosystem of products, services, and retail. Now, with longtime product executive John Ternus taking the reins, Apple faces new risks and opportunities. Can it find a new way to surprise us in the AI era?

The spirit of founder mode is on display across the industries: Nikesh Arora has rebuilt Palo Alto Networks to confront cyber threats augmented by terrifyingly powerful AI; David Cote has helped make the industrial cooling company Vertiv indispensable to the data center boom; and Andrew Forrest is wagering that even mining can be reinvented for a lower-carbon future.  Then there’s Travis Kalanick, perhaps the most hardcore embodiment of founder mode. The polarizing Uber cofounder is back, building Atoms, an ambitious industrial robotics venture. 

3 key takeaways from the article

1. AI anxiety hit a fever pitch this September, when a former Anthropic researcher warned on X that the technology could destroy humanity—and accused major frontier labs of “gambling with our lives.” The outcry had the feel of a cultural turning point, reminiscent of February 2020, when the COVID pandemic hit—the moment when a danger that experts had been warning about suddenly became impossible for the public to ignore.
2. For corporate leaders, AI’s threat is no abstraction. It is already reshaping talent, supply chains, and the very definition of good leadership. Increasingly, the era of the cautious, data-driven technocrat is giving way to the approach known as “founder mode.” The term doesn’t apply only to founder-CEOs; it refers to a hands-on, conviction-driven form of leadership—one that resists inherited assumptions, stays close to the work, and acts quickly to address problems.    That is the posture required in a world being reshaped at astonishing speed. The winners will not merely develop an AI strategy, they will rethink what their companies can become in this era.  The spirit of founder mode is on display across the industries.

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Topics:  Leadership & AI, Agility, Founders Mode

Entrepreneurship Section

Every Brand Wants to Start a Club. The Hard Part Comes After the Launch Party

By Emily Cody | Inc | October 7, 2026

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There are a lot of clubs all of a sudden. Run clubs. Book clubs. Supper clubs. Beach clubs. Members-only dinners. Fashion brands are opening cafés. Beauty brands are hosting workout classes.  

It increasingly feels like buying something from a brand is only the beginning of the relationship. Now they would also like you to come hang out.

Fashion has been moving in this direction for a while. Second hand fashion retailer Rewind Vintage Affairs recently chronicled the rise of the fashion-branded café and beach club, part of a larger push by brands to create physical worlds around themselves. Jacquemus has opened cafés and beach clubs. Ralph Lauren has coffee shops. Armani has restaurants. You can spend quite a bit of time with some brands without actually shopping.  Lately, though, the idea seems to be moving beyond hospitality. Brands are creating reasons for customers to gather regularly, and in many cases, to meet each other.

It makes sense that this is happening now. “Community” has been part of the marketing vocabulary for so long that the word has nearly lost its meaning. Having 400,000 Instagram followers was a community. So was a Facebook group. So was an email list. Now brands are experimenting with what happens when those people actually show up somewhere. There’s a business case for getting them there, too.

A run club gives someone a reason to interact with a brand every Saturday morning. A book club can bring customers back every month. Events and membership programs give brands more opportunities to learn who their customers are and, ideally, keep them around longer. Think of it as a subscription model IRL.

They also create something that is increasingly difficult to buy through traditional advertising: a feeling that the brand is part of someone’s actual life. The interesting part is what happens after people show up.

Brands are used to measuring campaigns in impressions, clicks and sales. A club gets a little messier. Forty people attending a run on Saturday morning may not buy anything that day. Someone who comes to three dinners may already be a customer. The payoff could show up in repeat purchases months later, or in the five friends they bring with them next time.

That means the companies investing seriously in these programs have to figure out what they’re measuring. Repeat attendance is one obvious place to start. So are new customer acquisition, retention, purchase frequency and how much members spend over time.

There is also, of course, a limit to how many clubs anyone wants to join. The appeal of the best brand communities is usually fairly obvious: people would plausibly want to do the activity even if there weren’t a logo attached to it. People already run together. They already read books, eat dinner, drink coffee and look for places to meet other people.

