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Business Entrepreneurship Generation Y Place

Gen Y to cities: Don’t ignore us

Update: A version of this post was published here as an opinion editorial, and another version was featured here on Brazen Careerist.

The pull Madison has is inexplicable, but powerful. It is this magic that sleeps in the winter, and then explodes in the spring like confetti on your twenty-first birthday, that makes me love the city. Even the winters become part of the voodoo that creates the vibrant mix of people and food and ideas and lakes.

Madison defines who I am. My career, friendships, and relationships are delivered to me from the city stork, like they were birthed directly from this intoxicating energy.

My affair with the city is an epic romance. But the city doesn’t know it.

Madison isn’t alone. Despite consistently placing in the top of every list imaginable – from Playboy to Forbes – Madison, like many other cities, is ignoring one of its most competitive advantages. That is, young people.

See, as cash cows go, Gen Y is a big one, and cities are ignoring us – the young leaders, entrepreneurs, professionals and creatives – in their plans for economic development.

Partnering with Gen Y should be of the utmost priority for cities since we are uniquely positioned to stimulate economic development. For example:

1. Good jobs come from good people. Economic development starts with human capital. The war for talent is one of the most interesting and challenging issues that cities face today. Young people actively promote and contribute to the high quality of life in cities, and need to be able to connect to both people and ideas. We are the quality workforce that is indispensable to basic sector job growth. Without a strong cadre of young talent, employers will be unable to expand.

2. Competitive advantage starts with entrepreneurship. More than any other generation, young people today are entrepreneurs. To meet the small business owners, the tenants of research parks, and other key entrepreneurs in cities is to meet an under forty demographic. There is ample opportunity to provide dynamic support for young entrepreneurs and the talent coming out of universities. Young entrepreneurs are a powerful determinant of a city’s future economy. They cannot be an afterthought.

3. To new customers, cities have no legacy. Gen Y knows little about the negative perceptions that have been prevalent within the business community. We don’t know the history or the mistakes. This is an opportunity for cities to build positive goodwill through superior customer service for this new generation. Young people can help cities to think innovatively. Cities can then borrow that energy and willingness to change to jump-start a perception shift in the existing business community.

4. Spiky should be funded. Place is extremely important to Gen Y and largely determines our destiny in today’s spiky world, to borrow a term from Richard Florida. To become a taller spike in the world’s economy – to compete – cities needs to attract young talent. In turn, young people will develop businesses and new markets. Cities should allocate money to young talent groups that promote and build upon the city’s strengths and spikiness to create the competitive advantage that allows us to expand business.

Cities must proactively reach out to Gen Y. Young people represent growth, and must be engaged in a city’s future development. We are a natural partner and ally in stimulating economic development.

Talent city.

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Anticipating Spring

Anticipating Spring

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Career Finding a job Generation Y Workplace

Back Off: Gen Y’s helicopter parents are a good thing

On the third round of interviews for my current job, my interviewer was a Boomer whose opinion as the head of a similar and larger organization was valuable to my future Board.

After talking about Gen Y leadership, in which I blatantly quoted my blog to close the deal, she asked me what I would do if I witnessed unethical behavior.

“I would investigate to see if it was really unethical behavior,” I said, “or if I was misunderstanding the situation.”

It was the perfect answer for a business that loves gossip, but doesn’t like to make waves.

Then out of nowhere I felt compelled to add, “And I would probably call my mom and ask her advice.”

My interviewer smiled. Turned out my answer was right on all counts.

We ended up spending a large part of the remaining time talking about her relationship with her mom. She described how her mother had come to interviews with her, and how she continued to count on her mom in her high-profile position.

Gen Y isn’t the only one counting on parents for advice. This is behavior magnified and built upon from previous generations.

I call my mom all the time. Not as much as she’d like me to – a constant source of debate – but I value her thoughts and respect her advice more than anyone else.

She’s usually right too. Men, career, friends, she just knows. Everything. Annoying, that.

“Most Gen Y’s have strong, positive relationships with their Boomer parents,” Tammy Erickson argues at the Harvard Business Review. “They speak with Mom or Dad when they have a problem, and most feel that their parents understand them.”

I’m not saying that you should always listen to your parents, or that they’re always right. My own mother, who I referenced in my interview to get the job, and who praised me for my smart answers, was hesitant that I should even take it.

She didn’t really understand what I would be doing. I still don’t think she fully understands. But I took the job anyway.

I also listened to my mother at the same time.

Listening to my mom is recognition that I am becoming an adult. See, asking for help is one of the most adult things you can do.

There’s no one better to ask for help than your parents, because despite the fact that sometimes they might annoy or guilt-trip you, they really, in their heart of hearts, want the best for you. And they’re always proud of you. They always love you. That’s what parents do. And they know you better than anyone else.

