高德思：先前你在我們的對話中提到了導師的重要性。我想到的是中國剛剛加入勞動大軍的年輕人和那些已經著手干一番事業的企業家們。就你的經歷而言，你提到導師對你個人、職業和思想的發展產生了重要的影響。這更多的是你個人努力的結果，還是歸功于那些教育機構建立的導師制度？這是如何發揮作用的呢？

導師制并不是通行的，我認為大家都可以從導師那里大獲裨益。但是我想很多年輕人是不會費這個勁或主動走出去尋找導師的。在我回答這個問題之前，告訴我你認為這在中國會有什么不同嗎？

我會給你一個例子。我在香港的一所大學擔任導師，他們讓新聞界的人做新聞專業學生的導師。這是個很好的想法，但是據我所知在中國其它地方并不常見。中國很多大學生畢業生就業很困難。然后我想到了實習，許多跨國公司在中國開展實習生項目，但這并沒有全面鋪開，而且也很難找。導師制并不那么常見，依我看來公司和教育機構應該考慮多開展這樣的項目，為年輕人才搭建更好的橋梁。

吉姆·柯林斯：這是很有意思的，因為我不了解中國與導師相關的文化規范。所以我不知道我的這種看法在這里是否適用。有些想法是基于我的自身經歷。對人們來說會是個挑戰。當我二十幾歲的時候，我意識到我真的很想要人指導我。就像我剛剛提到的，我意識到我從父母那里沒有得到太多指導。我記得我聽過一部有聲書，是采訪美國總統杜魯門的記錄。其中他有一句話：“我唯一確信的事是，如果你在30歲的時候還分不清對錯的話，那你就永遠也不會有那么一天了。”

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Thomas D. Gorman: You mentioned earlier in our conversation the importance of mentors. I'm thinking of both young people entering the work force in China as well as the entrepreneurs that are already trying to do something. In your experience, you mentioned that mentors had an important impact on your personal and career development and your thinking. Was that more a result of your personal initiative, or educational institutions creating mentorship programs, or ... how should that work?

Mentorship programs are not universal and I think all can benefit from mentors, but I think a lot of young people may not take the trouble or take the initiative to go out and look for that. Before I answer that, tell me how you think this might be different in China?

Well, I'll give you an example. I'm a mentor at one of the universities in Hong Kong, and they match people in journalism careers with students in the journalism department. It's a great idea, it's not very common in the rest of China though, to my knowledge and I think, when I look at these numbers of young people coming out of China's universities, many of them having trouble finding jobs. And then I think about internships, for example, multinational companies do them in China, but they're not across the board, they're not that easy to find. Mentoring programs are not that common, so it seems to me that maybe companies and educational institutions ought to be thinking about programs like this to try to create better bridges for young talent.

Jim Collins: It's interesting, because I don't the know what the cultural norms are in China relative to mentors. So, I don't know if my observations from here apply. But, there are a couple of thoughts I would have based on my own experience. And then kind of a challenge to people. When I was in my 20's I realized I really wanted to have guidance. And I realized, as I mentioned, I hadn't gotten that guidance from parenting, so much. And I remember actually listening to an audio; it was actually an audio book and it was a series of transcripts on interviews that had been done with one of our American presidents, Harry Truman. And there was a line in there where, Harry Truman said, "The only thing I know for certain, is if you don't know the difference between right and wrong by the time you're 30, you never will."

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Jim Collins: And I was 25 or something at the time and I literally pulled off the side of the road and I thought to myself, I have five years to figure this out. So, I came up with this idea of a personal board of directors. Now, companies have a board of directors, but I thought, I need a personal board of directors, I need a gathering of people who I can really look up to.

My own choice, I took a sheet of paper and drew a little oval like a conference table and I put seven seats around it. The first seat I filled was with my wife, Joanne. But, others I started filling in and I started really thinking, who would I really want to be on my personal board. Interestingly, a couple of them never knew they were on my personal board, but they were enormously influential on me.

And I chose them for their character more than their success, some of them were enormously successful people, but that's not why I chose them. I chose them for character, for the kinds of people they were, for the sorts of ideas they had. Instead of choosing employees for character I was choosing mentors for character. And these people had a huge shaping influence on my life, and I carefully would envision what they would say, but sometimes I would, actually if I had the opportunity I would ask them, and I would stay in touch with them. And by having a systematic mechanism like that, that became a way for a group of people to help me develop, and it was huge in my own development. Those people, at critical times, I didn't necessarily have that much contact, but they might have had a profound influence with one thing that they said.

Since then what I've come to see, is that mentoring then becomes a giant debt. So, if you had the privilege of having some great mentors, you have an incalculable factor. And as a result, I don't know how this would fit with the culture of China, I hope it plays here in the United States, but there's an informal process which you have to pay the debt back. And before you're done, your responsibility is to mentor others and then that becomes, and then you're open, it's not that you can on everyone, but as you see people and they come into your orbit and they seem coachable. You kind of take them on and it becomes your responsibility to do that. So, the next generation works on the generation coming up, and so on and so forth forever. Now, the other side of that I think sometimes involves actually reaching out to try to reach out to those mentors. That's why I say; I don't know how that would work in China. In my experience, I reached out to some of these people, directly and just said, for whatever reason, I would like to have their input and then I felt that my debt was to really listen. So, sort of a two-sided debt, if someone mentors you, you have to honor it. And if you have been mentored, you have to mentor others.