Category Archives: Living

All Things New

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Happy New Year! I’m often reminded during this time of year of the great opportunity and potential that exists for each of us to reframe our approach to life and work and stretch ourselves in new ways, whether it’s fitness goals, pursuits of an organized life or attempting new habits and routines in this new year of 2013.

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I’ve had a whole new start to my journey in 2013: one week ago today, I began coordinating the Internship Programmes at World Vision International! As one of the largest NGO’s in the world, World Vision is “dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.” A few years ago, the organization created a new unit, “Professional Development Programmes,” which provides apprenticeships, fellowships, internships and soon to be, externships to undergraduate and graduate students. These different programmes provide meaningful learning opportunities in Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and New York City for students and recent graduates in the hopes of attracting, strengthening and retaining “emerging talent” within World Vision International. In my first week on the job, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting graduates of these programmes who are now fully employed by World Vision. These individuals come with backgrounds like accounting, journalism and law and have joined the organization as full-time staff in specialties like microfinance, climate change and international development.

For those who know my background, this opportunity could not be a better fit for me. I value quality higher education experiences and have developed a career (that seems a little weird to say as a Millennial) within the nonprofit sector. Having the chance to essentially recruit and develop talent for this NGO, while building and expanding these programmes is as cliche as it sounds: a dream come true.

Nearly 8 years ago, when my Baby Boomer father asked me “Son, you’re about to graduate from high school and head off to college. After that, who knows what’s next. What kind of places do you think you’d like to work?”

My #1 answer to that question: “World Vision.”

I’m beyond grateful for this professional opportunity and am excited to invest more time in the worlds of career development, higher education, humanitarian work and many more. As we continue into 2013, I am looking forward to finding more areas of my Millennial journey of life and work with all the things that can be made new.

“Culture Eats Strategy”

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This quote is one that I have remembered pretty frequently over the course of the last few years in my work in leadership development, studying effective organizations and understanding the significant part that the culture plays in organizational life. These words and the popularity of this quote and its concept, from the “father of modern management,” Dr. Peter Drucker, are emblematic of his impact on the fields of leadership and organization study and practice. The full quote is, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” For those of you who follow me on Twitter, (@MillennialTweet) you know that I tweet a “Daily Drucker” quote to consider and chew on each day. Drucker’s writings and contributions to the field are great in number and I’ve enjoyed reading, in more depth, some of his books. After a quick weekend earlier this month to visit friends in San Diego, we were visiting a used bookstore and I came across Drucker’s, “The Age of Discontinuity.” This vintage edition was in relatively good shape so I picked it up and decided for the $5 pricetag that it was well worth the purchase. It has not let me down and in fact, a good part of his writings have been used in my graduate program capstone portfolio. From one of his most poignant passages…

“Lack of creativity is…not the problem of organization. Rather it is organizational inertia which always pushes for continuing what we are already doing.”

As I continue to consider the impact of individuals on organizations and vice versa, this quote made me realize that the collective influence of our comfort and familiarity with the culture that we are a part of is enormously impactful on our ability to achieve success for the future. We can say that we don’t have creative solutions to position an organization for a more effective tomorrow or we can realize that the history that we’ve either helped write or inherited is potentially preventing us from positive change. By coining the phrase “organizational inertia,” we have an understanding of the driving momentum of culture to trump any strategy that can be proposed.

May the organizations that we lead and belong to recognize the need for adaptable cultures that are ready for change and not mired in the cycle of what we’ve already seen and known.

Back to the Beginning

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Last week marked a milestone on “The Millennial Journey” as I looked back at two years of sharing my ideas and thoughts on leadership, culture and five generations at work together. I began this online endeavor in between professional seasons and I find myself back here again as I continue the road towards completing my M.A. in Leadership Development (just two months away!) and looking for what meaningful opportunity is next for me. Perhaps, the most significant thought that has remained constant over my two years here has been the process of “journey.” Whether it is change taking place at your organization or listening to your calling & vocation (as one of my favorites, Parker Palmer writes) or living your life in a mindset of never arriving; recognizing that you have much more to learn and understand–we each have a journey or two in the multifaceted lives that we live each day.

Back in October 2010 when this “online journey” began, I wrote…

“I begin this blog with a full mind, complete of passions, thoughts, ideas and much, much more.”

A full two years later, I continue with the same mind (now just overflowing) with new lessons and knowledge to unpack as I look ahead to the journey in the future.

