We have discovered that there is a fundamental disconnect between managers and Millennials. The disconnect has led to organizational tension, less-than-full engagement on the part of Millennials, and misdirected effort by managers. This has led to unforeseen frustrations making it almost impossible for managerial leaders to identify disconnects and discover solutions. When managers properly identify the points of tension, disconnects can be reframed as opportunities to connect and build trust rather than discord. This cannot be overstated. The power of this model is that it transforms points of tension into points of connection.

During our interviews, we were intrigued to find that both the good and challenged managers we spoke with experienced similar tensions in managing Millennials. While studying in more detail thousands of statements collected during interviews with both managers and Millennial employees, we recognized a pattern of responses that we refer to as perceived orientations of Millennials. We use the term “perceived” because the orientations are based on how managers reported their experience of working with Millennials. Perceptions are not necessarily reality, but perceptions acted on or unchecked often become reality.

We struggled over the terminology used to represent the data from our interviews. Many of the descriptive terms the managers in our study used could be considered negative or even pejorative. Some of the statements may even offend some readers. For that, we apologize in advance. We decided to stay true to the descriptions the managers used for one important reason. The tension is real. It is the reason we wrote this book. It is therefore essential that we preserve the fidelity of the comments we collected. We could not have made this point any better than one human resources vice president who warned us: “If you softened the edginess of those labels, I’d laugh you right out of my office and ask you who you’ve been talking to!”

Further, psychological integrity suggests that the credibility of our work requires that we preserve the emotions as they were expressed by our study participants.

In order to test the face value validity of our model, we asked hundreds of Millennial participants in our study for their reactions to the perceived orientations. Believe it or not, they agreed with the descriptions! We were just as surprised at the response as you will probably be. The reason Millennials can agree with these statements is because they recognize that the intrinsic values they hold cause their cohort to be perceived just as we described.

There is obviously more to the story than just the perceptions of those who work with Millennials. Understanding the behaviors behind the perceived orientations will help managers reduce tension and build trust within their teams. People’s behaviors are driven by their beliefs and values. This is true for every generation. As we described in Chapter 2, every generation in the workplace today holds a distinct set of core values molded by events that shaped the world during their youth. Leaders who understand the values behind the behaviors that are perceived negatively by others have an edge in maximizing the potential of their workforce. The nine orientations of Millennials as experienced by our managers are: (1) autonomous, (2) entitled, (3) imaginative, (4) self-absorbed, (5) defensive, (6) abrasive, (7) myopic, (8) unfocused, and (9) indifferent. For every perceived orientation, we have listed a set of corollary intrinsic values. As you can see, intrinsic Millennial values are normal, if not admirable (see Figure 4.1).

Once we identified the perceptions managers had of working with Millennials, we listened to how the managers responded to each of the orientations. Our aim was to understand just what separated managers who were successful in working with Millennials from those who struggled. We discovered that successful managers practiced a set of core competencies that are essential to effectively managing Millennial employees. The competencies fall within three behavioral categories: (1) adapting, (2) communicating, and (3) envisioning.

Adapting is the willingness to accept that a Millennial employee does not have the same experiences, values, or frame of reference that you had when you were the same age. We refer to this as suspending the bias of your own experience. Adapting successfully may require adjustments to your management style. In some cases, it may require changes to your organization’s policies and procedures. Several major corporations found that they were better able to remain true to their mission by making their policies more accommodating to the expressed values of Millennial employees. The adapting competencies are “Flexing with the Autonomous,” “Incenting the Entitled,” and “Cultivating the Imaginative.”

Communicating refers to the ability to make a connection at a relational level. It is the primary area where tension can escalate into emotional conflict. In the saddest cases, professional relationships deteriorated so much that we observed personal attacks. For the manager who is committed to succeeding despite relational tension, communicating is essential. It is about staying engaged even when both parties are frustrated. The communicating competencies are “Engaging the Self-Absorbed,” “Disarming the Defensive,” and “Self-Differentiating from the Abrasive.”

Envisioning is about lifting the horizons among the unmotivated and myopic. It incorporates management practices that create both meaning and accountability for the Millennial employee. In practice, envisioning entails connecting employees’ personal goals and aspirations with the organization’s objectives. Without the Adapting and Communicating skills, it is highly unlikely that envisioning can take place. The envisioning competencies are “Broadening the Myopic,” “Directing the Unfocused,” and “Motivating the Indifferent” (see Figure 4.2).

Obviously, mastering the nine competencies will help you to effectively manage an employee of any generation. However, the competencies are exponentially more important when managing Millennials. Builders, Baby Boomers, and GenX(ers) have been working long enough to “get” each other and therefore are more likely to understand where management is coming from even if they disagree. Millennials do not have enough experience to have developed that understanding yet.

This story takes place in the context of ageism, discrimination against or sanctioning of individuals because of their age. As you might imagine, where Millennials are concerned, ageism is a multi-edged sword. We know, swords usually only have two edges, but we have found four kinds of age bias at work here, two of which work in favor of Millennial employees, and two against.

One common bias we all fall prey to is the tendency to assume that individuals we encounter, including people we may work with daily, exhibit all of the traits and behaviors generally associated with their age cohort. Age stereotypes (e.g., older people are resistant to new technology) depict older persons as being less than desirable employees, particularly for technically demanding jobs. Employers default to negative stereotypes when they have limited information about applicants and project onto individuals certain perceived group characteristics.¹

Recently, the problem of age discrimination has received increased attention. Many experts suggest there are two reasons for the growing interest: (1) the high costs connected with early retirement, and (2) an increased proportion of older persons in the population. Although the concept of ageism or age discrimination has been around for decades, age prejudice is still considered socially acceptable. Recently more attention has been given to the subject. Sociologist Todd Nelson sees a correlation between Baby Boomers nearing or entering retirement age and an increase in academic and popular interest in aging.²

Ironically, it is the Baby Boomer phenomenon that stirred our interest in studying Millennials in the workplace. We were concerned with “who” was going to take the Baby Boomers’ place in organizations and the “disconnect” that seemed to be emerging between the age cohorts.

