Archive for Management Tips – Page 3

Millennial Mindset: What Gen Y Wants out of Work and Life

When it comes to work, do you value purpose over salary? Growth over comfort? Do you want your leaders to empower rather than instruct you? Are you more comfortable with casual check-in conversations than a formal annual performance evaluation? Do you prefer to focus on your strengths rather than your weaknesses? Does your life take precedence over your career?

Then you might be a Millennial—or at least you’re attuned to the same values identified as characteristic of Generation Y in a recent Gallup report titled “How Millennials Want to Work and Live.”

According to William Strauss and Neil Howe—the authors credited with coining the term “Millennials”—the generation born roughly between 1980 and 2000 is globally conscious and civic-minded. They care more about community than personal advancement. This concern for larger causes has also earned them the sobriquet Echo Boomers.

Generation Me author Jean Twenge and other critics question the altruistic traits Strauss and Howe associate with Millennials in Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069, finding them instead to exhibit a greater sense of entitlement and narcissism.

Wherever you fall on the debate, there’s no denying Millennials are seeking something deeper from their work, and that is why employers that offer meaningful roles are more likely to secure the loyalty of job-hopping Gen Yers.

There’s no denying Millennials are seeking something deeper from their work. Click To Tweet

Whereas past generations aimed to land a good-paying job where they could climb the corporate ladder over the course of their career, Millennials are likelier to switch jobs in search of more gratifying opportunities. The Gallup report reveals that 6 out of 10 Millennials express a willingness to change jobs, and as many as 21 percent have changed jobs within the past year—triple the number reported by other generations.

Generation Y job-hopping costs the US economy an estimated $30.5 billion. That fact combined with their lower workplace engagement—only 29% are engaged, Gallup says—make it imperative for organizations to find ways of appealing to Millennials.

Gallup Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton identifies six cultural shifts organizations can make to engage and retain Gen Yers:

  1. Prioritize purpose over pay. Fair compensation is important, but meaning matters more. Gen Yers would rather work at a job that pays less but makes them feel they are contributing to a good cause and helping the larger world. Unless your Millennial employees feel inspired by the mission of the organization, connected to the culture and creatively challenged by their responsibilities, they’re going to seek out more fulfilling jobs.
  2. Offer development opportunities. Millennials want to grow both personally and professionally. They’re less interested in perks like pool tables and espresso machines than in learning new skills and acquiring knowledge.
  3. Be a coach—not a boss. This shift from an autocratic leadership style to a collegial, empowering one benefits not only Millennials but all employees. People automatically become more engaged when leaders recognize and develop their strengths, making them feel more valued while helping them become better individuals.
  4. Converse rather than assess. Reared on social media, Generation Y takes a more casual approach to communication. They don’t want to wait a year to get feedback during a formal annual review—they desire ongoing discussions so they constantly know where they stand and how they can improve.
  5. Focus on strengths instead of weaknesses. Rather than dwelling on weaknesses, discover your employees’ strengths and cultivate those talents. Gallup notes, “weaknesses never develop into strengths, while strengths develop infinitely.” That’s not to say organizations should pretend the weaknesses don’t exist. A leader who understands their employees’ abilities and flaws can redefine individual roles to minimize weaknesses and maximize strengths across the collective whole.
  6. Create jobs they love. More than previous generations, Millennials identify their work with their lives. They want to know they are spending their hours wisely and doing fulfilling work at a company that appreciates them as human beings.

By understanding the work and life goals of Gen Yers, you can attract the brightest young stars to your organization—and keep them there. Unattached, connected, unconstrained, and idealistic, Millennials will flourish in a culture that treasures their strengths, gives them a sense of purpose and drives them to be their best selves.

Speak up! How Playing the Fool Might Just Save Your Company—and Your Job

Memento Mori

“Remember, you’re going to die.” Otherwise known as memento mori, this Latin admonition was whispered by servants into the ears of victorious generals during a Roman triumphal procession.

These days, leaders don’t employ slaves to remind them of their mortality, but perhaps they should. Well, not slaves, of course … maybe something more along the lines of a Shakespearean Fool.

Playing the Fool

The Fool is the one character who has license to tell the truth—without repercussions.

Organizations don’t need yes-men. Rather, their survival depends on people who are courageous enough to voice their concerns, identify weaknesses and play devil’s advocate to delusional, narcissistic leaders who may be steering the company toward self-destruction.

I know, the Fool is a scary role to play. You may even feel donning the jester hat is tantamount to risking your job. Giving voice to unflattering truths takes courage. But where will your job be if the organization collapses?

