there’s a significant generational shift
taking place in the workforce and it’s
stirring up emotion and a lot of people
often in ways that we don’t fully
understand I know some of you watching
are part of Generation Z and that’s a
great because the world we’re going to
talk about today it’s a world that you
will soon be entering so the launching
pad today is Millennials in the
workplace but it’s actually about
something much deeper than that so we’re
going to start out talking about two
things we know to be true about
organizations and then as we wrap up
we’re going to talk about two things we
know to be true about people and how to
navigate a way forward so the first
thing we know to be true about
organizations is that they were created
to achieve a purpose the second thing we
know to be true about organizations is
that they’re made of people people work
in them therefore people carry a piece
of the purpose inside of themselves now
this may be because they need
compensation because they want to both
live and play or perhaps they’re just
very much in alignment with the overall
purpose of the organization many of the
organizations that are around today were
built by the traditionalists then the
baby boomers came on the scene and they
were very large in number so they shaped
much of the values and beliefs of these
organizations then Gen X arrived they
were smaller in number but they did
manage to make some changes around
flexibility in the workplace but overall
they complied and eventually came to run
some of these organizations as well as
established some of the systems that
exist in these organizations with the
recent recession the Boomers are
sticking around the workforce longer
than expected so what we have is this
status quo that has been made
for a really long time in fact in some
organizations this status quo has been
maintained for more than half a century
and one thing that we know for sure but
the thing that a lot of people don’t
want to talk about is that change is
happening and while this change is
somewhat dramatic it’s also very natural
and while the purpose of organizations
is staying the same the Millennials are
bringing with them different ways that
they approach work and it’s quite
different than the generations before
and so the values and beliefs that have
been established are now being
threatened which makes this not just
change but revolutionary change
sometimes when we go through this kind
of change we can take it personally and
the very thought of this type of change
can threaten our own sense of values and
our own sense of purpose so how do
organizations move into this change but
continue in their purpose to actualize
their intent in this revolutionary space
so let me pause for just a second and
let’s talk about the generations
historically when we think about the
generations we think of a 20-year period
of birth dates but generations are
actually defined by much more than that
okay we have shared events and
experiences that help define the way we
view and interact with the world
for example the traditionalists grew up
during World War two the Boomers grew up
during Vietnam in the civil rights
movement
Gen X sat in their school classroom and
watched it the space shuttle Challenger
blew up before their very eyes and the
first teacher in space perished
Millennials were profoundly impacted by
9/11 so now if we shift just a little
bit to it to another way to look at the
generations let’s look at how we think
about
food and what we do with food the
traditionalists they were all about
Sunday dinner boomers had their TV
dinner yes people actually ate this Gen
X grew up on carryout I can’t tell you
how many chicken nuggets I ate as a kid
and Millennials are all about fresh
organic home-delivered meals so how do
these experiences and these events shape
us in different ways this is a framework
we’ve come up with to help us understand
this a little bit better so the x-axis
is about our power center or our locus
of control so if we have an internal
power center that means I believe I can
create change and I can control the
outcomes of my decisions if we have an
external power center that means we
believe external factors control change
and that change happens to me the y-axis
is about our orientation if we’re
oriented towards the collective that
means the goals of the group supersede
the goals of the individual if we’re
oriented towards the individual that
means the goals of the individual take
priority over the goals of the group and
actually self-sufficiency ensures the
survival of the group now when we place
the four generations into the framework
this is where they land I’m going to
quickly cover two characteristics of the
four generations at it as it applies
here the first one is communication
traditionalists are very direct in their
communication boomers are much more
nuanced and political Gen Xers are very
real they want to be aligned internally
and Millennials are pretty indirect in
the way they communicate now when we
think about these four generations in
terms of how they view organizations
traditionalists believe organizations
are for the people
boomers believe they’re by the people
Gen Xers believe that organizations fail
the people and Millennials believe that
organizations are the people let’s focus
in on the Millennials just a little bit
more as we think about the changes that
have occurred over these four
generations a recent survey by Zipcar
states this 65 percent of Millennials
feel that losing their phone or their
computer would be more detrimental to
their day-to-day life than losing their
car Pew Research Center just did a study
and they found that the most common
living situation for Millennials those
between about 18 and 34 is living at
home with their parents now I’m sure
many of you have heard stories about
Millennials in the workforce I know I
hear them all the time from people I
work with one of the most recent took
place in downtown Chicago and it was at
this major accounting firm and there
this 27 year old millennial who had so
much promise and they wanted to really
grow him up in the ranks and so they put
him on this special project team and one
of the senior partners was a part of
this team with him and so it’s time for
the first meeting that everybody is