Living as a Laid Off Millennial

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As I’ve been blogging here about my journey as a Millennial, I’ve shared about lessons and learning in my life that have shaped me and taught me much about life as I continue growing in my personal and professional future.

A week ago today, I began a new and unexpected chapter. According to Forbes, 13.5% of Americans aged 20-24 and 9.3% of those 25-29 years old are currently unemployed. I now join these statistics of unemployed Millennials. As has been the case at companies and organizations across the country, rightsizing has resulted in my position being eliminated.

Looking ahead towards the rest of 2012 and the completion of my graduate program, I am eager to find new opportunities that fit my passion and strengths for developing people in teams and organizations. If you or anyone in your networks want to connect, I am actively engaged on LinkedIn and you can always tweet me @MillennialTweet.

Here’s to continued learning and future growth in this new chapter on “The Millennial Journey…”

Critiquing Ms. Brockovich

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As a part of a recent assignment in my M.A. in Leadership program, I critiqued the film, Erin Brockovich through the lens of gendered and generational differences. I’m just about finished with this special topics elective course looking at Leadership & Film through these two specific lenses and have really enjoyed considering leadership issues today through a new perspective. One can look at this specific film and see numerous female stereotypes played out and other issues represented with working women and the struggles that still exist for them to be as successful in the workplace. In the end, after critiquing the film in my assignment and applying it to leadership theory, I realized that there truly is much in terms of “modern day application” to our national and global contexts right now.

In these days of protests and revolutions worldwide and national discord taking place in America with claims of class warfare and cries for economic equality, one can’t help but think about the relevant true-life story of Ms. Erin Brockovich, as she helped bring one of the largest lawsuits in the 20th century to court and bring justice to more than 600 plaintiffs. Earlier today, one of the candidates for the GOP presidential nomination, who’s mantra as of late referred to a “trust deficit” in American institutions of power, suspended his campaign. I found him to raise good questions about the current state of American government and our national discord.

As leaders, we need to be challenged to raise questions and ask why things are they way they are. With the approval ratings of Congress at historic and record lows and continued protests against Wall Street, does leadership still exist? Or, instead, will we open our eyes like Ms. Brockovich did, and address issues of unethical behavior, corporate malfeasance and economic injustice without any positional power at our disposal?

Our systems of power, whether they be Congress, our local school board or even our church are living organisms that need questions asked of them regularly so the blood and breath of these organizations can flow and not die from a lack of trust, ethics or even change for the better.

Saving Seasons

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Seasons marks the passage of time in a variety of ways for each us in different areas of life. For me, the changing of seasons from summer to fall seemed to pass quickly–and yet when I realize this, I just want to slow time down a bit. When I’m having conversations with colleagues or classmates or even overhearing people talk in the checkout line about “I can’t wait for (insert time of year/holiday) just to get here,” I wonder if we ever appreciate the present season/time of life, not just the physical season that is reflective of the weather outside (maybe not in Southern California!) Whether it be Starbucks rolling out their “holiday red” on my coffee cup the day after Halloween (in my opinion, disregarding Thanksgiving) or each one of us wanting to push onward to “what’s next” at some point in life, we can miss what is in store for us personally and collectively if we are not sitting in the present season and appreciating what is taking place.

I’ve been examining seasons in many different facets of my life; in my professional life working in organizational development, working with the seniors in my high school small group at church, and more recently as a graduate student finishing a course called, Understanding Vocation in a Changing World. This was definitely one of the most impactful courses that I’ve taken thus far in my graduate school journey, discussing issues and topics like calling, vocation, work, transitions and these seasons of our personal and professional lives that undergo change. One of my favorite authors, Parker Palmer has much to say about the life seasons that we experience, especially thus dealing with our vocation and work. In Let Your Life Speak, he writes about letting things come to a close in autumn, testing the depth of our limits in winter, developing ground for growth and rebirth to occur in spring and coming together and sharing our common story in summer.

There is value in each of these with lessons to learn as well. The challenge is for each of us to be content with where we are, saving the present experiences and keeping them in our mind while understanding that we will continue to change in the seasons that lie ahead.

Are you presently in a certain season of work, school or family life? Do you see things differently know then you did in the past? What has taken place in the present that will prepare you for the future?

