Career Transition for the New Generation with Vivek Iyyani S3 I Ep3

Join hosts Vanessa Iloste and Vanessa Teo as they welcome Vivek Iyyani, a thought leader in generational differences in the workplace, on the Career Transitions Podcast. Vivek shares insights from his extensive research and three books - "Engaging Millennials," "The Millennial Leader," and "Marketing to Millennials."

Vivek offers advice for leaders on effectively managing millennials, emphasizing the importance of being open-minded, adaptable, and fostering a culture of learning.

 Key Points:

- Vivek's personal career journey, including academic challenges and subsequent successes.

- Observations from Vivek's freelance training experiences with young people and its influence on his research.

- Understanding the phenomenon of job hopping among millennials and its implications for organizations.

- Strategies for organizations to facilitate career progression, including internal career fairs and mentorship programs.

- Advice for leaders on effectively managing millennials, emphasizing adaptability, and fostering a culture of learning.

Check out Vivek Iyyani's Books: "Engaging Millennials," "The Millennial Leader," and "Marketing to Millennials."

Connect with us on LinkedIn:

· Vanessa Iloste (Host)

· Vanessa Teo (Host)

· Aaron Wu (Producer)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Vanessa T: Hi, everyone. We're your hosts, Vanessa Iloste and Vanessa Teo. Welcome everyone to this next episode of the Career Transitions Podcast. The podcast where we explore what it takes to successfully navigate through career transitions, no matter which stage of life or career you're at.

[00:00:24] Vanessa I: Today on the Career Transition ESSEC Collaboration episode, we speak with Vivek Iyyani. Vivek is a thought leader when it comes to generational differences in the workplace. He's an author, a keynote speaker, and a facilitator on this exciting topic. Vivek is also the author of three books. Engaging Millennials, the Millennial Leader and Marketing to Millennials.

[00:00:46] Vanessa T: We thought it was really interesting to bring Vivek to our show as he has done so much research about Millennials. As most of our students from the ESSEC Business School in Singapore are from this generation, we believe that he can help us to understand what it takes to create the best environment for their learning.

[00:01:03] Vanessa I: We hope that you enjoyed this episode as much as we did.

[00:01:12] Vanessa T: Hi everyone! Welcome to a new episode of Career Transitions, we're your hosts, Vanessa Iloste and Vanessa Teo. 

[00:01:19] Vanessa I: Today, we are honored to have on our show Vivek Iyyani. Thank you for joining us, Vivek. Let me introduce you to our audience. Vivek was born in India and he was raised in Singapore. He's a thought leader when it comes to generational differences in the workplace.

[00:01:35] He's an author, a keynote speaker, and a facilitator on this exciting topic. Vivek is the author of three books. And the names of the books are Engaging Millennials, The Millennial Leader, and Marketing to Millennials. We decided to bring him on the podcast as we are curious to know how career transition evolves in the future and how HR professionals and leaders in general can prepare ourselves for these changes.

[00:02:04] Vanessa T: Welcome to our show, Vivek. 

[00:02:06] Vivek I: Thank you. Thank you, Vanessa and Vanessa. So I'm glad to be here. Yeah, I'm looking forward to a very interesting conversation. So thanks for having me. 

[00:02:14] Vanessa T: Fantastic. And we're very excited to have you on our show. So let's start off with our first question for you, Vivek, and it's about your own career transition.

[00:02:22] You've always been quite transparent about your own career and that during your academic life, you actually failed at one of the major national exams. And what you've also shown is that there truly is a future for individuals who perhaps didn't do as well academically in that stage of life, but you've gone on to really accomplish a great deal in your life, and we're curious to know a little bit about that.

[00:02:48] Vivek I: Yeah, so I failed my A levels and it was the one thing I was told not to do by my parents. Don't fail in any of your exams. And for me, I think that was my wake up call to really realize that, you know, um, why are we studying? What are we studying? And, um, to really look into what exactly is my direction, you know, because I was literally like a piece of wood floating in the water headed towards the waterfall.

