S Mentor Assessment

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Tue Feb 23, 2021

Steve's Feedback

  1. How satisfied am I with the coaching process and/or student? Extremely satisfied. Steve's unique ability is to grasp ideas quickly, and turn around rapidly with useful feedback which produces a highly synergistic relationship. It is co-creative, and I have not met anybody who provides so much directly-relevant feedback with so little information presented, and with so little preparation. Some of it is clearly based on Steve's experience, but there is also a lot of on-the-feet thinking and creativity where Steve appears to process information very quickly and effectively.

Incredibly satisfied. As I was transitioning my professional role over the course of 2020 and concurrently dealing with the extreme strains work-from-home was placing on my staff and my clients, I became convinced that I would have to ‘pause’ my work with Marcin as the time I was investing to prepare for our discussions was significant and time I increasingly was struggling to find. Marcin instead transitioned us to ’30 minute weekly Fireside Chats’ where he gave me permission to just show up and asked almost nothing in the way of pre-preparation. I had concerns that this new structure would fail to meet Marcin’s needs and rise to the level of adding meaningful value. Marcin’s assurances that even this reduced level of attention has been valuable to him has enabled me to feel good about continuing an active relationship with Marcin. This new format does put more responsibility on Marcin to extract value versus have me guide the sessions, however, Marcin’s ability to show up to our ‘chats’ engaged, prepared, and ready to go makes our time together so much more productive than it would be if he just showed up the way he’s allowed me to.

  1. What do you like or dislike about the mentorship relationship? I am madly in love with it in general. Specifically - I have shattered any limits of possibility that I can think of, as now my thinking is completely 'at scale.' I like how I can bring up 'crazy ideas' and Steve goes right with them like it's obvious. I don't know anybody else who has this same level of encouragement. My conceptualization of problem statements - and thus solutions - to think along the lines of 'solutions at scale' has been unleashed. I am more optimistic than ever, and have developed increased ability to sublimate problems (turn challenges into fuel). Some recent insights are Economic Sublimation or the Collaborative Singularity. Steve has called me out to collaborate, and I took on the challenge. I have gained increased clarity on how collaboration is missing in society, and how critical and practical it will be, and how important an impact we can have to bring society there. I also like how we are able to connect current events (politics, etc) to our work.

I like that I look forward to my time with Marcin each week as much or more than any of my other regular meetings. While working with Marcin, I find myself often recalling the George Bernard Shaw quote, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Marcin’s passion for doing everything within his power to shape aspects of the world he believes are no longer in service to most of its citizens is inspiring, thought provoking, and important. I like that our work together has evolved from being very theoretical in the beginning to now being a great balance between strategy and execution. I also like that the more I’ve been able to work with him, the better understanding I have of him and how he processes information. This has helped me effectively communicate complicated or challenging perspectives effectively even in our short sessions together. Marcin’s ability to open his mind and dispassionately consider constructive ideas or challenges is extraordinary. There is currently nothing about our mentorship relationship that I don’t like.

  1. What changes would I like to make? Can't think of any.

I can’t think of any either.

  1. How do I plan to apply outcomes from mentoring in life or work? We plan to solve housing by calling out and creating collective genius to do so. Step 2 - apply collaborative enterprise development methods to all sectors. Step 3 - retire for the fourth time.

I already have. The lessons I’ve learned about collaboration, collaborative design and transparency through working with Marcin have led to my completely redesigning the two largest teams in my agency and those changes are being embraced by both teams.

  1. Learning Goals: To what extent am I showing new skills or knowledge? Breakthrough on collaborative thinking with increased clarity on the massive hackathon and training programs for builders, such that we can deliver thousands on houses. I am working on integrating the learnings to develop the OSE platform for economic transformation with ethical enterprise, where I think the progress is steady and building until we have a robust and irresistable offer that can help people achieve freedom on a massive scale. I am moving forward boldly in this direction, as opposed to before meeting Steve, when my mindset was more like 'how the hell are we gonna do all this'.

I understand the skill of constructive collaboration better since meeting Marcin, but I also know I have a lot more to learn in this area.

  1. What new awareness or insight has emerged from the coaching process? That mainstream enterprise in general will benefit from collaborative design, so this is hugely needed as we all know - but the insight is that practical ways can be created to get there. Simply because the math works out for better-faster-stronger via open collab - and it's fascinating that we are starting to attach possible enterprise models to these visions. This is economic sublimation - that we can run a sound economy without compromise.

I’m not a trained coach nor have I ever mentored someone who wasn’t building a career in my field of expertise until I started working with Marcin. The insight I’ve gained is that much of the mentorship work I’ve done in the past is less about industry expertise and more about perspective, process, and understanding. The biggest concern I had when I started to work with Marcin was that because he was an expert in a field that I literally had no experience in, I probably wouldn’t be a great coach for him. I’m now aware that my experience and insight gained through my career has enabled me to function in a mentor capacity effectively even on behalf of someone in a field I have no experience in.