I find it funny to read that some experts believe that Gen Y “may well shatter,” as the result of intense Boomer parental involvement. Do you know what I do when life isn’t going my way? I call my mom. And do you know what she tells me? “This is your life,” she says. “Stop crying and deal with it.”

Okay, it may not be those exact words, but today’s parents are not ignorant. They know that despite their coddling, Gen Y will need to become independent in order for us to succeed.

So we might as well stop getting up in arms that parents are helping their children. Because in the game called life, we really need as much as help as we can get.

“Use your parents’ insight to gain experience when you have none,” Rosie Reilman argues. “But don’t let them live your lives for you. This is your life. Take ownership of it.”

I agree. I’m not saying don’t grow up. We should grow up and take responsibility. I don’t believe, for instance, that you should move back home after college. Because of how I was raised, I think that’s irresponsible.

But I think we all feel, especially in our twenties – and maybe it never ends – that we’re doing a good job of just acting like adults. And maybe if we’re good enough actors, we’ll actually become adults someday. With the help of our parents, of course.

While Erickson believes we should accept all this as “a changing cultural norm,” Scott Williamson argues that “accepting this sort of behavior just enables more of it.”

But I believe we want to enable a workforce that asks for help, that respects their parents, and who aren’t afraid to admit that we don’t have all the answers. Certainly, there are instances when it can go overboard, but why must we continually let a few bad apples set the tone?

We shouldn’t sensationalize what is generally a good trend.

Motherly advice.

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In my head, I made up a story about this

In my head, I made up a story about this

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Engagement Generation Y Workplace

Generation Y is the ER doctor of generations

At the bottom of the hospital hierarchy are ER doctors.

I know this because straight out of college I dated two med-students back to back. Also, Belle’s boyfriend is a neurosurgery resident. He never lets me forget it. Which is fine because I’m not the one who thinks that great veins are a turn on.

An emergency room is open twenty-four hours a day, and responds to everything that comes in. ER doctors have no specialization. They know a little about everything, and so they also know nothing.

Generation Y is the ER doctor of generations.

We’re doing pretty darn good. We’re saving lives. But is it enough to live up to all the hype?

Not having a specialization means that we’re buying blueberry pies rather than making them from scratch. In other words, we’re not putting in the time to create quality, seemingly preferring quantity as proof that we’re a demographic force to be reckoned with.

What’s good about this is that we have the ability to respond quickly to issues that come up. The presidential campaign, for example, or the Virginia Tech shootings.

What’s bad about this is that it is an emergency room approach. We’ll fix things as they come along. Place a band-aid on and sing a song.

We’ve yet to look at the underlying structures of the workplace and the economy and cities and relationships, and therein lies the opportunity. It isn’t that we’re not making change already. It’s that we can be making more meaningful, more impactful change.

My own organization struggles with this. We often worry that in being everything to everyone in order to serve the varied tastes and interests of young talent, we are also nothing to nobody.

We also believe that we are doing many good things, and we certainly are. But we have issues. Issues that are symptoms of a larger underlying structure upon which the organization is built. And if you’re only addressing the symptoms, and not the underlying causes, you’re in trouble.

We’re scared to change, and indeed, we seemingly don’t have to change. We are a good organization. And Generation Y is a good generation.

But don’t we want to be great?

Without understanding, addressing, and changing our structure, Generation Y will forever be stuck in the emergency room.

We need not just to be the neurosurgeons of the world, but the researchers, the fearless learners, engaging in the constant “sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”

Ryan Healy of Brazen Careerist argues that “our fights and causes will be not to tear down established systems like the federal government and big business. Rather, we will strive to fix, repair and rebuild these broken systems, because history shows that the systems do work – if properly designed.”

And therein lies the point. The systems aren’t properly designed. If what we were doing was working, we wouldn’t have global warming, extreme poverty, and war.

Most of Generation Y is comfortable, yes, but the world is not.

Healy goes on to argue that our advances in the workplace are evidence of how “we aren’t revolting in the streets, but improving broken systems.” I hope that we don’t just improve, but redefine.

We do need to work within the system. It is only within a system that you will fully understand how to change it. It’s taken me six months at my new job to understand and grasp the intricacies of my organization in order to be in a position to actually address them.

It is only by being fully involved in the corporate cultures in which we work, in the neighborhoods we live in, and in the politics that govern us that we will be the civic generation of builders.

Generation Y is doing this already. As young workers enter the workforce, we begin to realize that life is harder than the sheltered life our Boomer parents led us to believe. This is good. We need to be a little surprised, a little incensed at what the real world has to offer. We need to test our idealism.

And then we need to use the gap between our current reality, and where we’d like to be, to not only fill the cracks in our foundation, but then engage in the often more interesting work of seeing what the foundation is made of.

