Below is part two of my thoughts and notes from the education sessions I attended Tuesday at The PPAI Expo Las Vegas. Tomorrow I’ll be posting my third and final set of notes on the sessions.
SECOND SESSION: 10:00 A.M.– Brandon Mackay, “Hot Topics Facing Young Leaders Today”
Set up in a Q&A structure, Brandon Mackay, MAS, CEO and president of SnugZ USA, ran the session as way for the attendees to talk to him and with each other about a variety of issues facing young leaders. Within the context of the seminar, “leaders” meant anything from young owners and CEOs to managers and eventual heirs to a parent’s business.
Since this session was an attendee-directed Q&A, the topics covered meandered a bit, and likely wouldn’t be the same if the class was repeated, but here’s a short list of what we talked about:
-As a young manager, how to work with subordinates that are much older (10+ years)
-Handling the sense of entitlement and inflated self-worth that employees from the millennial generation sometimes display. (“Millennial” is the name for the generation after Generation Y, so they’re currently the youngest bracket of hires available.)
-Tips on hiring the right employee
-Incorporating newer management trends into your business, like flex time and transparency, and the associated boosts to your company they can bring
-New ways to communicate with employees, such as texting and Facebook, and how understanding them can help bring you closer to your employees
I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of Q&As. They can be sort of structureless, repetitive and depend heavily on the quality of audience members. That said, I think Mackay did a great job with this session and if the class is ever repeated, I’d definitely recommend checking it out. Mackay is a talented speaker, and is immediately striking as someone who is both sincere and intelligent.
BEST QUOTE: “We have four distinct generations in the industry right now, and we’re all going to have to work together for a while. [Management] might not be traditional, but we’re all going to have to work together and find the most profitable way to make things work.”
MOST INTERESTING IDEA: The idea of company transparency, making every detail of a business known to its employees, as a method of motivation and loyalty-building. Mackay’s employees know everything from company income to rent on the building and even the number of daily telephone calls.
Thanks for reading, and check back here tomorrow for part three!