  1. To what extent has coaching had an impact on the client’s level of capability? The development of possible revenue models is priceless - as we are testing them. The validation of potential numbers is encouraging. The $200k loan is getting things done. I'm focusing on what's necessary to happen and feel a certain level of peace for doing so, as opposed to scarcity thinking and 'spinning my wheels' on what to focus on.
  2. What specific skill set do I require to move forward? We still need to apply the learning to create the back-end or support infrastructure (staff) that will scale the Seed Eco-Home 2 program to deliver housing at scale. We still need to transform the hiring model to high effectiveness - with positive current results on 'enterprise reversal' where 2 people are paying OSE to do work for OSE, with interesting potential of 'workers in training' paying OSE to do work. This is a fascinating enterprise reversal - stemming from my deeper understanding of our value proposition. The intent is risk-sharing and self selection along the lines of Economy of Affection - where the self-selection appears to bias for people with very positive relationships. I had a pain point of people disrespecting me or not valuing what we offer, and we are at a turning point on this topic. I still have this aversion to 'hiring' and creating 'dependents' - it is not consistent with self-determination - so I am working hard on conceptualizing how people 'set their own pay' and aligning without the common worker-management conflict. The incentives here are critical, Steve is helping a lot on understanding incentive structures.

Marcin will still need support and guidance in building out an organization that challenges and inspires him and one in which he effectively challenges and inspires those in the organization. He’s very capable of doing this though so I’m excited to help where he needs it.

  1. Application -How have new skills or ways of interacting been used in real work situations? I am taking more charge in addressing the psychological dimension of a faulty economy - in how one's vision of 'possibility' needs to be increased with possibility. I am including the psychological dimension (Political Ponerology concepts of healing people to gain their full potential. That's an active place of exploration - in that I am trying to encourage people more based on seeing where they stand on their self-esteem or self-limiting beliefs. I am finding that my increasingly positive psychology can rub off on others - when I am breaking through limits of possibility - I think I can 'infect' others with the same kind of mindset. Based on Steve's validation of collaborative economies and related revenue models and developing increased clarity on a scalable business model - I feel like my authority on the topic of transforming economic systems is shooting through the roof. Steve is the first ever, very positive buy-in from a 'very successful person who operates in the mainstream world' - which tells me that what we're exploring are not pipe dreams but inevitable futures in-the-making.

My processes for creating collaborative design solutions to client challenges or opportunities in my agency is a direct result from what I’ve learned from working with Marcin.

  1. To what extent has behavior change occurred on the job as a result of coaching? Continued exploration and development of working solutions, combined with the COVID situation and blowup of US politics - made me think hard how we can work more directly on solving pressing world issues - and serving people who truly need our solutions. I think we can do a lot with housing, as a stepping stone to transforming the economic system towards collaborative. I feel that I have more authority on the topic, and I think I'm reasonably focused on the house product - within the framework of solutions for all classes of people - including working people in addition to elites. I am thinking completely about creating the talent, not expecting to find unicorns. And, I began thinking much more about how we design our operations for the Economy of Affection, so we keep it real and personal - and never become an evil corporation where things run out of control. So now I am more clear that our work can lead to mass creation of righ livelihood, and Steve is helping a lot with the practical/tactical aspects of converting the vision into operations.

So many of the insights, perspective, suggestions, and lessons I share with Marcin are actually things I need to hear and live as well. Call it reminders of what’s important and why. However, most of what I take away into my real job 😊 is the energy I get from spending time with Marcin due to his passion and optimism and belief that changing the world is possible.

  1. Impact - What difference has the coaching process made in actual organizational results (e.g. sales, errors, retention, morale, creativity, time-to-market etc.)? My creativity exploded, and that is helping to have a more integrated design for the housing enterprise, while remembering to not make 'fart apps' before substance.
  2. What is the return-on-investment realized through coaching for the organization? $200k loan, and expecting million scale revenue coming in by year end, but really looking forward to $20M over 2 years pending getting the back-end infrastructure and operations in place.

I’ve made a friend, he’s someone I respect, he’s given me the opportunity to contribute to something important, and he values my contribution. I’d say that’s an incredible return on investment for me.


