live the questions now

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Last Thursday I attended an awesome panel at Demos, one of those organizations I’ve always heard good things about but never actually “met.” Three panelists spoke and took questions for two hours about the implications of having multiple generations in the workforce and what it means for the nonprofit sector. Below are my “liveblogged” notes (which, really, have turned into “slow blogged” notes since it took me nearly a week to get them up).

But first, one impression.

This was a relatively small event, but a far more diverse crowd than anything I’ve been to in a while (ok, not including the Inauguration). Not only were there more people of color than I usually see at both nonprofit and K-12 education events, but there were also other young professionals there, which was hugely refreshing after several years of dragging down the average age everywhere I go. Yet I was in the minority in one way — I was the only person taking notes on a laptop. Sure, I am biased toward events that have a technology focus, and this one did not, but it left me wondering, what are all these people going to do with their handwritten notes? I don’t just type mine for the sake of speed, but because it puts me one step closer to sharing them with my network, putting the information out into the wider world. I don’t doubt that my colleagues in attendance will make excellent use of this knowledge in their nonprofit settings, and I really hope someone else typed up their notes and blogged about it, too, but it really made me think that the impact of all this social media for my generation — which was most definitely represented in the room — has been exaggerated if it has little or no role in our professional development, reflection, and practice.

And now, back to the regularly scheduled programming.

Context for the panel:
There are four generations at work in the workplace — the previous focus of generation gap conversations was on leadership development to prepare for new leadership when baby boomers retire. Now economic crisis is leading to baby boomers not retiring, so we need to look beyond just intergenerational dialogue and leadership development.

Moderator: Christine Rhee – American Express Philanthropy (the next generation of nonprofit leadership is one of their funding themes)

Panelists:

Frances Kunreuther – Director of Building Movement Project, author of Working Across Generations

• Less than a year ago, the conversation in the sector was about filling the jobs of exiting leaders. Now the conversation is about older generations not leaving their jobs and the need to find ways to integrate younger generations into organizations and leadership.
• A decade ago, older generations felt like there was no one behind them to rise to leadership, younger generations felt like they were unseen and unheard.
• One change in the landscape has been an emerging recognition that there are leadership skills that could be taught beyond just energy and commitment

• Her book talks about rethinking the frames around generational shifts
• four generations: veterans of change (aka the Silent Generation), Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials/Gen Y — book defines each generation’s tasks and roles in leadership and each generation’s reaction to the generational shift
• many of today’s organizations have never been through a generational shift because they were founded in the 60s and 70s
• why is there fear about younger generations? why are younger leaders not taking positions?
• there are shared values across generations, but how people enact their values varies based on their life experiences and when they were born
• older people say younger generations are: not committed, too entitled, don’t want to pay dues, too sharp a personal/work life divide
• younger people say older generations are: burnt out, work is their life, not efficient, too many meetings, don’t listen
• there is no charted territory for a generation that should be retiring at 65 and isn’t
• how to build trust across generations?
• structural problem – people were saying they would leave their JOBS in five years (Compass Point studies), but it’s because they didn’t want to be executive directors anymore because the jobs were undoable, and they still haven’t left the sector/stopped working entirely.
• younger generations were always being asked to “give input” but weren’t allowed to be involved in decision-making – they hated this and wanted a different form of participation and accountability
• boards are also an issue – many organizations have boards that are much older than the staff
• currently doing a survey with Idealist.org to find out what works for younger leaders in the sector and how organizations can change culture and structure to implement such changes
• sector also needs to prepare for potential conflict of retirees returning to the workforce

Dave McKinney – Public Allies

• The conversation needs to be about organizational culture, not just “the pipeline to leadership”
• Public Allies: working to change the face of leadership by working directly with young adults who are emerging community leaders, name is a play on Public Enemy (founded in 1992)
• Alumni range from early 20s to late 30s – aspirations in the sector: younger ones say they want to be executive directors, older ones have aspirations but don’t necessarily want to be executive directors, oldest say no – they’ve had enough
• Younger people have no access to interact with leadership or be involved with decision-making, and so the possibility of being in that position still holds some allure for them
• Older young people are looking for other ways to effect change (entrepreneurship, private sector) because they’ve seen what doesn’t work about being an executive director – “don’t believe the hype”
• Public Allies is aging (staff in their 30s, organization is 15 years old) and trying to address generational gaps and culture shift as they work with the youngest leaders entering their programs:
  • managing for results, developing metrics for this (used to be all about process, now it’s about results) – this builds trust, lets people be accountable for their own work
  • the older generations’ obsession with static models is prohibitive to a generation that is used to open networks
  • “create monkey bars and not ladders” – instead of hierarchy, take a holistic approach to the work, create flatter organizations, take a more generalist approach to defining staff positions and advancing mission
  • changing the physical environment to be alive for younger generations

• lessons from Obama campaign:

1. built a powerful brand that reflected people’s aspirations
2. respected the possibility of change coming from the bottom up
3. had a clear and measurable strategy and managed for those results
4. excelled online and in face-to-face organizing (didn’t see these as binary)
5. ubiquitous web presence
6. supported and built leadership of young people

