Weekly Posts and Insights
Perhaps We Don’t Have a Generational Problem?
In the past year I have seen growing discontent with the focus on generations either in media, training or general discussions. “Why do we talk so much about the generations, especially the Millennials,” many people have begun to ask. Or I’ve heard, “This is a sham, another way to put complex people into simplified boxes.” I can’t say I completely disagree with these arguments. People are amazingly complex with many beliefs, different personalities and various values.
Millennials with Matt Episode 5: Why Millennials Are Vital To Your Workplace!
Generational specialist Matt Harrington discusses key reasons why the Millennial generation (1980-2001) are necessary and vital to our current workplace including the ability to handle a VUCA world, demanding a more nimble and agile organization and their ability to be social sharers of your company.
XPollination (Ep. 19) - Millennial Grit and Resilience
As a dynamic consultant, coach, and educator, Sarah Scala has over 15 years of experience in supporting organization development, leadership, and change management for diverse organizations. She is passionate about creating solutions that strengthen interpersonal skills and support change with individuals, teams, and organizations.
We met when Sarah was giving a presentation on “Sustaining Success through Mindfulness, Optimism, Resilience and Grit.” I was especially interested around the topic of resilience and grit and how Millennials fit into the equation. Do we have resilience and grit as a generation? Most older generations would argue that these core elements are lacking in this generation? Can we build grit and resilience?
So we invited Sarah onto the show to discuss with us a bit more about resilience, grit and success.
Millennials with Matt Episode 4: Becoming an 'Adaptive Coach' Through Situational Leadership
What does it take as a manager to start to create a healthy and vibrant relationship with your younger workers? Generational expert Matt Harrington talks about becoming the 'Adaptive Coach' and utilizing Blanchard's Situational Leadership model to understand how every employee evolves.
XPollination (Ep. 18) - Special Guest Dan Schawbel LIVE from the #VTSHRM15 Conference
XPollination was asked by the conference committee at #VTSHRM15 to do an exclusive interview with nationally-renowned Millennial speaker, Dan Schawbel. Dan Schawbel is the Founder of WorkplaceTrends.com, a research and advisory membership service for forward-thinking HR professionals, as well as the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding, a Gen Y research and consulting firm. Dan is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success (St. Martin’s Press) and the #1 international bestselling book, Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future
XPollination (Ep. 17) - Millennial Women
XPollination was live from the 15th Annual SHRM Vermont State Conference for this special edition of the podcast. This year the conference is titled, HRevolution: Change Tomorrow Today. What better way to talk about changing tomorrow today then to discuss the young, game-changing professionals themselves, the Millennials. I’ll be presenting at this conference shortly after the podcast at 3pm, but I also noticed another group of individuals presenting on Millennials with a unique twist – and this obviously peaked my interest! The two women I have joining me for XPollination are Jessica Sabick of Vermont Energy Investment Corp. and Lindsey Lathrop-Ryan of Change the Story VT, and both have just finished their presentation on Attracting and Retaining Millennial Women to Your Company. We'll take a deeper dive into their presentation and the topic of Millennial women.
Millennials with Matt Episode 3: Growing Millennials' Careers With a Leadership Lattice
A leadership lattice, unlike a leadership ladder, looks to expand a young professional's leadership capability by using a cross-section of many leadership opportunities both in and outside of work. Millennial expert Matt Harrington talks about how a good coach or manager is constantly building a leadership lattice with their Millennial workers to provide maximum retention and growth potential.
NEWS: Social Learning and Technology in the New Workplace Will Be The Focus of Harrington’s Talk With The Hudson-Mohawk Association for Talent Development
On Friday, September 18th at 8:00am the Hudson-Mohawk Chapter of the Association for Talent Development (formerly American Society for Training and Development) will host Matt Harrington, author, trainer and speaker at an event that focuses on organizational learning and preparing for the new “social” worker.
XPollination (Ep. 16) - Millennials and Branding
Special guest Jacques Bastien: Millennial Marketer, Hustlepreneur, Professor, Speaker, Writer, Designer, Founder of boogie, Breadcrumbs, and Authenpic is joining us today on another edition of XPollination. The founder of boogie (boogie.nyc), a disruptive social media and viral marketing agency helping brands engage with Millennials through photos, videos, music and conversations, Jacques has offices in Albany NY, Brooklyn NY and Los Angeles, CA . He is also a partner/investor/founder at a few others startups, including Cased Up (casedup.co), Breadcrumbs (trybreadcrumbs.com), Authenpic (authenpicapp.com), and What The Fee (whatthefee.co).
Jacques’s passion is in technology, startups, entrepreneurship, fashion, and social media. He runs a blog called hustlepreneur.co to help inspire, motivate and educate other young entrepreneurs. He is currently writing a book with my wife about young relationships. This book will feature stories from their relationship.
Jacques was the featured speaker this week at Startup Grind, which is powered by Google for entrepreneurs, as an up and coming young entrepreneur to watch.
…And Now Some Love (and Understanding) for Gen-X
Even though this is GrowingMillennialLeadership.com, it’s also important for us to look at other generations and understand what makes them tick and why they are the way they are. I have a Gen-X friend and colleague who likes to give me a hard time for posting so much about Millennials. So for him, and all of you ‘latchkey’ kids out there (including my older brother), this one’s for you.
As we have with other generations let’s explore some of the characteristics (both labeled and self-induced) of Gen-X. Remember, generations are more defined by life’s events that occurred during their forming years, then the actual dates in which they were born. As historian Robert Wohl put it, “historical generations aren’t born; they are made.” Gen-X, born approximately between 1965 -1980, have been labeled pragmatic, lazy, rebellious, pessimistic, able to take a punch, single, and solitary. Unlike the size of Baby Boomers (80 million) and Millennials (94 million), Gen-X has just about 46 million members, making it a dark horse demographic. They are the middle child of two larger generations and are often labeled the “forgotten generation.”