Marcin's Feedback

  1. How satisfied am I with the coaching process and/or student? Extremely satisfied. Steve's unique ability is to grasp ideas quickly, and turn around rapidly with useful feedback which produces a highly synergistic relationship. It is co-creative, and I have not met anybody who provides so much directly-relevant feedback with so little information presented, and with so little preparation. Some of it is clearly based on Steve's experience, but there is also a lot of on-the-feet thinking and creativity where Steve appears to process information very quickly and effectively.
  2. What do you like or dislike about the mentorship relationship? I am madly in love with it in general. Specifically - I have shattered any limits of possibility that I can think of, as now my thinking is completely 'at scale.' I like how I can bring up 'crazy ideas' and Steve goes right with them like it's obvious. I don't know anybody else who has this same level of encouragement. My conceptualization of problem statements - and thus solutions - to think along the lines of 'solutions at scale' has been unleashed. I am more optimistic than ever, and have developed increased ability to sublimate problems (turn challenges into fuel). Some recent insights are Economic Sublimation or the Collaborative Singularity. Steve has called me out to collaborate, and I took on the challenge. I have gained increased clarity on how collaboration is missing in society, and how critical and practical it will be, and how important an impact we can have to bring society there. I also like how we are able to connect current events (politics, etc) to our work.
  3. What changes would I like to make? Can't think of any.
  4. How do I plan to apply outcomes from mentoring in life or work? We plan to solve housing by calling out and creating collective genius to do so. Step 2 - apply collaborative enterprise development methods to all sectors. Step 3 - retire for the fourth time.
  5. Learning Goals: To what extent am I showing new skills or knowledge? Breakthrough on collaborative thinking with increased clarity on the massive hackathon and training programs for builders, such that we can deliver thousands on houses. I am working on integrating the learnings to develop the OSE platform for economic transformation with ethical enterprise, where I think the progress is steady and building until we have a robust and irresistable offer that can help people achieve freedom on a massive scale. I am moving forward boldly in this direction, as opposed to before meeting Steve, when my mindset was more like 'how the hell are we gonna do all this'.
  6. What new awareness or insight has emerged from the coaching process? That mainstream enterprise in general will benefit from collaborative design, so this is hugely needed as we all know - but the insight is that practical ways can be created to get there. Simply because the math works out for better-faster-stronger via open collab - and it's fascinating that we are starting to attach possible enterprise models to these visions. This is economic sublimation - that we can run a sound economy without compromise.
  7. To what extent has coaching had an impact on the client’s level of capability? The development of possible revenue models is priceless - as we are testing them. The validation of potential numbers is encouraging. The $200k loan is getting things done. I'm focusing on what's necessary to happen and feel a certain level of peace for doing so, as opposed to scarcity thinking and 'spinning my wheels' on what to focus on.
  8. What specific skill set do I require to move forward? We still need to apply the learning to create the back-end or support infrastructure (staff) that will scale the Seed Eco-Home 2 program to deliver housing at scale. We still need to transform the hiring model to high effectiveness - with positive current results on 'enterprise reversal' where 2 people are paying OSE to do work for OSE, with interesting potential of 'workers in training' paying OSE to do work. This is a fascinating enterprise reversal - stemming from my deeper understanding of our value proposition. The intent is risk-sharing and self selection along the lines of Economy of Affection - where the self-selection appears to bias for people with very positive relationships. I had a pain point of people disrespecting me or not valuing what we offer, and we are at a turning point on this topic. I still have this aversion to 'hiring' and creating 'dependents' - it is not consistent with self-determination - so I am working hard on conceptualizing how people 'set their own pay' and aligning without the common worker-management conflict. The incentives here are critical, Steve is helping a lot on understanding incentive structures.
  9. Application -How have new skills or ways of interacting been used in real work situations? I am taking more charge in addressing the psychological dimension of a faulty economy - in how one's vision of 'possibility' needs to be increased with possibility. I am including the psychological dimension (Political Ponerology concepts of healing people to gain their full potential. That's an active place of exploration - in that I am trying to encourage people more based on seeing where they stand on their self-esteem or self-limiting beliefs. I am finding that my increasingly positive psychology can rub off on others - when I am breaking through limits of possibility - I think I can 'infect' others with the same kind of mindset. Based on Steve's validation of collaborative economies and related revenue models and developing increased clarity on a scalable business model - I feel like my authority on the topic of transforming economic systems is shooting through the roof. Steve is the first ever, very positive buy-in from a 'very successful person who operates in the mainstream world' - which tells me that what we're exploring are not pipe dreams but inevitable futures in-the-making.
  10. To what extent has behavior change occurred on the job as a result of coaching? Continued exploration and development of working solutions, combined with the COVID situation and blowup of US politics - made me think hard how we can work more directly on solving pressing world issues - and serving people who truly need our solutions. I think we can do a lot with housing, as a stepping stone to transforming the economic system towards collaborative. I feel that I have more authority on the topic, and I think I'm reasonably focused on the house product - within the framework of solutions for all classes of people - including working people in addition to elites. I am thinking completely about creating the talent, not expecting to find unicorns. And, I began thinking much more about how we design our operations for the Economy of Affection, so we keep it real and personal - and never become an evil corporation where things run out of control. So now I am more clear that our work can lead to mass creation of righ livelihood, and Steve is helping a lot with the practical/tactical aspects of converting the vision into operations.
  11. Impact - What difference has the coaching process made in actual organizational results (e.g. sales, errors, retention, morale, creativity, time-to-market etc.)? My creativity exploded, and that is helping to have a more integrated design for the housing enterprise, while remembering to not make 'fart apps' before substance.
  12. What is the return-on-investment realized through coaching for the organization? $200k loan, and expecting million scale revenue coming in by year end, but really looking forward to $20M over 2 years pending getting the back-end infrastructure and operations in place.