[00:03:14] So I didn't have any sense of direction myself. I was just going with the tide. And you know, when I fail my A levels, which I pretty much knew I might fail, but it was going through that event was a real wake up call for me. So yeah, it was one of the defining moments in my life, which made me just realize that I can't continue this way.

[00:03:33] Vanessa I: One of the things I found really good is the fact that you are so open about it. Can you share with us the reason why you find it important to share this with all the people who follow you on the social media or in your books? 

[00:03:46] Vivek I: There were a few narratives that I need to say so that people get their context, if people are listening from overseas especially.

[00:03:52] Number one in Singapore. Maths and science is the road to success. That was the narrative that I was drilled into from primary school, right? And I developed a huge fear for maths from there. The second thing is junior college is more prestigious than going to a polytechnic or an ITE. ITE means it was called, it's the end for you.

[00:04:11] They've abbreviated even the Institute of Technical Education. So when I was doing my O levels, I aimed for junior college, not because I wanted to go into junior college and study a certain subject, but because that's the prestigious thing to do as a student. And I wanted to make my parents proud. So I did that.

[00:04:29] Then I went into science because that's what everyone said the future was in. And, um, my father said that there's a lot of potential in IT and there's a lot of potential in science. So you should consider that. Everyone around me, my friends were saying, if you do science, at least you can still revert back to arts when you go into university.

[00:04:50] But if you do arts now, you can never pursue science in university. So it's always a safe option to choose science. So all of those narratives kind of give me enough peer and parental pressure to pick something that I didn't really enjoy. I took up computer science. I took up physics. I took up maths. The only subject that I actually passed was my general paper.

[00:05:12] So general paper is a bit like English, but a little bit more argumentative. And, um, yeah, so I passed my languages and I think that should have been a very clear sign that I was more of an art student. But I just did things out of the peer pressure, the social pressure. And the reason why I speak about my failures in A levels is because I think there is a lesson to be learned early on, which has to be addressed early on as well, which is you need to know what you personally as an individual are good at.

[00:05:43] Vanessa I: Thank you for doing that. I think it's really helping a lot of people, I mean, who might be following you actually. 

[00:05:49] Vanessa T: Yeah, I love how you talk about failing and failing early, learning quickly and reflecting on that to discover who you are inside. I think that has certainly helped you in your journey. 

[00:06:00] Vivek I: Yeah.

[00:06:00] And you know, what's funny, right? Is I faced the same issue again. So I failed. I had to go through the private route. Uh, I had to do a diploma and I didn't know what subject to choose there, but I had two years to really reflect, right? I was spending two years in the army and I had time to really think about what I wanted to do in life and what kind of a career would suit me.

[00:06:22] And it was my mother who pointed out that, you know, you like reading all these books and they're all. of a certain genre like psychology, sociology. Why don't you consider that? And my instant reaction I was like, no, that's not going to do well in Singapore. And when I started sharing that, you know, uh, you know, psychology still had its own, um, stigma, right?

[00:06:43] That means you're the one who deals with the people with mental illnesses. And, uh, it wasn't as a widely accepted phenomenon. And, you know, like when, people come to our house and they say, Hey, so what are you doing now? You know, and stuff like that. When I say psychology, they have a different reaction, right?

[00:06:58] Like, oh, psychology. They're very polite way of asking, Is there scope for you to, you know, succeed in psychology in Singapore? Is that a thing? Do you think, you know, you can do well? And I didn't know. But what I did know was that, yes, I am interested in the subject and, um, I'm going to give it my best and see where it takes me.

[00:07:17] But that awareness helped me a lot. And you know, what's even funnier is my peers who did the science mugged up passed, right? They went on to university and they still took up a subject that wasn't what they wanted. But again, some reason or the other, they did something and they realized they don't really want to do this after graduation.

[00:07:36] Vanessa I: Thank you for sharing, and one of the things that I also like in your sharing in your books or on social media is that you actually talk about the moment when you were doing freelance training for young people while studying for your degree in psychology. And in your books, you refer very often to the time you work as a freelancer as a moment where you had a firsthand experience on what these young people were going through.