sitting around this huge conference
table and they’re overlooking the lake
except for the 27 year old millennial so
his boss calls him up and says hey where
are you the Millennial says what do you
mean where am I I’m down by the lake I
figured I’d just call in now if you’re
from one of these three older
generations you might be feeling a
little frustrated maybe there’s even
some anger perhaps you just feel
flat-out disrespected but if you’re the
millennial you’re thinking well it’s a
beautiful day I can use my phone why
would I go in and I guarantee you the
Millennial didn’t wake up that morning
going
know what I hope I do something today
that really just makes my boss feel
disrespected in fact I hope I even get
fired from my job see we’re very divided
and to make matters worse Gallup
recently reported that millennial job
turnover is costing the US economy over
30 billion dollars every year so we’ve
all had different experiences and this
changes how we view the world and the
workplace so what do we do the natural
thing for humans to do when they feel
threatened or the status quo is being
questioned is to either defer to the new
Power which is enabling or to mitigate
the new power base which is isolating
when we feel threatened we don’t do
balance really well enabling looks like
over emphasizing the individual above
and beyond the purpose of the
organization in hopes of pleasing and
appeasing the workforce in the state so
just because you have a member of a
certain generation that has a need or
want doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a
good idea for example if your new
millennial employee requests the first
five Friday’s off so that they can
return as an alumni to their college
football games that may not be a
precedent that you want to set isolating
looks like reducing the value of the
individual and over emphasizing the
value of the organization the employee
now becomes a means to an end and
they’re irrelevant to the organizational
purpose beyond their immediate use so
just because an organization doesn’t
understand the needs and desires of a
generation doesn’t mean they don’t have
value
one of the biggest complaints I hear
from Millennials right now is they won’t
let me get up from my desk I have to
stay at my desk all day I’d say perhaps
it’s time to consider the fact that not
everybody is made for a desk job so
organizations have to avoid these two
extremes
and rather we need to build bridges and
act in alignment with what the purpose
is we have to have integrity integrity
looks like promoting we through
expectations leader behaviors and lived
values all right so our behaviors and
our values have to match and this
collaborative relation relationship
builds up the individual within the
context of the whole and draws them into
a purpose beyond pleasure or just trying
to find happiness in the workplace so
for example we all need a sense of
belonging we all need to feel respected
where we work and connect it enabling
looks like leaders doing doing whatever
they can to make employees happy
isolating looks like leaders treating
employees simply as resources integrity
looks like leaders treating employees
like people they stay curious about
others rather than passing judgment and
jumping making assumptions about why on
earth this millennial would even imagine
it was okay to call in from the lake
integrity gives us stability so that
we’re able to explore and engage and
understand others from their vantage
point so two things we know to be true
about people the first is that
classification in this case different
generations necessarily separates us the
less we know about each other
the less we care about each other the
second thing is being curious
and staying in relationship brings us
together so the more we know about
others the more we care about them and
then we’re able to engage with each
other in meaningful ways now if we think
about what it looks like to connect each
person from each generation to the
overall purpose of the organization and
for the organization to maintain
integrity in its interactions which with
each of these people this allows the
organization to stay together and the
people within to be different so how do
we manage this we have to be comfortable
in our own skin integrity has to be
found not only within the individuals
but also within the organization we also
have to have space to be curious about
each other we have to be able to engage
in ways that really matter now some
people will say well that sounds really
easy I promise you this is not easy in
fact just this week I talked to somebody
who is going through an entire reorg
they said the number one issue they had
getting through this was the tension
between the different generations so
this is incredibly difficult but it’s
also one of the most meaningful things
you can do throughout your life others
will say well how is this going to keep
the Millennials from leaving my
organization I would say perhaps we’re
asking the wrong question what if we
turn that question around and said are
we building organizations with integrity
and purpose that people want to be a
part of while leveraging the strengths
of the Millennials along the way so the
challenge today is to build
organizations that elevate everybody
around the purpose while maintaining
curiosity about each other the choice of
what we build is ours thank you
you
taking place in the workforce and it’s
stirring up emotion and a lot of people
often in ways that we don’t fully
understand I know some of you watching
are part of Generation Z and that’s a
great because the world we’re going to
talk about today it’s a world that you
will soon be entering so the launching
pad today is Millennials in the
workplace but it’s actually about
something much deeper than that so we’re
going to start out talking about two
things we know to be true about
organizations and then as we wrap up
we’re going to talk about two things we
know to be true about people and how to
navigate a way forward so the first
thing we know to be true about
organizations is that they were created
to achieve a purpose the second thing we
know to be true about organizations is
that they’re made of people people work
in them therefore people carry a piece
of the purpose inside of themselves now
this may be because they need