Mon Jul 22, 2019

Marcin's feedback on S's feedback:

Point 1 - addressing 'Getting on the Same Page'

1.1 It seems that the main challenge is the number of things on the path - and setting the proper scope of the Incentive Challenge. One thing that I am breaking through is on collaborative design. For me, I tend to put the work on my shoulders in that throughout project history - just like I said in my TED Talk - "I Found That I would Have to Do It Myself. And I did just that..." This means that any innovative or breakthrough point - no matter how much I would explain it to my team - nobody would or could do it and I had to step in. For example, I would have to stake the ground for the feasibility - and desirability - of the 1 Day Build. Nobody saw the feasibility - nor true desirability - of it. And so on for any major accomplishment. How does that play out in the Incentive Challenge? I have 2 possible paths: (1) to do more extensive proofs of concept to lay the path, or (2) forget it, relax, let Collaborative Design take over. I am starting to see how much path 1 is stuck in a scarcity mindset. That is because I know that the proofs of concept that I'd like to do are feasible. They may take time, or be difficult - as any innovation may be - but I am absolutely convinced that they are possible. For example - a way to do a cutting edge, 3D printed electric motor that competes and exceeds industry standards. Or a small filament maker from recycled materials that makes sufficiently good filament for producing professional grade cordless drills with tight quality control. Or a small, low cost CNC torch table that can produce 3D printer frames and heavy blades for a plastic shredder that rounds out the open source microfactory for the Incentive Challenge.

The whole point of the Incentive Challenge is that Collaborative Design - which if properly incentivized - is the only route that makes the above feasible - and why it would simply be unfeasible in a standard corporate context because of the large scope would otherwise make such an undertaking very risky and expensive. It is on one side the ethical foundation that motivates people to do something bigger than oneself - and which prevents standard corporations from doing the same thing - and on the other hand the livelihood/financial incentive to collaborators - and the 'glory' element of a well-publicized incentive challenge.

So if this idea of ethical and practical incentive challenge is truly sound - the Incentive Challenge should work to produce unprecedented results. However, this is difficult precisely because it is a stretch of imagination in a proprietary society. For me, I have to allow collaborative design to take over - relax and set the guidelines - without worrying too much about the proofs of concept because each of the technical proofs of concepts has already been done by others. The easiest route is to make sure that we invite all the others to participate in the challenge. My task should be reaching out to them - collaborating with them - instead of trying to redo and build upon the work they have done. I would just need to structure the rules that the others are incentivized to show up. This means researching who all the others are, talking to them. I love doing that - it is rapid learning for me.

We have still a goal of 50 STEAM Camps prior to June 1, 2020 - as we start the Summer of Extreme Design Build 2020. Collaborative, transparent, inclusive design for an economy of abundance implies this directly as a way to the Incentive Challenge:

9 Day STEAM Camp. Focus on 4 first days Boot Camp in OSE methods. Invite the others who are already doing cutting edge stuff to present, with the last 5 days of STEAM Camps being Project Days dedicated specifically to creating a simple, viable 3D printed product of some sort. Pay the presenters - with rough budget of $12k gross, $5k for the Superstar Instructor for 5 days, $2k for materials, $1k venue, $1k video and publicity, $1k admin staff, $1500 (12.5% of gross goes to OSE) + anything above baseline budget is shared 50/50 with Instructor. Superstar Instructor attracts their audiences to the Camp - 12 people need to register for above costs to be met ($1k per seat).

The instructors that we meet along the way are also potential instructors for Summer of Extreme Design Build 2020.

And the first steps now are Production Run 1 (12 printers), and Production Run 2 (12 printers), and probably Production Run 3 (12 printers) at net $400 per printer. And keep working on The Book, to publish June 1, 2020.

The time budget on Marcin's part is most tricky. To get to 50 STEAM Camps - need to contact teachers and potential venues.

