Chapter 12
Include the Details: Ambiguity Is Their Kryptonite
Directing the Unfocused
They can be challenging. They definitely need to be guided and kept focused. My job is to keep them focused and keep them on task.
—A dentist
There are things that I don't feel like I should have to repeat. But I learned that if I want them to get it, I have to tell them over and over.
—A police lieutenant
We want clear direction, and then get out of our way.
—A Millennial
Millennials are super-like. Not unlike the man who wears the big red S on his chest, they too have their kryptonite—it is called ambiguity. They hate ambiguity more than being micromanaged. With insufficient direction, they often exhibit a lack of focus, indecisiveness, and insecurity. (See Table 12.1.)
Table 12.1 Directing the Unfocused
| Directing (Include the Details) | Unfocused |
| The ability to clearly communicate what is expected. It entails avoiding ambiguity and not assuming you have been understood. It requires both questioning and listening to ascertain the employee's readiness level for a task or goal. | Millennials, as a cohort, are recognized for their intellectual ability but are often perceived to struggle with a lack of attention to detail. They have a hard time staying focused on tasks for which they have no interest. |
The Millennial Intrinsic Value: Multitasking
Millennials are aware that management perceives them as unfocused. They blame the perception on their ability to multitask. They truly believe they can do more than older workers because of their grasp of technology and the speed with which they can access information. Not only do they value doing many different things at once, they value doing many different things. Millennials claim that their ability to multitask gives them an advantage over older workers. They consider themselves to be focused but not always on what management wants. They feel uncomfortable with managements' orientation, which they consider to be: “Let's just get things done.” Millennials frequently marshal all of their multitasking skills to focus on what is important to them. That explains why at times you find them giving more attention to things that are not in their job description than the things that are.
They have been highly guided as children and therefore do not feel awkward about being given direction (in a friendly way), even repeatedly. Although other generations may consider high direction to be micromanagement, Millennials are comfortable as long as it does not come across as condescending or as a response to incompetence.
The Bias of Experience
Managers cannot bring themselves to believe that someone can listen to an iPod, manage their fantasy football team, and be focused on work at the same time. Many managers grew up with the mandate that they could not listen to the radio or watch TV while they were studying. It is common today for a junior high student to be talking on their cell phone, instant messaging, surfing the web, and watching their television while preparing for an exam.
Think about it. Over the past two generations, we have gone from one phone line per household to one cell phone per family member, plus the old landline. Television has gone from 13 UHF channels to more than 500 via cable or satellite. In 1975, the Internet did not exist, the boom box and Walkman had not yet arrived, no one had a personal computer, and there was no way to record a TV program at home without access to expensive professional equipment. Now we have iPods, notebooks, iPads, and PCs at home, not to mention a Slingbox and a DVR or two, all delivering content from multiple sources.
At the same time that universities are spending millions to outfit the twenty-first-century classroom with wireless technology, faculty are debating whether they should allow computers in the classroom, “How could they possibly be listening to me if they are gazing at their computer screen?” The sentiment carries over into the boardroom. Many companies restrict the use of smartphones and laptops in meetings.
In both the classroom and the boardroom examples, there is an implied understanding that focus has to do with attending to formal authority. It is a residue of the bureaucratic class.1 Managers have learned how to use meetings, budgets, performance evaluation, and organization charts to leverage professional prerogatives and get ahead. Management deems what is important and acts accordingly. While using smartphones, iPods, and tweeting may be symptomatic of attention deficit, the perception that Millennials are unfocused is more related to employees not attending to what is important to management.
The effective managers in our study did not see their focus and the Millennials' focus as mutually exclusive. The key is the ability to link the two.
Directing? I Thought They Wanted Autonomy
You may be thinking to yourself, “Is it not a contradiction to say that Millennials want both high direction and autonomy?” You will not be the first manager they have left talking to themselves. High achievement is important to them, and they want to know exactly what they have to do to be successful. They fear taking a wrong step or making a bad decision. As a matter of fact, they would rather not make a decision at all than make the wrong decision. Their ability to work in teams often masks their fear of making bad decisions on their own. Working on a team affords Millennials the psychological comfort of sharing the burden of making a mistake.
A manager approached us after a training session to validate the idea that Millennials fear making bad decisions. Her example did not involve an employee but her own son. He had recently graduated with a baccalaureate degree and had interviewed with four different companies. When he called to tell her how the interviews were going, she sensed that he was a little down. She tried to affirm him by saying, “I am proud of you. Just keep lining up the interviews and sooner or later you will get a job.” She was shocked when he told her that he had received an offer from each of the companies but wasn't sure which one, if any, he should accept. He was afraid of making a decision he would regret so he kept doing what made him feel more at ease—job hunting.
When Millennials are unclear about what to do, their multitasking ability can become unfocused and counterproductive. The effective managers were able to help the Millennials see that focusing on organizational objectives and their own objectives were not mutually exclusive. We have noted that Millennials are perceived as autonomous, but that does not mean they don't welcome direction. After being acknowledged for their ability and potential, they are open to a high level of direction as to how they can go about using their skills.
Giving Direction
Giving good direction requires flipping the attending to authority bias to authority tending to employee development needs. The emphasis is on adapting your management style to the developmental needs of the employee. Through formal or informal conversation, a manager can assess the readiness level of an employee for a particular task, role, or job. The effective managers in our study relied mainly on informal means of assessing their Millennials. Once you know the readiness level of the direct report, you can determine what type of direction needs to be provided. A simple but proven model for ascertaining readiness and directing needs:
- I explain what I will do.
