Chapter 14
Building a Millennial-Friendly Culture
Here we must resist the temptation to say, “It all starts at the top. If the executives do not embrace building a Millennial-Friendly Culture in some sort of large-scale change initiative it won't work.” Sure, executives ought to be thinking about the future of their organizations and the role Millennials will be playing in them. They should also be preparing to train and equip managers with the skills necessary to engage Millennials. But we remain true to our introductory remarks. The lead character in our story is the manager
Identify Your All-Stars and Give Them a Platform
A huge emphasis has been placed on knowledge sharing over the past couple of decades. As a result of the emphasis, organizations have become more innovative, more productive, and more profitable. If you were to analyze peer knowledge that actually gets shared in organizations, you would discover that it rarely includes managerial best practices. If you recall from the description of our study, HR knew whom to select for both the effective and challenged manager groups but struggled to explain what managerial competencies differentiated its selections. We think it is because our systems are built to deal with problem people and not all-stars. As long as there are no complaints about a manager, all is well. Perhaps you cannot offer the amount of time it takes to deal with problem managers, but identifying all-stars and giving them a platform is the quickest and most effective way to make your culture Millennial-friendly. We offer our findings as evidence that you probably have experts in your own organization.
Another barrier to identifying all-stars is that most people who are good at something think it is easy and therefore they believe anyone can do it. Even if people recognize their own success, they are reluctant to take the role of an authority for fear of hazing or criticism by colleagues. But think about it. If one manager had information that could favorably impact the outcome of a client's decision and did not share it with the colleague making the presentation, it would be viewed as harmful to the company. The manager in question would never be able to excuse her action by saying, “Sharing information is a very personal thing, and I don't feel that I am in a place to give useful information to another manager. Besides, what if someone thinks I am full of myself?” Create an environment in which managers are comfortable to share what works for them. It could be something as easy as giving space on the weekly meeting agenda to ask, “What worked for you this week?”
Almost all organizations have incorporated the practice of reviewing lessons learned at the end of a project cycle, and many organizations have embraced the concept so thoroughly that it shows up in all kinds of nonproject areas. “Lessons learned” has become a safe banner under which to critique decisions that probably should have been made differently, as well as to emphasize what was done right. We suggest that effective managerial practices be added to the list of innovations to watch out for.
If you are one of those managers who are good at managing Millennials, do not wait for someone to give you a platform. You owe it to your colleagues to share your knowledge. If you are frustrated with managing Millennials, find another manager inside or outside of your organization you believe to be effective. Observe what they do. Pick their brain and do not let them “aw-shucks” you.
Involve Your Managers in the Conversation
If you are going to implement a program at a company-wide level, whether it is a formal task force, an informal series of brown-bag sessions, or a mentoring program, make sure that the people who manage Millennials are at the table and given a voice. In many cases, upper management may be several levels removed from what is really happening with respect to integrating Millennials. When you invite the managers to the conversation, ask them to bring a Millennial.
We will discuss mentoring in depth in the next chapter, but informal and formal mentoring programs can be highly effective. We are intrigued by a concept of mentoring Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd refer to as anonymous mentoring.1 Anonymous mentoring requires using psychological testing and background reviews to match mentees to mentors outside of the company. Mentees receive coaching anonymously, which allows the mentee freedom to ask honest questions and share personal information.
Ask Millennials
When all else fails, ask the Millennials. Observe them at the doctor's office, grocery store, or restaurant, and ask them what they like best about their manager. Sit down with the Millennials in your organization and ask them to help you design the kind of organization in which they want to work. The activity in and of itself is Millennial-friendly. Revisit the list of intrinsic values and brainstorm about how they can best be reflected in your organization. Think in terms of recruiting, compensating, handbooks, policies, procedures, polity, and organizational structure.
