An Open Letter to Millennial Go-Getters: Slow Down, there are Levels to this

Over an eerie piano intro to his song ‘Levels,’ rapper Meek Mill voraciously proclaims, “Learn life, there are levels to this young boy.” Meek’s words are a reminder that titles and credit are the rewards of experience and action.

Like most lyrical interludes, his words are chock full of wisdom. Meek understands that his rise to celebrity was a long ascension that was built on the grit and determination demonstrated in his early years as a hip-hop novice – and that everything must be earned over time. It would be easy to dismiss Meek’s wisdom, but extremely careless.

My fellow millennials, do not take this post as an act of malice or judgment – for these words are curated on love and respect. 

Because context is everything and frames the understanding of all communication, let me set the stage to avoid the mayhem of being misunderstood.

In the summer of 2012, while white knuckling the last year of my twenties, I was awarded a position as the principal of a Philadelphia charter school. In my eight years prior to this moment, I’d filled a gaggle of positions at various schools around the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection. I vividly remembered the agony of waiting by my phone at 5:00 am to receive my next assignment as a substitute in the Philadelphia School District in 2004. I also recall the apprehension of being fortunate enough to experience my dreams become a reality (anxiety, as it turns out, doesn’t only come when at the bottom looking up). In August of 2012, I became a young turnaround principal; my dream was realized. Four months after becoming a principal, our school's charter was revoked. The next two and a half years were spent feverishly rebutting this decision. On Friday, June 24, 2016, a few months shy of my three year work anniversary we closed our doors for good. The dream had become a nightmare.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t able to be a school leader at 29, it’s that I wasn’t ready. This revelation isn’t a knock against my intelligence, work ethic, or capacity to create change, but rather an honest self-reflection that doing something is far different from reading, watching, or studying it. The art of doing, as I later found, was the hardest part. Fortunately, the taste of humble pie was an old comfort food that I had savored many times in the years leading up to this incredible opportunity. Diving head first into leadership proved to be the most rewarding – and emotionally draining – experience of my short life. The text that follows represents the advice I wish I’d received when answering the call of leadership.

1.       The best teacher is experience, not your point of view.

Fact: experience is essential. Myth: your opinion is important.

Like getting your driver’s license, experience isn’t something you can rush or fast track. Experience is the greatest predictor of future success, serving as a measuring stick to gauge our potential. This slow and brutal learning process gives way to clichés like “patience is a virtue” or “you’ll shoot your eye out, kid.”

Build up to leadership by stretching your skills in low-pressure situations. Try new ways of doing things by altering your approach to achieve different results. The more reps you get in, the stronger you will be when the stakes are high, and the burden is heavy.

2.       Understand that exceptional leaders make it look easy, but it’s not. 

Dynamic leaders can fool you into thinking it’s simple. Difficult things are rarely, if ever, easy; leadership is no exception. Ever try hitting a baseball? Consistency and repetition are the cornerstones of improvement. It’s all about getting at-bats. Watching someone hit a baseball may improve your swing, but it won’t ensure that you connect. Likewise, your general proximity to leadership won’t make you one by osmosis. 

Surround yourself with progressive people with different skillsets. Exceptional leaders are not one trick ponies. Rather, they’re well-rounded—owning broad and versatile skills that add value to a range of circumstances. To succeed, you will need a wide range of competencies in your arsenal.

3.       Communicating is easy, being understood is not.

Communication isn’t difficult because we fail to talk; it’s difficult because we fail to listen with the intent to understand. People have selective hearing, picking up on the things they want to hear as opposed to the things they need to hear. Feeling misunderstood will decrease your effectiveness and increase your frustration. Frustration is to efficiency as carbohydrates are to a person with diabetes, it will make you feel high and then send you crashing down. To avoid being misunderstood; learn to communicate effectively.

Learn to break things down into their simplest form and over-communicate. As time is the most precious of all commodities, clear and succinct communication will allow you to value people’s time, while increasing your ability to execute.

4. Your expectations may not align with reality.

Leadership is like your first school dance. Before the dance your body is filled with anticipation and mixed emotions; fear, hope, excitement and unrest are swirling around your insides like food in a blender. Equal parts ready and unprepared, you make it through the night, which seems like forever, with a sugar high and deferred dreams. All the while asking yourself, ‘How could this have happened?’ The long version: It was your first dance; you didn’t have the courage to talk to your crush – you lacked the foresight to move away from the chaperones and make the first move across the great divide of that gymnasium floor. Short version: You lacked experience. The dances that followed got better, easier, and more aligned to your expectations because you now had a frame of reference.

Create a tribe of strong, diverse, and empathetic people to help build you up when you face rejection. Surround yourself with people who will help you to balance the stress of work with the joy of living. Your inner circle will provide you with vital insights and perspective when the difficult aspects of your job make you feel like a square peg in a round hole.

5. Blame doesn’t filter down, it rises straight up.

When you’re fresh out of college or new to an organization, you have the luxury of passing the blame. There is one reason that allows blame to filter up: there are more of you than there are of them. Leaders are always outnumbered, making them easy targets for criticism and culpability.

Learn to take ownership. My first year as a Principal the phrase I used more than any other was, “I’m sorry. I take full ownership of this mistake.” When you get to the executive level, you will not survive without being able to own your mistakes and the mistakes of those that you supervise.

6. Difficult conversations are difficult.

Most people do not like confrontation. This fact is particularly the case of Millennials who are digital natives using technology that allows the option of delivering bad news via text, email, or social media. The result? We avoid anything that resembles discomfort electing positive interactions at the cost of telling the truth. Moving laterally across your company will result in more than increases in pay and title; you will have to tell people the inconvenient truth that their best just isn’t good enough. It is at this point in your journey that you will understand that human beings, when faced with owning their failures, can, and will, revert to the tantrums of their youth.

Don’t fret, like most things, familiarity breeds comfort. Over time, you will get better at waging difficult conversations, but they will always be draining. Practice makes perfect. To become more familiar with confrontation, you mustn’t avoid difficult conversations in your personal life.

For more explicit advice, be sure to observe the following do’s and don’ts:

Do’s

• Be humble, hungry, and hopeful
• Be relentless
• Be charismatic
• Be visible
• Be coachable and seek mentorship
• Learn to accurately self-reflect and take ownership of your mistakes
• Develop a growth mindset
• Focus more on doing than dreaming
• Learn to balance your work and personal life
• Work smarter by design to sustain your excellence
• Learn to appreciate each phase of the journey
• Create and maintain healthy habits

Don’ts

• Fail to plan
• Have unhealthy expectations
• Feel entitled
• Take shortcuts
• Be egocentric
• Be impatient
• Be arrogant
• Talk trash
• Give up easily
• Pull rank
• Become the stereotype
• Destroy your digital identity

As John Green so poignantly said, "What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?" Failure is a major part of any achievement, and certainly evident when we grapple with the remarkable. The purpose of living is to attack obstacles head-on, experience new things with the faith and elasticity of a child, and to leave the world a better place than we found it.

So, march on millennials – but with each step remember to tread with humility and respect for those colleagues, bosses, family members, and friends who found their success, over time, by learning from the mistakes they made when they too were spirited, young go-getters. Keep your head high and your nose low!

Humbly,

A Fellow Millennial