PREFACE

Millennials and the Modern Workplace

I’m a female. I’m an American-born Asian. I’m a chemical engineer by training. I got my first job when I was 13 and graduated with my bachelor’s when I was 20. I spent seven years working for a Fortune 50 company, beginning as an engineer and then as a training manager. I left to launch my own firm, Invati Consulting. I’ve given over 100 talks that have reached over 5,000 people, including two TEDx talks, on a unique intersection: millennial behavior and modern workplace culture. I’ve discussed challenges like modernizing to a digital workplace and generational transition with countless executives. I’ve developed proprietary consulting and training solutions to enable the shift to organizational designs that support modern workplace culture. I’ve been recognized for these achievements, including receiving the Power 30 Under 30, Association for Talent Development’s One to Watch, and Chief Learning Officer’s Learning in Practice awards.

Before I get hurt patting myself too hard on the back, let me share that I’m also . . . dare I say it? A millennial.

Today, I cringe at owning this part of my identity. It feels like the moment I type the word “millennial,” I have somehow discounted all my other qualities and accomplishments and made them less true. Yet indeed, I am a part of this “lazy, entitled, job-hopping” generation. The most common retort to my admission is, “Oh, but you’re Asian, so it’s different for you.” Being Asian automatically brings up preconceived notions of Tiger Moms and driven children. However, my achievements cannot solely be attributed to my Asian upbringing. My achievements are attributed to my whole self, the varied fabric that makes up me.

To explain the seemingly “un-millennial-like” behavior of the many millennials they know, older generations often find similar excuses. I’ve often overheard an older generation individual saying to a millennial, “You’re the exception” or “I’m not talking about you, of course.” These justifications seek to hide one of the largest inconvenient truths: that perhaps the majority of millennials are not, in reality, the lazy, entitled, disrespectful, feedback-driven job-hoppers that they are often believed to be.

When I started my career, I was just Crystal Kadakia. I pursued things like actively challenging myself, trying to make a difference in the world, and focusing on what I could do instead of what I couldn’t. I wanted to bring all of that potential to work and make use of it. I didn’t know back then how “millennial” I really was by single-mindedly pursuing the idea of using my potential to its highest level, including wild experiments with lifestyle and career choices with little regard for traditional structure. Today, I know that older generations perceive such behavior as millennial. But what I also know is that this is not just millennial, but modern. I know that millennial behavior signals the behavior of generations to come.

My passion became clear as several pieces began to collide. While in my role as a training manager at the Fortune 50 company, I had a baby boomer directly reporting to me as we designed training for new hires. Around 2010, negative perspectives on millennials were everywhere in the media. It wasn’t the negativity that bothered me; it was the misalignment with reality. My boomer colleague and I would often discuss misleading media accounts about millennials, and we decided to prove them wrong in our training work. We launched several successful cross-generational programs based on what we were actually seeing, and none of them conformed to stereotypes—but these local successes didn’t satisfy my drive to change the dominant stereotypes about my generation.

The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back was when I saw HR leaders, trainers, and seminar speakers espousing incorrect generational traits based on these media resources. Remember those tables of generational differences with values like hardworking or loyal for each generation, as though entire generations had a single personality? Everyone, regardless of generation, would look rather confused at the end of these training programs on embracing generational diversity. Participants often commented, “I feel like an old soul” or “I feel like a millennial at heart” were common phrases spoken by participants. People didn’t fit into the neat, confining boxes being presented or learn actionable skills; the training simply reinforced attitudes based on stereotypes.

I wanted to draw new connections for people of all generations, and particularly for corporations trying to adapt to a digitally driven world. I eventually built the momentum to start Invati Consulting, where today I speak, train, and consult on this unique challenge: changing the focus of the conversation from generations and millennials to understanding modern talent behavior and the corresponding new workplace design. I discovered the audience was hungry for meaningful, actionable perspectives in this arena. Through my extensive research and my own experience as a millennial, I have established a completely different language for interpreting the behavior of my generation, recast in a new light based on the impact of digital technology. Because all society is digitally enabled today, this new understanding then provides clues for much-needed organizational changes to better engage all modern talent.

To put it another way, despite the extremely heavy focus on millennials, it’s not about them. It’s about what makes modern talent, in the context of today’s digitally enabled environment, engaged and productive. Millennials are the first generation of “digital natives,” having coming of age with computers, the Internet, and digital technology. As such, they just happen to be the best informants to strategically guide modern workplace trends, both in terms of what we should change (based on the positive behavior of millennials) and what we should bring forward from the past (based on the risks of millennial behavior). To do so, we require a high degree of objectivity and cross-generational understanding.

Unfortunately, it is this very objectivity and understanding that is missing. Over the last five years, I have extensively researched the perceptions of millennials in the workplace, why they exist, and what we should act on instead. Ultimately, the perceptions we hold today are rooted in a sensationalized media profile of an entire population. As a result, people, including senior leaders, have a tendency to transform interactions with millennials into negative experiences. For example, when asked for training and career growth opportunities, managers and leaders may automatically think, “Oh, you must be entitled. What have you done to deserve that?” This is an example of cognitive bias called confirmation bias, defined as “having a tendency to listen only to information that confirms our preconceptions.”¹ Yet the millennial perspective is, “I’m entitled? Because I want to learn about how to do my job and to do it so I succeed?” Unfortunately, these misconceptions have deeply infiltrated the workplace, especially at the managerial level and higher, where the shaping of the workplace happens.

I wrote this book to spark a new discussion among leaders and managers. Instead of complaining about adapting for millennials, it’s imperative for leaders and managers to acknowledge the role of millennial behavior as an indication of the needs of the modern workplace to attract, leverage, and retain modern talent. Many look at millennials as a topic related to diversity and inclusion or generational traits. Separately, others look at the topic of the future workplace. The new discussion I am launching drives an unbreakable, crucial connection between five of the most misunderstood millennial behaviors and the digitally enabled workplace revolution.

My objective is not to defend the millennial generation or present a view of what is right or wrong, good or bad, best or worst. Nor is it to focus on changing the workplace for millennials specifically. Rather, it is to provide an accurate, inclusive picture of how the world has changed and how that has impacted talent across all generations today and will continue to impact talent tomorrow.

It’s about reducing turnover and increasing engagement, but also about ensuring profitability, driving innovation, and existing as a company in the future. If an organization can’t engage their youngest employee base to contribute to building their vision, how can they attract their youngest customers to purchase their products? One of the biggest fears of CEOs today is to be “Uber-ized”—that is, to lose business due to a complete revolution in the way things have always been done, just as Uber has done with the public transportation industry. To overcome this fear and remain successful, more than ever before, it is vital to deeply understand and embrace the future generation. Unlocking and harnessing the potential of modern talent is the ultimate key to survival in today’s global, hyper-connected, digital society.