[00:08:03] I was curious to hear from you what you witnessed at that time. And I think it was the beginning of your research. This is the way I look at it. I hope I'm not wrong, but you know, when I tried to look at the chronology between all this and the books now that you have written, I think there is a very deep connection between this observation.

[00:08:22] So what did you observe when you were actually a freelancer working for the young people, Vivek? 

[00:08:27] Vivek I: The first thing that I observed, you know, and it's not just with the young people. So I'm talking to the teachers and the principals and I'm talking to the students themselves, right? As trainers, we go in, we interact with them.

[00:08:38] So we ask them if we are doing a program on goal setting. So what do you want to be when you grow up? Typical answers we used to hear, doctor, lawyers and stuff. Today we hear influencer, YouTuber, Instagram brand ambassadors. The shift from like rocket scientists being the cool career to now, you know, something like this has been very eye opening as well.

[00:08:59] So what about this career is interesting for them? Is it just because you see them on social media you think that is the ideal career? Have you really understood what the career entails? Because I interview influencers as well and when I talk to them, they say that you know, I stop enjoying holidays I stop enjoying travel because every time you do that you are also working, right?

[00:09:21] It's actually work, right? They are at the nice hotel. They are posing and you're taking all those photos and then they are recording all the food, but it is work, right? And it becomes repetitive after a while. It loses that travel novelty that usually comes with someone who does this not as often.

[00:09:36] Vanessa I: When you were doing the freelance, the number of years of difference between you and these young people, it was not that big, right? It would have been four, five, six years maximum. 

[00:09:46] Vivek I: Yeah. So they were like 13 to 16, right? Um, I did even younger ones, but the ones I had a bit more mature conversations around 13 to 16, 17 years old.

[00:09:55] And I was probably about 21 just after finishing my army. Yeah. I kind of came out of army when I was about 21. I started doing freelance work while studying for my diploma and then my degree. 

[00:10:07] Vanessa I: These five years, you had really a change in terms of generation. Basically, this is what you witness is this turnaround to a certain extent. 

[00:10:15] Vivek I: Actually, I didn't know it was a generational thing. I just thought kids these days, like typically kids are, you know, different. They have different opinions, different thoughts, very different from what I had in mind. So it didn't occur to me until I started to notice these trends. So the teachers talking about them and then my peers themselves, they finished their degrees and the education, they joined the workforce and then they say, this is not the job I want to do.

[00:10:41] And they quit without really worrying about where they'll find the next job. But they also go through a certain quarter life crisis in some sense. So those things started making me feel like, Oh, wait, hold on a second. I would never think of job hopping as something because it was always a narrative that if you job hop too often you're going to get a black mark on your resume and then you're never going to be able to get a good job, right?

[00:11:07] These are the narratives that held us back, right? And my peers and my friends are like it's not working out and uh, they went through their stresses. We talked about it, we joked about it and things like that but I noticed that there is a certain shift that i'm noticing amongst my peers amongst different groups and when I decided to go deeper into it, that's when I actually even came across the term quarterlife crisis, because I only heard of midlife crisis. Midlife crisis maybe happens after you're like maybe 35 or over, right? And what is quarterlife crisis? Why were people going through this issues? What is it? Who is causing these issues? Those were the questions that were in my mind.

[00:11:45] And is it a systemic issue? Is it an individual issue? All of these things that I wanted answers to, and I just started asking people, having conversations around this. I want to know if it, was it just a few of us who was experiencing this or was it something that we are noticing on a larger scale? 

[00:12:02] Vanessa T: I like how you talk about this research that you did and quite a bit done on the quarter life crisis.

[00:12:07] And I know that you wrote an article in the local papers about it as well. And we'll put the link to that article in our show notes. Between 2015 and 2017, you invested quite a great deal of research on the topic of Gen Zs and Millennials, and then published your first book in 2017. You took the plunge into becoming an author, writer, a researcher very early in your career.

[00:12:32] Tell us why you decided to write a book. 

[00:12:35] Vivek I: So writing a book was always there in the back of my mind, but taking the plunge was something that was initiated when I had this conversation with someone, when you're starting out as an entrepreneur and you're starting out right after you've graduated from university, you want to be taken seriously.

