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What Motivates Tomorrow’s Leaders
John Coleman, coauthor of “Passion and Purpose,” with contributors Patrick Chun, Umaimah Mendhro, and Rye Barcott.
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An interview with John Coleman, coauthor of Passion and Purpose, and contributors: Patrick Chun, Umaimah Mendhro, and Rye Barcott.
SARAH GREEN: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast. Today we’re talking about the rising generation of leaders and talking with some of those leaders. First I’ll be chatting with John Coleman, a graduate of both Harvard’s Kennedy School and our Business School, and co-author of the book Passion and Purpose, a collection of essays from young leaders. Then I’ll be talking with some of the contributors to that book. John, thanks so much for chatting with us today.
JOHN COLEMAN: Thanks for having me on. It’s great.
SARAH GREEN: So I called it a collection of essays, but really it’s that plus a survey you did and some interviews. And so tell me a little bit about why you embarked in this project.
JOHN COLEMAN: You’re right, it’s a pretty unconventional structure. It’s kind of a Wikipedia of books, of sorts. The way we’ve structured it is we have some original content, so we’ve written all the introductions to everything. We’ve done some original research with our 500-person MBA student survey. But we also tried to crowdsource a lot of perspective. So we have 26 individual stories from contributors. Very narrative-driven, you can read them in five minutes, but also very inspirational and very interesting in the topics they address.
Then we also cap each of the six sections in the book– so those six sections are organized around themes like the convergence of the public/private/nonprofit sector, or sustainability. We capped each of those with an interview with a senior leader, the idea being we and our colleagues from school could possibly offer a perspective on next generation leadership from where we sit. But we also wanted someone to look back and reflect at multi-generational leadership.
So we got folks like Bill George, who’s obviously a best-selling leadership author and also the former CEO of Medtronic. David Gergen who’s advised more presidents than I’ve been able to vote for, actually. And just a number of other really fascinating and inspirational people. And what we pulled together was something we thought that was much greater than the three of us individually could have constructed. It was that diversity or multiplicity of perspectives that brought a lot more to the table than three individuals possibly could.
SARAH GREEN: So I’d like to circle back to the survey that you mentioned, because some of the really interesting nuggets that came out of that for me were things like that one of the most important factors in terms of what some of these young leaders are looking for is a job that challenges them, not the most compensation they can get. Another thing that really stunned me was that so many people had already worked in three or four countries, and they were playing to work in four or five countries after they finished their MBAs. And then even beyond that, it was the huge number of people who had worked in the private sector who had also worked in the public or nonprofit sectors.
So what do you think that composite portrait of a challenge-driven, global generation of people who really will work anywhere if the problem is interesting enough– what do you think that means for employers going forward?
JOHN COLEMAN: Yeah. I mean, one of the fascinating results for us was, as you mentioned, I think it was the number one thing that people looked for in a job, from our 500-person survey, was intellectual challenge. It was bigger than money, it was bigger than prestige. It was really getting to work on something that could give you a sense of purpose, that could challenge you, that could make you think about things that people hadn’t thought about before. And so that’s really what’s driving people, at least in the data that we collected.
And as you mentioned, that’s also one of the reasons, I think, they’re seeking such diverse experiences. I think the number was recent MBAs that we had surveyed had worked in an average of something like 4.6 countries per piece. Almost a third of them, I think, had worked across different sectors. So public, private, nonprofit. And something more than 80% of MBAs we surveyed thought that understanding the nonprofit and public sectors were kind of essential pieces of information for business leaders to comprehend.
So what you’re seeing, I think, is as the world is shrinking, as the pace of change is speeding up in the century, people are understanding that it’s getting smaller, that you need to understand more cultures, more countries. They’re understanding that the sectors are drawing together more closely linked, that you have to be able to navigate across the nonprofit, private, and public sector to lead in any of those sectors, and that government leaders would benefit from understanding how their private sector colleagues operate, just as much as private sector colleagues would benefit from understanding how people run nonprofits and how they do broad stakeholder engagement.
And I think that the younger generation is probably more attuned to that pace of change right now than previous generations, because we think that pace of change has actually sped up. There is a great quote in David Gergen’s interview, where he said Henry Adams, in his memoirs, had famously noted that when the 19th century started, that was really when things began to speed up, that at the turn of the 19th century, you stopped going into the family business. You sought out urban environments. You crossed different industries or jobs. And David’s comment was the fascinating thing is that’s just continued to speed up on an upward curve. And so now that we’ve crossed the threshold into the 21st century, I think you see that pace of change even advancing more rapidly.
