From shock to generational complicity : young people at work change the game!

When I started my career – I belong to the Gen X-er — we were impressed by our more experienced colleagues. It was in 1987 that I was given my first sales territory to manage. Around me, excellence was palpable. The sales team was experienced and seemed to possess an innate sense of relationships. Meetings with clients were prepared as if a story was to be told, “story-telling” before the appointed hour. From them I learned the tricks of the trade while in return I only had to provide my energy and enthusiasm.

Even though I was still in my twenties, the branch office manager - where I started - simply trusted me. That changed everything. By doing this - even though I had shown nothing or very little - he put himself in the firing line. Much later, I realized that by taking risk you can really make the difference. For me - the beneficiary - it was an obvious proof that he was betting on my potential. I felt exhilarated, wishing for only one thing, to demonstrate that he was not mistaken about me.

Trust is a mark that changes everything.

Even today, I try to apply this management practice in everything I do as head of Hewlett Packard Enterprise France. Trust in youth, give them important strategic missions, take risks myself by exposing them to challenges they are not fully prepared for. Then they can learn, excel, go way beyond their own limits - just like top-ranking athletes - and show - to them first of all - that they are capable of better and of untold achievements.

Four generations are currently working in the company, and a fifth, the Gen Z, will arrive shortly. Unlike Gen X, which is composed of people who are transitioning to the digital world - where everything or almost had to be re-learned - Gen Z emerge with social networks, mobile apps and video communications. Digital for them is much more than a toolbox, it is a language, a culture, a way of life.

This generational complicity will be one of the factors for the economic, social and societal renewal.

From the beginning, I have gambled on pushing young people to take on more responsibilities within the company. To do this I rely on my convictions that we have gone in a short period of time from fear — a feeling of a generation shock due to the digital revolution - to an opportunity — a form of generational complicity. Why?

• First of all because transmission is today bi-directional. Before, the “old hands" transmitted their knowledge to the youth. That was the order of things. Today, everything that we know is out of date by the time we’ve said it. The transmission in some ways has been “disrupted”! Technological progress is too quick and knowledge is available to all. The fact remains however that the experienced people can still transmit their know-how, their relational skills and their emotional learning. You cannot find those anywhere on the Internet! In return, they learn from the young people the digital language that they only partially understand. The contribution becomes reciprocal and the relationship between generations is more balanced.
• Then, because the young generation shakes up the status quo and the established order, they reinvent — with the experienced people  — a different company, less hierarchical , more collaborative, more intuitive, bringing a different approach, the digital language becoming the cornerstone of this renaissance.
• And finally, because these “youngsters” allow previous generations to rediscover what they have lost: purpose! It was during a discussion with students at HEC Paris that I realized that overtime, we have lost the meaning we want to give to our existence. Under the pressure of the short term, we sometimes feel a loss that translates into a sort of uncomfortable feeling. This is typically the case today in the political arena. The youth of today will allow us to fill this void. If they are not so different from their more experienced people in terms of professional aspirations, they differ from them when it relates to the purpose and spiritual orientation they want to give to their lives. Over and above the search for a certain balance between their professional and private life or cause they want to serve, above all they want to answer the question “why”. 

I am sure that this generational complicity will be one of the factors for the economic, social and societal renewal.