Addressing the underlying issues, and not just the symptoms, is perhaps one of the most exciting things we as a generation can accomplish. Besides, we already have the passion and dedication.

Structural force.

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A river runs through it

A river runs through it

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Blogging

New look for a new month

I wasn’t planning on redesigning my blog. I was planning on spending the evening with friends. But I sat down to make some minor changes and before I knew it, 2:00 am rolled around and my blog was completely different.

Key new features include a new look and feel, drawing inspiration from some of my favorite bloggers. You can also search the blog using the Google widget in the sidebar, and whenever I post something to del.icio.us you’ll know under the “daily links i like” sidebar section. You can also see where I contribute under the sidebar section “community,” and I’ve placed the old mastheads under the “about” section if you’re feeling nostalgic.

I really hope you all enjoy the new look, and I welcome your feedback. I’ll be fine-tuning some things as time goes on, but if you see any glaring problems, do let me know. Thank you!

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Career Generation Y Workplace

Three ways to build credibility as a 20-something

This post was originally published at Qvisory.

As a twenty-something in the workforce, you will be questioned time after time. Here are three ways to build credibility:

1. Develop skills that travel.

Most likely, you’ll change jobs 6-8 times before your thirty. You need to develop a set of talents that will travel with you from job to job. Career coaches call these transferable skill sets (e.g. communication, interpersonal, and management skills).  Essentially, the skills you’ve been developing since grade school. Consistently developing these abilities will not only open the door to any job you want, but will make you successful wherever you go.

2. Hug thy naysayer.

Generation Y wants to be liked. We grew up being coddled by our parents, and frankly think we’re the best thing on earth and like to be told so. Not everyone agrees with us however, and a lot more don’t even like us.

While it’s important not to get wrapped up in what others think, you need to build relationships, even with the people bringing you down. Learning to deal with criticism effectively is about knowing yourself, who you are, and what your motivations are for working.

The next step is to develop mutual respect. When comments get heated on my blog, I often email the person and talk to them individually. I say thank you a lot, even when their thoughts make me want to scream. I appreciate that they’ve taken the time to respond to what I had to say. It’s best to engage in conversation when all the players are at the table. That’s how you learn.

3.  Don’t work harder, work smarter.

When a twenty-something doesn’t show up to the office at 9 AM, the rest of the world worries.  But our generation works differently. Make sure it’s in your contract that your performance isn’t based on when you show up to work, but if you get the job done. And if you want to wear jeans to work every day, say so. Be upfront about how you can add the most value.  You’ll work better if you’re able to choose how you are productive, and your results will speak for themselves.

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Stacked deck

Trying to stack in my favor

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Career Finding a job Knowing yourself Work/life balance

How I got my dream job (and survived)

This post about going from bottom to top was inspired by this comment. Thanks, Milena!

I walked in and almost everyone was sitting down, and the speakers were close, shoulder to shoulder. It was so hot and sticky outside, I went to the bathroom to freshen before sitting down near the door, lest the presentation be boring and I should want to leave in the middle.

Big Brother was the moderator of the panel, and I had seen him in the press, but never in person. After the event, we somehow managed to walk out at the same time. He said hello to me, in that special way he has, gleaming with charisma.

Much later we sat at a coffee shop, and I saw him repeat this behavior with other people who stared at him, as people often do. And I must have been staring too, because I remember the way that I felt was that my future was intrinsically and inexplicably linked to this man.

I couldn’t have known then that we would eventually sit in a car together as he expertly handled a disastrous situation. Or that we would have flurries of text conversations at nine o’clock at night. Or that he would be the one of the few people who could simultaneously inject fear and ambition into my dreams, that he would be one of the few to infuriate and inspire me all at once.

At the time, I was confused and unhappy. What I thought was supposed to be my dream job wasn’t working out and I felt claustrophobic in an invisible box, like a mime putting on a bad show.

I had a ridiculous time getting up in the morning, often rising out of bed just fifteen minutes before I was supposed to be sitting in my office chair. A three minute walk from where I lived. I didn’t really tell anyone at the time, not my boyfriend, or even my mother.

And little did I know things were only going to get worse, much worse, before they got better.

Eventually, it was mutually agreed upon that it would be best if I left my job, which sounds better than being fired, and it was just two or three days before Thanksgiving.

I felt a huge sense of relief, and full from a big plate of humble pie, I applied for and started my next job a short two weeks later. And then, a short two months after that, my body decided to send me to the emergency room. The day that I got out of the hospital, my boyfriend broke up with me.

It’s a strange feeling, hitting bottoms you never knew existed. But what’s even stranger is the wherewithal you find in yourself to keep going. That night, I cried on the shoulders of two of my friends, but in part of my head – the part that was growing an antidote to my flair for drama – I also thought that it was no big deal.

I needed to get healthy. I needed to get a paycheck to eat. I needed to figure things out.