That gets harder when the “community” exists primarily because a marketing team decided the brand needed one.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. There are a lot of clubs all of a sudden. Run clubs. Book clubs. Supper clubs. Beach clubs. Members-only dinners. Fashion brands are opening cafés. Beauty brands are hosting workout classes.  It increasingly feels like buying something from a brand is only the beginning of the relationship. Now they would also like you to come hang out.
2. Fashion has been moving in this direction for a while.  Ralph Lauren has coffee shops. Armani has restaurants. You can spend quite a bit of time with some brands without actually shopping.  Lately, though, the idea seems to be moving beyond hospitality. Brands are creating reasons for customers to gather regularly, and in many cases, to meet each other.
3. It makes sense that this is happening now. “Community” has been part of the marketing vocabulary for so long that the word has nearly lost its meaning.   Now brands are experimenting with what happens when those people actually show up somewhere. There’s a business case for getting them there, too.  Events and membership programs give brands more opportunities to learn who their customers are and, ideally, keep them around longer. Think of it as a subscription model IRL.  They also create something that is increasingly difficult to buy through traditional advertising: a feeling that the brand is part of someone’s actual life. 

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Topics:  Growth, Entrepreneurship

I’ve Mentored People for 20 Years. I Use These 4 Steps to Help Them Advance

By Jissan Cherian | Entrepreneur | October 09, 2026

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The best mentors enter conversations with the belief that they have something to teach and something to learn. They understand that every person sees the world through a different set of experiences, challenges and assumptions. Those differences often create insights that would never emerge otherwise.

This shift in thinking is important because it changes the goal of the relationship. Instead of trying to provide the perfect answer, great mentors focus on helping people think more clearly. They use questions to uncover assumptions, identify blind spots, and encourage deeper reflection. At the same time, they remain open to having their own perspectives challenged. Curiosity creates better mentoring conversations than expertise ever will.

According to the author, over the last 20 years he has coached and mentored people across every stage of their careers. One thing he learned early is that mentoring becomes far more effective when it is tailored to where someone is in their professional journey.  According to the author he focuses on creating a deeper understanding of the individual sitting across him. The process generally follows four steps.

1. Start with self-awareness.  Most people are eager to discuss goals, promotions and career aspirations. Better to begin somewhere else. The first step is helping people understand themselves more clearly. Explore strengths, development opportunities, motivations and long-term aspirations. The objective is to establish a baseline understanding of who they are today before discussing where they want to go tomorrow.  This step creates value for mentors as well. It forces us to listen carefully rather than assume we already understand someone’s challenges based on our own experiences.
2. Gather perspectives you cannot see yourself.  One of the most valuable exercises is gathering feedback from five people within the individual’s network. Encourage them to compare that feedback against their own self-assessment and look for patterns. Where do the perceptions align? Where do they differ? What strengths appear consistently? What development opportunities keep surfacing?  Many professionals spend years relying exclusively on self-reflection. Feedback introduces perspectives that are often impossible to uncover on your own.
3. Separate perception from reality.  This is where many mentoring conversations become transformational. Whether we agree with feedback or not, perception influences opportunities, relationships and career progression. The goal is not to debate what people think. The goal is to understand how others experience us.  Encourage people to resist the urge to explain or defend feedback immediately. Instead, sit with it. Look for recurring themes. Ask yourself why multiple people may have reached similar conclusions. Some of the greatest career breakthroughs happen when people stop arguing with perceptions and start learning from them.
4. Refine the stories that define you.  Every professional has stories that shape how others perceive their leadership potential. These stories often involve successes, failures, setbacks, difficult decisions and lessons learned. Yet many people struggle to communicate effectively. The final step focuses on identifying those experiences and learning how to share them with intention.  When people can clearly articulate what they learned from challenges and how those experiences shaped their growth, they become far more effective at communicating their value, leadership style and potential.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. The best mentors enter conversations with the belief that they have something to teach and something to learn. They understand that every person sees the world through a different set of experiences, challenges and assumptions. Those differences often create insights that would never emerge otherwise.
2. This shift in thinking is important because it changes the goal of the relationship. Instead of trying to provide the perfect answer, great mentors focus on helping people think more clearly. They use questions to uncover assumptions, identify blind spots, and encourage deeper reflection. At the same time, they remain open to having their own perspectives challenged. Curiosity creates better mentoring conversations than expertise ever will.
3. According to the author, over the last 20 years he has coached and mentored people across every stage of their careers. One thing he learned early is that mentoring becomes far more effective when it is tailored to where someone is in their professional journey.  He focuses on creating a deeper understanding of the individual sitting across him. The process generally follows four steps:  start with self-awareness, gather perspectives you cannot see yourself, separate perception from reality, and refine the stories that define you.

Full Article

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Topics:  Mentorship, Coaching, Startups