I had the pleasure of interviewing Ryan Allis last night on the topic of business, his life as a social entrepreneur and his success. I can see why Ryan and i-Contact are so successful.

If you are someone who is in search of a top contact management system that is top-notch and affordable, I encourage you to visit i-Contact today and sign up! I get absolutely nothing from sending you over there other than the pleasure of connecting you to a super-sharp young businessman and one of the fastest growing companies in the country.

Listen to the audio interview with Ryan below…he has some wonderful advice on how to be successful in business.

 

 Ryan Allis Interview: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

During the months of June, July and August, we surveyed 320 Generation Y careerists, ranging in age from 21-27 years of age. In the survey, we asked a few questions about leadership and what Gen Ys are looking for in a leader.

Question Number 4 was this:

What are the biggest turn-offs for you in the leaders in your workplace?

The following 10 answers did not just come up a few times. They came up over and over again in the answers, which tells me that these qualities and behaviors need some very focused work. If you are the leader of an organization, I would recommend that you start surveying your employees to find out what’s really going on in your organization around these issues. While I realize these qualities are qualities that no one wants, Generation Y is a generation who not only does not want these qualities in their leaders, they won’t tolerate them, and they are smart enough to move on from your organization if they feel these behaviors are a part of your culture.

Top Answer: 1: Arrogance (I know it all!)

2: Big Egos (The success is all about me and how great I am)

3: Hypocrisy/Being Two-Faced

4: Lying and Sneakiness

5: Narrow-Minded

6: Micro-Management and Being Bossy (tied for 6th place)

7: Ignorance (My boss does not know what the heck he/she is doing)

8: Negative Attitudes

9: Inauthentic

10: Sketchiness/Corruption/Flashing Money/Not On the Up and Up/Secretive Behavior

If you believe your organization is being affected by any of the above behaviors, please send me an e-mail to beafields@beafields.com, and we can discuss a 360 Degree assessment for your organization.

I recently caught up with Vanessa Van Petten , author of the book You’re Grounded: How to Stop Fighting and Make the Teenage Years Easier for a special interview for the Creating Gen-Y Magic project

Vanessa is such an inspiration, so make sure to read the interview here.

Many thanks to Greg Rollett for inviting me to interview Vanessa…it was a pleasure indeed!

I recently talked with Michael O’Brien with HR Executive Magazine about the new survey, Millennials at Work: Myths vs. Reality, released by New York-based advertising agency JWT.  The study is a great read, so check it out.

O’Brien has written a short article, Misunderstood Millennials that may be of interest to those of you working in the HR field.

The hunt for the next hot spots

For generations of suburban kids raised in traffic, mixed-use and mass transit will define the future.
Great articles in the Washington Business Journal - by Katie Wilmeth

The below chart is from the blog post Understanding Gartner’s “Generation Virtual” by Jeremiah Owyang. I highly recommend reading the full blog post and the study by Gartner.

Above Image: Gartner’s Generation V Quadrant, found via Marketing Charts.

Thank-you to Tara Kachaturoff for sending this along. Tara is always so in the know on these topics!

Wow…wonder how fast this was! I’m thrilled to know that my son Jack may indeed be employable in the future…texting!

Watch it here!

Ah.. more than 42 Million Gen Y members can vote in the upcoming election. And why is that only one candidate is really using the web And why is it that only candidate thought to go to an expert or at least someone who lives and breathes online stuff. Why is it that only one candidate hired the founder of Facebook to help him with his campaign. Why is that even though only 48% of the Gen Yers claimto be a Democrat, they will still vote for Obama.

46% of Gen Yers expect the next President to interact with them online. Isn’t amazing that other candidates–in any election–still haven’t integrated online into their communications with these constituents

Tactics to use to retain and train Gen Y:

• Flexible hours
• Flexible vacations
• Mentoring programs
• Creative compensation — not just $$
• Constant feedback
• Incentives tied to group performance

And don’t forget to give them constant feedback. But I would like to touch upon the last bullet point about incentives. It can be really powerful to reward not just the individual, .. but also how the individual does as part of the team and part of organization. At Intuit, we call it ‘cascading’ — making sure that the CEO’s goals and objectives cascade down to everyone in the organization.

When I manage folks, I am always looking at how their professional goals cascade up and cascasde down.

Interesting article.