- I do it and you watch me.
- We do it together.
- You do it and I watch you.
- You do it on your own.
- You explain what you did.
The complexity level of a task or goal determines how much time is required for directing. Good direction includes telling and showing people what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and providing timely feedback on results.
The effective managers in our study shifted the focus from perform for me to let's partner for performance. It is important for manager and employee to find agreement about what is helpful to develop both parties' competencies. Partnering for performance requires that consideration and balance be given to the manager's goals, the Millennial's goals, and the organization's goals.
Learning from Success
You will find some good strategies for partnering for performance in the following advice we received from the managers in our study.
Make It about Their Success
In Chapter 3, we talked about the primary differences we observed between the effective and challenged managers in our study. The holy grail to managing Millennials is seeing yourself as key to their success. The effective managers considered themselves successful when their Millennial employees experienced success.
Focus on the Mission
There has been an emphasis over the past 20 years or so on the importance of creating organizational mission, vision, and value statements. Several managers in our study spoke of such statements as boundaries for both their own behavior and the behavior of their employees. One of our interviewees eloquently voiced the perspective of managers who recognized the importance of staying within those boundaries while simultaneously directing younger employees, when he told us: “But so long as individuals are moving in favor of mission, vision, and values, then I am open to adapting to the uniqueness of the people that work with me.” By focusing on mission, vision, and values, the conversation about developmental needs moves beyond what we each want to what the organization needs from all of us.
Let Them Try Other Things
A common theme in our interviews was how quickly Millennials get bored with their job description. It is a conundrum of sorts because you want to oblige their need for personal development, but you still need someone to perform certain routine tasks. Managers commented, “There's a job at hand, and while you might like to do those other things, you can't do those things until you actually do your job. And if there's time, then we'll let you do those things.” Great managers anticipate when their employees need a new challenge and try to create opportunities for them before they become unfocused. Competencies such as engaging and cultivating are useful for staying one-step ahead of their boredom.
Millennials respond well to cross-training programs. They are stimulated by the change of environment and routine.
Let Them Make Mistakes
Opportunities to give direction often present themselves when mistakes are made. Giving someone the space to fail at a task or goal can be just as important to his or her development as formal training. “I try to give guidance and advice knowing the outcome and the goal that has to happen. But I try to leave room for my staff to make mistakes. None of us is perfect. One way to get better is to learn from our mistakes. But obviously mistakes can only happen to a certain level, so I am also here as a safety net to get things back on track if necessary.”
Learning from Our Failures
When speaking of their own failures, a common theme in our manager interviews was the mistake they referred to as “assuming too much.”
Do Not Assume They Know What to Do
Many managers felt that their organizations did not make a big enough commitment to training. “I wish we had a little more supervision in each department. We could do a better job of training. I think if they feel like they know what is expected and equipped to do it, they would do a better job and stay longer.” They talked about the need to focus on small, almost trivial, details. A golf pro offered an example, “We should have monthly trainings on something as small as the proper way to drive a golf cart from the clubhouse to the parking lot.” The point is that you cannot assume that they know what to do. Several managers said they are reluctant to give high direction because they consider some things a matter of common sense. The term common sense consists of what people in common would agree on. But Millennials are not in common with the other age cohorts, and they often need a much greater level of clarity and direction than managers typically expect.
Sometimes, when you are so experienced at something, you assume everyone knows what you know. For instance, we have a friend who owns a bunch of apartment complexes. When his son finished his MBA, he invited him into the family business. One of the first assignments he gave his son was to do a KTR analysis for three buildings he was interested in acquiring. After a couple of days he asked his son how he was doing on the report. The son said he needed a couple of more days but was making progress. The conversation then repeated itself every day for a week. Finally, his son worked up enough nerve to admit that he had no clue what a KTR was. Our friend explained that KTR was not an official real estate term but an acronym he invented. It meant kick the tires report (what is the price per door, what is the occupancy, how old is the property, etc.). His son had spent a week on the Internet trying to figure out what a KTR looked like. Needless to say, he didn't find it. The son could have avoided the whole thing by asking what comprised a KTR instead of trying to figure it out on his own. His dad could have avoided the incident had he not assumed that his son knew what he was talking about.
Do Not Assume They Heard You the First Time
We made a big deal out of the Millennial's ability to multitask at the beginning of this chapter. Most studies on multitasking do not address the Millennial age cohort in particular, but evidence suggests that comprehension, reaction time, quality of work, and memory are all severely impacted by it. Russell Poldrack, professor of psychology at UCLA, published findings on how multitasking affects the brain's learning systems, and as a result, he found that we do not learn as well when we are distracted. Poldrack warns that managers need to be aware that “…multitasking adversely affects how you learn. Even if you learn while multitasking, that learning is less flexible and more specialized, so you cannot retrieve the information as easily.”
So there. You are not crazy. The good news, however, is that not all tasks require the same level of attention. In 2007, the Harvard Business Review recognized Linda Stone for coining the phrase continuous partial attention to describe fragmented focus demanded by the hectic workplaces many of us occupy. There is considerable debate as to the effects of this condition, but most of us would agree that there is a benefit to being able to take a quick call, text message, or e-mail to keep an important project on track. The challenge for managers is to ascertain when multitasking is interfering with training, learning, and other tasks that require a higher level of focus.
In a Nutshell
Millennials welcome high direction. Clear and repetitive instruction is important. If you sense that your direct report is anxious or distant, it may be because of a lack of clarity or understanding of what is required from her or him.