Career Advice for Twenty-Somethings
- 6 years ago
Here's where the opportunities exist for the next generation of leaders.
Question: What
lessons have you learned from your HBS students?
Joe Bower:
We met with some of the students around these questions. And in the room were some staggeringly
successful, on our side from the class we have some amazing people. And to begin with, what they all talked
about was having a successful and stable family existence and that was really
rewarding. And that it was very
easy to let other ideas, let other activities get in the way of that. So, I was struck that across
everything, including teaching, academic work, we were saying boy, family
first.
And then I think the second
was that almost everyone had done what they wanted to do. Not, in one way or another, they had
followed what they wanted to do in the best way that they could and then just
tried to do the best the could about it.
And again, that kind of person, when you're looking at that kind of
success has been very careful, I think, to keep -- to stay away from the foul
line. To try as much as they could
to do what was right and not chase things that seemed marginal.
Question: Has the
definition of success changed over time?
Joe Bower: I don't think it has changed that much. I mean, for sure, the amounts of money
being made are staggeringly different, but that's not how people measure it
because there are people who have worked really hard over a period of years and
built a company that maybe had sales of $10 million, and it's stable and has a
good workforce and that's a fantastic fulfillment. And you have others who have had corporate careers and so on
and they don't seem very happy about it.
And the there are other leaders who just, I mean, I'm thinking at the
moment of Lou Gerstner who has had a number of careers. I do think he feels just remarkably
good about what he was able to do at IBM just because it's the idea that he was
able to restore a great company to health and prosperity was remarkable. He may have made more money when he was
at RJR, or American Express. It's
just, I think was meaningful to him was what he was able to accomplish.
Question: If you
were starting your career today as a 20-something, where would you see the
opportunities?
Joe Bower:
One, I would definitely be spending some of my time in Asia and learning what
was going on there. And second, I
would probably spend some time in government because I think, at least for the
next 10-20 years, in part because of what just happened, we're going to have
government as a partner in a lot of what we do and it wouldn't hurt to
understand it, or to have friends there and understand how to work with
government in a way that's sensible. Recorded on April 1, 2010
Question: What
lessons have you learned from your HBS students?
Joe Bower:
We met with some of the students around these questions. And in the room were some staggeringly
successful, on our side from the class we have some amazing people. And to begin with, what they all talked
about was having a successful and stable family existence and that was really
rewarding. And that it was very
easy to let other ideas, let other activities get in the way of that. So, I was struck that across
everything, including teaching, academic work, we were saying boy, family
first.
And then I think the second
was that almost everyone had done what they wanted to do. Not, in one way or another, they had
followed what they wanted to do in the best way that they could and then just
tried to do the best the could about it.
And again, that kind of person, when you're looking at that kind of
success has been very careful, I think, to keep -- to stay away from the foul
line. To try as much as they could
to do what was right and not chase things that seemed marginal.
Question: Has the
definition of success changed over time?
Joe Bower: I don't think it has changed that much. I mean, for sure, the amounts of money
being made are staggeringly different, but that's not how people measure it
because there are people who have worked really hard over a period of years and
built a company that maybe had sales of $10 million, and it's stable and has a
good workforce and that's a fantastic fulfillment. And you have others who have had corporate careers and so on
and they don't seem very happy about it.
And the there are other leaders who just, I mean, I'm thinking at the
moment of Lou Gerstner who has had a number of careers. I do think he feels just remarkably
good about what he was able to do at IBM just because it's the idea that he was
able to restore a great company to health and prosperity was remarkable. He may have made more money when he was
at RJR, or American Express. It's
just, I think was meaningful to him was what he was able to accomplish.
Question: If you
were starting your career today as a 20-something, where would you see the
opportunities?
Joe Bower:
One, I would definitely be spending some of my time in Asia and learning what
was going on there. And second, I
would probably spend some time in government because I think, at least for the
next 10-20 years, in part because of what just happened, we're going to have
government as a partner in a lot of what we do and it wouldn't hurt to
understand it, or to have friends there and understand how to work with
government in a way that's sensible. Recorded on April 1, 2010