Today I had the privilege of speaking at the inaugural TedxBoston event, hosted by the wonderful folks at Fidelity’s Center for Applied Technology (FCAT). It was an incredible experience full of wonderful people, performances, and yes, “ideas worth spreading.”
My short interlude covered a concept that I call “reverse-mentorship.” While I would love to take credit for the origin of the phrase, it’s something that I believe Barry coined while we were piloting out the idea.
In a nutshell I make the argument that reverse-mentorship, the pairing of digital natives with senior level executives, is the fastest way towards bridging the digital or generational divide. Here’s a summary highlighting my main points:
Meet the Millennials. There is no shortage of words to describe who were are in the eyes of our elders. Some say we’re spoiled, some say we’re naive. We’re most definitely inexperienced and yes, we care about ourselves a lot. To label us the “ME” generation is fairly accurate, however self preservation and pursuit of individual happiness has always been part of America’s cultural DNA.
Who’s in charge? A climate crisis, a broken health care system, a need for education reform, and a recession. For all the negative labels surrounding Millennials today, at least we can say we didn’t create these problems. Previous generations have demonstrated flawed leadership-styles that can no longer be counted on to produce the results we need. It’s time for change.
Reverse-mentorship isn’t about sparking a youth revolution. It’s not about asserting that one generation is better over the other. Rather, this is about expressing an opportunity for us to isolate our flaws, and work together to compensate for them. What Millennials lack in experience, we make up for in our digital aptitude, eagerness to learn, and desire for speed. We can help tenured professionals overcome their lack of technical finesse, in exchange for their knowledge and expertise. Together, we can create partnerships that reinforce organizational systems that are faster, smarter, social, and change-oriented.
I’ve met and worked with enough executives and professionals by now to know that this partnership of generations can work. How it actually plays out in practice…. that’s a completely separate post.
TEDxBoston: Reverse-mentorship and Bridging the Digital Divide
My short interlude covered a concept that I call “reverse-mentorship.” While I would love to take credit for the origin of the phrase, it’s something that I believe Barry coined while we were piloting out the idea.
In a nutshell I make the argument that reverse-mentorship, the pairing of digital natives with senior level executives, is the fastest way towards bridging the digital or generational divide. Here’s a summary highlighting my main points:
Meet the Millennials. There is no shortage of words to describe who were are in the eyes of our elders. Some say we’re spoiled, some say we’re naive. We’re most definitely inexperienced and yes, we care about ourselves a lot. To label us the “ME” generation is fairly accurate, however self preservation and pursuit of individual happiness has always been part of America’s cultural DNA.
Who’s in charge? A climate crisis, a broken health care system, a need for education reform, and a recession. For all the negative labels surrounding Millennials today, at least we can say we didn’t create these problems. Previous generations have demonstrated flawed leadership-styles that can no longer be counted on to produce the results we need. It’s time for change.
Reverse-mentorship isn’t about sparking a youth revolution. It’s not about asserting that one generation is better over the other. Rather, this is about expressing an opportunity for us to isolate our flaws, and work together to compensate for them. What Millennials lack in experience, we make up for in our digital aptitude, eagerness to learn, and desire for speed. We can help tenured professionals overcome their lack of technical finesse, in exchange for their knowledge and expertise. Together, we can create partnerships that reinforce organizational systems that are faster, smarter, social, and change-oriented.
I’ve met and worked with enough executives and professionals by now to know that this partnership of generations can work. How it actually plays out in practice…. that’s a completely separate post.
More on this topic to come.
UPDATE 8/14: Here’s the video of the talk!