The question for STEAM Camps and Incentive Challenge is scope. Current thought:

  1. Cordless drill is 3D printed in a self-replicating microfactory to lower barriers to entry. Microfactory consists of:
    1. 3D printer
    2. Filament maker for producing 3D printing filament from the waste stream
    3. Slow plastic shredder, 1/2" blades, stepper motor with large geardown.
    4. 4x4' working area CNC torch/router/circuit mill with interchangeable heads for making 3D printer frames, shredder blades, and good 3D printer extruders. CNC Circuit mill can make 3d printer extruders using an indexing head to function like a screw machine. Inclusive means that we don't want to pay $250 for just the extruder for the 3D printer. Large prints are required for filament shredder geardowns, and pave way for product diversification into plastic lumber, furniture, and construction materials that are 3D printed.
    5. Coil winding jigs for electric motors
  2. This opens up the ability of Collaborators training/capitalizing others. Incentive structure should reflect this. This is because knowledge to recycle plastics of all types effectively is broad - and requires a crowd-sourced effort.
  3. You pair up with a mentor who trains you and helps you secure the necessary equipment - via the self-replicating microfactory.

Time budget

  1. 2 weeks to can and clone a STEAM Camp Curriculum, enlisting others such as William to co-createas microchunked curriculum in 2 hour sessions. That makes for 8 solid lessons in first 4 days, the other halves of these days spend on building the 3D printers from scratch. The idea is that the Instructor is expected to create Basic Curriculum - based on a working product that they already know how to build - and which the $5k pays for for the 5 days of their tutelage.
  2. 2 weeks to proof-of-concept the $10k/month revenue model around 3D printing.
  3. 8 weeks - Create judging guidelines for the Incentive Challenge. Publishing/designing/fundraising the Incentive Challenge. Negotiating terms with HeroX - making sure all terms are collaboration-centric
  4. 1 week - set up the Stack Exchange open source upvoting site
  5. 1 week - Create 3 tutorials - 1 on using the wiki for embedding content, 1 on OSE Linux and installation, 1 on FreeCAD and part libraries
  6. 1 week - Incentive Challenge Intro Video.
  7. 1 week - create an online course around the STEAM Camp
  8. 2 weeks - D3D Simple kit productization
  9. 1 week - build CNC torch table with 4x4 foot working area
  10. 2 weeks - build shredder + filament maker
  11. 12 weeks full time - 24 weeks half time - book v1.0
  12. 4 weeks - lining up Summer of Extreme Design/Build instructors
  13. 4 weeks - lining up World Tour
  14. 2 weeks - Belize Build
  15. 2 weeks - vacation
  16. 2 weeks - develop distribution
  17. 1 week - set up Amazon Store
  18. 1 week - Contributor Agreement, Trademark, Legal
  19. 1 week - Website for Incentive Challenge

37 total so far

Put book after the Incentive Challenge.

Point 3

I would venture to say that as for me, S's challenge may be developing a new psychology of collaboration that embodies the obvious principle that collaboration produces better results. Our challenge seems to be psychological - but also executive - in nature. It is about translating an obvious principle to execution - given that most of the world appears to know very little about true sharing or collaboration. If we understand the potential clearly - then we can understand how to incentivize behavior to realize that potential. The result is inevitable - achievable based on letting go the floodgates of collaboration - both in our minds and helping the actual collaborators break those barriers. I do not believe the question revolves any around the technical feasibility (integrated hardware technology delivered at a cost that enables widespread replication) - but around setting up an infrastructure/incentive structure for open collaboration. I think S's biggest advantage is understanding incentives in performance marketing. It may be that S understands how to translate the field of performance marketing for the obvious economic case of collaboration. Perhaps clarity on the economic model of open collaboration - spelling that out explicitly - may help. For starters, we are creating $2.5M of investment via a $250k challenge - leveraging investment dollars 10x by virtue of the Incentive Challenge Format and resulting asymmetry between effort and reward given. Say 1000 people participate, at 100 hours of effort - that is 100k hours which we can value at $25/hr for $2.5 M. Next - take the fact that our Rules of the Game reward publishing early and often and building on others' contributions, where all contributions are published openly. Then if the scope is large - but every team helps every other team - instead of fragmenting, for example - into 424 teams [1] - then we can assume 424x improvement in results when everyone is collaborating, not completing.

Assumptions are:

  1. We leverage about 10x the reward in terms of available contributions
  2. We 10-100x the quality of the result by enforcing collaboration
  3. Perhaps the largest current trend that we build upon is the circular economy - products designed for a lifetime, not planned obsolescence. We can make this a reality via open source design, community-based production and service, and access to low cost open source tools. This in itself is a 10x increase in value, and we should be able to capture this value to make the incentive challenge a success
  4. Some people may be disincetivized by having to work as a team, but more people will be incentivized than disincentivized
  5. Cordless drills are a $10B global market
  6. 3 Year Distributed Market Substitution timeframe is feasible - and will require Design for Absolute Distribution - ie, total fearlessness in terms of letting go of control
  7. Careful balance between anarchy and focused results must be struck.
  8. Plastic recycling on a small scale at low cost is feasible. No technical a priori reason exists for the contrary.
  9. Elimination of plastic waste towards full reuse is possible, extending useful life of plastics 10x-100x nominally
  10. Low cost microfactory infrastructure is possible
  11. 3D printed plastic/metal composite geardowns can provide strengths for plastic shredders (see 3D Printed Geardown
  12. Universal Axis can provide the motion system for 3D printer, CNC torch/router/circuit mill