And so I think one lesson that more senior leaders can take from this, or executives in companies or folks who are looking to harness younger, talented people in their organizations– I think that they can really count on them to grasp the convergence of all those different things, the fact that the world is getting smaller, that technology is changing the way we work together, and really be able to offer those organizations insight on how they can more effectively cross boundaries between sectors, between countries, between people of different outlooks or genders or ethnicity, whatever divisions you can think of. I think this is a generation that thinks actively about how to cross those boundaries and about how to communicate to people in different areas. So hopefully that’s one thing that people are really hoping to harness in themselves, and that organizations can use younger people to harness for the organization.
SARAH GREEN: So this is all very hopeful, and that’s nice. But I want to the stir in a different kind of note to this conversation, and just ask you, do you think– based on working on this project, or based on your own experience– that our generation of leaders has a flaw that we should be working on or be aware of?
JOHN COLEMAN: You know, this is interesting. We asked a number of our senior leaders the same question, and so there are a fair number of reflections here in the book that ask that exact question. And the idea is, not just whether this generation has flaws. Certainly it does, and certainly individuals within this generation have many flaws of which we’re all too aware. But I think there’s also a question about what any generation, when it’s young and hopeful and kind of forward-looking, needs to watch out for.
Bill George notes in his forward that he can remember a time when he felt his generation was just as hopeful and just as idealistic, and yet a number of historical events came in and hampered that idealism. And that can be good, because it can temper idealism with truth and with realism, but it can also make people a little disaffected or cynical about things. And so I’d say one thing that our generation need to watch out for is, with all the turmoil in the world, I think that we need to resist the urge to become disaffected.
There are so many folks right now who are having difficult times finding jobs, finding places to fit in, finding purpose at work where they found employment. It’s a real blessing, I think, just to be able to find an organization to work with now and to find a way to channel your talents, and so sometimes people take what they can and they lose a sense of purpose in what they’re doing, or they don’t focus on that sense of purpose. And I would say that even with all that turmoil going on, even with some of the negative things that are happening, that I would encourage our generation not to get cynical, not to lose some of its hopefulness, and to become a little tempered in our idealism, to become realistic, to make sure that we’re trying to change the world in actionable and practical and realistic ways, but at the same time keeping that sense of hopefulness.
A couple of the generational flaws– this is always an interesting question, because I think it differs person by person greatly. I think one of the things that we may suffer from is a sense of impatience, as a generalization of this generation. I think that in a world where you’re used to tweeting your comments second by second, where you’re used to seeing Facebook updates constantly, where you’re used to getting feedback in real time, that you can become used to getting things immediately and achieving results immediately, in a way that impairs your ability to patiently wait through long processes.
And we’re seeing right now, for instance, that this economic recovery has been a very, very long process. It’s not over. Economies around the world are still struggling, and they continue to struggle, and that may continue in the future. And what we’re looking at is having to temper that pace of change over the next couple of decades, rather the moment by moment, second by second. And so I think that if there’s one thing our generation really needs to learn, it is patience. It is that some battles are very long, that change sometimes takes quite a while and that, contrary to the pace of change we’re seeing in certain areas like technology, that in terms of culture or in terms of macroeconomics we may have to learn patience in a way that we haven’t thus far.
SARAH GREEN: John, that’s good food for thought. Thank you so much for talking with us today.
JOHN COLEMAN: Thank you, I really appreciate you having me on.
SARAH GREEN: I’m joined now by three of the contributors to this book. In the studio with me is Patrick Chun, a venture capitalist at Bain. On the phone is Umaimah Mendhro, a director at Microsoft and co-founder of thedreamfly.org. And also on the phone is Rye Barcott, a Ted fellow who works at Duke Energy and a Marine. All three of them have MBAs from Harvard. Welcome to the program.
UMAIMAH MENDHRO: Thanks.
PATRICK CHUN: Thanks, Sarah.
RYE BARCOTT: Thank you. Great to be here.
SARAH GREEN: So one of the interesting points that came up earlier when I was talking with John is how important it is for the MBAs and people he talked to for this book that they find a job that was challenging, as opposed to prestigious or overly remunerative or something like that. I found that really surprising, because couldn’t you just have found challenge without getting an MBA? I hear the Marines are pretty challenging. So why did you go to business school?
RYE BARCOTT: Well, the Marines were challenging, and that was part of the attraction that I found, really, to business school. And I was especially impressed at Harvard Business School, because of the focus on something called social entrepreneurship, which I think really plays to one of the core themes of the book. And that’s the theme of convergence, or looking across sectors– public, private, nonprofit– for solutions to what will probably be the greatest collective challenges that we face. And so that was one of the main reasons why I looked at business school in my particular case. I was coming from a nonprofit and a government field, and wanted to broaden out into the private sector too.
