Misunderstood Millennial Talent. Joan Snyder Kuhl

      Foreword

      When I arrived at Cambridge University as an eighteen-year-old freshman, I saw opportunity unfurl at my feet like a red carpet. In the late 1960s, barriers to higher education were falling, and women and minorities were stampeding the gates of the professions, no longer content to be secretaries and clerks. It felt to me that in this brave new world, nothing could trip me up—neither my gender nor my modest background. I could not have been more wrong.

      My first term as a student at Cambridge University was rough, and, as it turned out, my problems had much more to do with class than gender. I had grown up in a working class family in the coal mining valleys of South Wales and spoke English with a thick Welsh accent. My classmates at Cambridge, on the other hand, had attended elite private schools (Eton, Harrow, Cheltenham Ladies) and spoke impeccable “Queen’s” English.

      In class-conscious England, my South Wales accent indicated I was from the lower echelons of society. I dropped my aitches, talked about “our mam,” and said “ta” instead of “thank you.” Back in the 1970s, these colloquialisms were not regarded as charming or cute. Indeed, my first week at Cambridge I overheard my tutor describe me to a colleague as “uncouth”—a memory that still makes me wince.

      At bottom, my accent signaled that I was uneducated or “ill-bred” (to use a particularly demeaning English term). And in a sense I was. At age eighteen, my main extracurricular activities were child minding (I had five younger sisters) and cooking (it was my responsibility to whip up the family evening meal). I had very little knowledge of the world. My father occasionally brought home a local tabloid called the Western Mail but didn’t see the point of spending hard-earned money on buying a national newspaper, so I knew next to nothing about current affairs. Our household boasted a motley collection of nineteenth-century novels, courtesy of my mother, who loved the Brontë sisters, but outside of that I was not well-read. I’d never been to the theater, shopped at a high-end store, or traveled abroad. We spent family vacations in a trailer park in West Wales. As a result, I had no small-talk skills or cocktail patter. It wasn’t a personality thing—I was friendly and outgoing. I was tongue–tied because I didn’t have anything to talk about in my new milieu. I had no way of joining in conversations about, for instance, the Tory leadership struggle, the skiing season in Austria, or the latest in bell-bottom jeans. I had spent the summer before college working in the local municipal laundry rolling hospital sheets. Hardly the stuff of Cambridge “small talk”!

      My fellow students weren’t openly rude or hostile—after all, they were “well-bred” young people—but they kept their distance. I wasn’t on the invitation lists for sought-after freshman parties, and I found it impossible to penetrate the cozy circles that dominated the interesting clubs. I remember being the awkward, ignored outsider at the Cambridge Union, the university-wide debating society.

      I soon realized that to survive and thrive I needed to strip myself of my accent and lose the most obvious of the class markers that set me apart from my peers. By January of that first year I had embarked on a transformation. I started with voice and speech—which were, after all, how I betrayed my background. I couldn’t afford elocution lessons or a voice coach, so I bought a tape recorder and spent long hours listening to, and then attempting to copy, the plummy voices on BBC Radio. I favored newscasters on the BBC World Service since they spoke a particularly clear and neutral form of the Queen’s English. It took at least two years, but eventually I nailed it. In addition to fixing my accent, I set about elevating my conversation so that it reflected the caliber of my thinking rather than my class status. I subscribed to the Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement, and bought cheap tickets to the local arts theater. By the time I graduated I was trying out my newfound cultural and political fluency on a slowly expanding circle of more sophisticated friends.

      Looking back at this journey, I have mixed feelings. Sure, I needed to improve my grammar—everyone needs to speak the language they work in well. I also needed to become more fluent in the ways of the world. But did I need to lose my regional accent? I suspect not. My new modulated tones cut me off from my origins and created distance from my family. My parents in particular were hurt that I felt compelled to deny where I came from. I discovered that surmounting the class barrier can be more complicated than hurdling gender bias.

      I share these details of my background and my early career journey to underscore how much I identify with today’s Millennials—many of whom come from financially-constrained backgrounds. Galloping inequality has hit this generation hard. As we see in this study, the yawning gap between the privileged few (9 percent of the Millennial cohort) and the struggling many (91 percent of the Millennial cohort) is as big and as unforgiving as it was in the UK of my childhood—literally speaking. Income inequality has tripled in the US since the 1970s, and in 2016 the US is as polarized, and as unequal, as class-conscious Britain. The majority of Millennials do not conform to the self-involved stereotypes sensationalized by the media. They do not hop from job to job, because they lack the financial safety net to support such a journey. They cannot afford to take an unpaid internship because they need to start paying down a heavy load of college debt. They haven’t summered in the Hamptons and they haven’t been coddled by helicopter parents. As a result, they have grit galore. And for employers who offer financial and job security, they have fabulous sticking power.

      But here’s what they haven’t got: networks, subject matter expertise, and soft skills. They may be tech-savvy (those at the younger end of the spectrum), but they’re not acquiring the depth and breadth of skills they will need to grow beyond their roles. Not only do they lack connections: they’re not building the relationships critical to getting their work done, extending their reach, and progressing in their organizations. They’re hard-pressed to find advocates and don’t know to cultivate sponsors. They’re in dire need of international exposure—given the global nature of business and the new norm of virtual teaming, and of leadership development, as the majority of those over thirty are already occupying management roles.

      Talent specialists aren’t investing in Millennials because they see them as job-hoppers on whom investment is wasted, or as talent that’s too young to warrant development. Yet the vast majority of Millennials are not only sticky: they are the bench strength for leadership. A tidal wave of exiting Boomers leaves a gap that Generation X cannot fill. And because they are the most diverse generation ever to be college-educated, Millennials are also the talent pool with the potential to at last change the face of leadership in corporate America.

      As an employer of Millennials, I am acutely aware of both sides of this equation. Millennial talent at the Center for Talent Innovation and Hewlett Consulting Partners represent the intersections of gender, socioeconomic class, race, and LGBT identities, making them attuned to the demographic trends and market needs that define our organizational mission. They come from some of the best schools in the country, and they’re impassioned to put that education to work. Yet to step into leadership, they need to close their skill gaps and broaden their networks; they need us to invest in their intellectual growth and foment more rewarding relationships.

      I’m committed to making that investment. While there is always the possibility that these young hires will walk out the door, I have found—and our research shows—that investment begets loyalty, particularly in Millennials whose socioeconomic backgrounds dispose them to make the most of every opportunity. I make the investment because our success, like yours, depends on harnessing and developing the skills, insights, and inclusive-leader behaviors that they bring. I make the investment because they are the future of my organization, just as they are the future of yours. And insofar as they are on track to fulfill the vision of diverse leadership that we all hold dear, none of us dare skimp on their development. Millennials are indisputably in charge of our legacies; let us make sure we develop them so that they deepen and drive these legacies well.

      —Sylvia Ann Hewlett