Ageism is mostly applied to the “older” segment of the population, but we want to take a look at the other side of the age equation. We found it interesting that when managers compared Millennials favorably to other age cohorts, it had to do with their openness to change and try new things. Although one may stereotype older workers as slower, less willing to change, or less technologically sophisticated, we also believe that there are negative stereotypes that impact the career opportunities (pay scale, promotion, benefits, etc.) of Millennials.

We know it is challenging, if not bordering on the incredulous, to think of Millennials as being victims of ageism. After all, our culture worships youth. Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, Puerto Rico’s first governor, was searching for the Fountain of Youth when he traveled to Florida in 1513. Today people carry Ponce’s spirit of eternal youth as they pursue the promise of every hair tonic, wrinkle cream, exfoliate, and injectable procedure. Futurist marketing guru Faith Popcorn has written on the phenomena she coined as “down-aging.” Popcorn says, “Down-aging is a redefining down what appropriate age-behavior is for your age . . . 40 is now what used to be 30, 50 is now what used to be 40, 65 is now the beginning of the second half of life.”³ Famed lyricist Bob Dylan—who turns 69 years old in 2010—offers a blessing of eternal youth in his 1962 hit “Forever Young.”

You may be asking how someone can be marginalized when everybody wants what they have. One explanation could be stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is the threat of having the negative characteristics stereotypically associated with a group applied to a particular individual, whether justified or not. People only experience stereotype threat when a negative stereotype about their group is relevant to performance on a specific task.⁴ For instance, left handed golfers are not as good at putting as right handed golfers. Individuals who are easily identified with a cohort may experience greater susceptibility to stereotype threat.⁵ The perceived orientations of Millennials could adversely impact their job opportunities.

Many of the managerial leaders we interviewed resented having to adapt to the Millennials. We discovered that there are managers who even refuse to hire them. We suggest, therefore, that it is possible that Millennials can be marginalized. We mean so in the context of being prevented, in the short term, from experiencing meaningful participation in organizational life.

Negative stereotypes can adversely impact the willingness of a managerial leader to mentor or help a young person—particularly when the older employee sees the younger employee as an economic threat. Managerial leaders may also be put off by attitudes and behaviors that are not consistent with their own. Perhaps the most damaging sanction a managerial leader can deploy is to not engage the young employee or do so in a way that is condescending. Here lies the marginalization. When managerial leaders superimpose their own experience (cohort-related values) over the younger workers (i.e., they ought to be quiet in meetings for a certain period of time) and the younger workers act out of their own experience (cohort-related values), a sanction may be imposed in the form of negative feedback. Studies show that people who receive constant negative feedback often show lower levels of effort as a result.⁶

Negative feedback tends to lower self-efficacy (the belief in one’s own ability to achieve successful levels of performance). A key indicator of one’s future success is self-efficacy.⁷ Managerial leaders can negatively impact a person’s self-efficacy by misusing their position or power.

We wanted to explore the idea of reverse ageism to see if Millennials felt barriers to job opportunities as a result of their age. So we did a survey with college juniors and seniors who were student leaders at California State University Long Beach and Vanguard University of Southern California. The criteria for participation was having had worked at a job in which they reported directly to a manager.

The five survey questions are:

The fact that the students feel discriminated against, but still think they have an advantage, may explain why there is little interest in exploring if or how young people are discriminated against because of their age. Perhaps younger workers are more optimistic about the future because they have more time to overcome “age-related” discriminatory practices. Conversely, older workers who experience discrimination may exhibit pessimism about the future because they have less time to overcome age discrimination.

The students who considered being young a disadvantage could be categorized into two sentiments: (1) their lack of experience and (2) being looked down upon because of their age.

It is telling that in the 2008 Democratic Primary then-Senator Obama had the majority of the youth vote. His inexperience was not an issue to young voters. Rather than stretching his limited experience into something it was not, he focused on portraying himself as having good judgment. Another presidential hopeful took a different approach. Senator Clinton’s strategy was to emphasize her experience. Later, when she began to lose ground in the race, she changed her campaign from talking “experience” to using words like “readiness.”

In the student verbatim comments on the previous page, you can clearly see that managerial leaders and Millennials are perfect for one another-the experienced coupled with the learner. Ironically, one of the biggest roadblocks to successfully managing Millennials is perhaps a managerial leader’s greatest asset—lived experience. It seems counterintuitive, but if you acknowledge the Millennial’s experience before you reference your own, you will have a greater chance at successfully managing them.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing here is that in spite of negative feedback, and in the face of an organizing principal of society that withholds privilege from them, we found a heartening—albeit competitive—optimism about future opportunities to contribute in their professional capacities among the Millennials we surveyed. We think that any manager can tap into that capacity if he or she is willing to apply the techniques laid out in the chapters that follow.

Millennials, like any other generation, will have to make adjustments to assimilate into the workforce. But, we are suggesting that the people with the most maturity need to adapt first. Quite frankly, if you are waiting for Millennials to grow out of their values, you may risk missing the best of what they have to offer!

In the chapters that follow, we look at the nine orientations of Millennials as well as the nine competencies essential for leading this vibrant and ambitious cohort.