At a time when many of their contemporaries are getting tattoos and piercing their faces as some sort of youth ritual, more and more 20-somethings are running with the big dogs of business.
They are starting to take over leadership roles, and statistics show it just might be a good thing for business. A 1998 survey conducted by the American Management Association concluded that a mixture of factors in senior management, including age, consistently correlates to superior corporate performance.
The survey also concluded that organizations that have senior managers under age 40 show a greater success pattern than those with older top executives.
Another study, conducted by the American Association of Retired Persons, shows clear advantages to having older workers in management positions — they’re more experienced, have better judgment and a higher commitment to quality and are overall more responsible. But the study also found that the younger generation was better at learning new skills, more accepting of new technology and more flexible and adaptable.
More and more companies are focusing on potential, not necessarily experience. In reality, the next generation is making an impact. Young leaders realize they don’t know everything and are eager for advice from their elders. They draw on their strengths and overcompensate for their weaknesses.
As Nick Navarra, 56-year-old president of the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce says, “The doctor that operates on me is 30-something. So I better have confidence with them.”
Keith Veres is a manager at the accounting firm of Hill, Barth & King Inc. in Alliance. The cleancut 29-year-old has been with the firm for eight years, since graduating from Mercy Hurst College in Erie, Pa. He rose to the ranks of management by age 26 and attributes his success to his ability to generate business and his dedication to the firm.
At the Alliance Country Club where his interview took place, he shakes hands with someone at virtually every table of the lunch crowd. On the way out of the club, he confesses that most of his friends are in their 40s. These are the people with the money — and therefore the people he deals with on a daily basis.
Not only an important associate at his firm, he and his wife Molly are community leaders. Together they run the Robinson Youth Center. Keith is also the treasurer of the United Way, secretary at the Alliance Country Club and city council appointed treasurer for the Greater Alliance Foundation.
“I would say the disadvantages of being young and looking young are that most of the people that I deal with that own businesses are older than myself and could possibly have the idea that I might not have a lot of experience and might not have the answers for them that they haven’t already thought of,” he says.
Ironically, he taps the qualities associated with youth — energy, a hunger for success, and sometimes the naiveté of not knowing you can fail — to overcome the disadvantages presented by youth. “There has to be an initial rapport-building and respect-gaining process, where I prove myself and my ability to contribute to their organization. That part of the business comes with experience and time and going through this over and over with clients.”
Going the extra mile is something he has learned to do out of necessity. “When I get clients at my age, they are extremely important to me. Whereas, say in the larger firms or the accountants who work at capacity currently, may not be able to give the attention to the growing clients that I can,” he says. “And to respond more quickly and just treat the clients like they should be treated, everyone equal.”
Veres had to face the fear of more responsibility in a more direct manner. As manager, he is responsible for putting his name and Social Security number on customers’ tax returns, holding him liable.
However, he uses it to his advantage. “I looked at it in a very positive way, as a challenge,” he says. “That’s what I was working for, so it was a reward, really. It was the reward for five years of paying my dues.”
Along with the responsibility came the increasingly watchful eyes of his superiors. “There were more questions from upper management, people who are older than me and above me, when I was proposed for manager, asking the questions as to whether I was ready because I was younger than the normal manager at the time,” he says. “There was a little more attention on me the first year or two as manager to see that I was doing OK.”
Stephanie Froelich and her husband, Michael Barnhart, are 28-year-old owners of Informed Directions in North Canton. They started their business five years ago with $2,000 after Froelich was laid off from a medical company.
Two weeks after starting the business, Barnhart was laid off from Roadway. In response to their situation, the pair went full steam ahead with their business, conducting background checks on new employees for a wide array of companies. Their seed money bought them their first computer.
“I think doing it when you’re young, the only big advantage of that is you have nothing to lose,” says Barnhart. “You’re living in an apartment already. You don’t have the expenses.”
During the first year and a half, Barnhart and Froelich took home $15,000 between them to live on. They were spending so much time at work, they didn’t need much money at home.
“We were living in a one bedroom apartment, driving old cars that were both paid off, but you can afford to do that when you’re a young person. Compared to the college dorm, it wasn’t all that bad. I mean, hey, at least we had our own bathroom.”
“It wasn’t like people that I see that want to start their own business, but they already have a house, maybe have a couple of kids. Now you’ve got a lot that you’re risking,” he says. “That was the biggest advantage then, that we didn’t have any fear.”
Froelich and Barnhart face their fears every day. They worry about changes in the industry and about losing big clients, although they have not lost one in five years. In the last six months, three of their major competitors have offered to buy them out.
It wasn’t always like that, though. “When we first started out, we never let anybody know … that we owned the company,” says Barnhart. “We didn’t even let them know that we were president and vice president. I didn’t even have a title on my business card.”
