Class of 2014

By Lora Dow

Since 1998, Beloit College in Beloit, WI, has published an annual “Mindset List” of the incoming freshmen. It’s alternately amusing and appalling to think about the world as it once was, how it will never be again, and what effect that has on a person’s psyche.

After you check out the mindset of the class of 2014, I’d encourage you to think about this thought from the introduction:

“They will now be awash with a computerized technology that will not distinguish information and knowledge. So it will be up to their professors to help them.  A generation accustomed to instant access will need to acquire the patience of scholarship.

Soon enough, these freshmen will be applying for positions in your organization. You can bemoan their differences from you. You can feel threatened by their adeptness with technology and their impatience with “intolerably slow email.”

Or you can recognize that their energy and enthusiasm is an essential ingredient to organizational success. You can acknowledge and accept that you have something to teach them. You can nurture that eagerness and challenge it with meaningful work.

After all, leadership isn’t an app.

Last 5 posts by Lora Dow

• Hit Somebody. - January 30th, 2012
• Who will you help? - January 10th, 2012
• Your Mother Was Right - December 1st, 2011
• Back-up Plans - October 13th, 2011
• Visiting Samaria - August 23rd, 2011

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