Welcoming Gen One to Corporate

I’m the first person in the current generation of my family to graduate high school, to go to college, to graduate from an MBA Ivy-League university, and to sit in the C-suite. It’s impossible to fully unpack all that is loaded between those serial commas in just one post. In hindsight, I didn’t have to go through all levels of the school of hard knocks along the way, if those around me were better equipped to develop Gen One talent.

In this series, I will explore my list of “dos” and “don’ts” for nurturing raw talent. I will share what I believe to be common denominator struggles of Gen Ones in corporate settings. I will suggest frameworks that employers should strongly consider setting up to ensure the success of early career Gen One candidates.

Don’t tell a Gen One new to corporate “Don’t worry”.

Oftentimes, well-intended people say things that are meant to be conciliatory. Unfortunately, the hearer may perceive the comments as condescending and/or aloof, given the present realities of their situation. Telling an early-career Gen One “Don’t worry,” is like telling an angry person “Don’t be so upset”. When you’re telling someone “Don’t worry,” the desired effect is to allay concern and essentially to address underlying fears. However, when dealing with Gen One, they likely have a lot of concerns, and a lot of fears that your words could never alleviate.

Early in my career, I had a stressful work situation. The administrative assistant saw a change in my appearance one day and said, “It’s just a job, sweetie. Don’t let it get to you.” She meant well, but she didn’t have enough information to make that statement. It was much more than a job to me. I had no safety net, and no home to run back to. Questions about where I would live or how I would survive constantly swirled in my head at any hint of dissatisfaction from a supervisor. I knew what she “meant” but it was honestly unhelpful. If I didn’t get a promotion, or if I lost my job, my livelihood was on the line. I had to be concerned.

If you’re working with a Gen One and you want to refocus their attention, offer your sponsorship, and concrete action steps that both of you can take to get them on steadier footing. I’m not suggesting that anyone withhold crucial feedback, or that you “soft glove” Gen Ones. If any one can take a hit, it’s us. But to see that bounce back that Gen Ones are known for, provide realistic expectations, actionable feedback, and only foster hope if it should really be there.

Don’t tell them to “Figure it out”.

It’s reasonable to expect that someone seasoned in her career, from a long line of lettered family members with professional careers, could “just figure it out”. Expecting that a Gen One could figure it out is reasonable too. But you’ll have to factor in that a Gen One’s steps to figuring it out likely look very different than what you expect from a candidate like I describe above.

On the surface, telling a Gen One with little to no professional work experience to “Figure it out,” seems admirable. “I trust their ability to think quickly,” you might think to yourself. Or “I want them to prove to themselves that they can really do it,” you might say. To illustrate my point, I ask that you think about a major construction project assigned to a novice carpenter. To make it more personal, assume that it’s your home that you need built, and they send an entry level carpenter.

Telling someone with entry-level carpentry skills to build a house seems silly to me. It can be done, but would you and your family live in that house after it was built? No one will judge you if the answer is, “No”. You won’t live there with your family. That’s not because you don’t like the builder, not because you doubt the builder’s inherent intelligence, nor because you don’t have hope that one day, the builder can really do it. You and your family won’t live in that house because you know that today might not be that day that the entry-level carpenter is ready to build a house by figuring it out. If the carpenter fails, the carpenter will be disheartened, and may conclude that she was set up for failure. In truth, her conclusion may not be all that off.

Take this back to the work scenario. If you really want to see a Gen One candidate thrive, provide the candidate with the resources and training required to do the role. Don’t “see how they handle things,” from a distance. You could disengage the candidate and impact their confidence in their job. Indra Nooyi spoke at a Chief event recently, and she eloquently noted, “Once you impact their confidence, their competence gets impacted.” This comment was in conversation about diverse employees, but this could also apply to Gen One candidates as well.

Assessing the skill set of a new candidate should not be done in a petri dish as part of an experiment. If you see a gap in skills before the candidate arrives, have a plan to bring the candidate up to speed. That will increase your ROI completely. The most constructive feedback that I’ve received happened on my first day of a new job. “I need your PowerPoint skills to be top notch, so you need to take a training class of your choosing to develop great PowerPoint presentations.” I took the class and didn’t feel demoralized. Now that’s a win win!

I could keep writing, but I have an entire series to opine on this topic. Today’s article is the first in a series on being Gen One in the corporate world. Please send any questions or comments that you may have.

?Previous articles in my Chief of Staff series:

What It Means to be a Chief of Staff

The Path to the Chief of Staff

The Challenges of the Chief of Staff

If You Think You Need a Chief of Staff