[00:12:51] You have no experience and technically no formal experience as a full time employee, and you want to know how you can do better. So of course I sought out people who have been in the industry, similar industry as mine, to know what actually helped them. And, uh, this was the advice that I got. So I was sitting at this Lau Pa Sat coffee shop and, uh, he says, look around you, right?

[00:13:13] There are so many professionals here. How many of them actually know you? And I said, probably no one knows me, right? And he says, if you want to succeed in this business of education, if you want to really be a speaker, right? The more people know of you, the better your chances of getting business. This industry, it's all about 80 percent is marketing and 20 percent is really the actual training and coaching and consulting services.

[00:13:40] There was a huge lesson that stuck with me. So I asked him, so, okay, how do I get all these people to know about me? So he pointed me to a few directions. One, LinkedIn platform, you have to be active there because if you are targeting a professional group, you need to write there, right? Number two, you need to write a book.

[00:13:59] You need to do your research because you have nothing else. You don't have white hair. You don't have a lot of experience working with big companies. People can question you. So you need to do that. And he also said you need to also provide something that is unique and something that someone else who has a lot more experience cannot provide you.

[00:14:18] So this conversation is happening at a time where I'm thinking, okay, is there a way for me to go from working with youths to working with university students, right? So reaching out to colleges, universities, and talking about how to prepare for the world, a little higher age gap. During this conversation, I'm reflecting and I realized that my experience so far has always been with the younger ones, the teenagers, 7 to 17 year olds.

[00:14:45] So I do have some insights, some experiences there, and I can use that to kind of position myself as someone who has been in this space. That's how I kind of reinvented and did a transition by going through the decision of let me do the research and let me put out my research and then see whether it helps me get any traction for my business.

[00:15:05] At the same time, it was also something that I felt was an issue that needed to be talked about and to raise awareness about. So it all kind of clicked together in that sense. It was a one day, someday kind of a dream that was just suddenly put on fast forward.

[00:15:20] Vanessa T: And you made it a reality. 

[00:15:22] Vivek I: Yeah, I had no choice.

[00:15:24] I decided to invest money, so writing a book is no cheap or fair. At that point in time, I didn't know anything or anyone in the industry, and the first person I went to, I so happened to meet by chance. He provided publishing services. So it's like he helps you with the backend of the book, the cover design, the editing, the layout.

[00:15:44] All of those things, he helps with that. So he helps authors take their soft copy and make it into a hard copy book. So I just happened to meet that person during a networking session. I was connected through a friend and then I approached him and asked him, what's the financials behind all of this? It was a five figure sum.

[00:16:01] And I was like, how am I going to get a five figure sum? I don't have that many savings. I decided to be resourceful. I went to my dad. I said, hey, I've got this idea. This is the book I want to do. And I can give you a piece of the pie. I can repay you back after the book is selling, right? So I pitched my dad and my dad graciously accepted.

[00:16:19] I didn't expect him to be honest. So I already paid the deposit. I knew that even if I struggled, I still had to finish the book because I still had to repay my dad. So I kind of put myself in that kind of a situation. 

[00:16:32] Vanessa T: I love how you talk about networks and reaching out to people within your networks, and you certainly did that and have since then flourished in your writing career, um, but we've talked about careers and career transitions and the importance of establishing different networks and really reaching out to external networks beyond your current workplace or beyond your current network. And I think it's really important, um, how creatively you've also done it. 

[00:17:00] Vivek I: Yeah. One of the biggest tips that I asked my dad, because my dad, after the economy crashed in 98, he also set out to be an entrepreneur.

[00:17:08] My dad's super introvert. He was in accounting for all his life. And all of us were a bit afraid when he said he wanted to do his own accounting services. And he still managed to do pretty well. So I asked him, you know, I also want to be an entrepreneur. What should I be doing? He said, go for networking events and meet more people.

[00:17:25] That's the only thing he asked me to do, you know, meet people and tell them what you do. So the first thing I did was to join a networking organization because that's where you are informed of different events and you meet different people and things like that. Yeah. So that was something I did early on.

