Having a culture that includes and supports all people is more than just a moral obligation. It is a critical and commonly overlooked ingredient for success. An alloy is stronger and has more applications than something made of just one material, and research shows the same is true for high-performance teams.
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Many industries seem to be experiencing a shortage of young workers. It’s easy to attribute that to a lack of qualified applicants, an aging workforce that’s apparently too broke to retire, or Millennials who simply feel, as they comfortably rest in their parents’ open arms, that they don’t need a job right now!
Reality is setting in as those Baby Boomers who are beginning to retire leave companies with massive voids to fill. For the 76 million people born between 1946 and 1964, who in 2011 began reaching retirement age (at the alarming rate of 8,000 a day for the next 18 years, according to AARP.org), the concern is no longer whether these Gen Y people can do the job so much as it is where are they?! The mindset is starting to shift from “I am concerned that young Tyler lacks a sense of urgency” to “OMG – who’s going to replace old Bill?” It seems in our heavy judgment of Millennials, also referred known as Gen Y, we have forgotten there are no other young “people groups” entering the workforce at the moment. Gen Y is it.
Especially in the workplace, Baby Boomers, Generation X (born between 1964 and 1980), and Millennials don’t always think or believe the same things. Gen Xers in particular are concerned that people in their 20s and early 30s don’t have the right work ethic and are introducing questionable changes to the office environment.
Yet, realistically, companies may need to embrace these changes and start shaping their businesses to be more attractive to the fresh faces that will inevitably become the majority of the workforce. It is important that we manage people based on who they are, not who we wish them to be. That’s called hope, and hope is not a strategy. The worst leadership tactic on earth is wishing someone were like you. Historically, helping people develop their own brilliance is much more effective than just giving them yours.
The true Millennial work ethic is that they “do not live to work – but rather work to live. A job merely provides the income to do what they want to do.”[1] Millennials learned from their stressed-out parents that they wanted to get more out of life. Many young Boomers (ages 49 to 54) did something other generations did not do: they complained to their kids about how much they worked and how they did not have enough time to enjoy life. This doesn’t mean that people 34 years or younger will not work hard or have passion for their career; they are just much less likely to sacrifice their personal life.
Millennials are the generation of now. Thus, they want to enjoy their lives today and not just work hard toward a retirement that, from their viewpoint, does not look so wonderful. There are pros and cons to this: They are happy with their choices. They feel fulfilled. They are cheaper labor. However, the downside is that they are not terribly concerned with building that 401K right now, so they show far less desire than past generations to secure a high-paying, salaried job with more benefits but less work-life balance.
Perhaps learning why you might want to change your game has left you asking two questions: Don’t all young people want to live for today and get what they want without working so hard? And isn’t it just idealistic youth that makes them want to change the world and bask in the glow of how important they are to the future?
No, not really. With the change of the U.S. school system – the largest change in 200 years – and global cultural shifts breaking the traditions of generations before them, this is more than just the latest version of “how young people are.” They are the first generation to believe as a culture that
Those things alone will create an environment that (for better or for worse) is not likely to resemble any that have come before it.
Companies need to know where to look to find Millennials seeking jobs. Times have changed, and the job search has changed as well. Be up to date on which databases are popular among Millennials for job postings. Youtube, Myspace, LinkedIn, Craigslist – all of these websites have postings. Check them out. See what your company can promote, because Millennials are looking!
Also be aware that, culturally, Millennials in the United States differ from those in other countries. In a 2014 study cited in Harvard Business Review,[5] researchers surveyed 16,637 people from 43 countries to learn what Millennials want from the workplace. The most important finding was that Millennials’ views vary considerably by culture. Therefore, if your company is global, be sure you do your homework concerning the culture of your non-Western Millennials before you recruit. You want to be able to offer what they’re seeking.
To draw the best performance out of Millennials – and pretty much all other humans – you need to create engagement. In its simplest form, engagement occurs when leadership consistently exceeds the expectations of their employees. When that happens, employees become fully engaged.
