Good morning from a wonderful Fall, Vancouver day. I hope this note finds each of you engaged in changing your world for the better.
I’ve been facilitating a number of conversations in the last year exploring ways to involve “young people” in credit unions and other organizations. I sadly hear sometimes from “Boomers” that young people don’t have the same values, or are only interested in their selves and are therefore not interested in co-operation. My own observations have contradicted these views. I believe for example that credit unions have an extraordinary opportunity to leverage our global reach and to make an economic difference across the planet through cooperation and mutual benefit, rather than charity and hard nosed capitalist economics. And what should I come across from Harvard? A report of a study looking at “Leadership’s New Direction” reported in a blog of the same name at www.hbr.com
The writers, John Coleman, Daniel Gulati and Oliver Segovia write:
“After ananlyzing the stories of young leaders and conducting a survey of over 500 current business school students, we discovered that their worldviews and backgrounds differ strikingly from previous generations.” They note, for example that, besides being more highly educated, they are more focused on sustainability, they are seeking meaning in their jobs, they are globally focused, and they are overwhelmingly interested in “connecting the dots; 84% believe it is essenstial to understand the for-profit and non-profit sectors.”
Young people may have differing perspectives than some of their boomer relatives and friends, but who’s to say that the boomers have the ‘correct’ perspectives! It seems to me that working with young people who are into sustainability, meaningful work and the health of the planet as a whole can only be a good thing! Maybe we should be spending a little more time listening to them, rather than talking about them!
May this week find each of us listening intergenerationally at least once!