A Case Study. Rado.

As with everything – discovering and developing people is a spectrum.

I am on the one of the extremes. A very concrete one. Very time intensive. And personal.

And I need to explain that, for people misunderstand what I do.

A light touch, grey eminence career steering.

I do not micromanage.

If they need to learn 5 000 units of wisdom in order to be successful I am focusing on the 5-7 that will catalyse the rest.

And then I cover the full spectrum. From the metaphysical through the philosophical to the practical like buying forks and knive

Let's have a look into how Rado became from zero to 100.

Rado's interest in computing began ... (give me here some details)

From age 14 Rado attends a 5 years Monday-to-Friday boarding school in Computer Science. The boarding school develops his independence and his ability to live peacefully w/ others for three boys share a room.

I discovered Rado one year before the end of the boarding school. I liked him and I began mentoring him. During the first 9 months I developed serious doubts if he will ever be good for something. But the little voice I have learned to listen to told me "patience".

What was key for Rado was his readiness to go. A customer had a project in Kenya and I said, "Why don't we send Rado?" "Why not?" they both said and not much later Rado was in Nairobi for a month mapping complex Excel spreadsheets to APIs.

With a similar readiness Rado went for a month to Peru...

...and for a year to Amsterdam.

Rado's easy going character and readiness to just go made him popular among customers and one day a customer began begging for Rado to work for him. I do not break previous commitments, so I kept saying "No." until one day there was an opening and with my typical grey eminence light touch I turned my fingers three time

So Rado joined that crew. Listened to my very minimalistic instructions and one day I saw myself in him. And I told him, "Rado, the time has come. You can without me."

Rado was the first of all young people I have mentored to become a "me". Not a copy. He is far too original for that. But to reach a point, where he can cover nearly the same scope, based on his passions and interests, without my supervision. No protégé of mine has ever made me that happy until that point.

"What I like most about Thomas is that he covers the full spectrum.

On the one extreme he has always helped me to manage situations on my own.

And then on the other extreme when I moved to live and work in Amsterdam he helped me find where to live and came with me to IKEA to help me buy forks and spoons and bed sheets.

Rado

"Once you told me to come to London to meet a potential customer. It was a 24 hour trip, but it was life changing."

Thomas

"This is my typical light touch, endlessly strategic mentoring. Giving them the most important 5-7 things out of the 5 000 they must learn, which will ignite and catalyse the rest."