Foreign.

Welcome to Consulting for Humans, a podcast all about life in consulting.

You're with Mike and Ian, and in.

Each episode, Ian and I will be shining a light on a new topic that it gets to the heart of what makes consultants happy and successful.

So if you're a human trying to be a consultant, or who knows, a consultant trying to be a human, then this show is for you.

Thank you for joining us once again.

So, Ian, what are we going to be talking about this week?

Well, Mike, we're moving on through the generations.

Last week, we talked about Generation X.

This week, we're talking about Generation Y, also known as the Millennials.

We want to find out about what do they value and appreciate in consulting careers.

We want to find out how millennials have dealt with technology in their lives.

We want to find out what they appreciate and value in careers and what they're a little bit skeptical of, what they'd like to change.

So to get a perspective on all that, we've invited our old friend and colleague Maffe Escobar to come back on the show and talk about this from her perspective.

Maffe, thank you very much again for joining us.

Tell us about your credentials as a millennial consultant.

Thank you, Ian and Mike, for having me here.

I'm very.

And I was proudly born in 1982.

I graduated from college in 2004, and then I started my consulting career in 2006.

Oh, sorry, 2007, actually.

And I did a master's in Bioscience Enterprises in Cambridge, in.

In the University of Cambridge.

And, yeah, I think my life has been very exciting, very different, moving from one consulting firm to pharma, to them being independent and being a consultant.

But I think the theme that has been constant in my life is that I think of myself as a consultant.

I think it's not a career, it's like a trait for me.

Oh, you might even say it's identity.

It's identity, yes.

Oh, funny.

Mafi, what was appealing to you about consulting when you were first thinking about a job, what you're looking for?

What alternatives were you considering?

So, great question, because I actually never considered consulting.

I started my career as scientist, and basically I thought that I was going to be a scientist for the rest of my life.

I was thinking of doing a PhD, etc.

Etc.

But after a couple of years of doing research, I figure out, like, I don't want to be in a lab 24 7, not talking to human beings, and just, like, researching probably on a very small molecule, that no one cares about me.

And that probably will not translate to any benefits in the real world.

So that's why I did my master's that breached science with business.

And while doing my master's, a whole world opened to me and I realized that there were a lot of different careers I could take.

And I actually had two offers, one from a startup in Oxford and one from a big consulting firm in London.

And I think I decided to go with the consulting firm basically because I thought I want to be exposed to many things, many projects, many clients.

I want to learn a lot.

I'm very curious, and I get bored very easily.

So I thought, probably in this startup I won't get bored, but maybe I will just, like, focus too much on something and be so concentrated on a specific therapeutic area that I could get bored at from that.

So consulting was like a whole very interesting world to me in that sense.

But before doing my master's, I never even thought of consulting.

There's an interesting point there, which is that I think of the boomer and Generation X generations.

We would probably not have been thinking about going and working for a startup.

That's an interesting shift that came with your generation Mafe.

The people that you're connected to in the ideas that you're connected to.

As you're going through your education, you're already thinking, I don't need to work for a big blue chip corporation.

I could go work for a scrappy startup and be successful and still learn something.

Yes, definitely.

I think that was something that I think I did.

Was exposed to many things like that in my uni.

Like, while I was doing my.

My microbiology degree, I was part of a group that had, like, a startup, and it was just like an idea of this, like, group of students trying to come up with different areas.

So we had engineers, we had microbiologists, we had different people from different careers coming up with ways of doing business.

So I was in touch of entrepreneur with entrepreneurship very early on, and that was something that cultivated my attention a lot.

When I got this offer, I really had to think over it because it was my millennial mind saying, like, you should go to a startup.

It's going to be so much fun.

Like, you could grow so fast.

And then the other one is like, oh, but this consulting firm brings a lot of stability, but also the thrilling aspect of consulting.

So I think it was the ideal job for me in that sense.

Very cool.

And now I'm just curious, did you tell your parents you're thinking of working for a startup and did they have an opinion about that?

Yeah, it's very strange because both of my parents are very open minded for some reason.

My father worked for like two or three companies in his whole life, I think two companies his whole life.

He was very stable.

He was very into get a job and have a career there and grow there and like buy a house, get a mortgage, pay all of.

He was very like that.

But with us he was very open minded.

So we are four siblings and each of us has a very completely different career.

We have an artist at home, I was a scientist, there's a musician.

There is like the business person as well.

And they never said to us anything around that.

So whenever I talk to them about my decisions, they were all very supportive.

