Earlier this week I read “The price of saying no at work”, hoping to find practical suggestions for how to say no and still be successful. Instead I discovered the suggestion that for women, career ladders are revealed only for those who say yes and keep saying yes.

The women interviewed agree: you can say no at any time. If you don’t like the consequences of the ambitious “yes” life (which the women say include everything from forgetting birthdays to unleashing “untold brutality” on their marriages) you can opt out. But know that “ you will have narrowed the opportunities,” according to one woman.

Not only do I not agree with this kind of thinking, but if this is the approach older professional women take to career development, then I’m starting to understand why I have observed disconnects around mentoring.

Women’s history can be a guide for why this is happening. From the perspective of my generation: Our great-grandmothers could not vote for part of their lives, and our grandmothers could not work except within strict stereotypes. Our mothers were the first generation of women for which opportunity opened up. It still was not easy or freely given, but it was more than earlier generations had enjoyed. Our mothers’ civic influence was enhanced in the 1970s, their personal development was encouraged by measures like Title IX, their careers were fostered thanks to higher attendance in college (and the social understanding that they would or should have a career at all).

Many of the women who now run companies and mastered the career ladders the article refers to arrived on the professional scene at a time when women could finally attempt to have it all, yet they still had to do it all to make that possible. So it’s not surprising they feel they had to say yes to everything – was there really another option?

But I don’t think this approach is relevant anymore or healthy. Besides the personal turmoil the “yes” life can create, my generation has seen consequences that undermine the supposed rewards of this approach. We’re watching companies crumble, taking the assets and benefits promised to their longstanding employees down with them.

Based on these realities and other factors, I think young women in my generation tend to be more holistic when it comes to decision-making, priority-setting, and to assessing consequences of both. In general, I think  young professionals today are too entrepreneurial and open-minded to perceive “yes” and “no” opportunities. There is never truly a “narrowing” of opportunities. There is only a shifting of opportunities until we get to the life we want, and even the understanding of what we want may change over time.

And at least for me, that’s okay. I left a rewarding job with ample opportunity at a communications firm to work for my family business. I took a 50 percent cut in my pay to do it. Those yes-women would probably be ashamed of me and signed off on my career.

The problem was never the kind of work I was doing – it was how I was doing it and how it aligned with the life I wanted. So a year later, I’ve shifted again, working fewer hours at the family business and providing communications consulting to nonprofits. I’m financially consistent with where I was before despite working less, and I’m thinking of starting a business. These are not my most important indicators of success by any means, but they reassure me that I may have said no to one opportunity, but it was the most catalytic “no” decision I’ve ever made.

So I guess I’ll say what I expected the article to say:

• Knowing yourself well and identifying what you need to be personally happy and professionally fulfilled is a skill – develop it in that way. Self-knowledge will sharpen your intuition when decisions need to be made, and knowing your priorities will give you permission to say “no” when what seems like an opportunity is actually a misfit career or personal move.
• Identifying decision-making points and making intentional decisions is more important than whether your answer is yes or no. If you anticipate opportunities and evaluate them intentionally, you can’t make a bad decision. You can only make the decision that is best for you at that time.
• Our lives are more connected than we know, and our careers are more circular than we know. If you say no now, I believe there is still a chance that opportunity may return at a time when it is a better fit. What matters most are the relationships you keep. Opportunities don’t emerge from businesses or titles; they come from relationships and learning. Stay connected to those who relate to your career ambitions – chances are good they will be your conduits to knowledge or decisions affecting your career.

The second post in a series about the millennial generation and generational issues. Read the first post for more background: The Millennial Generation: Not just young. We really are different.

So if the millennial generation is truly distinct, what are the values that define us and our view of the world? It’s my perception (after lots of reading and conversations with friends and colleagues) that three principles work in tandem to inform a millennial’s personal direction and his or her sense of achievement:

Passion
Energy, excitement and commitment related to an issue, organization, philosophy, principle, and/or pursuit. The drive and satisfaction that come with knowing not only do you care deeply and the work is rewarding, but you are providing unique value to your passion and enhancing it for others who also care about it.

