Imada

Bill Amato is the founder of the National Millennial and Gen Z Community (NMGZ), a group that aims to bridge the gap between different generations. The community helps young professionals and students engage in multi-generational conversations and succeed in their careers. Bill started NMGZ after realizing that many reports on millennials and Gen Z were inaccurate and wanted to give them a platform to speak up. The community has grown over the years, with over a thousand students participating and finding job opportunities they may not have had otherwise. Mentoring plays a crucial role in NMGZ, with students learning how to engage mentors and offering mentorship to others. Bill himself has been influenced by mentors throughout his career and believes in paying it forward. Despite being busy, Bill prioritizes his involvement in NMGZ and mentoring because he believes in the power of communication and bringing people together. Hello, and welcome to Mindful Mentoring. I'm Tom Martin, host of the podcast and founder of the Martin Center for Mentorship and Communication at the College of Charleston. Our guest today is Bill Amato. Bill is the founder of the National Millennial and Gen Z Community, or NMGZ for short. The NMGZ community is made up of college and university students, young professionals, faculty, administrators, and civic leaders who participate in multi-generational conversations with an eye towards the future. The NMGZ community that Bill founded recently received the inaugural Distinguished Mentoring Organization Award from the Martin Center at our Celebration of Mentoring dinner in Charleston. At the dinner, Bill was introduced by Vishnu Pilati, an NMGZ participant and a student here at the college. The opportunity that I've had with Bill Amato and his group that he has created is truly one of the most experiential learning experiences that I've had. And yes, I mean experiential. That moment was the moment that I realized that yes, I love communication. This is what I want to be in for the rest of my life. None of the stuff that I'm talking about right now, none of the stuff that I've experienced would even be possible without Bill Amato. He wants us to succeed. He wants us to be in your companies. He wants us to be in your offices. He wants to make the offices of the future for people like us. He wants us to succeed in this industry. In addition to his philanthropic efforts with NMGZ and other nonprofits, Bill is the founder and CEO of IW Brands based in Los Angeles. Bill was recently inducted into the American Advertising Federation Hall of Fame, one of the highest honors awarded to those in his field. Thank you so much for having me on your program. Well, Bill, let's just start with NMGZ. Tell me a little bit about the early days of getting it going. So we had a number of interns working in our office from all around the country, and several corporations, foundations, and one think tank had sent me their reports. They were doing a study on millennials and the new cohort of students coming up, Gen Z. And I noticed several contradictions in the reports. I gave all the reports to the interns. I didn't give them any other detail except, please review these and let me know what you're thinking about a week. And one of the interns said, Mr. Mata, we own up to around 20 percent of what is written about us, but the other 80 percent we believe is inaccurate. And I said, well, maybe you should speak up. Let these companies know that what they've written about you is inaccurate. And they said, well, we really don't feel we have any power because the boomers and the Gen Xers control the narrative. And I said, you're absolutely wrong about that. You do have the power to speak up and say what you believe and don't believe in. And that's how the group got started. What are some of the biggest disconnects you think between what people think of that community and what they think of themselves? Many of the misconceptions focused on things like work-life balance or moving from job to job or having a lack of attention because of mobile devices and other social apps. And so what many of the students were telling me is that the only way for them to progress sometimes is to move from job to job because the pipeline actually is clogged. And so they were saying the only reason they move from job to job is because that's the best way for them to get promoted or for them to find opportunities. That was one. Another one was that, you know, they are completely glued to their mobile devices. And several of them said, no, they're not completely glued to their mobile devices. They're, you know, looking at podcasts or listening to podcasts or reading books or engaging in conversations. Those are just some examples. The other one is that they've grown up in families where their parents worked really, really hard. They may be working 9, 10, 11 hours per day. They might be working seven days a week. And millennials were growing up seeing this happen. They decided very early on that they did not want to have that type of a life where they worked all the time. So they wanted to work not harder, but smarter. So you've been doing this now for, you know, eight years. You've had over a thousand students go through the effort in the community. What are you most proud of? What are some of the big takeaways now that you've been at this for a long time? What I want to make sure happens in our country, because our country is divided by ideology, politics, red states, blue states, people that are conservative, people that are progressive. What I'm hoping and I believe is happening is that we're getting people to talk to one another. We're getting people to listen, to understand. We're getting people to listen and not react immediately, but to find common ground. And I think that's what's happening with this group. When they actually sit together, they find commonality and they focus more on those commonalities and then celebrate the things that make them unique and different. The other thing that I think is valuable about this organization is that they're now reaching out to one another. Once they graduate and they become early career professionals, they realize that they might have a need or they want to have a conversation with somebody in Arkansas or somebody in New York or get a perspective from somebody in Alaska. They're starting to reach out to one another and work on problems together to find solutions. But we're also seeing people that are getting jobs that they may not normally have opportunities to secure. So just an example, we had a person from Southern Mississippi who said, I want to work for a big agency. I never have had that opportunity and I come from a very small town in rural Alabama. I'm graduating from Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. Nobody that I know has ever been able to work for one of the large agencies. He ultimately had an opportunity to meet the president of Weber Shanwick. Weber Shanwick was so impressed with him. They made him an offer. He moved to New York. And after moving around and getting some opportunities at other agencies, he's now the vice president of Ogilvie. Oh, wow. That's a great story. And it made news in Mississippi. Well, so it sounds like one of the things you've really been able to impart to these young people is a sense of how networking figures into their career advancement, into finding those good jobs. What role would you say mentoring has played in the organization's efforts over the years? Mentoring is absolutely critical to this whole process. So as they move along, not only are they finding mentors, they're also learning how