Chapter 13
Make It Matter to Them: They Want to Know “Why” before “What”
Motivating the Indifferent
They just don't seem to care about customers.
—A fast food manager
A lot of kids my age really want their work to mean something. If they feel like they are making a measurable difference, and if they're told that they're making that difference, that's when they really seem to buy in. I like that because I'm the same way. I want to make a difference, too.
—A community center manager
They offered me a big promotion, but I am not sure I want them to get their claws that deep into me. Most of the managers here look pretty unhappy to me.
—A Millennial
It is not your responsibility as a manager to give someone meaning; you need only to help them find it. (See Table 13.1.)
Table 13.1 Motivating the Indifferent
| Motivating (Make It Matter to Them) | Indifferent |
| The ability to inspire Millennials to find meaning in the everyday work they do and to see how their contribution matters. | Millennials are perceived as careless, apathetic, or lacking commitment. |
The Millennial Intrinsic Value: Meaning
Millennials want, no, need to find meaning in their work. Early in our research process, we were using the term apathetic rather than indifferent. That is until we interviewed a young social entrepreneur. When he showed up, he told us we could only have 15 minutes, less than half the time for which we had prepared. During the first few minutes of the interview, he was polite but not very engaged, and then he saw a term we used in our research—apathy. He said, “Apathy? My generation is not apathetic. We care deeply about a lot of things. We just need a reason to care! Apathy is the wrong word.” He suggested we use the word indifferent (meaning neutral). He ended up giving us almost two hours of his time and then he said, “You should have told me what you were trying to do. This is kind of cool.” In Millennial speak that means—you should have given me a reason to care.
Further investigation reveals that Millennials do care deeply about many things. The Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA reported that the entering freshmen class of 2005 showed a distinctive and widespread rise in attitudes reflecting social concerns and civic responsibility behaviors compared with previous cohorts. Two out of three (66.3 percent) report they believe it is essential or very important to help others who are in difficulty, the highest this figure has been in the past 25 years. An all-time high of 83.2 percent report that they volunteered at least occasionally during their high-school senior year, and 70.6 percent report that they typically volunteered on a weekly basis. Also at an all-time high is the percentage of students who believe there is a very good or some chance that they will participate in volunteer or community service in college, at 67.3 percent.1 It has been reported that the largest club at Harvard Business School is The Social Enterprise Club. Also, 15 percent of a recent Princeton graduation class applied to Teach For America, a program in which you spend your first two years of teaching in inner-city or rural schools. Interestingly, BusinessWeek ranked Teach For America seventh in the top 100 places to start a career.2
Some experts explain the rise in social awareness as a result of high schools emphasizing voluntarism in the curriculum and universities using it as criteria for acceptance. The HERI report suggested that the jump in social concern was in part a reaction to the worst global and national disasters witnessed in their lifetime. Some examples would be the Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the Haitian earthquake.
A Millennial receptionist at a country club presented her boss with the idea of collecting food from the membership through the holiday season to help people who were in need. He told her that she would have to organize and execute the food drive on her own because of a lack of staff and the busyness of the season. She consented to take on the project and collected thousands of dollars in food. She was honored with the employee of the year award but blushes when you ask her about it. She beams when you ask her what she most likes about her job and says, “I can make a difference.”
The Bias of Experience
“Nobody gave us a reason to care and we liked it!” Okay, that might be a bit over the top but, as one older manager put it, “Getting a paycheck was meaning enough.” One focus group of managers could not stop laughing at the comment made by a Builder manager, “My motivation for being to work by 8 o'clock every morning was that work started at 8 o'clock in the morning.” You can imagine the floodgate of sentiments that followed. Being grateful to have a job, work ethic, and pleasing the boss were at the heart of the conversation. We saw this scene repeated again and again with all of our focus groups.
In Chapter 2, we talked about the notion that the time in which you were born and the events that take place in society during your adolescence help to shape your values, attitudes, and beliefs. We would like to take you back to Psychology 101 and revisit Maslow's hierarchy of needs (see Figure 13.1).
Figure 13.1 Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow claimed that individuals' higher-order needs only come into focus when lower-order needs are satisfied. Physiological needs consist of food, water, clothing, shelter, and sleep. Safety needs include employment, physical safety, the family, and property. Belonging needs are composed of friendship, love, and family. Esteem needs include self-esteem, confidence, achievement, and respect of others. Self-actualization needs encompass self-fulfillment, creativity, spontaneity, and problem solving.
