Since 2009, London Business School has been issuing a survey to the participants of our executive education open enrollment Emerging Leaders Programme, asking their attitudes toward work, employee engagement, and leadership paradigms. Adam Kingl and Richard Hytner presented the results of the survey and their conclusions on working with generation Y at London Business School's flagship event, the Global Leadership Summit. Learn more about what happened at #2014GLS: http://bit.ly/1tI2kNn Learn more about the Global Leadership Summit: http://gls.london.edu

1. Generation Y Paradigms of Work and Leadership
Adam Kingl, MBA2004
Director of Learning Solutions
Executive Education
Richard Hytner, SLN2003
Adjunct Assoc. Professor of Marketing
Deputy Chairman, Saatchi & Saatchi

2. Generations:
• Silent Generation: 1925-1942
• Baby Boom Generation: 1943-1960
• Generation X: 1961-1981
• Generation Y: 1982-2004
• Generation Z, Plurals: 2005+

3. Number of employers our:
• Grandparents had: 1-2

4. Number of employers our:
• Grandparents had: 1-2
• Parents had: 3-4

5. Number of employers our:
• Grandparents had: 1-2
• Parents had: 3-4
• Gen X will have: 7-8
• Gen Y will have: 15-16

6. Number of employers our:
• Grandparents had: 1-2
• Parents had: 3-4
• Gen X will have: 7-8
• Gen Y will have: 15-16
So Gen Z will have 32??!

7. Number of employers our:
• Grandparents had: 1-2
• Parents had: 3-4
• Gen X will have: 7-8
• Gen Y will have: 15-16
So Gen Z will have 32??!

8. Number of employers our:
• Grandparents had: 1-2
• Parents had: 3-4
• Gen X will have: 7-8
• Gen Y will have: 15-16
So Gen Z will have 32??!

9. It does appear that the number of employers DOUBLES
with each generation…
• Grandparents had: 1-2
• Parents had: 3-4
• Gen X will have: 7-8
• Gen Y will have: 15-16
So Millenials will have 32

10. Let me say that again…32 employers in a lifetime!

11. Emerging Leaders Programme survey
• Surveying participant since 2009, 2 cohorts per year
• Average age: 29

13. We asked them:
How long do you expect to stay with an employer?
• 11+ years
• 6-10 years
• 3-5 years
• 1-2 years

14. We asked them:
How long do you expect to stay with an employer?
• 11+ years: 5%
• 6-10 years
• 3-5 years
• 1-2 years

15. We asked them:
How long do you expect to stay with an employer?
• 11+ years: 5%
• 6-10 years: 5%
• 3-5 years
• 1-2 years

16. We asked them:
How long do you expect to stay with an employer?
• 11+ years: 5%
• 6-10 years: 5%
• 3-5 years: 53%
• 1-2 years

17. We asked them:
How long do you expect to stay with an employer?
• 11+ years: 5%
• 6-10 years: 5%
• 3-5 years: 53%
• 1-2 years: 37%

18. We asked them:
How long do you expect to stay with an employer?
• 11+ years: 5%
• 6-10 years: 5%
• 3-5 years: 53%
• 1-2 years: 37%
• 90% plan to leave within 5 years
• Over a third within 24 months!!

19. What matters?
• Work-life balance
• CEO’s reputation
• Promotion opportunities
• Performance-based bonus
• Share price performance
• Openness to innovation
• Employee benefit package
• Organisational culture
• Corporate social responsibility practice

20. Most important factors in choosing an employer:
3)
2)
1)

21. Most important factors in choosing an employer:
3) Promotion opportunities
2)
1)

22. Most important factors in choosing an employer:
3) Promotion opportunities
2) Organisational culture
1)

23. Most important factors in choosing an employer:
3) Promotion opportunities
2) Organisational culture
1) Work-life balance

24. Putting the story together
• 90% plan to leave within 5 years
• 37% plan to leave within 2 years
• 54% more loyal to team than to organisation
• Top employer attractiveness factors do not include traditional benefits,
bonuses, etc.