PATRICK CHUN: Yeah. For me, I think I started off in jobs that were also pretty challenging. I was in consulting and private equity. For me, business school was an opportunity to really step back and think about what I wanted to do, and to reflect on the world a little bit more and think about where the world is going and where I want to be 15 or 20 years down the road. I think oftentimes things feel like a rat race, and when you’re in the middle of a rat race, you don’t have perspective. And over the last 5 to 10 years, I really feel like the world has changed a lot. I went to Harvard College. When I was in college, two guys left school to start a social network called Facebook.
SARAH GREEN: Oh, something like that. I think I’ve heard of it.
PATRICK CHUN: Yeah, it’s a small social network. But looking at what’s happened since then and seeing the sort of opportunities that are opening up for folks at our level, I thought having the opportunity to step back a little would be really good.
SARAH GREEN: Umaimah, what about you?
UMAIMAH MENDHRO: So for me, I come from a very small village in Pakistan originally, and growing up, I actually always dreamt of going to one of the top schools in the world. My father was the only person who was educated. He had to walk several miles just to get to his school, fought its way to get educated. So for me, it was a lot about education. It was basically about being in an environment where I felt like I could be around people like Rye and Patrick and John, and be able to exchange ideas and think about things that I don’t even know, that I’ve not ever thought about. So it’s almost learning about things that I didn’t know that even were things for me to even consider and think about.
And business school in particular, I feel, is actually a great opportunity just step back. When you’ve started your career, the point where you actually can go back and kind of say, let’s reexamine things a little bit. Is this the path that I want to be on? What does this path mean for me? And I think a business school, and then particularly Harvard, gave me that opportunity as well.
SARAH GREEN: So as we’re talking about passion and purpose and altruism and impacts and all these kinds of things, and cross-sector convergence, it all sounds great. But what happens 20 years from now, when we’re just in the same position as many of today’s current leaders are in, and we’re worried about maybe more of a narrower focus, like our mortgage payments or something like that? Are we really a different generation of leaders, or are we just in a different phase of our lives that everyone grows out of?
RYE BARCOTT: Sarah, I just have to push back on the premise of the question, because I think that it is truly unsustainable, the trajectory that we’re on, both with regard to business as well as the other stakeholders of environment, the communities that we serve, to continue on the same trajectory that we’re currently facing. I mean, the cracks within society have already begun, particularly over the last two or three years. So I don’t think there’s really an alternative to the status quo. And our generation and the ones that are preceding us and who are currently in leadership positions have to be part of a broader set of change. That’s my personal belief on that.
SARAH GREEN: So if it’s 40 years from now, in that case, and we’re all retiring, what does the world look like that we’ve helped reshape? What would you want your legacy to be? How will you lead differently than people who have led up to this point? What are you going to do about it? What are you doing about it?
UMAIMAH MENDHRO: One of the ways that I think about that question is, if I look at some of the developing countries– I’m from Pakistan. If I look at India, if I look at China 40 years ago, 50 years ago– Pakistan is just a little over 50 years old. And the role that corporations played in building those countries, in actually providing jobs, and with providing jobs providing infrastructure, providing education, providing health care– if you think about whether those countries would be where they are today without the role of the private sector and without the role of the corporations, that would be pretty hard to imagine. The growth that all of those countries have seen. And the impact is a social impact. The impact is building new leaders today. The impact is of a generation that is not worrying about food and survival every single day.
How do we think about what impact corporations can play for countries that are developed countries 40 years from today? So it’s almost an exponential kind of an impact that we could create, if we take that point of view. And I feel if you take the US point of view, then we’re in a good state compared to, let’s say, Afghanistan, compared to other countries in Africa. So that’s, I think, in a way a challenge in thinking about what is the impact that we can create that is really exponentially improving the society? And I think one part of it is actually that change in terms of how we all think. And that change in terms of how we all think could be our impact not just in our own country but globally.
So we’ve done the basic step, in, let’s say, the massless hierarchy. How do we get to that higher level? And it is cyclical. And going back to your point of, is this something that is just relevant today– yes, there’ll be phases where the economy is tough and things are tough. But I feel like if you just to keep a view of the century, where are we progressing, what’s the direction– let’s think about, what’s the challenge? How do we exponentially improve what we can do as a country, what we can do as a global population 50 years from today, and what role do corporations play in that?
RYE BARCOTT: Well, I was just going to come back on another one of the themes of the book, which is purpose-driven leadership or purpose-driven capitalism, which I think is a way to reimagine and reconfigure, really, how business is being managed and is contributing to society, particularly after the depths of this latest recession. And at a certain level, individuals have to make changes as well. A fair amount of my work before business school was in a large slum in Nairobi, a place Kibera, where I cofounded an organization called Carolina for Kibera, basically investing in young, talented people born without a whole lot of opportunity.
