An Open Letter to Young People on How to Succeed (From an Aging CEO)
By Unknown - September 07, 2018
An Open Letter to Young People on How to Succeed (From an Aging CEO)
Dear young people:
As most of you probably know, there is a megaton of online content about the strengths and weaknesses of your generation. As a Gen X CEO who employs a whole lot of you, I am not here to dispute or validate any of it.
Now that that's settled, here we go:
Adapt to generational differences of management.
My company has offices in Utah and California. For a long time, the California office consisted of a couple of folks in their early twenties and six Gen Xers. I'm making a generalization here, but I often observed that the Gen Xers were more conflict prone while the former were more conflict averse.
By "conflict" I mean a sort of blunt, in-your-face style that places a higher priority on getting a job done right than on the feelings of others. Clearly, this style isn't necessarily exclusive to--or even a hallmark of--older generations, but our current era places a greater emphasis on sensitivity than its predecessors.
If you're a conflict-averse young person, realize that there's a big difference between what seems to be and what is. If your Gen X manager seems aggressive or confrontational, don't take it to heart. There's a good chance that they're not really mad, so don't you get mad, either.
Align your personal values with company values.
I once had a young engineer inform me that he'd decided he was finished with the five-day workweek. Instead, he was going to work ten hours Monday through Thursday and take Fridays off.
It wasn't a request; it was a demand. When I explained that it didn't conform with the way we organized our engineering teams, he sulked. He believed that he deserved the lifestyle he wanted regardless of his colleagues, which is a silly view of the world.
He was a talented guy, but we didn't exactly mourn when he moved on. One of our company values is that we labor indivisibly, and his refusal to compromise hurt everybody. Strive to be what your company needs versus what you prefer to be on your own time.
Don't take your job for granted.
At the end of the day, job security is an illusion. This is true whether you own a business or work for one; whether you're junior or senior; whether you were educated at a state college or Ivy League. We're all vulnerable to the unexpected.
Never, ever sit back and think that you've made it, especially if you're young. Stay on your toes. Get ahead of the curve. If you embrace the nature of life itself--that there's no absolute security in anything--it creates humility.
Humility in turn creates strength. Strength, ultimately, is our best insurance that we'll survive whatever is thrown our way. Don't dwell inside the illusion that since things are killer now, they'll always be so.
Stand out.
This feels obvious, but let me tell you why it's not. It's difficult to accept criticism, but that's just what you should do when it comes to complaints about your generation. Accept the gist of those complaints--you're entitled, uncommitted, have an over-inflated sense of self--as categorically true.
Once you've done that, work your tail off to show that all of it is pure B.S. as applied to you. Arrive at the office early. Listen instead of lecture. Don't make special demands. Commit, commit, commit.
Remember that older people have plenty to say that's good about you, too. You're technologically brilliant. You're innovative and know how to network. Hang on to these qualities while proving that your purported defects are exactly that--purported, and 100 percent false.
Embrace your gifts and overcome your weaknesses, even if the latter simply means overcoming a stereotype by hustling extra hard to debunk it. Do that, and you're going to be a standout, and standouts move up and move fast.
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