This from 2020 by the great social change communicator Bill Novelli. Novelli is the author of Good Business. He sent me this reflection from a 2020 speech he gave, knowing I am writing a biography about his competitive character.

Here are his lecture notes —

“What do today’s MBA students and recent graduates want in a job and a company? Five Important Things.

By Bill Novelli, a professor in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and author, Good Business: The Talk, Fight, Win Way to Change the World.

Tomorrow’s leaders are in our classrooms today. The students and recent alumni of today’s top MBA programs have different world views than older generations. And yet some of their goals are the same. I have the good fortune to teach many of these young people, and I stay in touch with them after they graduate.

Here is what many of them are looking for:

1. Purpose. Or as they often describe it, “purpose as well as a paycheck.” Yes, they have lots of obligations, but as one of them put it, “I have student debt. I want to pay if off and make a good living. But I also want to stay engaged. I don’t want to lose my sense of purpose.” They are capitalists, to be sure. But many of them believe a company can do well by doing good, that is, improving its bottom line (shareholder value) as a consequence of creating positive results for other stakeholders and for society.
2. Coaching: We’ve all heard the adage that people leave supervisors, not companies. Gallup found that 70 % of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager. In Gallup’s 2019 book, It’s the Manager, it reported that what Millennials (indeed, many of today’s workers) want and value is not a boss, but a coach. A young alumna of our program recently said to me, “I’m so lucky. I have a great job and a great supervisor!”
3. A Decent Salary: This hasn’t changed. But it isn’t enough to recruit and retain many of today’s young stars. One of my best (and favorite) recent grads said that a paycheck will always be a way to value your work and pay the bills, but “purpose is what makes the effort really worth it.”
4. A Healthy Work Culture: How’s this for a goal? “I want a career that is so awesome that you feel like you’re not even working.” Of course work is work, and Millennials get that. But they want a company that values them, that invests in its talent and provides meaning, growth and personal development. This isn’t pie in the sky. Many companies do it this way, and they benefit and gain a competitive edge as a result.
5. Work/Life Balance: We often hear today that young people don’t have the work ethic their parents did, and that they’re more focused on the “life” side of the scale. I find that they are often misjudged. They do work hard, and they care. Their idea is, “I’ll get the work done; I’ll work when and where I want, but I will produce results.” To them, work is a thing, not a place. However, the life side is very important. As one alum put it, Truly living, being happy, and feeling intellectually and emotionally safe are what we’re searching for.” That’s not too much to ask.

Talented people are expensive to recruit and retain. And they represent an asset that simply can’t be duplicated or ignored.

So to compete and succeed, companies need to understand and respond to what these young professionals want and need.” End of short lecture by Novelli

While Bill Novelli founded Porter Novelli before he was ceo of AARP for ten years, he lives on in generous Board work….I share this because he wrote another brilliant seven pages to end my 2024 book Wealth and Climate Competitiveness. Read more Novelli.

I find him knowing about the needs of youth and the needs of the elderly. Stunning words from a stunning thinker