[00:17:40] Vanessa I: That's very good. So, Vivek, we were very curious to ask you the question around the new generation and their own career transition or their own career progression. And many people are talking about a form of stereotype we sometimes found around the fact that the new generation is doing too much job hopping.

[00:17:58] For me and Vanessa T, when we discuss about this, we are more thinking as HR professional that maybe it's because we don't offer as organization what the new generation is looking for. So we were thinking, you know, you're the best person we know to ask the question, what do you think the new generation is looking for when it comes to career progression?

[00:18:19] And what have you observed from your research? 

[00:18:21] Vivek I: So when it comes to career progression, definitely one of the key things that the younger generation actually values is career progression. In fact, I've had one of the employer managing director that I interviewed for my book, Engaging Millennials, say that in his organization, some of his team members were happy to be promoted just by title, no change in rewards, just happy to be promoted by title.

[00:18:45] So their title goes from sales manager to sales director. And they want it because they get more clout when they go networking and that actually increased his retention of his, uh, high performing people, just the title alone. And he was surprised. He was saying that, you know, two years in you get the title and then you live that title and then you only get that promotion.

[00:19:08] Uh, the real actual financial, all of those benefits included coming in at the end of two extra years, right? So two plus two, so four. So the organization, what they did was they handed out titles. He also suffered from people leaving to other organizations because of lower pay, but better title. So that's why he said, I can give titles.

[00:19:29] That's no problem at all, right? And even though it sounds like an absurd idea, it actually helped his team to retain staff. So the thing is, we have to think outside the box, right? You know, what got us here will not get us to the next level. And when it comes to career progression, there's more than one ways to go up.

[00:19:45] Promotion, it's like, you know, more work, right? So I don't want to do more. I want to do something different. I want to try something else, right? Can I move to another department and try out a totally different role, which has some overlaps here and there? Would it be something I can consider, right? So do organizations create that opportunity?

[00:20:02] I do remember during a panel discussion at LinkedIn, there was this HR person from AXA who said that they actually do internal career fairs. So each department gets to set up their own booth, decorate it and talk about what are the open roles that they have. And then the entire organization comes and then they go and see, and they can apply for what are the open roles if interested in, because they adopted this mindset that better they move within our company than moving out of the company.

[00:20:31] Vanessa T: And through your research, Vivek, what, what are some of the best companies do to really encourage millennials to take on these different types of career transitions, these different kinds of career opportunities? In many instances, they are also unexpected types of career development opportunities. What did some of the best companies do?

[00:20:53] Vivek I: Having internal career fairs is one of the things that organizations can provide them. Another thing is to have interdepartmental mentors. So what I mean by that is not just having a mentor who you're working with, but someone who is from a completely different other part of the organization. 

[00:21:09] So having that cross conversational topics, right? You get to really understand what the other department is doing, what are their challenges, and at the same time, develop an affinity for one another when you have those kinds of opportunities to meet different people from outside of your day to day team, right? So having those kinds of opportunities really help.

[00:21:29] I have also had organizations introduce reverse mentoring, where you have shadow boards for the younger ones to shadow management and get to see from a bigger point of view what the organization is doing. And that actually gets them creative, gets them to see that, okay, these are opportunities that I can look into this is some things that I can do.

[00:21:51] So having shadow boards also help the younger ones to see what's possible, but the organization must be willing to implement these issues, these kinds of policies, and then provide the opportunity for them to take effect. 

[00:22:04] Vanessa I: One thing that I like also in your book is that you're trying to think from a management perspective and a leadership perspective.

[00:22:10] And I think this is my favorite book out of your three, because this is where I learned the most. I was wondering if you could share with us the advice you could give to a leader who is having millennials in his team or in our team and who wants to support them. What would a leader do differently with the new generation compared to what he did with his peers before or people of his age or her age before?

