Holly’s Taking Over Everywhere
It was only after I wrote about our BD associate Holly taking over leadership of our weekly Investing Team meeting that I encountered a term I had never heard before: “reverse mentorship.” Apparently that’s what it’s called when a company sets up a program to have Gen-Z employees coach the out-of-touch fogeys in leadership to stay “relevant, innovative, and connected.”
The idea is catching on: a third of the Fortune 500 reportedly offer such a program. British Airways, for example, started with 11 reverse mentorship relationships in 2023 and is now up to 80. And lest you think this is a flex by these businesses to nudge curmudgeons into early retirement by making them sign up for TikTok and learn what bussin’ means, these organizations say that it “flips the power dynamic, “drives change,” and hastens the adoption of new technology, all of which improve performance and engagement.
Now, there’s a lot to make fun of here, but there is also something to admire. If you work somewhere where the best ideas never see the light of day because of the name, age, or title of the person who has them, that’s a problem. And if that reality is causing employees to disengage, doubly so. So I understand trying to fix it.
At Permanent Equity, we try to be pretty ruthless about sussing out the best ideas. But we’re also still small and bureaucratically light, which is a huge benefit in this regard, so I don’t foresee the need for us to implement any sort of reverse mentorship program anytime soon. That said, if we ever need to nudge our CLO Taylor into early retirement, now I know exactly what to do.
Have a great weekend.
– Tim
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