Wed Jun 12, 2019

Reaction by S

  1. How satisfied am I with the coaching process and/or student?
    1. Very satisfied. Only gap that I see at the moment is my struggle with how to get Marcin and I on the same page as to the ‘plan’ to proving the viability, as an alternative business model, of open source design for hard goods. We are consistent as to the key role the design challenge will/can play in the validation of our hypothesis that collaborative and open design can/will lead to superior products (better, faster, stronger...), and we’ve spent some productive, though not yet enough, time discussing elements of that contest that are important to incentivize the behavior we want and reward those who comply. My concern is that we have only scratched the surface on all that needs to be done to set up that contest for probable success. I own this as my shortcoming so far, but feel we were able to make some progress on this in our 6/12 session. My expectation is to focus more on us collaborating on a plan with goals and milestones that we agree have to be achieved in advance of executing the contest.
  2. What do you like or dislike about the mentorship relationship?
    1. Nothing I don’t like. I’m fascinated by the possibility of a community committed to a collaborative design/build economy.
  3. What changes would I like to make?
    1. Time has been and will continue to be a challenge for me. It’s not the time I spend with Marcin that’s my challenge, it’s all the time I know I need to put into preparing for our sessions and that I have been putting in to prepare. While Marcin is immersed in this idea and the work associated with it, I’m very new to all of it and, to be effective as a mentor, I know I need to put in a lot of time understanding the assumptions at the basis of his beliefs. While this has been stimulating and enjoyable, I have struggled finding the time to do this and feel I’ve only barely been able to do so to date. To that end, I will be terming off of one of the not-for-profit boards I Chair on June 30th and will not take on another board assignment or external coaching/mentor relationship until my commitment to Marcin is complete.
  4. How do I plan to apply outcomes from mentoring in life or work?
    1. I’m honestly not sure yet, but Marcin thinks about problems differently than I do and that’s been a good experience for me. While I’m very comfortable in the ‘big picture’ planning process, Marcin is very quick to identify logistic challenges we’ll encounter in the execution phase based on ideas we’re discussing which has been very helpful in allowing for us to rethink design portions of what we’re creating before we’ve committed to a course of action. This type of adjusted thinking can likely be very helpful for me in how I approach business challenges my clients are facing.
  5. Learning Goals: To what extent am I showing new skills or knowledge?
    1. My talent has always been rooted in not coming up with big ideas but in making big ideas more impactful and likely to succeed. Building on the ideas versus developing them. Marcin is pushing me to help co-create the big idea here of how to prove open source design build potential as both a superior way to develop products as well as a means of creating an efficient and virtual supply chain yielding long term financial independence to those who participate in the OSE community. This is not the role I would traditionally play and its been both a challenging and rewarding to develop these new muscles.
  6. What new awareness or insight has emerged from the coaching process?
    1. As simple is this sounds, scaling my business is completely dependent on a culture of collaborative partnership and communal success, however, with offices and employees in 8 offices across two continents and many time zones, this is really challenging. I’m gaining insight into the challenge of making this level of cooperation a reality and how ingrained in business culture the economy of scarcity is and how hard it is to shift that to a growth mindset culture.
  7. To what extent has coaching had an impact on the client’s level of capability?
    1. A partnership not necessarily a mentorship relationship is my comfortable place to collaborate. I’ve been struggling with making sure Marcin is not seeing me as the one with the answers, however, seeing how Marcin is taking my questions and suggestions and making those into something different is helping me feel more comfortable being bold and taking chances. I attribute this to Marcin making me feel like he’s looking for my strengths to compliment his, not looking for me to give him answers and tell him what he should do.
  8. What specific skill set do I require to move forward?
    1. I need to function more as a consultant than a stake holder. I have developed such a fascination and enthusiasm for what we’re working on together, that I find that I’m inserting myself into ‘the work’ while that isn’t where I should be. I need to become comfortable being a consultant to Marcin and an outside resource for guidance, feedback, and holding him accountable.
  9. Application -How have new skills or ways of interacting been used in real work situations?
    1. I’m not sure they have yet. I’ve always been someone who prepares thoroughly for collaborative partnerships with my clients and that’s the skill I’ve found I’m using the most with Marcin. If I’m able to function as a consultant to Marcin, I’m hopeful I’ll be able to feel more comfortable adding that to my skill set in my business.
  10. To what extent has behavior change occurred on the job as a result of coaching? In my career, I’m seen by those I’m coaching or mentoring as one of the foremost authorities on Performance Marketing and therefore, I find myself assuming my answers or ideas are more likely to be right than the ideas or answers of those I’m coaching. Working with Marcin, I’m learning how to be comfortable guiding and challenging vs. teaching.
  11. Impact -What difference has the coaching process made in actual organizational results (e.g. sales, errors, retention, morale, creativity, time-to-market etc.)?
    1. None to date, but I expect that to change
  12. What is the return-on-investment realized through coaching for the organization?
    1. It’s helping me develop skills as a coach (discussed above) that will help me have a better context around how I coach within my own organization