So I think that was very good as well.

I didn't have that limitation that many people had in my generation, having parents that were very into very stable things.

Although I had that example, they never said to me, you have to follow this path.

Bless them.

That's really great.

It's a good lesson for how open minded parents can help their kids kind of lean into their new generation.

Right.

Who do you think you were competing with?

If you look at the other people, for example, joining the consulting firm?

Well, since I was in a consulting firm for the healthcare system, I was definitely competing with people that had PhDs.

A lot of people with PhDs.

There was also a couple of people that came from the industry that had several years of experience.

So definitely there were like my competition people with a little bit more experience than me, I think.

Yeah.

And would you say you're competing on an international or global field or people from the same part of the world as you?

Definitely international.

I am a Colombian and I was studying in Cambridge so I started my career in consulting in London.

I love London because it's like a global city where everyone not blends, because I don't think they blend because everyone has their own identity and nationality and culture.

But everyone is happy with that.

So I had people from all over the world which was so much fun as well.

Muffy, we've been asking each of the generations what values or ideas are important to you?

I think from the very beginning I had a sense of purpose, of having impact in some sense.

So I think that's something that has always in a sense bothered me.

And some of the reasons why I have left jobs is because I didn't feel that the promise of purpose that they were saying was actually what they were doing.

So that it's.

I'm always concerned.

Am I really Bringing something to the world that adds value, or is it just a company that is just making money because it's making money that is something that definitely has, like, it's a value for me.

Then the other thing is around respect.

I think some of my career decisions have been made based on how well I feel with the culture within the company.

So I don't believe that treating people badly will help them perform better.

So if I had something around that, I would always raise my hand, like, I don't think this is the way we should do it.

And I think that's very different to, for instance, what my father lived like.

He was like, it's your boss.

You cannot talk to him or to her like that.

And I think that's something that definitely changed a little bit in my generation.

And then I think we were the generation where the world came together or closer together.

So I'm always curious about other cultures, about traveling.

So that's also something that makes me very happy, having a job where I can have contact with people from different cultures, different countries, etc.

Buffy, any thinkers or authors that you've really paid attention to and thinking back to early in your career and then moving along?

Yeah.

So I think Gladwell, with his book the Outliers, I think that was a book that I read not very early on in my career, but, yes, relatively early on.

And I think that changed a lot the way that I thought.

I remember also when I started consulting as part of onboarding, they gave me the books of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

It was kind of like a bible for this company, and everyone that joined the company had to read, or at least the consulting firm had to read it.

So I think that one also was a book that gave me a little bit of framework and structure of how I should be performing.

Yeah.

I think those two books are the ones that I can recall very quickly.

Nice.

By the way, we talked about Seven Habits in an earlier episode.

So we've been there.

We think it's a great book, and it's.

One of its strengths is that it's carried on through the generations as well.

Yeah.

Because Stephen Covey was a baby boomer, so his thoughts have lasted at least two generations into the future.

We'll have to see what happens when we get to talk to a Gen Z as well.

And Mafia.

One of the hunches that we had was that for the millennial generation, it's not just about people who write books.

It could also be about people who speak in TED talks or who are in the media somehow.

Can you remember any stages in your career when you were following people outside of traditional literature or journalism like that?

I think definitely.

Simon Sinek with, like, starting with the why and all of that, it's something that resonates a lot with me, I think, more recently.

But she's like maybe six or seven years ago.

Brene Brown, also a really good speaker, and I think she has influenced the way I think about things as well.

And I think overall, the TED platform is a great platform for seeking inspiration or just reflection on things that I want to reflect on.

So just using it without knowing exactly who the speaker is, I think it's a great platform for that.

Right.

And I think it seems like it's a hallmark of the millennial generation as well, that it's completely natural for things mediated by technology to partner, to be part of everyday life.

We confessed, or I confessed as a Gen X, that I didn't have a personal email address until I was 30.

And I'm guessing that you had a personal email address pretty early.

Tell us about how technology appeared in your life.

What kind of role has it played?

I think it appeared in my life more for like, friendship and romantic.

Their romantic life when I was a teenager.

So I moved on.

Too much information, but good.

Go ahead.

Yeah, so I moved.

I moved on from having my, my, like my home telephone and every.

Like, we were four siblings.

So everyone was fighting to get the phone, to be able to talk to their friends or, or their boyfriend or whatever, and to being able to chat with people over the Internet.

Although I have to say that also it was dependent on the telephone line.

