Proverbs 11:14 says “Where there is no guidance the people fall, but in the abundance of counselors there is victory.”  

I find these words inspiring. The periods of greatest growth in my own career have occurred while I have been under the guidance of wise, mature leaders. Now, I mentor for success, working as a mentor to the owners of mid-sized distributorships, guiding the next generation of leaders to success. The people I work with appreciate that my counsel is borne out of years of experience in the distribution industry.

Managing Projects

My clients, the owners of distributorships, list their top issue as project management. Stephen Covey, the author of “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” (the-7-habits), has suggestions to help address the challenge of managing deals along a complex supply chain. He advises putting first things first.

In mentoring, I start by asking owners to list all the projects that they are currently trying to complete. They generally begin with a list of three or four, but after careful thought end up with a dozen.  I find clients often fail to write down their projects. This makes them harder to recall and impossible to track with time-based results.

Record, Prioritize, Act

After listing projects, I advise clients to place each one in a category. Covey’s suggests these two groups — Important and Urgent and Important but not urgent. Once categorized, managers can prioritize the top five projects and assign each a specific action step to be accomplished that week.

Attain Success

Implementing the above steps, my clients find they can become a habit within 6 weeks. The owners I work with are amazed at what they can accomplish in a couple of months using Covey’s method. Truly, they agree, “Where there is no guidance the people fall, but in the abundance of counselors there is victory.” I find great satisfaction in counseling young businessmen and women and believe it helps them attain success.

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