Wed Jun 12, 2019 - Marcin Feedback

Reaction by Marcin

  1. How satisfied am I with the coaching process and/or coach?
    1. Very much satisfied because the relationship appears to be one of mutual learning. At the same time, this is all ground-work laying time where we are still at the vision level, and I am hoping that the apparent progress will be just as great when we transition to the execution.
  2. What do you like or dislike about the mentorship relationship?
    1. I like the collaborative nature, I don't like that there is some discontinuity between meetings.
  3. What changes would I like to make?
    1. More discussion of failure points. This is too easy right now. Or maybe it should be easy? Also, more specific feedback from S on development/planning points that I submit for review - including this feedback:) Also, more insight on how I can help S in his learning goals and what his pain points are.
  4. How do I plan to apply outcomes from coaching in life or work?
    1. I am applying the learnings to raise the bar on the Incentive Challenge doing by gaining clarity and integration.

Learning Goals: Goals for Marcin

Specific feedback requested. How can S help me in terms of skill sets that I require. If I see anything that I could share with S about what he could help with.

  1. To what extent am I showing new skills or knowledge?
    1. Gaining tighter planning ability: for example, I hired temp workers for the first time to meet some of the goals for the STEAM Camp.
  2. What new awareness or insight has emerged from the coaching process?
    1. I am gaining clarity on big vision thinking, attaching more realistic execution plans to my visions of progress. For the first time since the post-TED Talk era when I learned the difference between vision and execution - I am getting back to closing that gap while not reducing the scope of the vision. I feel I am getting the enterprise skills that were missing - and mainly that is about defining viable business models. We have gained much proof-of-concept on the productivity required for enterprises - now it's time to actually execute on those enterprises.
  3. To what extent has coaching had an impact on the client’s level of capability?
    1. Being mentored by a high performer simply raises the bar for me by diffusion - just opening up new ways of thinking and possibility in the execution phase. Just hearing reinforcement - and forward-moving ideas on the Incentive Challenge - makes success more realistic for me. I am back to grand-visioning, and now for the first time with much more specific ideas on execution. For example, I could outline a budget for the Summer 2020 with 24 students at one time and $150k revenue and 3-4 support staff. This example shows that we can make significant forward motion on prototyping in a sustainable way, and if the program succeeds, we can clearly scale it further and finally attain a scalable open source product development process that can scale to branch sites and to classrooms. This combined with the virtual Incentive Challenge program can become a significant way to develop open source enterprise and thus have a tangible impact on creating the open source economy. I see a clear vision of transitioning global culture from the scarcity-mindset to collaboration.

What specific skill set do I require to move forward?

  • My main pain point is defining and executing a support/organization/team infrastructure to allow the Incentive Challenge to turn into a sustainable program and business. This is to address my historical difficulty of funding/resourcing a support team. I may have some practical lessons to learn regarding incentive structures to align team members with the critical path - as we negotiate between right livelihood and the current economy.
  • I need help in defining what is the granular set of functions/roles required to execute - primarily with the end goal of establishing a program that does not require my day-to-day effort - but just executive direction.
  • Help in defining the specific process and operations that is required to execute on the above
  • Team functions and staff required to support the program - so that no details are left behind
  • Help in defining a budget and business plan for the above implementation, and assistance in strategy for securing the budget, and possibly help in securing the budget
  • Insights into management protocols that foster collaborative, accountable, transparent, correctly-incentivized contributions - both from the core team and our new clan of Development Collaborators (people who produce the drills)
  • Insights into leadership style that can or soft skills that I need to manage a high performing team.
  • What do we learn from the operations of HE Inc that applies to effective management of people and program?
  • Feedback on questions that I appear not to be asking at this point but should be?
  • Feedback on the Marketing Ecology for the Incentive challenge - how all the elements reinforce effective marketing for the Incentive Challenge
  • Incorporating 3 month Summer of Extreme Design/Build that includes Incentive Challenge Hands-on Skills Crash course
  • Integrating OSE Design Guides as an essential rallying point for training a development community
  • Driving online and Amazon sales
  • Demonstrating a sustainable distributed production business model with the 3D Printer
  • Allowing time for Filament Maker and Shredder infrastructure to be built
  • Integrating the Book and resulting World Book Tour as the next-phase rallying for OSE development, also paving the way for the next TED Talk where people then have a clear guide for how to get involved
  • Incorporating Teacher Training for starting Student Clubs in many locations
  • Integrating the upvoting Stack Exchange platform into our work
  • Building a second Workshop/Multipurpose building for the Incentive Challenge - meeting space/auditorium/fairgrounds that can house an audience of 200. Intent to invite 200 participants to the Design Challenge Build - for the 100-200 enterpreneurs who begin building the cordless drill. Final judging of winners, development and meeting in the form of the first OSE Distributive Enterprise conference.

