I've had some conversations back and forth with some of you over the past few months about the challenges you face when it comes to sales and/or business ownership, and dealing with the "younger generation" (aka, "Generation Y").
I ran across this really interesting article on the subject, and I think it has a lot of insights and important points that might help you and I to better manage and deal with Generation Y in our workplace...see what you think. I've broken it up into three parts for your bite-sized pleasure. The article was written by Trudy Sopp.
Yes, it’s true. They ask “why” a lot. They weren’t even born when President Richard Nixon was impeached and never had to get off the couch to change the television channel. These “kids” can be annoying, especially when they seem to grasp so easily the latest iPod technology and have all sorts of opinions about how to better run your company.
But it’s time to stop whining about Generation Y, a group roughly 80 million strong born after 1978 that began entering the workforce five years ago.
We continue to be surprised at how reluctant older generations are to simply embrace generations X (those born between 1965 and 1978) and Y as they are and stop trying to change them.
We have thought long and hard about the key steps that must be taken to advance the state of affairs between Generation Y and their bosses, project leaders and others. We focus on this generation because it captures the characteristics of both generations X and Y and because it is the latest to arrive on the workplace doorstep.
If you are a member of one of the older generations who finds the workplace behaviors of generations X and Y confounding—or if you are a member of the latter generations but ascribe to the former’s workplace styles—we believe that the following three strategies will help you find a more peaceful existence at work.
No Formal Mentoring
Mentoring has become a popular management technique in the past decade and one of the latest buzzwords. We agree that mentoring is a critical component of being an effective manager, but many mentoring moments are found outside the context of the one-on-one formal mentoring sessions that have become commonplace in corporate .
There are many lost opportunities for pure mentoring, especially with Generation Y. This generation craves mentoring and has discriminating taste.
We get complaints on this “mentoring” issue from both baby boomer managers and Generation Yers. When we talk to Generation Yers, they want to understand why managers are so set in their ways, are reluctant to change the status quo, are impatient with questions, hoard information and pull “power trips.”
What’s a “power trip”? In a nutshell, it’s when managers won’t answer a question or give a reasonable explanation. Or, when they put their foot down on what seems to be a reasonable request from the perspective of a Generation Yer just as a reminder of who is boss.
And then when we work with baby boomer managers, we constantly get this line of questioning: “Why do Generation Yers always ask ‘why’? Why don’t they accept that we just do things a certain way? Why do they challenge my authority?”
As a manager, suspend your judgment and consider that maybe these Generation Yers are really just curious creatures who want to know why you do the things you do so they can learn from you. Remember that when you were making that policy or when that practice became standard operating procedure, they may not have even been out of grade school. If you shoot them down with a response like “That’s just how we do things around here” or “Are you challenging my authority?” you’ve just lost an opportunity for some amazing mentoring and development. Not to mention, you’ve completely lost their respect and your authority with them.
Generation Yers explain that their questioning is not because they distrust managers’ experience. It’s more an issue of having a strong curiosity and desire to better understand the history or background of a situation.
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