So it was terrible because we had terrible fights.

Like we were chatting with someone and then suddenly someone called and oh, please hang out.

So I hung out.

So that was like part of my introduction to the Internet.

Well, of course, as well.

In school, like just doing some research.

I remember I actually still have some encyclopedia books that I used early in my, like, primary school, just like for research for my school projects.

And then I moved to the Internet very slowly, I think, because at the beginning wasn't that easy to find.

But yes, definitely.

When I moved to university, it was like part of our daily lives, right?

The Internet, having like normal mobile, like, not smart mobile phones, but just like for calling.

So things like that.

Definitely.

Like, I live the transition.

Like, I remember, I think the first semester of university I didn't have a mobile.

So I had to tell my mother because I lived with my mother when I was in university.

That's Something very common in our culture.

So I had to tell my mother, I'm going to go to the university and I'll come back at 6pm so don't call me.

Like, that's it, that's what.

And then the next semester I had a phone so I could call her.

I could say, actually I'm going to go to another friend's house to see, study or whatever.

Or so it was like an amazing transition to have.

And, and then when I got to work, Internet was there.

Like everyone had their own computer or their own laptop that we could take home.

So that's, that was part of the usual for me that I know that for probably, I don't know, people that were starting their jobs 10 years earlier than me didn't have that.

So I had, I was part of the new generation that had all of those things.

And then when social media started to be part of working life, I don't know, LinkedIn or Instagram or whatever, that would probably have felt pretty natural for you, right?

It was part.

I remember when I started adding my friends from college or for you from university or for my masters in my Facebook, it was like, oh yeah, I can get in touch with you like that.

But yes, but for instance, I don't have contact with people that were like my friends in, in my childhood because I didn't have their Facebook then, so I have no idea how to contact them.

But my friends from university, of course I have all of them in my Facebook.

It's fascinating, Mafi talking about the role of technology, talking about how we got into things.

One of the things we've been asking each generation is who or what they tend to trust and who or what they tend to be a bit skeptical of.

So I always say that I'm part of like Millennial and part Gen X.

So I'm not sure if I'm responding to this question as a Gen X or as a Millennial, but I definitely trust someone that does what he, what they, they say they were going to do.

So I think for me is like, if you tell me, I'm going to give you, I'm going to deliver this on Thursday.

I expect you to deliver that on Thursday or to, for you to call me before that and say you actually, I cannot deliver that to you, Mafe, because this and this and this.

It will be Monday and not Thursday and I will still trust you.

But I think it's just a matter of having good communication skills and also doing what you're like.

You say you're going to do.

I also trust people that show a little bit of the vulnerability.

So I don't trust people that say, oh, I never get mad at that.

Or, oh, I never, I'm never touched by that.

Or, oh, I don't care about hesitant.

I'm like, either you are not human or you are not telling me the truth.

So I like.

Well, that say to me, actually I'm a little bit of scared of these, or I'm hesitant or I feel insecure.

Like, I really trust people that show a little bit of that vulnerability.

Showing vulnerability.

A generation or two ago, Mike would have probably been right.

Not something that would earn you respect or trust.

How about institutions like, I don't know, companies or even whole societies?

Because we think that the earlier generations were probably quite willing to trust a big organization, a big employer, at least for a while.

How does that feel from the millennial perspective?

Well, I would say that I trust organizations that, as I said before, that have a higher purpose.

I don't care they.

If they do money or if they make money or not.

Like, I really.

If they make money and they have a good purpose, I'm okay with that.

The other day, someone said to me, like, we will.

We were raising money for some organization, like patient organizations that I'm working on.

And they said, oh, I know that companies that sell alcohol have a lot of money to give for foundations.

And I was like, I'm not going to receive money from them because I don't respect them and I don't trust them.

Even if they do good by giving money to foundations, I think they are doing wrong by like, their own, like own matter of being.

So I think it's just like apart from a business, I think you also have to have a purpose, a higher purpose and be able to find that good that you're giving to the world.

So I think that's something that I really, really care about.

I also think that in terms of societies and organizations, I don't think that the ideal is that everyone is living exactly in the same situation and that everyone should have exactly the same, because I also believe that you make your own destiny.

So I don't think that societies need to give everything exactly the same as everyone, but I do think that everyone should have the same respect or be respected equally.

So I think for me, I don't care if companies give a lot of money to seniors and the salaries are not so good for juniors because that's the way life is.

But I think their respect should be there, like, for everyone in the organization.

