The University of Michigan Just Lowered the Bar. The Real World Didn't.

Speaker A: You're listening to High Octane Leadership with Donald Thompson. I'm, um, executive producer Jason Gilliken. And today we're sharing a short 10 minute segment, which you can watch on LinkedIn and YouTube, where I asked Don about University of Michigan eliminating freshman letter grades to preserve mental health and what that means when those students enter the workforce. He has opinions and I'm excited to share those with you right now. So I want to get your take on this. And you're laughing already and I'm curious to know why.

Speaker B: Cuz, uh, what the man? Like, it's like, like, okay, so standardized tests have challenges with them. There's bias in these tests. Some people have the ability for tutors and some don't. And I get all of those things. But that's not what we're talking about. What we were talking about is removing barriers for high achievement and scoring and then expecting to prepare young people to go into an environment that is all about scorecard. Winning and losing matters. Right. Numbers matter. Pressure and how you handle it matters. Right? Because everything in today's business environment is a stress test on resiliency. And so by continuing to coddle generation after generation and then frustrated that we're dealing with young people that don't know how to overcome mistakes, that don't know how to take criticism, whose fault is that? And so when you said the University of Michigan was doing it, I started working on my resume, um, for the, um, chancellor of the University of Michigan, because they're going to fire that part that, that's not going to work. And the reason it's not going to work is what is the goal of a university is to prepare people for their future careers and profession. Well, if you think about any profession that is making a significant amount of income, okay, let's say it's sports. Let's say it's academic and professors are trying to get tenure. Watch this. Okay, uh, you're cutting it out for professors. I mean, for students. But are you changing the amount of academic journals that professors have to be in to start to qualify for tenure? Well, wait a minute. Why, why wouldn't you have it both ways for new professors? So new professors, you don't have to worry about the first year or two. Just get your feet wet. You don't have to write anything. Don't worry about your research. Just kumbaya, come, have fun. But watch this. Still pay us, right? You're still charging kids the same amount of money to go to University of Michigan or wherever else, but you're not Giving everything you can to prepare them. Here's the thing they should be doing. And you know what? It doesn't matter if people like it or not. These are my opinions. But here's the thing. Why do we wait to have group projects till they're juniors and seniors when. When you get people out in the world, everything at work typically is a group project. I think we're solving for the wrong problem. Because here's how you reduce. If you think about my sports background or you think about, um, me buying and selling companies over my career and different things, right? You learn by doing and being measured. If I make 100 phone calls as a salesperson, okay? And I get 10 people that talk to me, and I got three people that take meetings and one person that buys, I had to go through those 100 no's in order to get the two to three sales that are going to help me meet my commission number that quarter. That's pressure. And if I don't do those things, I get what Fired? If I do those things, I get bonuses, raises promoted. If I don't do those things, I lose my job. We are not teaching people about the world they're going to live in. And this Kumbaya thing is a total, complete 100% disservice. It is perpetuating the weakness and then the complaint about doing it. Now, their intent. Listen, I'm not saying they're bad actors trying to do the wrong thing. I think it's just misguided because the world of competition is not getting easier, it's getting harder.

Speaker A: Yeah. Our younger team members Underprepared for setback 100%.

Speaker B: Especially when they go to, let's say, University of Michigan, let's say Harvard, let's say any university you pick when you're going to college, that means your grades are pretty good. Most people that are in school, in college, right. They did good on their cities, that did good in school. They go to college, they're succeeding. Everyone's telling them how awesome they are. Everyone who doesn't tell them how awesome they are. You have parents that are involved instead of letting the kids deal with it themselves. You think about a teacher telling somebody they're not good at this, that and the other. Next time you got two parents in that teacher's office talking to the principal. Different things, because we're not letting young people prepare for the reality of the world they're going to live in. And as a generation, and I've got several gen zers as kids, I don't know Is Gen Alpha, what's the next one or zoo like? But Gen Z, I am culpable. Right? We want our kids to have things we didn't have. We want them to have a better life, all the different things. But then we created an environment where mental health, school grades. What about getting our kids off social media? Right? That is programming a way of thinking. So if we're wanting to teach young people how to critically think, how to understand and navigate failure and success, how to learn how to survive and thrive in new environments, to be a resilient individual, these are skills that I do not think are helped by lowering standards. We had this entire thing, man, with people talking about woke stuff and DEI this and all of these things, right? We're lowering standards and different things, but like, nah, uh, the reality is people pick standards based on their own personal goals, right? Their own personal power narrative that they're trying to achieve, right? And the reality is I am a good entrepreneur because of my failures. I'm a good sales professional because of my failures, because of the pressure. I am able to take care of my family because I understood how to be successful, how to fail, how to learn from that, uh, failure, and how to make learning and growth a part of who I am. I think it's a disservice to change that for people and make them pay for it. I think it's awesome.