to engage mentors and come up with a plan to discuss with their mentors how they want to engage, but also what they hope to provide to the mentor. We want to make sure that these relationships that they have with mentors work both ways. So not only are they getting the advice and counsel and the things that they seek to advance themselves personally and professionally, they're also finding ways to be helpful to the mentor. So now we're seeing something kind of wonderful. They're now paying it forward and offering to mentor others, not only behind them, but also some of the executives that they've met along the way. As you think about the interactions you've had with these students, what do you think are the qualities that allow them to be most receptive to whatever counsel the mentor has to offer? What makes a good mentoring relationship, especially from the student's point of view? When students are seeking mentors, they're never quite sure how to engage a person. They don't know what to ask for. They don't know how to negotiate time. They don't know how to address a person who might appear very, very busy and has a schedule that doesn't seem to allow for a mentee-mentor relationship. The beauty of all of this is when they get to meet these executives, the executives kind of give them an idea on the type of mentor-mentee relationships they want to have and provide them some advice and counsel on how to do that. So as we travel around the country, and by the way, we've already taken 41 trips in less than 10 years, meaning more than 360, 370 executives. They're learning along the way how to best engage, how to best make sure that there's value for both parties, that they also are learning that they can have a mentor relationship with anybody. It could be a next-door neighbor, it could be the person that cleans their house or works with them in school, whatever it might be, they're realizing that they can learn something from every single person they meet, even if it's a five-minute conversation. You must have had some mentors in your own career early on. Can you think of some people who had a big influence on you? This executive hates it when I tell this story, but I feel very strongly that his story needs to be told. He was executive at Anheuser-Busch, he was the executive VP there. He gave me an opportunity that allowed me to start my company. And I started my company more than 30 years ago, and he has no idea what impact he has had on my life. I keep reminding him of all the things that he's done to help me, and he's just telling me, hey, you don't need to remind me of all the things that I've done, just pay it forward and mentor other people. But I would say the executive vice president of Anheuser-Busch, more than 30 years ago, was a really important mentor in my life. And to this day, the things that I learned from him, I put into practice. Now, Bill, you're, I know, a very busy guy. You're running a company that you founded, you're traveling all over the world, and yet you devote an enormous amount of your own personal time to the NMGC community and just to other mentoring relationships. How do you find the time to do that, and why is this such a priority for you? So I think when you're busy, you know how to kind of devote some time or set some time aside for the things that are important to you. And it's very important for me to be a mentor and also to be a mentee. So I make the time to do that. I think one of the things that's hard for young people is they're very cautious about asking for much. How do you inspire the people in your program to gain enough confidence to engage with their mentor in a way that they're able to satisfy the things that they're really needing? One thing I always suggest people do is when you're going to a networking event, such as the event that was just held at the College of Charleston, arrive early. Now, if the event starts at 6, show up at 5. Get to know the people that are working the reception table. Find out who's going to be in the room. And if you're an introvert, it's so much easier to have one-on-one conversations than it is to have a conversation when 300 of your favorite College of Charleston students and faculty show up. I also suggest finding a co-pilot, and I think that helps. Find a cohort. Grab that person and say, hey, I want to meet six or seven people today. I can't do this by myself. Will you be my co-pilot? And pull that person in and have that person hold you accountable. Hey, you've only met three people. Let me help you find another person to meet. And sometimes it's easier to approach one or two people when you have a sidekick with you. Ask questions of a potential mentor. Tell me what your day was like. What was your favorite experience at the College of Charleston? What do you love about your job? And as they're explaining all the things that they do, because a lot of people like me and the people that they're talking to love to talk about themselves, they provide you the speaking points needed to engage. So I'm always encouraging students to be curious, to think a little differently, to set yourself apart from others, and not to follow kind of standard procedures that you might learn in a college or in a mentoring course. That's really great advice. In fact, I've even heard that applied to how to handle the Zoom world. One of my former students I just met with recently, and he said one of the things he does is he gets on Zooms early, kind of like what you're suggesting. And he gets on there because, sure enough, one or two people will also join early. Gives him a chance to say, hey, I hear you're a big golfer. Where was the last place you played, and how was it? Something like that. And it gives you a chance to sort of get to know them as an individual, but also, like you're suggesting, it shows that you're interested. And that's a way to get conversations going. So those are great suggestions. It's so much easier to get things done if somebody else holds you accountable, but somebody is there to support you. So if you are worried, sometimes it's better to go in pairs and set some goals in advance, work the room. And sometimes it's just a question of just take your best shot, you know, give it a chance. And what's the worst that can happen, right? They're going to say, hey, well, it's nice talking to you, and they're going to move on. But probably what's going to happen is they're going to engage with you in a conversation Because most people want to help, especially help students, you know, so it's fertile ground there. Well, this has been really interesting. Any final thoughts that you want to share with the people listening? If you feel helped by, you know, the Martin Center at the College of Charleston, then the best thing you could do for Tom is to make sure that you pass all the things you've learned to a hundred people, to a thousand people. Well, that's great. It's great to hear that, Bill, because honestly, when you think about your thousands that have gone through the NMGC community, those thousands, if they only helped ten each, now you're up to, you know, you're up to a hundred thousand. I mean, pretty soon it grows rapidly, right? So I think that's a wonderful thing you're doing. Congratulations on the award for the community and all the work that you're doing. Congratulations on your Hall of Fame induction. That was a wonderful recognition of the service you've done for the industry. It's great having you on this program, and we really appreciate your time. Thank you. And thanks to all of you who are listening. If you have other ideas, I can be reached at martintr at cofc.edu. And thanks for listening.