Personal Reflections by Art Mann About The Transition to a New Level of Thinking

I think there's a question, is there any, can you feel if you're about to make a transition from a different level of thinking and can you feel if something happens to you? I think when it does, sometimes you don't recognize that. Maybe if you were trying to look for it, you could feel it coming on. But I think the genesis of it, in a small company, it's a question of whether or not you've got if you're going to work at a level five, you need level fours near English, you need people at that level that are going to force you into that mode. I got into the transition when my oldest son joined because here's somebody with coming out of Wharton again, MBA he has, anyway, now dealing with Arthur and teaching him, and within the conversations and looking at what would my role be? My role would have to be, well, I need conversations, he needs to have proposals, and then I need to be able to say, "Well, how's this going to affect how are you going to buy the company? And then what about your brothers? And what about ten years from now and where do we go?" And you begin to get into the role where he's going to come in and say, "I think this is how we ought to do this." And I'm thinking, well, that's not a bad idea, have you thought of this? Have you thought of that? So you begin to reach back into your experience and test his thinking, and without that resource, he's not going to be able to develop, and you begin to sense the proper role, which is he needs somebody at a level above him, how does he test his thinking? And what's working now, which is the big change, is as we shift the roles, as my role gets shifted, it's a lot more comfortable for me because now I understand what I'm supposed to be doing. And I think now he understands what my role should be, and it becomes a much more comfortable, much more productive relationship. And.