Effectively Leveraging Trainers, Coaches, and Mentors

Contracting is a high-risk sport and the training of yourself, your managers and your craft labor should be as rigorous as a professional sports team.

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Contractors are facing a massive shortage of critical talent yet most contractors spend very little on talent development. 

Talent Development Tools: Effectively leveraging trainers, coaches and mentors. Quote: I invest a disproportionate amount of my income in paying for an ever-growing collection of trainers and coaches. Graham Duncan.

A valuable quote from Graham Duncan in the book Tribe of Mentors gets to the heart of continuous improvement. Consider that he invests and manages money for a living.  


Question:  What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made?

“I invest a disproportionate amount of my income in paying for an ever-growing collection of trainers and coaches.”

Graham Duncan; Co-Founder of East Rock Capital

The highest performing companies, teams and individuals heavily leverage these resources.  Truly effective training HURTS and is not fun because it stretches you. This is the same whether you are training for something physical or mental.  If you are taking the time to invest in training make sure you put 100% of your effort into it; and then some.  


Learn more about how we approach talent development




The Knowledge Management Pyramid (DIKW)
Knowledge Management is a complex topic and the contractors who learn to manage it the best will have an edge in the market. There are several models that can help you visualize the differences between different types of “knowledge” in your organization.
Required Leadership Focus Changes at Each Stage of Growth
At each stage of growth, the leadership focus at the top for majority Owners/CEO/President must change to continue navigating growth effectively. Concurrently, the leadership focus from the prior stage of growth must be transferred and expanded downward.
Allocation of Management Resources
Most new initiatives that contractors try often fall short of expectations due to poor management time allocation during start-up. We work with a lot of contractors and rarely see truly bad ideas or teams that truly can’t execute.