Most companies reward their best people by promoting them out of what they're actually good at. Your top salesperson becomes a sales manager. Your best developer becomes a team lead. And suddenly you're paying them more to do a job they weren't trained for — while they generate fewer results doing the job they were hired for.

There's a better way. And it starts with understanding the difference between a coach and a mentor.

In this episode, Chris Cooper breaks down the two-track system the best companies use to develop their people from the inside. Coaches help employees apply company standards and perform their jobs better — they're an investment in performance. Mentors help employees build careers and see the path forward — they're an investment in retention.

You'll learn how to identify the right people for each role, how to teach them to transfer their skills effectively (because being great at something doesn't automatically make you great at teaching it), and how to run a 3-month test to measure whether your coaching program is generating a real return.

Chris also covers how to connect your coaching program to the tools from last episode's company college — online courses, drip learning, gamification, and AI — so your college and your coaches work together instead of in parallel.

Plus: two concrete examples of executive mentorship programs that reduced turnover, rebuilt leadership pipelines, and freed up CEOs to actually lead.

If your best people are being wasted in the wrong roles — or quietly looking for the door — this episode is for you.

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/

Most small business owners are waiting for universities to produce the employees they need. The smart ones stopped waiting years ago — and started building their own training programs.

In this episode, Chris Cooper looks at a quiet trend reshaping how companies find, develop, and keep talent: the rise of the company college. Rolex opened a tuition-free watchmaking school in Dallas, complete with a monthly stipend and a final exam in Geneva. Google built a certificate program now recognized by over 150 employers. And just this week, MasterClass launched MasterClass Executive — a 12-week, AI-powered business school built with the University of Chicago and OpenAI, taught by Ray Dalio, Mark Cuban, and Nobel Laureates.

These aren't vanity projects. They're strategic solutions to a real problem: universities aren't producing job-ready graduates fast enough, and the companies that can't afford to wait are building their own pipelines.

Chris shares how he did exactly this at Two-Brain Business, and breaks down a four-phase blueprint any company can follow — regardless of size or budget. You'll learn why 15-minute daily lessons outperform full-day orientations, why gamification isn't just for millennials, and why your credential matters as much as your curriculum.

Your Golden Hour task this week: define one role, list 10 skills, write one 15-minute lesson. That's Module One of your Company College.

Next episode: how to layer a mentorship and coaching program on top of your training — turning trained employees into future leaders.

Business is good.

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/

Canadian universities are in crisis — and not just because the government cut international student visas. Fourteen Ontario universities are running combined deficits of over $400 million. The University of Waterloo is staring down a $75 million shortfall. Laurentian already went bankrupt. And through all of it, the response from most institutions has been to ask the government for more money rather than examine how they got here.

In this episode of BusinessIsGood, Chris Cooper makes the case that universities are businesses — whether they want to admit it or not — and they're failing at the basics.

Chris breaks down four specific failures holding universities back. First, fiscal management: institutions that built their entire revenue model around a single funding source they couldn't control, then acted surprised when it disappeared. Second, curriculum relevance: graduates entering the workforce without knowing how to use AI, navigate the gig economy, or market themselves — because their professors were hired under an industrial model that no longer exists. Third, the social experience myth: the "campus life" pitch that peaked in 1985 and mostly vanished, leaving students who were put into groups but never actually taught how to work in them. Fourth, and most critically, the failure to teach people how to think — skipping logic, self-leadership, public speaking, and entrepreneurship in favour of increasingly abstract academic programming.

The question universities need to answer honestly: what are they actually selling? And if it's critical thinking, real-world preparation, or how to manage oneself — most universities should put themselves through their own program first.

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/