Coach for Life: YP Interview with Glynn Young

"By 2020, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, baby boomers will account for more than 25 percent of the workforce, up from 16 percent today" (Sacramento Bee).

Predictions like this have led some to focus on the resulting intersection of two significant employee groups: Boomers and Millennials. Such a mix of old-timers and young-guns could lead to intergenerational division and criticism, or collaboration and mutual support. Nathaniel Koloc anticipates the latter.

In a recent article at 99U.com, Why Baby Boomers and Millennials Make Great Teams, Koloc states, "Rather than buy into the oil-and-water view, I propose a different view of this inevitable mixing. I see vibrant, powerful opportunity due to the overlapping nature of what each group needs and wants, and what each has to give." On every point, from communication to flattened (vs hierarchical) team dynamics, Koloc invites the optimist to see potential.

I accept his invitation and ask the question, "Who are the Glynn Youngs in your life?"

Young Professional in 1975

Glynn Young, perhaps the oldest Young Professionals (YP) coach here at The High Calling, stands tall with wisdom at 61 years of age. He first considered himself to be a young professional at 23, one year after landing at Shell Oil, and has been setting the kind of model we believe YPs can follow ever since.

Glynn affirmed this belief when he told me about his 20s and women in the workplace:

"Because this was the 1970s, and women were just beginning to break into the business professions, they were still treated as second-class citizens. As a young Christian who didn’t know any better, to me they were my colleagues. I didn’t think of them as ‘lesser’ than I was. It’s interesting, but this was one thing I somehow knew in my 20s that carried forward throughout my career. I learned to value people for their intrinsic worth, not for their title or position. And I believe this came from my faith, because I understood that we are all made in God’s image."

Glynn was not intentionally ahead of his time. Unlike Phil Mollenkof, one of our youngest coaches and someone who excelled at cultural awareness through his twenties, Glynn said,

"I wasn’t prepared for contemporary culture. I must have led a really sheltered existence. Men often openly discussed their affairs and how they cheated on their wives. They assumed I ‘got it’ because I was a young man. I didn’t get it. At all."

Nor was Glynn technologically savvy, per se, 30 years ago. Nobody was in the way we think of device-mindedness in 2013. As a journalist, he had his IBM Selectric typewriter, but he had to wait for a desktop computer until he turned 31. Phil has years—perhaps decades—on Glynn in this department. In 1983, it’s true that few employees in America had desktops, but 31? And the IBM 286? (j/k glynn) Even as a tech laggard, this seems foreign to me. However, Glynn’s colleagues consider him a Twitter Jedi today, which proves his capacity to keep up with the times. It also proves his drive toward work done well.

Employers know this about Glynn. Four of his job changes resulted from being recruited. That’s how Glynn is. Being the director of his employer’s Social News Team is hardly an accident. As he told me,

"I was hired by Shell Oil when I was 22. They never hired people that young, always requiring the famous ‘five years of experience.’ After three months, my boss retired and the new boss became a major influence. He was 20 years older than me, and I probably would have followed him over the cliff. He gave me work opportunities unheard of for someone my age, and I decided I would never let him down. And I didn’t."

He still doesn’t. I wanted to introduce you to Glynn because of this, and because of his compassion and his diligence and his integrity, and because of what Nathaniel Koloc imagines as the next great partnership. With more and more work space being shared by Phils and Glynns, young professionals are poised to benefit from the kind of model that shapes companies and the world they impact.

Glynn, in my opinion, points young professionals to understanding what we mean by a "high calling." His uniform (suit, dress shirt, tie, dress shoes; "If you wore a sport coat you were somewhat suspect—not quite the full professional") may have been different than Phil’s plaid shirt and jeans, and tweets were something only nature could produce, but when I think of people like Glynn collaborating with “kids” like us in the marketplace today, it elicits a whole lot of happiness.

So who are the Glynn Youngs in your life? I’ve asked such a question many times and I make it a priority to see what these coaches have to offer. The truth is, I aspire to be like the descendants who "served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced everything the LORD had done for Israel" (Joshua 24:31). Inspiration lives on through those who have been tested and groomed, and who continue walking with God.

Without them, we simply don’t know the way forward.

And without us, they simply lose their place.

Catch the details of Koloc's great partnership vision here. IBM image used with permission.