At their first presentation, for a Fortune 100 company, the two felt so unsure about their ages that they played cover up. They needed the account desperately to get their business off the ground.
They knew the client had researched their company through Dun & Bradstreet and found out who the president and vice president were. “We didn’t want to go in looking this young … making a presentation to a bunch of stiff upper management people that were a lot older,” Barnhart says.
He went to the meeting and presented himself as vice president. Froelich didn’t want the leave the client with the image of such a young president, so she made business cards with a false name and posed as an employee.
After the pair had proven themselves, the truth came out, but they did have to attend a few lunches under the charade.
“Now it’s a lot better,” Barnhart says. “We’re a lot more established. We’re a lot larger of a company and if anybody has any doubts now about our age, well, our client base speaks for itself. When I can give vice presidents at State Farm Insurance, Nationwide, General Motors and Chrysler as references, it’s not an issue anymore.”
Rick Akers is the manager of day-to-day operations at Akers Signs in North Canton. At 29, sporting a goatee and casual dress, he resembles s
omeone out of the Doonesbury comic strip. He is soft spoken and enthusiastic about his business as he rifles through a stack of more than 100 photos of signs his company has made. Akers Signs was started by his father in 1972.
Akers also feared his youth might impede his success, but found an alternate reality. “I remember when I first started doing this, I was concerned that people wouldn’t take me seriously because I was only 26 at the time,” he recalls. “A lot of the clients that I deal with are well established businessmen in their 50s and 60s. I felt that they might see my youth negatively.
“On the contrary, I found that they really appreciate having the input of someone in their late 20s from an artistic design perspective, because in many cases, people my age now are one of the demographics that they are trying to reach,” he says. “It’s been a real good synergy to find the more contemporary 21st century ideas along with some of the thought processes that go with someone who’s been in business for 40 years.”
On the flip side, there have been times Akers’ age has made him a target, especially to those looking to make a quick buck — or save one.
“Occasionally, they [those older that Akers] feel like they’re able to kind of push you around, place unreasonable demands, or feel that they’re able to make you lower your pricing because you’re gonna be really hungry to get the job,” he says.
At 26, Beth Borda was the youngest person to be named president of the Canton Stark County Convention & Visitors’ Bureau. Now 31, she’s has been with the bureau for eight years since graduating from Kent State University.
Borda is a thinker. Her responses are long and thorough. She has the rare ability to see things from several angles, which may be attributed to the nature of her job dealing with bosses, tourism agencies and the community.
Still, she considers communication the biggest barrier between the generations. “I think that older people get frustrated because they don’t think we consider their wisdom and experience,” she says. “And I think that younger people get frustrated because they don’t sense older people respecting them and giving them a chance, and those are two barriers to people coming together.
“It’s too easy to just say we’re from a different generation. It’s a cop out,” she says. “It’s more beneficial to say, ‘How can we bridge these differences? How can we take the best of what you are and the best of what I am and make this a great community?’ More of that needs to happen.”
Nick Navarra, Borda’s boss, agrees there is occasionally a breakdown in communications, but sees it as a cultural phenomenon based on the environment in which each generation was raised.
“What is said is interpreted differently from different perspectives,” says Navarra. “That’s probably on both sides of it. The frame of reference to what is heard has a different foundation and meaning. I might be saying something I think is totally logical and reasonable, but the mindset that they come from hears it differently.”
Borda and Navarra both see the younger generations different thought process as an advantage. When the younger generation comes in with new ideas and they are tempered with the knowledge and experience of the older generation, good things happen, which is why statistics show growth within companies that have that mix.
“Being around so many years, obviously you are set in your ways. When you’ve got tried and true ways of doing things and they start heading somewhere you would never tread, it really could work,” he says. “You’ve got to be careful not to stop them and I’m sure I do.”
Generations think differently and place different values on things. By far one of the biggest differences is how the younger generation approaches work. It may be resentment as a result of being latchkey kids, but it is definitely different.
“They have a different set of values that are necessary to keep them happy,” Navarra says. “They need more flexibility, a more relaxed work environment. “It’s a whole quality of life issue. I don’t say this disrespectfully, I think they produce, but years ago, the job came first and the family sometimes came second. With the younger people, it’s a more global or holistic approach to everything.”
The younger generation agrees.
“I would hate for people to only know me as a CPA,” says Veres. “I want them to know me for who I am and not for a title, and being involved in the community allows that to happen.”
Borda agrees, but thinks it may be more an issue of age than a generational one.
“When you’re younger, relationships matter more, reasons for things matter more, and I think you lose that as you get older,” she says. “You just get caught up in life and I purposefully try not to lose that because at the end of the day, I don’t think I’m going to be judged based on how well I did as president of the convention and visitors bureau. I think I’m going to be judged on how good I was as a person.”