On today’s episode of Nurture.Team, the exploration we are going to have is:
Managing Millennials
As an organization or as a manager – “How to you manage millennials”? As per Wikipedia – Demographers and researchers typically use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years for Generation Y.
I think this topic is controversial, informational and required to be discussed – the reason I say that is because anything which span “Generations” is important and shouldn’t be taken for granted.
In the above episode, I ask the following questions. Also towards the end we do a rapid fire round.
Questions during podcast:
- Do millennials portray multiple traits like smart, brash, pampered as listed by various experts? Or is this too much stereotyping?
- Do millennials need to be managed differently? And if yes, why? Or in the first place does even the word “MANAGE” go well with millennials?
- Did you know about “millennials” and that they need to be managed differently? How did you learn about Generation Y attributes and handled the information then?
- What would be your Top 3 DO’s and DON’T to organizations and previous generations to Gen Y – while they are dealing with the Millennials at work place?
- In 1:1 or mentoring time with Gen Y, do you tell them anything specific to better manage their expectations or wake them up to “real world” as Gen X or earlier generations like to say?
- In other words, while you are changing yourself, do you do anything which tries to wake up “my generation – my fellow Millennials” so that we are put up for success with our careers?
What I learned:
- Childhood and growing up:
- Millennials got dealt a bad hand by factors such as parenting, technology, impatience and environment..
- Simon Sinek describes this here in this video.
- Failed parenting strategies like giving kids false sense of entitlement from the very early childhood has not prepared this generation to face the workplace.
- Millennials have huge potential and have enough smarts which needs harnessing through parenting, schools and friends (basically environment in which they grow up) before they come to the workplace.
- Millennials got dealt a bad hand by factors such as parenting, technology, impatience and environment..
- Managing:
- When a fresher joins an organization, some unlearning needs to be done so that they can adapt quickly to the norms of the workplace.
- Help them to deal with their impatience and that make them learn that the journey is more important than the destination.
- Explain them “HOW” (approach) means more than “WHAT” (result) (at least for the initial years)
- Showcase to younger generation (via senior member of the team) how one can disagree without disagreeable.
- Get your team together – instead of asking them to fill in status reports and no interaction. This is lot more gratifying to individuals.
- When a fresher joins an organization, some unlearning needs to be done so that they can adapt quickly to the norms of the workplace.
- Communication patterns:
- If you are a manager, deal with Generation Y with patience – you got to develop this habit.
- Keep chipping away until you see the results on the ground.
- So, it’s not just Millennials who have to be patience but also the other generations which are working with Generation Y, has to be patient too.
- If you are a manager, deal with Generation Y with patience – you got to develop this habit.
- Organizations:
- This young generation when they show up at work on Day 1, they want to make an impact. A lot of organizations do not have managers who can handle this.
- Learn from younger generation at home and personal life – you will find common pattens at workplace too.
- Top DOs and DON’T (it’s not just for Gen Y)
- Mutual understanding : This is the cornerstone of any relationship.
- Listen more than you speak : Actively hear your team members. They like their ideas to be heard and their opinion to be considered.
- Give feedback : Your team members need to be informed if their path is correct or they need a course correction.
- Organizations should make it an objective of the managers to provide regular and actionable feedback to their team members.
Remember:
- Anything which spans generations shouldn’t be taken for granted and this needs to be discussed.
- Patience, active hearing and mutual respect : These are the tools you need to sharpen.
- The most powerful investment is Communication.
- You can this very message come up in previous episodes on How to transition from an individual contributor to a manager OR How to ask for promotion at work?
- Golden rules to be successful at work:
- Be there for the long haul – Your career
- Have patience to last the journey instead of instead gratification
- Warm up to people – get out of world of devices
- Strike for excellence. It takes practice
- Look at the big picture
Recommendations by Avinash for teams:
Books:
- He likes to read biographies. He is currently reading Elon Musk’s biography which he finds fascinating because of how he is not focused on making incremental change but driving a new radical idea.
- Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.
- He loves to read travel logs. Few books he shared was from Bill Bryson.
Team activities:
- Hike, biking expedition are great
- Conduct a pot-luck – something where entire team chips in
- Or a simple book reading/ sharing experience changes team dynamics
- Team activities should be natural with no agenda and should be spontaneous
About the guest on this episode:
Avinash GS.
Avinash lives in Bangalore, India.
Avinash has been in the Technology industry for over 20+ years. Currently he is a Director, Information System at Atkins. In the past he has held several senior roles at Phillips, Honeywell and Infosys.
His spirit animal is Elephant. And his super power is Patience.