Speaker A: So how can, how can business leaders help the younger generation fail then and get used to that and build that resilience?

Speaker B: Here's the tough thing, and appreciate the question, here's my real answer, right? I don't think it's my responsibility as a business leader is to teach what your parents should have and what you should learn in school. My m job as a business leader is help bring out the best in you. Create an environment of psychological safety, to create a career path for you that is mutually beneficial to you and the business. But I think if I'm going to pay you as an entry level marketer, as entry level researcher, somebody that wants to get in consulting, you have to have a basic set of capabilities, both knowledge, skill and appetite in learning for resilience that allows you to be a competitive and competent professional. And that is not my job. If you've not been trained for that, I've got to keep searching through and sifting through that, um, employee base, right? To find people that have that. Now here's the flip side of what's going to happen is that because we're creating a softer generation, so to speak, right? A uh, less resilient generation. Those people that have those old school skills, everybody else can be working for them. Because the business reality is those that can try, fail and adjust, those that are able to be mentored and coached, are going to be significantly more valuable than people that need every single element of their job spelled out. Every time they have a bad meeting, it's a crisis. Every time something doesn't go their way, it's because of a toxic manager. And those are the things we're teaching people versus how to push and overcome it. Give a quick example. I won't go into a lot of detail, but somebody, a young person I talked to, um, that I was mentoring, and again, I won't go into a long time ago, but two years ago they called me and they were talking about toxic environment at work. They were about to quit, all this different stuff. And I said, fine, I get it now. What is your responsibility in this situation? To advocate for yourself. It was quiet on the phone or on the zoom. They said, well, I don't know what to do. That's, uh, a real honest answer. I said, but have you requested a meeting with your manager to talk through your concerns to see if there's anything that can be done, or are you just venting about it? And that's the way it is? You know what? I should probably do that now. Here's Fast forward. They tried these things. They stuck it out of this company for another year and a half. Recently, things came to a head, and all the things they tried demonstrated that this was the wrong environment for them to be in. Here's what they got for the two years of hanging tough. They were still working on globally recognized brands. Their portfolio is stronger. They still were developing their writing skills. They still learn how to push through tough situations. And when that situation showed itself as unchanging, they now are going into, um, the market with a completely different set of skills and two years of experience. In my opinion, the person I was mentoring, it was the wrong time for them to quit because they had to learn how to persevere. So I didn't want them to cheat themselves from a year of doing something difficult that allows them to know the difference between a truly tough environment that could be toxic to a truly tough environment where you're learning and growing and balancing those two. And then when we had a conversation two years after the fact, after the first instance, they're more prepared. They landed a new job in 22 seconds in a down economy. Right. But they're ready to grow and persevere because now they know they can handle tough situations. They now have chosen they don't want to. And that is different. Right? That is a different thing when you say, I don't want to handle this situation versus this situation's overwhelming me, and I can't. This young person now knows they can handle tough situations, but is choosing that they don't want to and are, uh, finding a better way. I don't want people to cheat themselves from the hard things they need to do to grow a career, to progress, to push, to overcome, and then take a step back and say, is this really somewhere I need to be? Thank you for joining us, uh, on High Octane Leadership with Donald Thompson. Today's episode is a step in our collective journey towards leadership excellence. Remember, every story we share and every insight we gain is a piece in the puzzle of our leadership journey. For more insight and detail, hit the subscribe button so that we can stay connected. For deeper information and more episodes, go to donaldthompson.com continue to lead with vision and purpose. And until we meet again, embrace your role as a high octane leader in the ever evolving world of business.