Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Those people born roughly between 1980 and 2000 who now make up the largest segment of the workforce. I’m a baby boomer myself, and I know not everyone in my generation can say the same.
I note a prevailing attitude that could be called “just try it.” Or, to spell it out in a sentence: “I may not know exactly how to do that but we’ll figure it out.” Maybe that’s because millennials grew up “just trying” every tech device that came along, while their elders consulted the instruction manual or, more likely, asked their kids to show them how it worked.
When you combine youthful enthusiasm with elder experience—and yes, experience still matters in creating great content, as I do in my line of work—you can get some spectacular results.
I had all this in mind when creating the photo shoot for this issue’s cover story with Upsize Design Director Jonathan Hankin. The founders of SkyWater Search Partners noted that their employees range in age from 20 to 74, and explained in an interview how they have changed their long-held practices at work to take advantage of the differences, not lament them.
One of the partners suggested we photograph Meaghan Malloy, a millennial, with her Greatest Generation colleague, Mike Peters, who had just retired in his 70’s. Both were delightfully good sports, with Mike showing up in his most formal, old-school suit and tie as we had asked him to, even though that was never his work uniform.
Meaghan, meanwhile, demonstrated exactly what I’m talking about when she emailed to ask what I meant by “dressing as a stereotypical millennial” for the photo shoot. Could we have a quick call to discuss, she asked, and then I emailed her some photos of outfits that to me screamed millennial. OK, she shot back, I can make that work, and she showed up with a bag full of clothing choices. As you can see from Jonathan’s photos, she nailed it, once again demonstrating the power of that “just try it” attitude.
I think you’ll enjoy the interview with SkyWater’s partners, who talk about abandoning the phone call log, for example, that standard productivity tracker for executive search firms in the past. It became a useless tool when all their millennial employees started texting everybody instead of calling them.
Then, when one of their younger staff members blew away all revenue numbers in the history of the firm, even while taking 70 days of vacation last year, they really began rethinking their practices and workplace culture. It’s a work in progress, they say, and I encourage you to think about how your own company could perform better if you harnessed the power of every generation.