So, I did that. With no other choice, it was remarkably easy.

I won’t describe much more about my second job because, in short, I loved it, and it’s difficult to write about such happiness without sounding absurdly corny. Suffice to say, the job was like a retreat for my career, and the organization I worked for was tremendously good to me.

So it was a surprise to everyone, most of all myself, when I started to feel restless later that year, and into the next. Seemingly losing it all made me remember I wanted much more.

That’s when I started this blog. Actually, I started a different one where I posted bad prose that I had written, and told around three people to go read it. Then I started this blog. And I told everyone in my address book to read it.

See, here’s the thing. When you put yourself out there for all to see, when you make yourself vulnerable, and you’re taking a big risk, and you’re doing all this because you can’t think of doing anything else, people will rally behind you. They will support you. Because people like to see others succeed. The universe will conspire in your favor.

The rush of this risk was so big, and the potential payoff so great, that I started to take more risks. I acted in a play where I learned the lines just eight hours earlier. I went skiing for the first time, fell on my butt, and got back up again. I learned sushi was the best food ever.

Oh, and I applied for my dream job and got it.

I don’t want to make it seem that I went through this big transformation over a short period and I know everything now. I didn’t and I don’t.

Let me be clear. It was really the years before this one, and those before that, which set me up to succeed. But eventually, you reach a tipping point and things begin to flow in your favor.

The pace since that’s happened has been like a water slide at a water park. The ride down is fast, scary, and exhilarating, and once you’ve reached the bottom, you can’t wait to make the long, hot and sticky crowded climb back to the top and do it all over again.

Because now I have an entirely new set of challenges and struggles that I face. I work hard, but also strategically and intelligently. And Big Brother, who seemed untouchable to me a couple years ago, is now one of my many mentors.

Dreams = Reality

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Career Generation Y Self-management

Figuring out your next career move without settling

Penelope Trunk’s latest post on steps to figuring out your next career move only makes sense because most people don’t want the responsibility of change. They will read what she has to say, feel a bit uncertain, but will nod along anyway.

This is good for those people, most people. Most people either don’t have the balls or are not well-equipped to do what they want.

The can cross off the “career-equivalent of winning the lottery,” because that dream was making them feel anxious anyway. And while they love to write, they can see that it gives them some sort of peace to admit that they may not really love it if they never make time for it. They’re good to go with the cubicle.

This is all okay. It’s called settling. And it’s a viable option. A good one that will make you happy.

Some others, well, they’re not settling. They are different from most people. This is the group that seems to find the prize in the cereal box every time. They’re leaning into the wind and winning, and the book industry is making a good deal off the fact that most people want to be just like them.

Along with the crowd that is Oprah, I’m currently reading, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, in which the author predictably states that the book, “can only awaken those who are ready.”

It is both a shame and a triumph that the most banal statements are always the most obvious, the most difficult, and the most necessary.

The only way you can be ready is if you’re ruthlessly transparent, authentic and honest. In the book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge argues that a commitment to truth is a “restless willingness to root out the ways we limit or deceive ourselves from seeing what is, and to continually challenge our theories of why things are the way they are.”

This is much different than knowing that you’re afraid to talk to your crush because you have unrealistic expectations of the happy movie ending.

Rather, it’s an advocacy and inquiry that rivals trying to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Or if you’d prefer, finding the one good-looking guy at the bar on a Friday night.

There is a shortcut, the sound of settling. It’s comfortable like a blanket over your shoulders, spaghetti in your stomach, sex in the dark.

Settling leads to mediocrity. It’s the acceptance of the “good enough” status quo.

Successful people know that the gap between our vision and current reality “can make us feel hopeless. But the gap is also a source of energy,” Senge argues. “Truly creative people use the gap between vision and current reality to generate energy for change.”

In encouraging yourself to rely more on your concepts of reality, rather than your observations, and in discarding your dreams and goals in order to be realistic, to settle, you lose this creative tension.

That’s why Generation Y is uniquely positioned to create real change in our next career move. We’re idealistic and yet keenly aware of the world’s scorecard. We understand, as Senge argues, that “the juxtaposition of the two, the dream and the present reality, [is] the real force for change.”

Fall into the gap.

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Career Generation Y

Listen to free podcast about my organization and Gen Y issues!

I was on a local radio show on Tuesday, Madison 1670 The Pulse, On Air with In Business Magazine, talking about my organization and a lot of Generation Y and Generation X issues.

A big thank you to Joan Gillman of the University of Wisconsin School of Business, and Jody Glynn Patrick, Publisher of In Business Magazine for inviting me to be on the show!

You can listen to the free podcast here. (A direct link to the free download, where you can listen in your browser or download the audio. A full list of available podcasts from the program is available here.)

Check it out… you can tell when I stop being nervous when I stop talking so fast.

Let me know what you think!