Millennial Intrinsic Values
- Work-Life Balance
- Reward
- Self-Expression
- Attention
- Achievement
- Informality
- Simplicity
- Multitasking
- Meaning
Suspend Organizational Bias
Not unlike individuals, organizations also have biases. We received a call from a law firm in Southern California. The firm manager heard us speak at a conference and had engaged us to work with the partners in the firm. They were experiencing a regular exodus of young attorneys. The exit interviews produced similar sentiments, “I am leaving for another firm that has a development plan for my career.” The fact is the young attorneys wanted assurances that if they put in the work, they would get the reward. Before the first meeting, the firm manager called and apologized but asked if we would be willing to be on a conference call with the senior partner because he had some questions. The call did not last long. The senior partner started by saying, “You are not telling me that we have to change what has worked for us for over 50 years are you?” Let it suffice to say that “maybe” did not cut it. We tried asking him to “suspend the bias,” but he was not having any of it.
A school system we worked with recognized bias in its system as to how one could become the principal of a school. The school district was getting fewer and fewer candidates because its process required that a person first serve as an assistant principal. It makes sense that you would want someone to be an assistant first, but there are assumptions of readiness that may or may not be true. Many people who would make great principals were not interested in being assistant principals. The school district supervisors were able to suspend their bias and are now looking at alternative ways for people to become principals.
You cannot talk about culture without talking about symbols. The corporate ladder itself is a symbol of bias. It consists of a traditional hierarchy with a singular path upward along which employees either move up or stop moving, presumes a certain work-versus-life balance orientation, and assumes workers' needs remain consistent over time. It has adversely impacted women for decades. As workers needs are changing, new paradigms are emerging. Cathleen Benko and Anne Weisberg talk about the need for organizations to move to a corporate lattice. A lattice has multiple paths upward, allows a choice between moving faster or slower, or even a change of directions, provides for career-life fit, and adjusts as workers' needs change over time.2
There are all kinds of bias in organizational culture and that is not always bad. Just look for areas where it may be inhibiting participation by, or the upward mobility of, Millennials.
Promote the Core Competencies for Managing Today's Workforce
Our answer to the question, “What differentiates managers who are effective from those who struggled” is the nine competencies. The key to building a Millennial-friendly culture is to promote the core competencies. The good news is that the competencies are not based on personality and they can be learned.
We hope you have found our descriptions of the competencies required to manage the Millennials to be helpful. And we hope that you will be excited to know that the real power of our model is yet to be unveiled—the competencies are measurable! While conducting our research, we noticed that all of the managers in our study were doing at least one thing right. However, many were not sure about what they were doing right or wrong. The uncertainty caused them to be inconsistent in the way they managed. We thought that if managers could know what they were doing right and wrong, they could more easily and readily adapt their management style. Knowing what to do and not do with respect to successful performance leads to self-efficacy. A key indicator of a person's future success is self-efficacy. Managerial leaders who achieve self-efficacy lead to Millennials who achieve self-efficacy! (See Figure 14.1.)
Figure 14.1 Generational Rapport Inventory Graph
The Generational Rapport Inventory
We created the Generational Rapport Inventory (GRI) to help managers ascertain their developmental level with respect to the nine core competencies. The GRI measures your thinking, your self-reported behavior, and the perception of your direct reports. We measure thinking and behaving separately to determine whether you need to adapt to a new perspective, learn new behaviors, or both. For most of us, the kind of thinking and skills that got us to where we are today may be the things that are holding us back from continued personal growth and effectiveness. In Figure 14.1, the dark gray area represents a critical need for development, light gray indicates a challenge area, and medium gray signifies an area of strength.
In addition to identifying areas of strength and challenge, the GRI can reveal where the greatest point of tension lies between you and your direct reports. Tension is the first stage of conflict. The best way to reduce tension is to communicate. Unfortunately, many people do not communicate because they cannot put their finger on what is wrong. By identifying potential tension, you can have a conversation that alleviates conflict and builds rapport.
The GRI Composite Report
Every organization should have a training budget. More important, every organization should know where training would most impact its effectiveness and productivity. The GRI composite is a divining rod of sorts that identifies areas of need for training. Once your managers have taken the GRI, we can show where the organization is strong or weak with respect to the core competencies that are critical to managing Millennials.
Our model does not require that you reinvent the wheel. Nor is it the flavor of the month. We can help you integrate previous training and repurpose it with the nine competencies. If you have already invested in situational leadership training or emotional competency training, both teach skills that are critical to managing Millennials.
Many of the managers in our training sessions formally or informally mentor Millennials. We have added the next chapter to describe challenges Millennials face when entering the workforce and how to help them.