25. Some implications:
• Are long-term benefits (eg, pensions) valued anymore? Or do such benefits
need to be more easily ‘carried around’?
• Employers may need to redefine and reprioritise benefits:
• Immediate talent development opportunities
• Promotion opportunities based on performance and stronger mentor-
mentee relationships rather than tenure
• Can the employer proposition include a career path that assumes the
employee may leave and come back?
• Can the employers focus development and engagement more on teams rather
than on individual ‘high-potential’ employees?

26. Hierarchy does not exist in their minds.
•Aspiring Gen Y leaders will not worship the Gen X gods of linear advancement
and extrinsic reward.
•Gen Y leaders are averse to hierarchical vertigo: ‘where on earth would 32 rungs
up a ladder take you?’
•They see ‘a network of possible wanderings’. Helping a friend with her start-up,
hopping to a corporate for some skills development, jumping into a not for profit
for some front-line action, starting her own business from home.

27. Hierarchy does not exist in their minds.
•Aspiring Gen Y leaders will not worship the Gen X gods of linear advancement
and extrinsic reward.
•Gen Y leaders are averse to hierarchical vertigo: ‘where on earth would 32 rungs
up a ladder take you?’
•They see ‘a network of possible wanderings’. Helping a friend with her start-up,
hopping to a corporate for some skills development, jumping into a not for profit
for some front-line action, starting her own business from home.
They will have 32 opportunities to develop as leaders.
•Each one is an adventure in its own right, not a stepping stone to some
predetermined destination.

28. Hierarchy does not exist in their minds.
•Aspiring Gen Y leaders will not worship the Gen X gods of linear advancement
and extrinsic reward.
•Gen Y leaders are averse to hierarchical vertigo: ‘where on earth would 32 rungs
up a ladder take you?’
•They see ‘a network of possible wanderings’. Helping a friend with her start-up,
hopping to a corporate for some skills development, jumping into a not for profit
for some front-line action, starting her own business from home.
They will have 32 opportunities to develop as leaders.
•Each one is an adventure in its own right, not a stepping stone to some
predetermined destination.
‘Complete’ leadership is a dream state never quite attained.

29. Progression not promotion
Employers need to reframe the career conversation.

30. Progression not promotion
Employers need to reframe the career conversation.
They need to co-create a portfolio of multiple opportunities that deliver
directly to the Gen y leader’s personal purpose:
• Responsibility
• Recognition
• Learning
• Joy

31. Progression not promotion
Employers need to reframe the career conversation.
They need to co-create a portfolio of multiple opportunities that deliver
directly to the Gen y leader’s personal purpose:
• Responsibility
• Recognition
• Learning
• Joy
Lateral as well as linear; sooner rather than later.
.

32. Progression not promotion
Employers need to reframe the career conversation.
They need to co-create a portfolio of multiple opportunities that deliver
directly to the Gen y leader’s personal purpose:
• Responsibility
• Recognition
• Learning
• Joy
Lateral as well as linear; sooner rather than later.
C leadership roles rather than A roles alone.
.

33. Conventional leadership roles
Organisational leader
Business Unit leader
Functional leader
Team leader
A instead of No 1

34. Conventional leadership roles
Organisational leader
Business Unit leader
Functional leader
Team leader
A instead of No 1
Consiglieri leadership roles
Loadstone
Educator
Anchor
Deliverer
C instead of No. 2/3/4

35. Title of the
presentation
Sub title
Top priority if you were CEO?
• Run things democratically
• Retain only the most productive staff
• Rotate staff to avoid complacency
• Expand into new / emerging markets
• Grow the current market
• Ensure environmentally sustainable practice
• Develop / promote innovation
• Benefit the community
• Diversify the business
• Research customers more thoroughly

36. Top two answers:
2)
1)

37. Top two answers:
2) Expand into new / emerging markets
1)

38. Top two answers:
2) Expand into new / emerging markets
1) Develop / promote innovation

39. What type of CEO will you emulate?
• Focus on how business is trading
• Focus on global impact of the business
• Focus on retaining the entrepreneur’s POV: ‘How’s my baby doing
today?’
• Focus on renewing personal mission: ‘How do I make my organisation
and world a fundamentally better place?’
• Focus on financial worth of the business