Application

  1. How have new skills or ways of interacting been used in real work situations?
    1. Hired temp workers for site work. Began on specific revenue models for integrating all of OSE work. Started thinking more about proper incentive structures for performance.
  2. To what extent has behavior change occurred on the job as a result of coaching?
    1. This is my first relationship where I am motivated to put time into its various aspects from feedback to planning and preparation - as all of the work seems to be on-critical-path. It seems like no time is wasted on non-essential things, and all is converging to a focused execution. I can't tell which part of that is due to my increased focus vs S's guidance.

Impact

  1. What difference has the coaching process made in actual organizational results (e.g. sales, errors, retention, morale, creativity, time-to-market etc.)?
    1. Ability to formulate a clear goal for 2020 during release: adding a 3 month Summer of Extreme Design Build that includes training for potential contest collaborators.
  2. What is the return-on-investment realized through coaching for the organization?
    1. I have been able to define a clear goal and economic transformation milestone: distributed market substitution of the cordless drill industry on a 3 year time scale from Challenge completion - to demonstrate that collaboration, not greed, can drive an industry sector - which has profound implications for the economy as a whole.

Sat Mar 23, 2019

Reaction

  1. How satisfied is the client with the coaching process and/or coach? (Seems that there are two distinct questions here.)
    1. Extremely satisfied. Empathy, listening skills, unassuming humility of coach are exceptional. Relationship appears to be mutually constructive.
  2. What does the client like or dislike about coaching?
    1. Love the flood of new possibility that was opened as with a magical key. No dislikes yet.
  3. What changes would the client like to make?
    1. No changes as of yet.
  4. How does the client plan to apply outcomes from coaching in life or work?
    1. I would like to use the learnings to transform a select multi-billion dollar industry to open source product development and distributed production on a time scale of 3 years.
  5. How does the client think that coaching outcomes can impact the organization?
    1. The coach's skillset inserted into this relationship can provide the necessary tools to succeed, thereby demonstrating the first clearly-visible and noteworthy case of industry transformation to open source, paving the way for a cascade of such transformation in other industries.

Learning - goals for Steve, and Goals for Marcin

Specific feedback requested. How can Steve help me in terms of skill sets that I require. If I see anything that I could share with S about what he could.

  1. To what extent is the client showing new skills or knowledge?
    1. Tactical approach proposed by coach is initial validation of the right direction. The second conversation opened up my perspective on the role of collaborators (as potential long term developers as opposed to just incentive challenge contributors) - which can potentially shift the outcomes of this work in a significant way in the positive direction.
  2. What new awareness or insight has emerged from the coaching process?
    1. That the possibility of Distributed Market Substitution can be validated on the grounds of economic efficiency - ie - that a distributed, open source approach to economics can be made to work if the incentives are structured properly.
  3. To what extent has coaching had an impact on the client’s level of capability?
    1. The shift so far has been conceptual inspiration.

Application

  1. How have new skills or ways of interacting been used in real work situations?
    1. I have already shared the insights with our development team with positive feedback, and team is already seeing new possibilities here. To be continued.
  2. To what extent has behavior change occurred on the job as a result of coaching?
    1. As a result, now I can speak more authoritatively about the feasibility of what we are trying to do.

Impact

  1. What difference has the coaching process made in actual organizational results (e.g. sales, errors, retention, morale, creativity, time-to-market etc.)?
    1. Team morale shot through the roof. To be continued.
  2. What is the return-on-investment realized through coaching for the organization?
    1. The potential return on investment may be quantified as the revenue (livelihoods) created, which I would like to be $5B in 5 years.

Survey

  1. How satisfied am I with the coaching process and/or student?
  2. What do you like or dislike about the mentorship relationship?
  3. What changes would I like to make?
  4. How do I plan to apply outcomes from mentoring in life or work?
  5. Learning Goals: To what extent am I showing new skills or knowledge?
  6. What new awareness or insight has emerged from the coaching process?
  7. To what extent has coaching had an impact on the client’s level of capability?
  8. What specific skill set do I require to move forward?
  9. Application -How have new skills or ways of interacting been used in real work situations?
  10. To what extent has behavior change occurred on the job as a result of coaching?
  11. Impact -What difference has the coaching process made in actual organizational results (e.g. sales, errors, retention, morale, creativity, time-to-market etc.)?
  12. What is the return-on-investment realized through coaching for the organization?
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