It may take a new environment with seemingly a lot of perks; but at its core, eliciting performance from Millennials is about having fully engaged workers. According to Evolve Performance Group, a research firm headed by former Gallup executives, fully engaged employees are 40 times more likely to recommend their company as a great place to work, 15.5 times more likely to say they will spend their careers with the organization, 4.5 times more likely to recommend their companies’ products and services, and 9 times more likely to report they have excellent work-life balance.[6] Although you might not like what it takes to fully engage Millennials, it’s critical to find a way to make it happen.
Sometimes, creating that engagement requires innovative thinking. How do you create a positive environment for this younger workforce? How do you show you care for them and your company?
Dan Price, owner of Gravity Payments, recently equalized the salaries of his 120-person company to $70,000.[7] Price established the company at age 19; now, at 30, he has taken a major cut to his million-dollar salary to be equal with his workers and increase the pay scale of his employees. This is a Millennial’s way of thinking. Money and power are nice, but they’re distinctly not necessary if you aren’t working in a positive environment.
Change is good. It requires being open to new ideas. We realize that many people over 35 years old cannot grasp the equalized salary concept – and it might not be practical for many organizations – but it’s just an example of how Gen Y values fairness and community in a way that previous generations have not.
If you belong to one of those previous generations, this Millennial mindset might strike you as foreign. Where did it come from? Mostly, it’s the doing of young Boomers and older Gen Xers who wanted to raise kids with more self-esteem, environmental consciousness, and peer support than their own generations had. So congratulations! You’ve succeeded.
Millennials are here to stay. According to a Business and Professional Women’s Foundation study quoted in Forbes, by 2025 these Gen Y workers will make up 75% of the global workforce.[8] The turnover is coming. You can’t ignore it, but you can be ready for it. With their influx creating such a shift in workforce mindset, you might be feeling that Millennials want to have their cake and eat it too. But maybe that old saying should be subjected to a more modern analysis – because, really, why would Millennials want a cake they couldn’t eat? Why would anyone?
[1] Mark McCrindle, “Understanding Generation Y,” published by the Australian Leadership Foundation (North Parrametta, New South Wales: 2007), https://innovationfeeder.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/understandinggeny.pdf[2] Margaret Wente, “Inside the Entitlement Generation,” The [Toronto] Globe and Mail, September 17, 2011.
[3] Wente, “Inside the Entitlement Generation.”
[4] Americus Reed, “How Millennials Think Differently About Brands,” Knowledge@Wharton, October 6, 2014, https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-millennials-think-differently-about-brands/.
[5] Henrik Bresman, “What Millennials Want from Work, Charted across the World,” Harvard Business Review, February 23, 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/02/what-millennials-want-from-work-charted-across-the-world.
[6] “What’s All This Hype about Employee Engagement?” Evolve Performance Group, March 18, 2015, https://evolvepg.com/about/whatsevolving/id/252/whats-all-this-hype-about-employee-engagement.
[7] Patricia Cohen, “Owner of Credit Card Processor Is Setting a New Minimum Wage: $70,000 a Year,” New York Times, April 14, 2015, B3.
[8] Erica Dhawan, “Gen-Y Workforce and Workplace Are Out of Sync,” Forbes,January 23, 2012, https://www.forbes.com/sites/85broads/2012/01/23/gen-y-workforce-and-workplace-are-out-of-sync/.
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Ask them to list possible solutions to the problems they are having and then see what you can agree on. The key is to get them talking about their problem. Remember, what comes out of their mouth means more to them, than what comes out of your mouth. It’s almost impossible to listen yourself out of a sale.
Help your employees identify and maximize their strengths first, then discover how those strengths can improve their weaknesses. People are motivated when their talent is acknowledged and are much more likely to identify and put their best effort into improving their weaknesses.
Example:
If an employee builds great relationships with co-workers but has problems with basic skills, guide them towards finding a co-worker who is willing to help them improve their skills.
The best way to help an employee to improve is first to identify and praise them for their strengths, giving them the confidence and motivation to work on improving those difficult areas.
