Now You See Them, Now You Don't

"Now You See Them, Now You Don't"
One Crucial Issue We're Not Prepared to Face
Tim Elmore / www.GrowingLeaders.com

Last month, I spoke to a CEO who just finished hiring a batch of twenty-somethings. When I asked what college they had graduated from, he said he didn't know, because he had stopped hiring American graduates. He was going to India to find young talent because--unlike Americans--they are ready for the workplace. The American kids, he said, were self- absorbed, greedy and unteachable. Ouch.

I don't believe this is a picture of every college graduate, but it does bring up a critical issue. In this article I want to address one of the most crucial challenges we'll face in our lifetime. It is a global challenge, with consequences right here at home. It will impact everyone and yet few seem aware of the dilemma it presents for our generation. I can summarize the challenge in two statements:

1. Young people among the Millennial Generation are growing faster than we can train them.

2. Older people among the Baby Boom Generation are retiring faster than we can replace them.

Unless we raise the standard for kids today and help them to think and act like authentic leaders, they will never be ready for the responsibility thrust on them as they enter young adulthood. This is true for America, just as it is true for developing nations, but for different reasons.

Houston, We Have a Vacuum
Look at Africa for a moment. I was in Uganda a year and a half ago. The average life expectancy in that nation is 43 years. The average life expectancy in Zimbabwe is 38, and in Botswana it's 37. Many kids in those nations will be thrust into leading schools, or serving as a post master or a village mayor by the time they are eighteen years old. Most of this is due to the AIDS pandemic. Ready or not, these kids will be leaders.

In America, our problem is due to the aging population of Baby Boomers, which is almost 83 million people. This is the largest generation to come through America to date. In the next five years, they will begin retiring. And they will continue retiring for the next eighteen years. There is a much smaller population behind them--Generations X and Y. Ready or not, these kids will be leaders.

Stop and think about your own setting. Most of the established leaders you follow are likely from the Baby Boomer generation. They were born between 1946 and 1964. A large percentage of these folks will be disappearing in the next decade. A large majority of these Baby Boomers will be retiring or vacating leadership positions in hospitals, in government, in education, in churches, on mission fields and in corporations. They represent between 40-45% of the workforce. We'll be saying goodbye to a whole lot of folks soon.

The World is Doing "Swell"
I just read the numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. The population of kids worldwide from birth to college age is 2,987,230,232. In case this number represents too many digits for you--that's nearly three billion people. It's about half of the world's population. There is a worldwide swelling of young people. In China and India (the two largest nations in the world) the average age of a citizen is mid-twenties. So, while a huge generation is retiring in the U.S., a huge generation is just getting started around the rest of the world.

Let me give you just one example. In the Middle East, the United Nations has been giving Palestinian families money every time they have a baby. This is the consolation for losing land after Israel was voted in as an official nation in 1948. So, what have the Palestinian families done? Have babies. Bunches of them. It is common for a family to have twelve to fifteen kids. The more children they have, the richer they become. So, the Jewish population has been dwarfed by the swelling Arab population around them. Gaza has been overwhelmed by a demographic boom that shows no signs of abating. In the last fifty years its population has jumped from 240,000 to nearly 1.5 million. It is such a small territory with no economy to speak of--except for giving birth to babies.

What's more, German socialist and author Gunnar Heinsohn tell us that whenever a country has a swelling youth population violence almost always follows. It was true when the Baby Boom generation was young in the U.S. (remember the 1960s?) and it is true now in about 66 other nations of the world. In fact, let's test Mr. Heinsohn's statement against the youth boom we see around the world. Today, there are 66 nations who have a youth population of 30% or more. Of those 66 nations, 60 of them are experiencing civil war or mass killings. It is mostly young people. Of the top 27 nations that have a youth boom 13 are Arab nations, where terrorists are born. A swelling population of young people fosters a need for expression--either healthy or unhealthy. They will cry out against unemployment, which plagues Iran today. They'll cry out against political injustice. They'll cry out against Western infidelity. These young people will be heard; they will lead the way into the future. It is up to us whether they do it as Mother Teresa or Adolf Hitler.

So, here's where we stand. We have a gigantic retiring generation, wanting to rest. We also have a gigantic young generation yearning to influence the world around them. If we could only get these two together and enable the older, established generation to somehow give back to the younger generation, we might just address some of this dilemma I bring up in this article.

The Wisest Investment You Can Make
That's why I believe the greatest investment I can make (as a Baby Boomer) is to equip a young person to think and act like a leader. It is not enough that we have nice kids. We must build kids that possess vision, that plan well, that set healthy priorities and that practice good people skills. I call this leadership. I also believe this is not just an economic issue or a social issue. It is a spiritual issue. We need leaders who lead from their heart not just their head or their wallet or for their own political gain. I hunger to see leaders whose vision is for a future well beyond their lifetime. I want to see a new generation of leaders whose faith guides them and gives them courage to act in the face of great risk, when it's right. In government, this means they are statesmen, not politicians. In education, this means they are mentors, not just faculty members. In business, this means they are philanthropists not just capitalists--who work to merely build a bigger 401K for themselves.

I challenge you to join us, at Growing Leaders, to invest in this next generation of leaders. Become a mentor for at least one if not a community of students who desperately need a mentor:

* Find a Time. (It won't happen if you don't plan a time each week to meet).
* Find a Team. (You must choose the students with whom you wish to connect).
* Find a Tool. (You must decide what resource--book or study--will guide you).

Check out our website for our new Mentoring Kit (lifeLINES: Becoming the Life Giving Mentor Your Students Need), when you are ready!

Tim