The Perfect Entrepreneurial Storm

By: Sarah Sladek, Limelight Generations

A few weeks back, I was a mentor for the Girls Going Places Entrepreneurship Program in Minneapolis. I was truly inspired by how business-saavy these young girls were, and being in the generational line of work, I know that today's students and young adults claim the largest volume of start-ups in America. This business-savvy generation presents great opportunity for some, and great challenges for others. In either case, this generation presents significant change for our business climate as we know it.

An April 27, 2009 article in BusinessWeek refers to this change as the "perfect entrepreneurial storm". Just as the famously independent Generation Y enters business school, the world economy goes to hell in a handbasket. The former blue chips of Wall Street can no longer offer long-term job security and generous end-of-year bonuses, giving this new generation of MBA graduates the impetus to pursue their own business ownership dreams.

If business schools are smart, they will rush to embrace this entrepreneurial generation and give them the tools they need to realize those dreams. The time is certainly ripe. Most colleges had already observed declines in enrollment in nearly every major--with the exception of business.

What can business schools do to unleash this generation's inner entrepreneur? The BusinessWeek article advises them to take a cue from the Tuck School of Business (Tuck MBA Profile) at Dartmouth, which is hosting a new business plan competition, with a $50,000 prize, in an effort to inspire new entrepreneurial ideas and create jobs on both a local and national level.

Or they can follow the lead of schools like the Haas School of Business (Haas MBA Profile) at the University of California, Berkeley. The school's Lester Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation provides students with the expertise to pursue their ideas and improve their negotiating hand with venture capitalists. It's a great example of how to encourage innovation in both new and established companies, and we need more such schools offering innovative solutions to the entrepreneurial challenge. With their accumulated store of knowledge about how to launch a business, and proximity to the profitable ideas in technology and the sciences, business schools should be the ideal platform to nurture a new generation of entrepreneurs. And this generation—highly social, confident, and networked—seems ready for the challenge.

I would add that high schools could take a lesson from Thomas Alva Edison High School's Business Entrepreneurship Program. The Business Enterprise program utilizes work-readiness training, job shadowing, e-mentoring, college site visits, guest speakers, and entrepreneur and high-tech clubs to give students a foundation of skills to build upon and transition from a high school setting to post-secondary two-year and four-year educational programs. If more schools provided business training at an earlier age, perhaps America's workforce would be successful at bridging the talent gap and not be in danger of lagging behind Europe, India, Australia, and other countries already preparing their next generation workforce.

Certainly the world needs this new generation of business-savvy entrepreneurs—now more than ever before. If the economy is going to recover, their optimism and their new ideas will be a big part of the reason.

Trophy Kid to Shot-Caller Rule #1: Speak Up without Talking Down

By: Nick Tasler

The one thing middle managers and executives alike from companies of all shapes and sizes agree on is that credibility comes from speaking up. In the knowledge economy where information is worth more than its weight in gold, it is critical to be an active participant in the knowledge exchange. As young employees, there are two fatally flawed tendencies that get in the way of effectively speaking up.

1. PROBLEM: TAKING WITHOUT GIVING

Remember this: Your employer is not your teacher. The importance of being a good learner was relentlessly drilled into us from the very first time our miniature shadows darkened the doors of our kindergarten classrooms. While growing up, our lives were dominated by authority figures—coaches, teachers and parents—whose job was primarily to teach us. To maker their jobs easier, they taught us how important it is for us to be willing to learn. Managers, however, need more than just your willingness to learn. A manager’s job is about getting things done and they need your help for that. Good managers don’t mind teaching you, but all of them expect you to do more than soak up knowledge.

SOLUTION: Paraphrase if you must, just contribute something. Ideally, you’ve done some homework or solid thinking before a meeting or during an email exchange so that you have something new to add. But as my Gen Y friend Eric told me “if you’re in a meeting and you really can’t think of anything new to add, then at least paraphrase a main point.” His managers agree. It shows that you’re actively participating and not just being a parasite on other people’s mental energy. And it really can help to crystallize fuzzy concepts for other people who maybe aren’t totally getting the big picture yet.

2. PROBLEM: Speaking with Unearned Authority

Personally, I’ve never had a problem voicing my opinion. I was that nerd in the 200-student lecture in college that raised my hand to ask the professor a question. For those of you more like me, remember this: It’s good to speak up, but bad to be a know-it-all. Bosses and co-workers want your contributions. What they don’t want is your baseless certainty, your sarcasm or your need to constantly display your superior intellect. I made this mistake more times than I care to admit when I started my career, and my ideas always suffered because of it.

SOLUTION: Master the Art of Suggestion. Even when you’re making a statement, phrase it as a suggestion. Instead of saying “This apple is clearly red,” say “I wonder if this apple is red, even though some parts of it look green like Sam mentioned?” Statements come across as argumentative even when you don’t intend them to be. Suggestions come across as though you’re trying to building on other people’s ideas instead of demolishing them to make room for your own.