40. What type of CEO will you emulate?
11.5% Focus on how business is trading
• Focus on global impact of the business
• Focus on retaining the entrepreneur’s POV: ‘How’s my baby doing
today?’
• Focus on renewing personal mission: ‘How do I make my
organisation and world a fundamentally better place?’
• Focus on financial worth of the business

41. What type of CEO will you emulate?
11.5% Focus on how business is trading
11.5% Focus on global impact of the business
• Focus on retaining the entrepreneur’s POV: ‘How’s my baby doing
today?’
• Focus on renewing personal mission: ‘How do I make my
organisation and world a fundamentally better place?’
• Focus on financial worth of the business

42. What type of CEO will you emulate?
11.5% Focus on how business is trading
11.5% Focus on global impact of the business
33% Focus on retaining the entrepreneur’s POV: ‘How’s my baby doing
today?’
• Focus on renewing personal mission: ‘How do I make my
organisation and world a fundamentally better place?’
• Focus on financial worth of the business

43. What type of CEO will you emulate?
11.5% Focus on how business is trading
11.5% Focus on global impact of the business
33% Focus on retaining the entrepreneur’s POV: ‘How’s my baby doing
today?’
43% Focus on renewing personal mission: ‘How do I make my
organisation and world a fundamentally better place?’
• Focus on financial worth of the business

44. What type of CEO will you emulate?
11.5% Focus on how business is trading
11.5% Focus on global impact of the business
33% Focus on retaining the entrepreneur’s POV: ‘How’s my baby doing
today?’
43% Focus on renewing personal mission: ‘How do I make my
organisation and world a fundamentally better place?’
1% Focus on financial worth of the business

45. Let me say that again…1% would focus on financial worth!

46. Financial worth is no longer king!
• We’re crossing a meridian where social and community impact is more
important
• Shareholder value is an outcome, not an output
• Will be initial tensions and growing pains among organisations and public
markets about expectations
• What happens when the CEO doesn’t care about the share price today?
• What happens when the investor doesn’t care about the share price today?
• Will the next generation of leaders at last have the courage (and possibly the
permission) to think long-term, beyond quarterly results?

47. A CEO – or A - for our Gen Y times
• Ultimately accountable
• Team decider
• Trusted
• Emotionally intelligent
• Serving a higher order purpose
• Able to embody that purpose – personally
• Able to sustain that purpose
• Authentic in the limelight
• An impermanent first among equals

48. Challenges for the Gen Y CEO
• Long-term sustainability vs short-term seduction

49. Challenges for the Gen Y CEO
• Long-term sustainability vs short-term seduction
• Social currency vs personal currency

50. Challenges for the Gen Y CEO
• Long-term sustainability vs short-term seduction
• Social currency vs personal currency
• Avoidance of global warming – too much exposure to the limelight

51. Challenges for the Gen Y CEO
• Long-term sustainability vs short-term seduction
• Social currency vs personal currency
• Avoidance of global warming – too much exposure to the limelight
• Active listening – long distance

52. Challenges for the Gen Y CEO
• Long-term sustainability vs short-term seduction
• Social currency vs personal currency
• Avoidance of global warming – too much exposure to the limelight
• Active listening – long distance
• Revealing your generosity – selfies are bad for your image

53. Challenges for the Gen Y CEO
• Long-term sustainability vs short-term seduction
• Social currency vs personal currency
• Avoidance of global warming – too much exposure to the limelight
• Active listening – long distance
• Revealing your generosity – selfies are bad for your image
• Nurturing the culture

54. Challenges for the Gen Y CEO
• Long-term sustainability vs short-term seduction
• Social currency vs personal currency
• Avoidance of global warming – too much exposure to the limelight
• Active listening – long distance
• Revealing your generosity – selfies are bad for your image
• Nurturing the culture
• Casting and curating your C leaders

55. Generation Y Paradigms of Work and Leadership
Adam Kingl
akingl@london.edu
Richard Hytner
rhytner@london.edu