Why I’m on Substack.
I left Cisco to answer this question: What does the manager of the future look like?
What are millennials and gen-z seeking in a manager? Which behaviors, tactics, skills or processes matter? What’s it going to take to attract and keep the best people over the next decade?
I had written The Collaboration Imperative, and I was Cisco spokesperson, which meant I spent a lot of time in front of customers. Many of the world’s great companies were telling me the employer-employee relationship was changing, especially as these new and large demographic cohorts started replacing boomers.
I’ve spent the past several years researching and talking to hundreds of companies about this transition, with the added dynamic of artificial intelligence. The research involved thousands of young people working at great companies like Amazon, Visa, Microsoft, McDonald’s, Salesforce, Cisco, Google, DoorDash, Nike, Disney, Starbucks, to name a few.
I’m writing this newsletter to focus on one topic: to share what I learned about what it takes to be a great manager in this moment in time, both as millennials and genz take over the workforce and as AI starts to impact jobs. What I’ll be discussing won’t be theory stuff or endless links to click on. I want to be a source of original ideas for readers with this newsletter.
What I did Previously
Ron Ricci has spent his entire career helping CEOs and companies tell their stories and build company culture. He has worked with CEOs like Michael Dell, Eric Schmidt, John Warnock and Carol Bartz; and discussed leadership with Richard Branson and Jack Welch. He spent 20 years at Cisco, including a decade as a direct report to CEO John Chambers. Ron has authored Momentum, published by Harvard Business School Publishing, and The Collaboration Imperative, which shared the best practices Cisco used to work better together. He is currently the founder and CEO of The Culture Platform. He is also the author of The Water Princess, A Classic Adventure -- winner of a Moonbeam Book Award for juvenile fiction.
