Sunday Round-Up: Deep Wins From The Community, Gen Z in the Workplace, and Not All Career Advice is Created Equal
Happy Sunday! Thanks to all of you who continue to read and for those of you who just joined. I’m switching things up this week so this week’s newsletter is a little shorter but still packed with lots of great stuff. As always, If you are enjoying this, consider sharing it with a friend!
TLDR: If you can’t read all of this, here are the three highlights:
Deep Wins From The Community
Articles and Podcasts to read and listen to
Feedback for upcoming issues
From The Community: Deep Wins
This week’s Deep Win comes from Katie Muse, a 2nd Year MBA student at the Kellogg School of Management. I had the chance to get to know Katie in her interview process and internship as a PMM intern this past summer at Salesforce.
Katie’s Deep Win
“One of my favorite wins of the past 18-20 months was executing an incredible inaugural Kellogg Tech Conference in 2021. I joined the conference team as a first-year MBA student because the students on the KTech team were committed to creating an inclusive, diverse, and thoughtful conference that addressed inequities fueled by technology, as well as areas where technology can improve people’s lives.
Witnessing the conference from “backstage” (albeit virtually) was one of the most exciting experiences of my professional life. Seeing the speakers and moderators connect with each other on both a professional and personal level, across industries and backgrounds, was more rewarding than I ever expected. Additionally, we received feedback from the participants that they were grateful for and impressed with our diverse speaker slate and meaningful topics. We aimed to spark discussion and deep thinking about issues in the tech world, and I hope we did so. It felt great to be part of the team that brought the conference to life – so much so that I signed on to co-chair the 2022 Kellogg Tech Conference.
This experience was meaningful to me because I learned a ton, from agricultural challenges in India to IoT in the energy industry to ethical data-sharing frameworks in the public sector. But also, it was a meaningful win for me because the conference felt like the first big piece of my professional experience that I’d ever truly owned part of. I wrote moderator guides, sourced speakers, wrote abstracts for our panel topics, and pitched ideas to faculty, professionals, and fellow students. I also built a community with an incredible team of people who gave a damn about the same things I do. It was one of my favorite things I’ve ever done, and I can’t wait to see what the 2022 Kellogg Tech Conference team brings to life!”
What I Read
The 37 Year Olds Who Are Afraid of the 23 Year Olds Who Work For Them (NY Times)
“These younger generations are cracking the code and they’re like, ‘Hey guys turns out we don’t have to do it like these old people tell us we have to do it,’” said Colin Guinn, 41, co-founder of the robotics company Hangar Technology. “‘We can actually do whatever we want and be just as successful.’ And us old people are like, ‘What is going on?’
The Media Needs to Stop Asking Bosses About Labor (The Rebuttal to the article above)
“The problem with this kind of culture writing - which is incredibly common - is that instead of investigating a phenomenon (that Gen Z workers are different, somehow), it investigates the feelings of those around it. It is a professional failure to write a piece that includes the phrase “has anyone checked in on the kids?” without actually asking a single “kid” what they think or how they feel or anything about what’s happening in the story you’re writing about them.”
Putting Common Career Advice to the Test (HBR)
“A great deal of career advice, while given with the best of intentions, is often not based on verified evidence and is anecdotal, hackneyed, contradictory, or outdated. So the next time you hear or give career advice, consider that not all advice is equally valid. Our recommendation for your career journey is to pack your own parachute, enjoy the “boundaryless” scenery on the trip, don’t be too picky about the destination, and don’t be too eager to jump at the next stop.”
The Ultimate Productivity Hack: Saying No (James Clear)
More effort is wasted doing things that don't matter than is wasted doing things inefficiently. And if that is the case, elimination is a more useful skill than optimization. I am reminded of the famous Peter Drucker quote, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
The Cooperation Economy (Not Boring)
“Individuals are becoming more important than institutions. Work is becoming more liquid. People can accomplish more on their own than ever before. At the same time, though, it’s easier and smarter than ever for talented people to work together. Transaction costs are decreasing. As the atomic unit of commerce gets smaller, there is more surface area for cooperation, more room for more people to pursue the same opportunity as a group. Individuals can cooperate with each other with much less friction than companies can.”
Via Twitter: This Resume Got Me an Interview (via @GergelyOrosz)
I’m still a little perplexed (but not shocked, if I am being honest) about how this happened, but an engineer wrote a fake resume with some pretty absurd things and landed interviews at some of the top tech companies. It’s worth a read just to see how ridiculous it is.
What I Listened To
Work Relationships: Esther Perel How’s Working: My Promotion Ended Our Friendship
Managing Burnout: Whitney Johnson’s Disrupt Yourself Podcast: The Cure to Burnout Isn’t Self-Care
Why Are We So Wrapped Up About Work?: Ben Hunt Epsilon Theory: A Working Narrative
Talent Management: Greymatter: Honoring The Alliance During COVID
Feedback and Input From You!
I am hoping to write pieces on the following topics. If any of you are interested in these and don’t mind sharing some thoughts, ideas, or your experience, please let me know (alex.dea@gmail.com)
How Dual Career Couples Make it Work - Are you and your partner working together to manage life and careers? I’d love to hear how its going, the challenges, and the advice you have
Onboarding into a new role or company - Have you onboarded into a new role, or to a new company? Share with me how it’s going, and what’s working or not working
How Do You Learn at Work? - When you want to learn something at work, or if you have to learn something at work, what do you do, and how do you do it?
Take care,
Al