Alexis Terry – BoardSource

• Governance doesn’t usually make it into the conversation about the generation gap
• BoardSource’s mission now includes inspiring board service and reaching out to individuals who want to serve on a board, not just those who already do
• BoardSource study: only 2% of nonprofits have board members under the age of 30. 36% have board members between 30-49.
• Findings on how to engage young professionals in board service:
• common barriers:
  • baby boomers say they don’t know how to find younger generations
  • concerns about isolation (afraid of them being the token youth or token ___)
  • preference for board members to be chief executives or officers at corporations
• Boards need to go extend young people’s involvement beyond either answer tech questions or being the representative young person
• Boards should have an “age down” strategy – figure out your current board age average and plan to reduce it by 5 years over the next 5 years
• Top skills/qualities boards seek in young people in order for them to add value:
  • the ability to think long term (18-24 months into the future)
  • understanding technology as a complement to face-to-face interaction, don’t impose it as the end all be all
  • expecting the feedback loops to be different from what they expect at work – “board work is team work” – don’t expect individual recognition for contributions, the reward is the advancement of the mission of the organization
• Top qualities of boards that are open to young people:
  • view Gens X and Y as leaders today – accept our ability to contribute now
  • remember what it was like when they first joined a board
  • try to restrain themselves from framing situations with, “when I was your age”

Abridged Notes from the Q&A:

Frances Kunreuther (FK): it’s not that people don’t have ideas about how to create new structures, there often isn’t support for doing so – often a fear from boards and funders of an organization that is trying to cultivate a new structure.

Alexis Terry (AT): boards are learning that they need to model things for their organizations – e.g., modeling inclusivity, shared leadership. One way to do this is to set up an onboarding program for new leadership – e.g., pull from a young professional network or membership pool, leverage the ex officio status to bring in young board members (have a first year of board service with non-voting status as a training model).

Dave McKinney (DM): it is hard to do organizational change well, many organizations have a hard time fitting this in, being intentional about it, among all the other priorities.

Question: how does multigenerational partnership work in small or mid size organizations?

FK: often in small organizations, the leader or founder is so influential in the organizational culture that change becomes harder. “You can’t make change without struggle” – don’t be afraid of differences or struggle in the process of change, but there needs to be an openness to it, and all generations need to be open to change.

DM: sharing of stories is a good way to create space for the “congruency of values” across generations (especially when there is a perception of a values clash).

Question: how to deal with founder’s syndrome?

AT: BoardSource has a toolkit for founder’s syndrome and long-term chief executives, includes experiences of Gen Xers moving an organization from founder’s syndrome to them being there for only 5-10 years.

DM: consider value of transition plans, also having an executive coach to help leaders think about their style.

FK: sometimes it’s okay for organizations not to outlive their founders, and there are new organizations and social ventures being launched by younger people all the time.

Question: is one of the reasons that transition planning doesn’t happen because so many organizations follow a model in which the outgoing leader is totally kept out of the succession/hiring process?

DM: there should be responsibility on the part of the Executive Director to think about the position as something bigger than him/herself and work with the board to make succession happen.

FK: it’s a fine line – there should be a way to let the outgoing leader be involved, but not control the process. Also, there is more and more evidence of Executive Directors leaving their position, but not the organization – mixed results on that.

Christine Rhee (moderator): Important to embed talent management in the organizational culture so that there is a clear understanding of who within the organization has the abiilty to rise to new leadership when the opportunities emerge.

Question: Addressing people of color (and absence thereof) in leadership roles?

DM: need to make an intentional effort to develop leadership of people of color so we can contradict the notion that white people should be EDs, Development Directors, Board Chairs (i.e., the ones who control the money). We need to have conversations about privelege and power, which are often the elephants in the room, so that there is a culture where it’s ok to talk about it.

AT: Look at the work of the Foundation Coalition in California – ten foundations that have articulated what they will do to fund work that focuses on inclusion.

Question: how do you ask/know when the purpose of your organization is not valid anymore?

FK: outside forces tell us – when you can’t gather the interest from constituents that you once could…sometimes there are things that in our minds are important to us, but it jut isn’t the right place and time for it. And it’s okay to let things go because new things will emerge. It’s so hard to have that conversation because we’re so invested in what we do, but it’s really important for the board to ask itself, “are we still relevant?”

AT: Look at the work of Rick Moyers from the Meyer Foundation, who writes a lot about the role of mergers in addressing the relevancy question.

Questions: How to balance addressing basic human needs (hunger, homelessness, health) vs. this kind of overarching capacity building for the sector? And how to integrate this kind of civic education/leadership development in school?

DM: Public Allies’ strategy is to expose people to issues, teach them how to act on the issues they care about, and cultivate a long term commitment to working on those issues. If they’re able to engage people in the issues, they’re supporting the growth of our democracy and giving them voice on the issues that affect their lives.

FK: We need to teach critical thinking skills in conjunction with teaching the issues that matter in people’s lives if we want them to be able to make a difference. Also need to focus not only on cultivating young people’s individual voices but also the power of collective voice.