Bamboo Trees and Gen Y
Connected Generation Values at Work: Experience
Friday
2:26 am: I receive an email from my friend Ryan (another reminder to shut off my Crackberry while I’m “sleeping”), who recently left his steady corporate job of three years working as an internal real estate developer for a large and growing southern Oregon company.
Did Ryan leave to take a better, more exciting job? Well, that depends on your perspective.
Ryan applied for and was accepted to teach English at the Suzhou Foreign Language School in Suzhou, China where he is now in charge of teaching 3rd and 4th grade students for the school year. (You have no idea how much money I would pay to see him in action.) Prior to his current immersion, Ryan had never taken a Chinese language course, visited China (or any other country in Asia for that matter) or taught students before. (Ryan was an honors business major who studied Spanish and German in college.)
To learn more about Ryan and his current adventure you can check out his blog here.
9:26 am I receive an email from my friend Sarah who is teaching on a Fulbright Scholarship in Queretaro, Mexico (where we both studied abroad in college). She is writing to let her friends and family know that she has updated her blog.
Check out Sarah’s blog here.
1:58 pm I run into my friend and former classmate, Ilie, at a coffee shop downtown. Ilie is a savvy, up-and-coming social entrepreneur who, at the ripe age of 24, has decided to relocate to the Dominican Republic for the next year. He wants to be in a place where he can tackle greater social issues and challenge himself in ways that his current stable environment doesn’t allow for. Apparently starting and running his own business while managing several projects on the side just isn’t cutting it.
Check out one of Ilie’s businesses here.
Are you seeing a pattern within this twelve-hour stretch of interactions?
The common desire among this trio and (as the following data will suggest) among a rapidly growing number of “Gen Yers” is that we are seeking deep immersion. Now, when I say “immersion” I don’t just mean cultural immersion experienced by living in another country. (Although that is also a highly desirable experience.) I’m suggesting that there is a large group of intelligent, passionate, motivated young people that are seeking opportunities to operate outside of their comfort zone, test out their skills and education and gain experiences that are relevant to a global economy.
Unfortunately, many organizations don’t offer these type of growth and learning opportunities to their employees—especially to the less tenured professionals that are most hungry to take on extra projects, try their hand at solving challenging problems, seek to develop new markets or create a new level of internal efficiency.
Although Ryan’s decision to leave his job and move to China to become an English teacher might seem more like a detour than a strategic career move, it is now commonplace among some of the best and brightest young employees and recent graduates. Ryan (like Sarah, Ilie and many of his peers) is forging a more holistic “life” path that zig-zags in and out of the traditional corporate ladder and is filled with rich experiences, adrenaline-filled adventures and opportunities for bamboo-like growth and drink-from-the-fire-hydrant learning.
The following are some interesting statistics that reveal this shared desire for experiential learning and deep immersion:
- Study abroad rates have increased nearly 150% in the past decade, a number that is expected to keep growing. A record 241,791 U.S. students went abroad for academic credit in 2006-07, up 8% from the previous year says a study by the Institute of International Education.
- Teach for America received a record 19,000 applicants for 2,400 available placements in 2006.
- Peace Corps volunteer numbers are currently at a 37-year high.
- Entrepreneurship courses are now offered at more than 2,000 institutions with over 200,000 students. (In 1985, there were only 235 institutions offering entrepreneurship classes with 16,000 enrolled students.)
- 78% of college students this year plan to complete one or more internships.
Experience (one of the five values of the Connected Generation) is the core theme among these stats. We are craving experiences that help us test our personal limits and explore the edges. Whether we are teaching overseas or sitting in on executive level meetings, working in Mauritania with the Peace Corps or helping to reduce our company’s carbon footprint—the goal is to accomplish something that matters, to get our hands dirty and to take on juicy projects.
My challenge to you is to offer up a problem within your organization that does not currently have enough resources (staff power, budget, etc) around it and offer it up to a group of motivated young employees to take on as a side project. Give the desired outcome but let them come up with the steps of how to get there. Lay down the gauntlet and give them the opportunity to dazzle you.
This post was written by Cassie Pruett
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