Book review: Next Generation Leadership: How to Ensure Young Talent Will Thrive with Your Organisation” by Adam Kingl

People create value. Creating an environment in which talented humans — of all generations — want to work is *the* business challenge and equally the huge opportunity of our times.

As a leader in a pretty successful and growing professional services organisation and having a focus on the development of commercial and technological foresight to support our clients in delivering their best to consumers, working with some of the best young consultants, technologists and engineers I have ever met, I started reading “Next Generation Leadership: How to Ensure Young Talent Will Thrive with Your Organisation” by Adam Kingl, with the view that I wasn’t going to learn anything new;

Of course, Kingl explains why the increasingly familiar backdrop — the societal contract between generations is faltering and the economic and social conditions that motivated Baby Boomers and even Generation X to have a degree of “loyalty” to organisations are largely gone.

Of course, he covers how the current emerging generation (Generation Y, not to mention Gen Z types now entering the world of work) have a different perspective on business, informed by their life-long access to the fire-hose of knowledge that the internet has provided, and have an, arguably, more nuanced view of what work-life balance means and of the positive purpose in society that an organisation should play, beyond the profit impulse.

So far, so yawn? NO. NOT ALL:

As a middle-aged, perhaps slightly grumpy, family father, and a life-long consultant, I am quick to pick up new information, but also quite critical of the “new new”. So, whilst I have heard much of this before — indeed, even like to think that I am a modern manager with empathy and understanding of what is at play here — I recognised whilst reading this book that, even in the most successful companies, there is much to be learned and, crucially, internalised about the motivations and behaviours of Generation Y that is going to shape our organisations and the wider business over the coming decade… and in a good way.

Alongside the excellent insight and research, the best part of Kingl’s book is the practical advice in each chapter on what to take away and action.

After a chance meeting with Adam Kingl at the UCL School of Management, I also stumbled across his website as well: I can recommend his video content on human-centric management — everything from quiet quitting to practical virtual working.

This book is well worth your time.