The hierarchy of needs model was developed to explain individual motivation, but we find the concept useful in explaining differences among the generations in their orientations toward the workplace. The four generations in the workplace today entered their work lives at different places on the hierarchy due to societal change. The Builders arrived to work at the safety level. They are likely to say, “Why isn't a paycheck enough to motivate someone?” The Baby Boomers entered between the belongingness and esteem levels. They love club life and titles. They are likely to say, “Listen, be patient, do your time, and you too can be partner.” Gen X(ers) started at the esteem level. Belonging is a given to them, and they prefer a meritocracy. They are likely to say, “I value work-life balance, too, but show me what you can do, and we will talk.” Are you ready? Millennials are entering between the esteem and self-actualization levels. They are likely to say, “I want to bring my creativity to work, problem solve, and find meaning in what I do.”
As people solve lower-order problems, they may become discontented about higher-order issues. It is paradoxical but improvement in human affairs often leads not to satisfaction but to discontent. It is discontent that motivates us to change. Maslow would say, “Don't evaluate your organization on whether there is discontent or no discontent. Evaluate it on the quality of discontent.” It is a poor quality of discontent when employees feel they are not safe at work. We would say that the quality of discontent is high when employees complain of “not seeing their imprint” on a product or service. When employees strive to find meaning in their work, it is the difference between The Grapes of Wrath and Google. John Steinbeck's novel is set in a time when companies exploited their workers, and the discontented response took the form of unions. At Google headquarters in Mountain View, the company provides on-site oil change, car wash, dry cleaning, massage therapy, gym, hair stylist, fitness classes, and bicycle repair.3
Hierarchy of Capabilities
Gary Hamel, management innovation guru, challenges, “We have to reinvent our management systems, so they inspire human beings to bring all their capabilities to work every day.”4 He created a hierarchy of human capability that contributes to competitive success:
- Obedience: Taking direction and following rules
- Diligence: Being accountable and not taking shortcuts
- Intellect: Smart, eager to improve skills, and willing to borrow ideas from others
- Initiative: Do not wait to be told and seek out new ways to add value
- Creativity: Inquisitive, irrepressible, and not afraid to say stupid things
- Passion: Climb over obstacles and refuse to give up
Hamel measures the contribution of each of the capabilities to what he calls value creation.
| Passion | 35% |
| Creativity | 25% |
| Initiative | 20% |
| Intellect | 15% |
| Diligence | 5% |
| Obedience | 0% |
| 100% |
Although he gave obedience a score of zero, he contends that obedience is worth something, because if people did not follow rules, chaos would emerge. He explains, “When it comes to value creation or competitive success, rule-following employees don't contribute. Value creation is primarily the product of passion and creativity.”
Millennials find meaning in value creation particularly through the capabilities of creativity and passion. But managers may put more emphasis on the obedience, diligence, and experience capabilities. In the old school, employees were expected to work their way up the value creation hierarchy in the same way that individuals must meet physiological needs before they can address safety needs in Maslow's hierarchy. Many managers today would still like to see Millennials master the lower levels of Hamel's hierarchy of human capability (i.e., obedience and diligence) before they are allowed to offer their creativity and passion. The danger is that a manager so focused on the rule-based approach might just miss the Millennials' great potential in the area of passion, creativity, initiative, and intellect.
The Massive Middle
Recently, organizations have been paying a lot of attention to the idea of employee engagement. Engagement gauges the level of connection employees feel with their employer, as demonstrated by their willingness and ability to help their company succeed. Towers Perrin, a consulting firm, conducted a worldwide study of almost 90,000 participants on workforce attitudes.5 They measured what they call the head, hands, and heart. The “head” refers to how employees rationally connect with their company's goals and values. The “hands” refer to the employee's willingness to put in a great deal of extra effort to help the company succeed. And the “heart” is the emotional connection between employee and employer. The sum total of the three elements is what was used to measure overall employee engagement levels.
The study shows that barely one in five employees (21 percent) is fully engaged on the job. And 8 percent are fully disengaged. This means that an overwhelming 71 percent of employees fall into what they call the “massive middle,” who are neither engaged or disengaged. They are indifferent.
Here are some signs of indifference:
- Often feel unable to commit to tasks that hold little meaning for them.
- They have strong reservations about jobs they are asked to do; as a result, they approach them half-heartedly.