I find that the passionate, visionary streak in the millennial generation really shines when we are collaborating with others or helping to connect people as a way of advancing an idea, a shared value, or a desired direction. This makes the millennial generation naturally inclusive, engaging many voices in many different ways to advance our passions. Because our intuition is so keen on authenticity, inclusion becomes a natural result of our desire to create alignment and shared learning around principles that matter to us.

Purpose
A reason for seeking the meaning and the rewards, coupled with an overwhelming sense that you really do have a purpose, perhaps one that feel a lot larger than yourself.

For millennials, work therefore becomes both a tool for defining purpose and an expression of living out that purpose. And this means success encompasses much more than the bottom line. The millennial generation recognizes various milestones as success, all of which in turn help us fulfill our sense of purpose. These successes range from the emotional and intangible to the practical and quantifiable. They can include how happy you feel at the end of the day, the number of countries you visit before you’re 30, the number of languages you learn, how engaged your blog audience is, how much money you’re able to donate each year, how much dedicated time you have in a week to share learning with colleagues, how many conferences you attend each year, etc.

Previous generations would likely view many of these as personal pursuits that fall outside the company domain. But because the millennial generation perceives the world as very flat and modular, we struggle to create the black-and-white “personal” and “professional” boxes. We tend to think such separation is artificial and often prevents our interests and success in one domain from enhancing the interests and success in the other domain. And if this goes on long enough, we might start to wonder if we’re really meeting our purpose, if our job satisfies our passions, etc.

Pace
A personal and professional rhythm that keeps it all in check and on track. The awareness that we are living longer and work needs to be sustained for the long haul. It’s about more than time management—this encompasses relationship management, passion and professional development, personal satisfaction, etc.

I envision the millennial generation replacing the concept of balance with the concept of pace. Balance comes from a linear world that says if life is out of alignment, you should just remove a few activities or add a few people at a certain step to shift capacity. Because millennials see the world as a non-stop, organic feast—with lots of moving parts that can be creatively connected—the effort needs to be more about finding the right pace to accommodate it all rather than striking a good balance in which everything has a place in line.

If you’re a millennial, what do the principles of Passion, Purpose and Pace mean to you? Do you find they actively inform how you view opportunities, relationships, mentoring, happiness, etc.?

And in a tangible way, what do these principles mean to organizations and colleagues from other generations? In my next post, I’ll share some of the tactical disconnects that may highlight how millennial principles of Passion-Purpose-Pace are changing relationships and ways of working. I’ll also include ideas on how to anticipate and address such disconnects.

If you have a blog that covers these kinds of topics, please share your thoughts and your site in the comments so we can start connecting pieces of the conversation.

The first in a series of posts about the millennial generation and generational issues. After a lot of reading and many conversations about the emergence of millennials in the workplace, I think it’s time to crystallize some of my thinking.

In the last week, I have settled into my new job at the family business. I also got news from one of my friends who left his job at a software development company to return to a work environment that better aligns with his principles and lifestyle. Another friend emailed about work, finally sharing that maybe he’s really just meant to start his own business. And yet another friend emailed to set a date to brainstorm about companies, blogs, nonprofits, etc…

We are all in our early 20s. We represent various professional backgrounds and personal interests, and we share the conviction that it is important to be deeply passionate about work and making positive change without having to sacrifice life. We’ve had enough experience already to know that our perception of success and its implications is a new one that’s challenging employers and older colleagues.

So when I read responses to articles such as “Twentysomethings ditch high salaries for job satisfaction” from Portfolio.com, I grew frustrated. Try this one:

“Obviously, these guys are not old enough to think about marriage, raising a family, retirement, etc. This is not a new generation thing, this is how young people think in every generation.”

As a 20-something who is married and has owned a home for over two years, I disagree. I graduated from college in 2005. I started out at a nonprofit and then moved to a for-profit communications agency. Almost three years after college, I was making more money than my parents did about five to 10 years ago. I was thinking about—and actively participating in, despite what the comment assumes—marriage, mortgage, retirement planning, etc. It wasn’t until last November, when my husband and I went on our first real vacation together since our honeymoon four years earlier, that I realized something was very, very out of sync with the life I had intended to create.

