THE MENTOR

While cooking this evening Abba called me a 'MENTOR', that tells me we're moving out of the age of the expensive consultants that began in the 1980's, and into the MENTOR relationship. The English term MENTOR means 'Father-like teacher' and the term originated from Greek mythology.

So what is the difference between the CONSULTANT and the MENTOR or is it just semantics?

The consultant is brought in for their experience and expertise and paid a high price for it. One management consultant that I knew in 2003 was demanding £5,000 a day. Due to her demands we could not involve her in a very important project for God, she had simply priced herself out of the job.

That is now happening in the private, public and third sector. People are just earning more money then the many industry sectors can afford. For instance paying a director in a national health trust or local government £250,000+ a year is simply not on anymore, while there are people starving in the world.  The people that work at the grass roots and in middle management are simply not up for the high salaries.

You're going to see a shift happening as we move into the next decade that will bring forth the MENTOR relationship in the centre of the people. Corporations and organizations have been top heavy since the hay day of the 20th century, that is about to change as more and more people are shed and the pyramid collapses.

From experience it tends to be middle management that are the main interface with the people at the grass roots. There the ones that tend to carry the weight of the organization,  they're often in cross pressures from above and below. Its also in middle management where the politics of the organization and the back stabbing begins because everyone is vying to get to the top. I left large companies once the politics started, just wasn't up for it.

If everything was streamlined, and there was no top to move to, then the politics in organizations would cease. The sphere of responsibility can be achieved and shared equally in my humble view,  bringing a better balance to the organization and its workforce.

Why should the bosses have a better lifestyle then the workers? What happened to the equality that the unions worked so hard to achieve? As we used to say to people, a company is only as good as its workforce. The recent Top Shop dividend fiasco in the UK is a perfect example of company directors not paying their taxes and giving the staff a £5 annual bonus. Is it any wonder that students closed down the London High Street store on the 4th of December?

The retail and leisure industry are well known for their low salaries and less than best treatment of their workforce. Its also become fashionable now to hire part-timers so that they don't have the same contractual rights as a full-timer.

So what difference can a mentor make? In olden days we had apprenticeships and this gave the young ones the opportunity to enter the industries of their choice. They learnt their trade on the job and many worked their way through the departments of a company until they decided what was the best job and department for them. Tradesmen, also taught the youngsters and mentored a young one by taking them under their wing.

When I entered industry, I did not have any qualifications, my training was on the job, thrown in the deep end, get on with it, show us what you can do. In those days how you rose to the challenge depended on sheer work ethics, natural talent and hard work. Your boss in middle management was  there if you required any help or advice, you were the cog that kept the wheel of the company moving. It was all based on the enterprise of the person and they were left to develop their own initiatives. Your relationship with the company was one of honor and respect for everything that you touched, because that honor and respect had been given to you.

In my humble view, there was a lot more integrity in business in the early 70's then there is now.  What happened to the great 'INVESTORS IN PEOPLE' scheme from the 80's?  It was turned into more red tape and paperwork so that companies could attain quality standard compliant numbers. People were put on the conveyor belt and people became a number. People were manufactured like a commodity to serve government statistics to meet their never ending targets. A similar travesty happened to the police and in education, far too many consultants getting involved, not letting the teachers get on with their jobs that they were trained for.

When will governments butt out and trust the people to do their jobs? Its time for the whole workforce to take their power back from the mathematicians.

When immigration hit home, the politically correct brigade seemed to take over the whole of the public sector. Now the public and private sectors are asking why is the third sector so successful? What have they missed and can they have a chunk of it, by making inroads into the NGO's?

Is it because NGO's tend to be run on the basis of equality? How can there ever be true equality without equality of pay scales? Also many NGO's don't pay themselves any salary at all. They have invested all of their own assets to do the will of God.

However, the governments cannot deny the sheer impact that we have all had on the world. Our mentoring of others in the last decade, has helped to co-create millions more like us and nothing can stand in our way.

So what is a MENTOR? A person that gives their time and the benefit of their life experience to help others. A noble cause beyond the self. A government agency called me a consultant, when in fact I was a mentor for the people on the project that I was gifted. It was the will of God, it came to me and I did not have to go looking for it. Now that is the difference between a mentor and a consultant. LOL!

THE JOURNEY 


Do it all for love and justice will be done.

ENJOY

ELIAKIM xx