If you just focus on weaknesses your people will always feel weak
Make sure that callers don’t have to repeat themselves. Someone who has explained a problem three times to three different people hangs up angry, whether or not the problem is solved. Most studies done in the last two years show that people want to deal with one person. Customer service systems that focus on providing that are always rated the highest.
The simple key to the effectiveness of a PowerPoint presentation is to make sure that you say exactly what is on the screen. If you read your prepared notes and say something different from what the audience is viewing, learning does not take place. It is important that you say it exactly as it is written. We recommend you decide how you are going to say something and then create the slide to match your speaking style. This can prevent the syndrome known as Death by PowerPoint.
Web sites and brochures have a tendency to look busy in order to show they mean business. The problem is that clarity is lost. People may think it’s cool, but they don’t really know what you’re talking about. They won’t call you and say, “hey I don’t get it” they will just do business with someone who is clear!
Someone following someone because he wants to, not because he has to.
Have you ever been so right that no one would talk to you? If you criticize others’ ideas, they will almost never use yours, no matter how good they are.
Everybody knows something you don’t. “I disagree, but I am willing to listen.” Thinking you know everything is proof that you don’t.
You motivate people by listening to them; compassion and attention create dedication. When people feel heard and not judged, they will do more than just the minimum.
A high percentage of employees with difficult behavior may be getting unintentional negative consequences for doing a good job. Don’t reward an effective employee with someone else’s work.
People don’t change that much. Look for the value they have now. Don’t manage for the miracle; just because you found one diamond in the rough does not mean you are a magic manager. Some people just suck!
Look for the naturally recurring patterns that are needed to do the job. Some people are very articulate and experienced and yet have no ability. If they ask you to further explain the question you just asked them in an interview, tell them it’s their interpretation that’s important. You will now find out who they really are.
Top Leadership Keynote – Getting Great Results: Turning Talent Into Performance
Let’s face it: We have all heard that if we just try hard enough, we can do anything. The problem is we don’t all have the willingness to put forth the extra effort. In fact, we seem to have a consistent unwillingness to be willing — and it takes a high level of motivation to achieve that lack of drive!
Wynn Solutions’ interviews with top performers indicate a natural sense of urgency to take action and do the next right thing. These top performers extemporaneously move forward and complete the tasks that will lead them to success. “So how does that work?” you might wonder. “Why is this person sitting next to me so driven to succeed when I feel like I need a nap after breakfast? (Heck, I get winded sleeping!)”
When I speak at conventions, I talk about how our belief systems create our experience. If we hold a belief strongly, we go through life looking for reasons that prove it’s true. So if we believe that our supervisors do not have our best interests at heart, then we perceive it in everything they do. We confirm our favorite negative prophecy at every turn. On the other hand, if we believe good things are likely to come our way, we tend to spin mediocre events into “the beginning of something great” and end up investing the effort to make it a reality.
Having said all that, is it possible that we have willingness that is blocked
by a belief?
It’s kind of like wanting to eat a salad so you can avoid having to wear prescription pants, but believing that one double-bacon cheeseburger (with extra bacon) will be OK just this once.
Could we be working very hard to motivate ourselves into doing something we think can’t be done?
Or at least not done by us? If so, it means we can try with maximum effort and receive minimal results. I think the key to motivating the severely unmotivated is examining what they really believe.
Ask this question of yourself or of your staff: What is it that I believe strongly that may not be true?
Look for the answer to that question and you may find out why the merger is not working, why the sales force cannot hit their targets, and why you keep thinking about a new career.
Does it take time to build trust? The truth is that you have known people for five years who still don’t trust you, and you’ve known some for five minutes who do. Our research shows that trust is usually created by showing a detectable level of concern. When people truly believe you are concerned for them, they tend to think you possess good judgment. After all, if you care about them, you must know what you are doing.
So what is the fastest and most effective way to show people that you care and you’re competent? Make sure they feel heard, which is more than just listening. I call it listening like a leader.