So I think that's something that I really respect.

Like, I really look forward in.

In our organization or in a society as well.

I was hearing that come through when you were talking about your dad and how your dad felt about work and how sometimes you were making decisions to move on because people were saying they did one thing, but they were actually doing another.

The firm was.

And I was thinking your dad and I were probably both boomers anyways.

I remember sort of the standing joke for us was the beatings will continue until morale improves.

And everybody's.

Yeah, we're okay with that because that's just how it works around here.

And I don't think that's the kind of place you would ever stay, right?

Yeah, never.

Speaking of morale and business culture, one of the things that people notice, first of all, at a trivial level between younger generations and other generations, is their attitude to working outside hours or working long hours, especially in a business like consulting.

What role does work life balance play and working hours in particular?

And how important do you think working hours tolerance is for people of your generation?

Well, I know for me this one is a hard one because I have always strive for work life balance, like always.

I always negotiated the companies that I joined about that.

But also I think that I knew that there were points where I had to stay long hours and I didn't mind, I didn't care.

I knew that there are some projects that you just have to work for months and it's going to be hard and sleep is not going to be there like you want it to be.

But it's okay.

You will survive.

But I don't think I would survive if it would be like the law, like the usual, like that.

So in my career, one of my themes is work smarter and not harder.

So I always think of how can I do this in a time frame that is like human and effective kind of thing?

Yes.

So the rule of 80, 20 for me or like what we teach in our classes, that is gimo just good enough.

Move on for me has been something that I use in my life all the time.

And I'm like, I'm not going to stay in the office just because I need to stay.

I'm going to see if.

If I have to stay, I'll stay and I'll be happy.

And I'm the one that brings coffee to everyone.

I'm happy with that.

But I don't think life has to be like that.

There's a generation younger than you as well, Moffat, that has an even Lower tolerance, I would say, for working late in the office.

Do you find it easy to see their perspective or do you ever find yourself getting a bit impatient?

I get a little bit impatient because I don't believe in complete balance.

What?

I don't think there's a balance.

I don't think there's a work life balance.

It's just like juggling those things.

So there are times where you can spend more time at home with your kids and all of that, but there are times that you need to focus on your work.

And just.

That's what I do with my kids.

I communicate with them.

There are weeks that I'm like, working until very late, and I'll communicate that to them.

Or there are weeks that I just travel and travel.

I'll communicate that to them.

There are other things that I know that bring me, well, wellness or well being that I try to add into my routine.

Even if it's a very busy routine, I just bring a little bit of that so I feel balanced.

But when people say to me, like, oh, no, now I want four day week, and that's the only thing that I get, like, that's the only thing that I will accept.

And I'm sorry, but I have to go home every day at 4pm and you cannot ask me to stay until 6pm because I have this and this and this.

I would be like, no.

I can try to give you four days a week.

I can also try to make sure that you leave work at 4pm but there are going to be days that I'll ask you to stay until 7pm and if you say no to, that's not an ethical way of working for me.

Okay.

So.

Very well put.

And it's fascinating to me, Buffy, and one of the things I've always admired is that you do keep wellness and health and well being very much a part of you, regardless of how big or how small what you have to take on is.

And that's something I'm learning from you, which I love.

And you are a person who has run entire country operations.

So this is not just in my little consulting job.

You're also a person who's taken your family to Bali and worked remotely for some more balance.

And I think that ability, like you say, there is not a static balance, a point where it's going to be 42 and 50, 58 or whatever, but there's this juggling that goes on, Mike.

And it's so good that you mentioned that, because when I started being in charge of the Colombian office.

One thing that I did, like the first thing that I did, everyone had to take their.

How do you call their cards and put it in the system.

And if they were late five minutes, there was.

I don't remember exactly what punishment.

I think there was something like after three notices of being late or something, they were going to be called or there was a reduction in their salary.

I don't remember exactly what it was.

The first thing that I did when I got into that office, I was like, no one has to sign in.

Like no one.

I'm going to trust that everyone comes at the right time or they have a good excuse not coming to the office.

And the leaders need to be the ones that are responsible for that and not like a system that punishes people for that.

Because I know, like, you miss the boss and you're late, but.

Or your kid, like suddenly got sick and you need to stay a couple of minutes more to sort that out or things like that.

So that was something.

And I always strive for people to go home, like at the time that they were supposed to go home.

And I was an example of that as well.

But for instance, in my maternity leave, I couldn't take the completely my maternity leave because I was the one that was responsible for signing legal things.

