The 20-minute idea session is perfect for Gen Y

I grew up in the old days of ad agencies, when roles were clearly defined. The copywriters and art directors were in charge of the creative work, and we looked askance at any account executive who ventured to make a creative comment. The account people stuck to marketing strategy, and the media department figured out smart things to do with the media budget, but the domain of the imagination was thought to be the exclusive territory of the creative department.

At Tribe, I’ve learned to appreciate the power of pulling everyone together for an idea session. We generally hold what we call our jam sessions at the big wooden table in the studio, pulling up as many chairs as are needed. Everyone is welcome, from the art directors and copywriters to account people to the receptionist, but we don’t wait until every single person is available. We just gather anybody who happens to be around and start jamming on the project in question.

Today it was a social media plan for a promotional contest that involves airport parking and NASCAR. Other times it might be a YouTube video concept for an upscale baby stroller, or a mobile text contest for equestrian teens or just a birthday card for someone in the office.

The sessions are quick and to the point. We define the goal and then start tossing around ideas. We try not to be idea crushers. If we’re not crazy about someone’s idea, we try to offer another approach, but without slamming the initial idea. The big idea of the day might come from any of us, from the intern to the agency president, and then it’s fleshed out with the benefit of the various expertise sitting around that table.

Within about 15 or 20 minutes, we can usually  have a plan mapped out in Sharpie marker on a giant sheet of paper. We break it down into some actionable steps and then we each pick up the various pieces of the plan that fall within our areas of responsibility. The session breaks up as quickly as it started.

Looking back, the old agency model with unflinching boundaries between roles strikes me as a particularly Boomer-like division of labor. The idea sessions we hold at Tribe are much more appropriate to a Gen Y work force. This new generation of employees tends to define leadership not as a place in the hierarchy but as the ability to harness the thinking of many, to inspire others and to create a strong team. They value collaboration. And they exhibit shorter attention spans than their older peers, so these quick sessions are more palatable to them than longer meetings.

Millennials also have no problem believing that their ideas will be as good or better than those of people who’ve been in the business for decades. That allows them to engage in these idea sessions with confidence, offering up anything that occurs to them. Sometimes that happens to be the best idea at the table. Regardless, people show more responsibility for seeing the project through to the end when they feel that they were present at its birth.

Should the CEO really be sweeping floors?

I’ve been asking Gen Y entrepreneurs for their thoughts on leadership lately, and today a 26-year old business owner responded with a story about the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. This CEO had told him that his success was due to his employees seeing him in the office at 6 am and picking up trash in the parking lot at the end of the day. After seeing that, he says, there was nothing his employees weren’t willing to do for him.

I get that. I can see why employees would appreciate a CEO who doesn’t consider himself too lofty to do the menial things. I understand the symbolic value of that act. Over the years, I’ve heard several variations of this same story about other company leaders and the menial work they’re willing to take on, from sweeping floors or loading coffee mugs into the dishwasher. 

But is it good for the company? Is it a good use of his time? In a Fortune 500 company, would it  be a value to the shareholders, to have  the highly paid CEO spending his valuable time out front chasing litter?

I’d say that sort of parable should be taken with a grain of salt. I would advise that CEO not to spend too much of his time out there in the parking lot. His role is to provide leadership and vision, to steer the company, to make the tough decisions. The cost of one of his hours is a far larger expense to the company than the hourly rate of an employee a bit lower on the totem pole. That CEO is best serving the company when he’s up there in his corner office running the show.

The cost of CEO hours is even more obvious in a company built on billable hours. In a service business like Tribe, where we bill clients by the hour, people with different talents and experience levels are billed at different rates. If someone needs to run an errand for the company, is it better to send the CEO who bills out at $250 an hour or the intern who costs the company only 10 bucks an hour? 

I’d also say the CEO is not demonstrating value by showing up at work at 6 am, unless he’s leaving mid-afternoon to play golf or train for an Ironman. Why set the example of not being able to handle your workload in a reasonable workday? By the time one hits the C-level, one would hope to be operating on a higher level that is more dependent on the value one brings than the hours one works.

Gen Y will take over the world — but it will take them 10,000 hours

I’m a big fan of Millennials in the workforce. Many of Tribe’s large corporate clients have been a bit stymied by how to recruit, manage and retain this new generation of employees, and I confess we had a few hurdles getting used to them on the staff at Tribe. For Boomers, Gen Jones and even Gen X, these 20-somethings can sometimes come across as overly confident  in their readiness to assume leadership positions. Millennials seem to believe opportunity should depend not on what they have done so far, but on what they’re capable of doing, if given the chance.

Our experience at Tribe has been that they’re capable of quite a bit. The Millennials working at Tribe are smart, talented and dedicated to doing good work. They are well spoken and natural in client meetings and presentations. They show good judgment handling difficult situations. They come up with great ideas.

Looks like they’ve got it all. Except experience. The 10,000 hour rule has been getting lots of attention since Malcolm Gladwell cited it as one of the keys to success in his latest book, Outliers. Gladwell suggests that it takes 10,000 hours of working at your craft to really master it. Seth Godin, another smart guy I like to read, says 10,000 might not be the magic number, but the point is most people give up after maybe 5,000 hours, when they hit what Godin calls the Dip.

Whatever the number of hours, there is definitely something to having done what you do for a long time. Ernest Hemingway said you’re not really a writer until you’ve written a million words. I’m no Hemingway, but I’ve written for a living since  I got out of college many moons ago. I know I write better and faster than I did when I started out. It’s easier now.

I’ve given our college intern the assignment of writing a blog on what it’s like to be a Millennial working at Tribe. He’s smart. He can write. He’s got a great work ethic.

But John is struggling to reach his goal of writing 10 blogs for Inside Tribe before the end of the summer. He’s got four posted now and just a week to go before he heads back to school. I check in on him, every day or so. Breathe down his neck, once in awhile. I tell him it’s good practice for him to have me leaning over his shoulder to see what he’s got on his computer screen. But really,  good practice is just doing the work. And doing it and doing it and doing it.

I feel fine about leaving the world in the hands of people like John and the other Millennials at Tribe. They are a generation I trust.

But in the meantime, I’m reassured by the knowledge that I’m way more than 10,000 hours ahead of them.