And so one of the things that I really hope that we can do, particularly as Americans, is reinject some of the humility that we really saw with our grandparents’ generations and those that came before it, and live in a way that is consistent with our means. I mean, if you look across society, it’s not just our banks that are overleveraged. I mean, we as individuals, as part of a larger community than is just our immediate present family and circumstance, we have to rebalance and come back to living within our own means. And I hope that all of us can play a role in that. We’re not going to create the grand shift ourselves, but those individual steps that you can take in the communities that you’re connected to matter and create a ripple effect.
SARAH GREEN: So I think the hope here with all of this is that we can lead better than our parents have done. And I think, to Rye’s earlier point about the status quo, I think we have to lead better than our parents have done, because things are going to get unpleasant really fast otherwise. So my question to you is how do we hold ourselves back? How are we getting in our own way?
RYE BARCOTT: I mean, I think the greatest concern that I have with my generation is how individualistic we are. And it’s like all characteristics. There are strengths concealed within weaknesses. But one survey that I came across recently that really illustrates this, I think, in a powerful way was a number of 20- and 30-year-olds were asked if they would prefer when they get older to be the president of a major university such as Harvard, or the personal assistant to Britney Spears or something. And 80% or something indicated the Britney Spears option on the survey. And so my fear is that while there are cadres of very high achievers who are impact-oriented and who are able to still climb this ladder of success for themselves and for the issues that they care about, there are also large numbers of our generation who haven’t caught that train and are feeling lost, confused, and really alone. And I think that if we can break from some of the individualistic trends and redefine communities that aren’t just virtual but that are real and that are deeply personal, that is something that I think causes a concern for me, but is something that we could see moving into the future.
PATRICK CHUN: Riding on the back of Rye’s comment about individualism, I think there’s the risk for our society– we’re able to access whatever we want whenever we want and kind of live in our own worlds. And I think that while that’s good in many ways, because it allows you to focus on the things that you’re passionate about and allows you to access information and people related to what you’re interested in a lot quicker than 10 or 20 years ago, I think the flip side to that is that you actually start to fail to see the broader picture.
And so while your passion and purpose are around one thing– I think that what we’ve seen in the last month or two months on Wall Street and around the world really helps to elucidate it. I think both sides of the picture are probably kind of misinformed and a little bit ill-guided around their own understanding of the other side. There’s a lot of facts that are probably getting thrown around that aren’t correct, both ways. And I think the big question going forward is how do we make sure we create a world where there’s synergies across all sorts of people across the globe, across folks of different interests, so that we’re maximizing the benefit of everyone’s efforts.
And I think that a lot of that’s going to have to happen through people sacrificing. And I think that that happens both ways, again, but I think the combination of that sacrifice and that perspective to take your passion beyond just what’s inside your box, and kind of looking broader than that, is going to be really important.
UMAIMAH MENDHRO: I completely agree with everything that was said. Very well said, Rye and Patrick. And another angle I would add is I wonder what is the sense of where we stand on the empowerment meter, just that sense of empowerment, and how my generation is feeling as far as how empowered we feel. If you came out of a great college, you worked hard to get there, and now you’re not in a job that you absolutely love, you feel like you’re not realizing your best potential. I hope that we all feel that we can go and change that situation. Or we don’t have a job at all, and what do we do in that scenario? I hope we feel we can go out and start something.
And I think that’s perhaps one thing that I worry about right now. To your question of are there any barriers, I wonder if there might be any barriers in terms of just, what’s the feel that is out there? And then if you take a global perspective, how do we feel about being in the US and the opportunities in the US versus competitive forces? And that’s where I feel what Patrick was saying is it’s almost not really looking at those boundaries and those seams, and really thinking about, how can we reach out? How can we reach out to the other side? How can we do everything that we can do, just ourselves? If the opportunity is not given to us, how can we go out and create that opportunity?
I hope that we’re feeling empowered to do that, because whenever times are tough, that’s when the greatest companies a lot of the times have been founded. So I hope that we can believe in that and feel empowered to go out and do everything that we want to do, that we envision ourselves being able to do.
SARAH GREEN: That’s great. Thank you, guys, all so much for coming in and calling in and being here as part of this conversation.
UMAIMAH MENDHRO: Thanks.
RYE BARCOTT: Thanks, Sarah.
PATRICK CHUN: Thanks, Sarah.
SARAH GREEN: You’ve been listening to Patrick Chun, Umaimah Mendhro, Rye Barcott. They’re all contributors to the book Passion and Purpose. Earlier we heard from author John Coleman, whose co-authors are Daniel Gulati and Oliver Segovia. For more, visit hbr.org.