- Rather than acknowledging a problem and taking steps to correct it, they convince themselves that the problem does not exist.
- They are often plagued with feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, anger, frustration, and alienation.
Another study by Gallup reveals that the key factor in engagement at work is the quality of the relationship between the manager and the worker (see Chapter 8 for relationship building). Without rapport, engagement suffers. They found that managers who build strong relationships create engaged teams that in turn engage with their clients.6
Keep Them Engaged and Out of the Middle
In Chapter 6, we emphasized the competency of matching extrinsic rewards (bonuses, raises, praise, promotions, etc.) to Millennial values. The focus here is on the importance of recognizing the satisfaction Millennials get from performing well and feeling like they made a contribution to the organization (intrinsic rewards).
When we use the phrase motivate the indifferent, we are not suggesting that you can put motivation into unmotivated people. It is a fruitless exercise and usually ends with the manager frustrated. However, you can create an environment conducive to self-motivation.
Learning from Success
Managers who were able to create atmospheres in which Millennials take initiative provide meaningful challenges, freedom of personal choice in how they pursue the challenges, and a sense of urgency about the meaning of their work to the organization.
Why Is It Worth Doing?
Millennials want to know why before what. They ask why as a means of placing value on the activity. A marketing manager had asked her direct report to make 300 copies of a market study and was taken aback when asked why. The why was not in defiance but a fishing expedition of sorts. The objective in the mind of the direct report was to ascertain what role she was playing in the grand scheme of things.
We met some incredible motivators, and one thing they all had in common was they were convinced of their own purpose and could articulate the why and the value their employees brought to the why. A community center director gave the example of when one of his Millennials wanted to quit, “I told him you're here because you care. These kids look up to you. If it weren't for these kids having the challenges that they have, we wouldn't be needed. There would be no reason for our organization. If they had perfect home lives and they were perfect at school, then why be here?” His employee responded, “We can do this, we can make a difference in these kids' lives. I won't be doing this forever, but while I am here I am all in!”
Meaningful challenge can be as simple as explaining the meaning of their work before explaining the how. Like the old proverb, “Before you ask men to gather lumber to build a ship let them acquire a love for the sea.”
Allowing for Personal Choice
Some may read personal choice and think autonomy, but it is so much more than autonomy. It is allowing Millennials to think about what they best contribute to value creation. Here are some great questions to help Millennials process personal choice:7
- What do you most need from your work?
- What makes for a really good day?
- What would you miss if you left this job?
- What did you like best about other jobs you have had?
- How do you most like to spend your time outside of work?
- Tell me about a time you felt most energized at work.
Creating a Sense of Urgency
Actually, it is more like managing a sense of energy. Millennials already have a sense of urgency about their own development and personal goals. The effective managers were able to help Millennials see the organization's goals as an extension of their personal goals. Managing a sense of urgency requires reconciling employee effort to desired organizational outcomes through frequent communication.
Learning from Our Failures
It is not uncommon to hear managers say, “People are our greatest asset.” The importance of valuing your employees is well documented. But if you are not careful, it is easy to give affirmation to technology and process at the expense of people.
Praise People, Not Technology
One way to deflate someone who is bringing creativity and passion to a project is to compliment the technology he or she uses and not the person. As technology has advanced, it has become easier and easier to misappropriate credit. Because of their technological savvy, this misappropriation commonly happens to Millennials. Perhaps you have done it yourself. “The copies are already on my desk? That new copier is the best investment we ever made!” “The report looks incredible! That desktop publishing program could make anyone look like a graphic designer.” “You collected on 80 percent of our receivables? Wow, what would we do without our billing software?” The problem with praising technology is that it will not work any harder nor think of ways it can make a greater contribution.
Do Not Put the “What” before the “Why”
One of the biggest mistakes a manager can make is to be dismissive of the why. Believe it or not, we have encountered managers who do not think it is important to explain the why. In their opinion, if they ask for 300 copies, that should be enough motivation.
In a Nutshell
You have to help Millennials find a reason to care. They are the easiest of the workforce to motivate once you have helped them find meaning in what they do. You keep them motivated by letting them see how what they do matters. They thrive in an atmosphere of change—not because of change itself, but because they get to put their mark on the future.
The following scenario illustrates how a Millennial who already finds meaning in her work can be demotivated by a manager who does not allow her to bring her creativity and passion to the job.