The Hero’s Journey

You might agree someone needs to speak up about bad decisions. Why does it have to be you?

There comes a moment in every hero’s journey when the protagonist walks away, gives up or simply refuses to heed the call to adventure. That’s where most people’s stories end.

Sure, they’re spared the Belly of the Whale and The Road of Trials, but they also don’t get to experience Meeting the Goddess, Atonement, Apotheosis or The Ultimate Boon.

Which version of the story would you rather live? Do you want to play the silent observer too fearful to point out the iceberg to the pigheaded captain, or do you want to shout a rallying call to action before your company founders?

A Touch of Stoicism

To steel your nerve for the journey, it might help to practice a little Stoicism. We’ve explored the benefits of Stoicism’s negative approach to happiness in past articles (see Part 1 and Part 2).

Ask yourself, What’s the worst that can happen? You lose your job? Then what? Follow that thread to its possible conclusions. You may discover that, like many people, losing your job liberates you to pursue your true calling. Considering how you may handle the worst possible scenario prepares you to cope when it arrives—or rejoice when it doesn’t.

Tips for Speaking Up

Trinnie Houghton offers some tips for learning how to speak up in her article “The Risk of Not Speaking Up.” Finding your voice is empowering, and it can start as simply as chiming in at each meeting. Houghton reminds us the organization’s health may depend on your willingness to offer a diagnosis.

What Slayed Nokia

In an INSEAD Alumni Magazine article, authors Quy Huy and Timo Vuori contend it was not Nokia’s inferiority to Apple, the company’s complacency or its leaders’ obliviousness to the impending iPhone that killed Nokia.

Instead, they blame the corporation’s demise on middle management’s fear of telling the truth. Temperamental, abusive bosses created an oppressive climate in which people were terrified to report declining sales or bring up the elephant in the room—an outdated operating system that could never hope to compete with iOS.

Healing a Toxic Workplace

So what can you do to change the course of a faltering organization when the climate is hostile to truth? If the workplace is toxic and top leaders are too egotistical, obstinate and emotionally unintelligent to listen to insiders, hiring an organizational development consultant like Chris Cook can spell the difference between disaster and success.

An outside consultant arrives without baggage, and leaders can more easily engage in the discovery process without feeling threatened. Employees feel free to speak the truth while their identities are shielded from vindictive bosses, and top management can be guided toward a more realistic perception of their organization and the steps needed to heal it.

The Ultimate Boon

Call 541.601.0114 or email Chris Cook to start your organization’s heroic journey toward The Ultimate Boon today.

5 Strategies for Managing Attention

Do you live in a 200-emails-a-day world? Do you delete emails based solely on the subject line? Or merely skim the contents of most emails? Or automatically discard email from certain senders? Maybe you hit ‘5’ on your mobile phone to skip through long voicemails. More and more information gets ignored these days—and this sometimes results in critical matters not receiving the attention necessary.

Our workplaces have become increasingly leaner, with fewer people handling ever-growing amounts of work. Managers are working more hours than before. Many employees devote considerable time to work after hours, checking email and voicemail. With 24/7 Internet access, we need a strategy to process the sheer volume of information we receive to ensure we allocate our attention effectively.

Here are five strategies you can use to better manage your attention—and that of your employees.

  1. Control your gray mail—email generated from newsletters, coupons, discounted airfare, social media and more—with a productivity app like Unroll.me or SaneBox. These apps bundle the gray mail into a single summary email so you just need to scan one message instead of dozens of individual ones. Some productivity apps even handle the unsubscribe process for you on request.
  2. Use the Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) principle when composing email. State the purpose of the email at the beginning, without all the details. End the email with your request for action. If the email is informational, your readers can opt to read it later. And if it requires action, they will be more likely to give it attention.
  3. Get less email by sending less email. Sometimes a quick walk down the hall or phone call will accomplish something in far less time than sending emails back and forth.
  4. Be judicious. If an email goes out companywide to remind everyone of a deadline and you reply all to say you’ve met the deadline, you’ve just generated dozens of unnecessary emails for others. Become more mindful of who needs to receive an email and who needs to see the reply.
  5. Remove heated conversations from the kitchen. Email can easily be misinterpreted, resulting in unintended consequences. Save the controversial topics for a face-to-face meeting or phone call.

What will you do with the time these strategies free up? Hmm . . . why not build, create, innovate, dream. . . . Focus on the things that truly make a difference for you, your organization and the world!

What strategies help you manage your attention? Please share.