You are not a leader unless you have followers; a leader without followers is called a failure. Regardless of your skills, if your staff doesn’t feel heard and doesn’t trust you, they will always do the minimum. They will watch the clock and be ready to leave at 4:45 every afternoon. They will do just enough each day to avoid getting fired, and they will hope the idea you came up with without their input fails. That’s right—you can spend your life delegating to people who want your projects to fail. How smart is that?
OK, you have to listen; I am sure you already know that. The issue is, how well do people really listen? Most studies show that 75 percent of the world’s population does not listen well.
Here is an insight that you won’t find in many books, keynote speeches or training programs. As a whole, we don’t listen very well and it’s not our fault! That’s right, I am sure you are used to hearing and reading that all of our communication problems are of our making. However, most experts agree that from birth to 5 years of age, we learn more than we will for the rest of our lives.
Even if you earn 15 doctorate degrees in your lifetime, you still acquired most of your knowledge in early childhood. In those formative years, if a child does not feel heard by the adults in its life, it does not possess good listening skills. The bottom line is that it’s hard to listen when no one ever listened to you.
Listening is not hereditary.
It’s an acquired skill.
Are we going to blame the parents? No! It’s difficult to listen to young children when we are trying to look out for their welfare. When my stepdaughter was five, she asked me if Dracula drives a taxi cab. I said, “Well…, I guess if it’s a night job. Uh, wait a minute! What kind of question is that?”
She also asked me if she could have a tattoo—not a fake, stick-on tattoo from an ice cream parlor vending machine, but a real one. I said, “No because you’re in kindergarten—and I’m taking the TV out of your room just for asking that question.”
People are more likely to follow your example than to follow your advice. We create better listeners by being better listeners.
Unfortunately, we don’t have much evidence of people returning from communication training programs as better listeners. It doesn’t take a lot of research to figure out that poor listeners get very little from seminars on listening.
So we don’t listen and it prevents us from being effective leaders. If we can’t do much to improve our listening skills, we have to focus on what we can do in the condition we are in.
The key, then, is to focus on making sure people feel heard. And the first step requires recognizing and recovering from distractions.
One day, as I listened to an employee talk about his wants and needs, my mind started to wander. There he was, sharing his core issues, and I’m thinking to myself, “Look at the size of this guy’s head!” It was hard to focus. Once I was trying to listen to a prospect on a sales call when I noticed he had red hair, blonde eyebrows, and a black mustache. I remember thinking, “It’s Mr. Potato Face! Something has to be a stick-on; that’s not all him.”
After we recover from our own distractions, we have to deal with the real issues at hand. The first of these issues is what I refer to as “the pitch in your head.” It can be anything from a preconceived idea that a manager has about an employee, to a practiced presentation that you are dying to spew on your unsuspecting sales victims (prospects, I mean).
Sure, you ask a question just as you were taught to do in your sales or management training program—you know, a question like “Based on what criteria are your decisions made?” As they talk and you diligently pretend to listen, the pitch in your head starts to play; and when the prospect says something that strikes a chord in you, triggering how much you know, your pitch finds the pause it was looking for and off you go.
“I know exactly what you are talking about because I have had many people just like you with this exact same situation. As a matter of fact, it was this time last year and they even looked a lot like you.”
You then project your opinion, experience or spiel onto the person as a solution to his or her problem.
Instead of feeling heard, the person feels quickly judged, and communication does not take place. It was dead before the spew was finished.
The problem with this scenario is that you rob people of their uniqueness. When you tell them you know exactly what the problem is, they tend to want to show you how unique they are. You actually create your own resistance and prevent your skills and even your empathy from making their mark.
When people are talking, you are thinking about you or about what you can do to help them help you. It’s a natural thing for us to do, and it forces us to pitch hard and focus on convincing rather than on gaining agreement.
So what do the most effective people do differently?
They make sure the people they are dealing with feel heard and can retain their uniqueness. If you make people feel important, you will be important to them!
But an even bigger realization comes from all of this.
When you focus on how people feel about what they are saying, you increase the level of true concern you have for others. You actually start to become the person you thought you were pretending to be: A true leader!
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As it turns out, hope is not a strategy. The difference is that the top producers used their strengths to improve a weakness.
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