Celebrities and actors Amy Poehler and Michael B. Jordan share career advice for Gen Zers

• A corporate training tool aimed at Gen Z workers pairs celebrities with Harvard professors.
• The courses, which are sold to companies, focus on skills like collaboration and communication.

Listen up, Gen Z. Michael B. Jordan has some advice.

It's not about his intense workouts. And it's not on directing or playing a boxer or a supervillain, despite his notable cred there. It's about the types of decisions you'll have to make over the course of your career.

One bit of Jordan's guidance: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." Though it sounds like something Adonis Creed might say, Jordan was talking about the use of algorithms for things like hiring or whether someone should get a loan.

The remarks came as part of a corporate training tool that's aimed at Gen Z workers. The lessons pair Harvard professors with celebrities like Jordan and actor and comedian Amy Poehler to help young workers develop skills around communication, collaboration, and critical thinking — abilities some bosses say they're lacking.

A lot of existing educational tools tend to focus on more experienced workers, Vanessa Hulley, general manager of Versity, which is developing the courses with Harvard, told me. Yet many young workers need training, she said, because the pandemic kept many of them in remote or hybrid setups. That made it more difficult to absorb a company's culture, she said.

Including Hollywood heavyweights in the training makes sense, Hulley said, because they're natural storytellers and because boldfaced names are more likely to attract young workers' attention.

"If you're telling, you know, a 22-year-old that they're going to watch a piece of content and they see Michael B. Jordan's face is right on the front of it, they're much more likely to be interested and excited and maybe click play," she said.

Designed to keep your attention

The courses, which run several hours, are broken up into chapters. Within those, video clips are limited to a few minutes, Hulley said, because "active" attention to videos has shrunk from 15 minutes to about three minutes. "So we try to keep a pretty engaged clip going," she said.

One course on how identifying and manifesting your authentic self can be a "career superpower" features well-known Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cynthia Erivo, the actor, musician, and producer. It's not all professors and celebs, even though Endeavor is a major sports and entertainment company that represents big celebs in Hollywood.

There are discussions with execs from companies like Uber and Meta, parent of Facebook and Instagram, and the executive director of Doctors without Borders. Courses include polls and other interactive elements. Users can also record videos to foster discussion with others at their company.

I tried sizable chunks of several of the courses and found they were more engaging than typical corporate trainings. Partly it's because the topics are more interesting than some videos often mandated by HR or IT departments. And while the celebrity discussions were interesting, the ones with young execs were just as engaging.

Poehler's take on being professional

Hulley didn't provide pricing but said the courses are designed to be sold to employers looking for new ways to train younger workers. She said Versity, which released its first courses in the spring, will have about a half dozen classes by the end of 2023 and plans to add six to eight courses a year. One upcoming class includes comedian Ilana Glazer, one of the creators of the show "Broad City."

The company declined to say how many workers have taken the classes so far.

When it comes to designing the courses, Versity picks celebrities whose stories fit with what the professor is trying to teach, Hulley said.

The class that includes Poehler, who runs a production company she founded, has her sitting down with Jody Freeman, a law professor at Harvard and an advisor on climate change to the Obama White House. The lessons cover topics like being intentional about your career, navigating difficult moments, and managing failure.

Poehler, in a section about strategizing reactions, said taking a break and talking through your feelings can be helpful when situations get tense on the job.

"Our feelings are very important, and also to be in a good professional workspace, you have to figure out, where and when do I express these feelings?" she said. Later, Poehler quipped: "Oh, there's going to be a lot of feelings here. I'm going to have to really figure out where, in what bathroom stall, to have my feelings."