[00:22:34] Vivek I: I think the concept of a leader and especially authority, because they are kind of related, has changed over time. A leader may not be someone who has authority, right? How do you become a leader without the authority? So do they still respect you if you don't have that rank or that role. If you can become that person who can go down to their level, speak to them, and be someone that they are willing to respect, right? They really intrinsically follow you as a leader, not because you have a certain position, but because of who you are as an individual, I think that builds the rapport.

[00:23:09] Now, what I've noticed, right? And I've done some research on this as well, is I read PhD papers about people who have tested this on the ground. So in the US, there was this experiment done where um, this consultant goes in, psychologist goes in and says, give me your best managers who are popular amongst millennials and your worst managers who are unpopular amongst the millennials and bring them to a focus group discussion.

[00:23:33] So they got three and three came together and they asked, what are your thoughts about millennials? What do you think about them? What would you expect? You'll typically expect the good ones to say something different from the bad ones. But what they shared was, yes, millennials are entitled. Yes, they are a little bit not as resilient.

[00:23:50] Yes, they are this and that. And those are the negative attributes, which he wasn't expecting it from the really popular managers. So he realized, okay, the perception is the same for both. That means they are doing something different. So what are you doing different that gets you ranked favorably over the other?

[00:24:08] And that's when they started to share that even though I see them like this, I do understand that if I need to get my work done, I need to be able to appeal to them, to be able to influence them, to be able to engage with them. So I am willing to unlearn. and relearn. They decided that I have my ways of doing things, but I'm willing to see how you would like to approach this thing.

[00:24:30] They basically have de biased themselves by being open to listen to the other individual and see what they have to share. So he made them feel important. He made them feel relevant. Whereas the other one says like, you have lesser experience than me. I am the authority here. You do as what I tell you to do.

[00:24:48] Don't question me, right? And wait for a few years before you decide to give me any kind of recommendations. So it is really the mindset on how you approach them versus what you or someone else may perceive them to be. Their approach was very simple. I want to go down to their level and learn and grow with them because I realize there is a difference and I want to learn.

[00:25:09] So you are a lifelong learner in terms of learning how to manage them because they're different. You come from a place of curiosity, not from a place of I'm all high and mighty. That was the key difference that he noted that the really popular managers had versus the not so popular ones had a very, uh, hierarchical, very authoritative way of do as I tell you.

[00:25:31] Now, just to give you an interesting aside, that kind of leadership It was very popular because after World War II, when baby boomers were in the workforce, who were the motivational speakers and consultants that big organizations invited? It was actually all these army officers. After war, how do you manage people, a team in a war?

[00:25:50] So they would showcase their systems, their way of leadership has to be this, very systematized, and it has to be very authoritative. So that was the narrative that was passed down in the organization. This is how you run a successful organization and you learn it from the veterans from the war and that kind of passed down.

[00:26:07] But you know, a leader who is successful in war may not be the same leader who's successful in peace times. So we have to realize at different points in time, the leader has to do what's required, not stick to the same way of doing things just because it worked at one point in time. 

[00:26:23] Vanessa T: So versatile leader and one that really listens to the ground.

[00:26:29] Well, thank you so much, Vivek. What a tremendous opportunity for us to speak with you today. And really thank you so much for sharing with us all of the research that you've done, which certainly has helped to advance the study into how organizations and leaders alike can really help to advance the way we think about managing millennials in our workforce today.

[00:26:51] And hopefully. Be a better service to these millennials as they look at transitioning into each stage of their career. Thank you so much for your time and insights today. 

[00:27:03] Vanessa I: Thank you Vivek for joining us today. And as I enjoyed reading your three books, we will be very happy actually to put the names of the three books on the show notes so that many more people can have access to them.

[00:27:15] And we wish you all the very best. for the continuation of your career as a thought leader, as an author, as a motivational speaker. Please continue sharing with us your insights so that we can benefit from them. We look forward to seeing you soon. 

[00:27:28] Vivek I: Thank you. And can I just say thank you for doing this podcast so that everyone else who is going through a difficult time thinking about their next career transition actually know that there is a resource out there for them to learn from different people and from different backgrounds.

[00:27:42] So thank you for having me. 

[00:27:44] Vanessa I: Thank you. Thank you so much.