Being Uncertain + Just Plain Wrong

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During the last three months, as I’ve begun another chapter of my journey through starting graduate school, I’ve been introduced to a wide array of theories, thinkers and thoughts about leadership. Last week’s session in my class, “Leadership Development & Practice,” looked at the present challenges that face today’s leaders. One of the more poignant quotes from the class was in a video clip with words from Dr. Ellen Langer of Harvard University who said,

“Leaders need to exploit the power in uncertainty…when you think you know, you stop paying attention.”

Langer’s words struck such a chord with me because I think we find ourselves and the leaders we follow are so caught up in making decisions and taking actions that lead to the right action that we freeze in uncertainty. However, on the flip side, when we lead from such a sense of being certain (and sometimes almost stubbornly “there’s no way I’m wrong“), we completely miss the opportunity to see alternatives and hear different perspectives that may complement the outcome for the better.

Changing topics slightly–on a similar topic, I’ve been reading more about the “art of being wrong” and the challenges of creativity and productivity in the lives we lead if we aren’t open to the possible. One of my favorite sources of learning and knowledge these days comes from TED where Kathryn Schulz speaks for about 20 minutes “on being wrong.” I hope you find her talk as relevant as I did.

How Then Shall We Live?

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One of the most impactful books that I’ve read (both personally and professionally) without a doubt has been Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak. I first read this book several years ago after my return from a short-term missions experience in South Africa. I’ve since reread it a number of times since then; each time taking in different parts of his writing. The book’s themes of calling and vocation have been relevant to my life as a Millennial as I continue to seek direction in my journey and look ahead to the future.

Every Wednesday night, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to engage with a small group of undergraduate students at APU who are Leadership minors. There have been quite the concepts presented, questions asked and thoughts shared as we look together at the “mind, heart and soul” of a leader. I’m very excited that one of the two required texts for the class is Palmer’s book that I treasure so much. Looking ahead to the end of March, I’ve been preparing for my sessions on calling, vocation and authenticity, which brings me back to Palmer again. One of my close mentors in college (who knew my appreciation for Palmer’s writings) gave me the book, Living the Questions, a collection of essays inspired by Palmer’s work & life. As I was reading one of the essays by another one of my favorite authors, Sharon Daloz Parks, I was struck by the poignancy of its words, especially on this Sabbath day:

“In a world running on cybernetic time, we skim the surface of things, unable to pause, go deep, and let wonder and suffering take hold of us. In a media-rich world, we are systematically distracted from the suffering of others and numbed to our own. In a world where news is increasingly “spin” and multiple pieces of information on a single screen vie for our attention, we are insulated from the complex but clear-eyed truth that would call us to rigorous discernment between what hurts and what sustains the flourishing of life. In a society where an escalating level of violence is pawned as entertainment, it is more and more difficult to be either astonished or reverent before the daily reality of authentic, piercing, devastating, avoidable suffering that riddles the fabric of the whole earth community. In an economy that places most of us in the anxious class, it is easy to lose touch with what is precious and become confused about what we truly long for. In a society where abuse of alcohol and drugs–both legal and illegal–has become normative among large segments of our population (including and especially our young), we fail to initiate our young into the natural high of genuine aliveness, and we blunt the edge of our own. In a culture in which the individual ego is placed at the center of our conventional notions of success, we are unable to transcend the sense of false self-importance that suffering and wonder alike yield and require.”

from How Then Shall We Live? by Sharon Daloz Parks

These questions that we live into are important ones, involving leading, serving and living together through experiences that shape and transform while equipping us for the future, wherever that may take you as college student or corporate executive. May each of us be present and aware of our lives that we live as we cross the paths and journeys of the other in these days.

Meaningful Mentoring

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I had the great pleasure of having a few days off last week and drove down to San Diego, spending some time at my alma mater, Point Loma Nazarene University. I like to make my trips back as productive as possible and had a remarkably gratifying day–complete with a lunch get together, an impromptu conversation and a chat over frozen yogurt–all with 3 individuals who are mentors in my life.

Through talking and catching up with an old boss, my college advisor and one of the leaders of my first international short-term missions trip (to South Africa)–I ended the day, honestly, in an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Each of these mentors have been a part of my life for as many as 5 years and have seen me learn, be challenged, and grow through several different chapters of life.

I’ve thought a lot recently about the concept of mentoring and the value that this simple practice has on both the mentee and mentor. My hope is to continue appreciating those in my life who mentor me in their different ways. I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to teach, love and support a small group of high school students at my church each week. As I continue through life, I pray that I’m able to find more avenues in which to share my life story and experience to positively influence the lives of those around me, just like those who mentor me.