And that’s when some long talks began about what that meant… on a personal level and a professional level. A lot like the millennial stories featured in Portfolio.com’s article, I finally decided to take a cut in pay to follow my passions, have more control over my life, and develop one of my family’s young businesses. The decision wasn’t necessarily a slam on the places I had worked before–I was just making space for what I really want and what really matters to me and my family.

As I talk to more millennials and read articles like this, I am struck by the sense that this movement toward satisfaction over salary is not exactly a question of accessibility or age. This is not about people of a certain income being able to create a life that aligns with their intentions. And this isn’t about young people of any generation being free spirits. It may seem like a familiar sentiment, but I think what’s happening is truly distinct to the millennial generation. Here’s why:

We already know we’re working longer. Now it’s just a matter of how we’ll spend that time.
Older adults realized late in life that they’re living longer and healthier, meaning many of them will also want and need to work longer. My dad always expected to retire at age 52. Now in his late 40s, he can’t believe there was a time when he thought that was possible or desirable.

But longer working lives have always been part of the millennial generation’s reality, so we place special emphasis on staying power. We understand and even welcome the notion of working well into our 70s and 80s, and we are designing our lives for that kind of longevity. And we are also the kids who saw what happened after the dot-com bust, 9/11 and so on. Profits can come and go no matter how hard you work, but passion is yours. If the work is meaningful, it’s much more likely to sustain a person–making it easier for that person to in turn sustain good quality of work.

We’ve seen the “pay your dues” hierarchy, and many of us think it’s ineffective.
Many older adults worked in a system that promised security after a few decades of work. I recently attended a lunch session with a group of facilities managers. Within the first 15 minutes, I heard three introductions to the effect of, “Yeah, this guy’s happy—only 10 more years!” and “How are you doing? Where are you at, 27 years in now? Good for you.”

I can’t imagine a group of millennials having those kind of exchanges in the future… our lives are not built around 30-year systems. They can’t be. Here in Michigan, we’ve learned that the hard way. You don’t hear young people these days talking about graduating from high school and going to work on the factory lines.

As millennials, we believe our autonomy and independence are more reliable than those kinds of systems. We have watched an older generation pay into systems that have not fully rewarded them and certainly won’t adequately support them for the rest of their lives. We have worked for businesses that choose linear and safe process over organic and challenging progress. And we’ve looked at these approaches and decided not only are they not for us, but they can be ineffective in general.

We don’t think about our age as it relates to our desire to innovate. We just see better ways of getting things done.    
Millennial entrepreneurialism is a reflection of the unique times we’ve grown up in, a claim to the life we expect, and a challenge to broken ways of achieving success. Yet people tend to equate our entrepreneurialism to our youthfulness and technical savvy. While these are relevant factors, I think they often only help people feel better about dismissing our questions and contributions. For example, I have been told all of the following verbatim and in some variation:

• You are too impatient. (Might as well say I am too young.)
• Your expectations are too high; we can’t ask others to meet them. (Might as well say it’s hopeless.)
• Your skills are unique; we don’t really know what to do with you. (Might as well pigeonhole me, in that case?)

My first conversation that involved these statements was with my school principal in the eighth grade. I was very shy and asked to meet with her personally to share some serious concerns about my class (ranging from the boys’ rampant use of middle fingers to my struggle to improve my science grades). Her response: “Emily, you know you have really high expectations, and…” It turned into an old school Catholic guilt trip from there.

I started to believe that this kind of stuff was really just my problem, but now that I have worked alongside more millennials, I am so relieved to discover that many of us have always been this way! We have approached the world from a perspective of challenge, questioning, and innovation somewhat unconsciously. Now that we are coming into a world where there’s incentive to create mutual understanding, we may have the opportunity to share that perspective more collectively.

So how do we do that, and what defines the collective voice of the millennial generation? Tomorrow I’ll share what (I think) are the “three P’s” that will define the millennial generation.