So every week there was this person coming into my house and I had to take a few hours just to check the documents and sign things and all of that.

And it was okay for me.

It wasn't that, oh, no, I'm in a maternity leave.

If the company falls apart, don't call me because I'm in a maternity leave.

No, that's not it.

So I think it's just a matter of understanding what is important for you and trying to make that work, but having the flexibility to know that if things are different in a moment, you can also work a little bit harder and that's going to be okay.

It's a really good pattern, this idea of saying not every single day or every single week will be in balance, but you can look for balance over the longer term.

Right.

So I might have led the witness a little bit here.

I wasn't intending to.

If there was one attitude about another generation, and you can have, go for boomers and Gen X's as well as Gen Z, if you like.

If there was one attitude or perception that you'd like to change in another generation mafia, what would it be?

I'm not sure if this is a generational thing.

Yeah.

Whenever there's a younger generation, we always say, oh, you are, you have it this, you have this wrong.

But I think older generations, I also see this.

And people in my generation, I also see this.

And it's people that complain about things in the system and become victimized by it, like, by things, and they don't do anything around it.

I get very frustrated with people like that.

Like when they say, for instance, when we are talking about hours, oh, this company works for some.

Like, they, they make us work for so many hours.

Or have you done anything around that?

No.

Okay, so don't complain.

Yeah, don't complain if you have a solution.

Like, talk about the solution.

Talk to your managers.

Like, when I joined avi, I decided, because I was a new mom, I decided that I needed two afternoons free.

And I just negotiated that with my boss.

And no one else in the company had negotiated something like that.

And everyone was like, oh, but why do you have two free afternoons?

And I was like, because I asked.

Because I also committed to do other things.

Because it's not, oh, just give me the two days or the two afternoons and that's it.

No, I knew that I had to deliver.

I knew that I have some days to come earlier to the office, etc.

Etc.

But if you have to take care of the things that bother you, like, you cannot victimize yourself and that's it.

So I think, yes, partly we can see that a little bit in the newer generation that is always, oh, no, you cannot do that, or things like that.

But I think the newer generation also has a little bit more character on saying no.

I think that's a really good example of how healthy individualism has grown as the generations have evolved and people see the opportunity, like you say, mafe, to ask for and look for things that are important to them.

And it doesn't mean that you're being critical, just means you're looking for what is important for you.

And yes, but I think you also have to compromise things.

Like, you cannot ask for everything and expect that everything is going to be given to you and you're not going to give anything back.

So, you know, as you think about your consulting career and, you know, being in consulting, even at the moment, what are you enjoying?

What are you appreciating?

I think the fact that I'm always learning new things is so much fun.

I think also the other thing that I, right now I'm really enjoying is that I'm moving a little bit away from healthcare and more into broader possibilities of doing what I do with other industries and just learning about other industries.

Excites me as well and brings me a lot of joy.

And also seeing that the skills that I learned very early in my career are things that still are applicable to many other ways of working, that's something that excites me.

And definitely integrating newer and newer technology into what I do is definitely a lot of fun.

Anything you're looking forward to in consulting and the life of a consultant?

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how we can integrate the newer generations philosophy into the ways of working in consulting.

And I think it's going to take us to think completely outside the box.

Otherwise I think it's not going to be very attractive for the new generation.

The ways we have done things in consulting for like forever and it might be something positive, we don't know.

But I think it's just a matter of understanding the newer generation and seeing how we can blend that out.

And definitely another thing that I have been thinking quite a lot, Mike, is that with all of the health advances, I think the older generations are going to be more productive for longer periods of time.

And all of the pension systems going broken, people are going to have to work longer years.

So just having four generations in a company, it's going to be something that is going to be common in or is right now is common and it's going to be even more common.

So just like understanding how that builds culture and how much like innovation can bring that just by mixing people that have different ways of thinking, I think it's going to be very exciting.

Me like myself, I always think that I want to die working.

Like I don't want to retire, I want to work until I can because I find it like I enjoy it, maybe I would work less, definitely.

But I think I still want to work.

So I think just having people from younger generations and having that interaction with them and bringing like the wisdom of the older generations, like breaking frameworks of the younger generation, I think it's going to be fun to watch.

Well, we're looking forward to watching and to a certain extent being there as well.

I think it's going to be great.

Thank you so much.

Mafe, thank you for coming back on the show.

It's been really great to talk to you this week.

Thanks again for joining us.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

Thanks so much.

Mafe.

Sa.