compensation because they want to both
live and play or perhaps they’re just
very much in alignment with the overall
purpose of the organization many of the
organizations that are around today were
built by the traditionalists then the
baby boomers came on the scene and they
were very large in number so they shaped
much of the values and beliefs of these
organizations then Gen X arrived they
were smaller in number but they did
manage to make some changes around
flexibility in the workplace but overall
they complied and eventually came to run
some of these organizations as well as
established some of the systems that
exist in these organizations with the
recent recession the Boomers are
sticking around the workforce longer
than expected so what we have is this
status quo that has been made
for a really long time in fact in some
organizations this status quo has been
maintained for more than half a century
and one thing that we know for sure but
the thing that a lot of people don’t
want to talk about is that change is
happening and while this change is
somewhat dramatic it’s also very natural
and while the purpose of organizations
is staying the same the Millennials are
bringing with them different ways that
they approach work and it’s quite
different than the generations before
and so the values and beliefs that have
been established are now being
threatened which makes this not just
change but revolutionary change
sometimes when we go through this kind
of change we can take it personally and
the very thought of this type of change
can threaten our own sense of values and
our own sense of purpose so how do
organizations move into this change but
continue in their purpose to actualize
their intent in this revolutionary space
so let me pause for just a second and
let’s talk about the generations
historically when we think about the
generations we think of a 20-year period
of birth dates but generations are
actually defined by much more than that
okay we have shared events and
experiences that help define the way we
view and interact with the world
for example the traditionalists grew up
during World War two the Boomers grew up
during Vietnam in the civil rights
movement
Gen X sat in their school classroom and
watched it the space shuttle Challenger
blew up before their very eyes and the
first teacher in space perished
Millennials were profoundly impacted by
9/11 so now if we shift just a little
bit to it to another way to look at the
generations let’s look at how we think
about
food and what we do with food the
traditionalists they were all about
Sunday dinner boomers had their TV
dinner yes people actually ate this Gen
X grew up on carryout I can’t tell you
how many chicken nuggets I ate as a kid
and Millennials are all about fresh
organic home-delivered meals so how do
these experiences and these events shape
us in different ways this is a framework
we’ve come up with to help us understand
this a little bit better so the x-axis
is about our power center or our locus
of control so if we have an internal
power center that means I believe I can
create change and I can control the
outcomes of my decisions if we have an
external power center that means we
believe external factors control change
and that change happens to me the y-axis
is about our orientation if we’re
oriented towards the collective that
means the goals of the group supersede
the goals of the individual if we’re
oriented towards the individual that
means the goals of the individual take
priority over the goals of the group and
actually self-sufficiency ensures the
survival of the group now when we place
the four generations into the framework
this is where they land I’m going to
quickly cover two characteristics of the
four generations at it as it applies
here the first one is communication
traditionalists are very direct in their
communication boomers are much more
nuanced and political Gen Xers are very
real they want to be aligned internally
and Millennials are pretty indirect in
the way they communicate now when we
think about these four generations in
terms of how they view organizations
traditionalists believe organizations
are for the people
boomers believe they’re by the people
Gen Xers believe that organizations fail
the people and Millennials believe that
organizations are the people let’s focus
in on the Millennials just a little bit
more as we think about the changes that
have occurred over these four
generations a recent survey by Zipcar
states this 65 percent of Millennials
feel that losing their phone or their
computer would be more detrimental to
their day-to-day life than losing their
car Pew Research Center just did a study
and they found that the most common
living situation for Millennials those
between about 18 and 34 is living at
home with their parents now I’m sure
many of you have heard stories about
Millennials in the workforce I know I
hear them all the time from people I
work with one of the most recent took
place in downtown Chicago and it was at
this major accounting firm and there
this 27 year old millennial who had so
much promise and they wanted to really
grow him up in the ranks and so they put
him on this special project team and one
of the senior partners was a part of
this team with him and so it’s time for
the first meeting that everybody is
sitting around this huge conference
table and they’re overlooking the lake
except for the 27 year old millennial so
his boss calls him up and says hey where
are you the Millennial says what do you
mean where am I I’m down by the lake I
figured I’d just call in now if you’re
from one of these three older
generations you might be feeling a
little frustrated maybe there’s even
some anger perhaps you just feel
flat-out disrespected but if you’re the
millennial you’re thinking well it’s a
beautiful day I can use my phone why
would I go in and I guarantee you the
Millennial didn’t wake up that morning
going
know what I hope I do something today
that really just makes my boss feel
disrespected in fact I hope I even get
fired from my job see we’re very divided
and to make matters worse Gallup
recently reported that millennial job
turnover is costing the US economy over
30 billion dollars every year so we’ve
all had different experiences and this
changes how we view the world and the
workplace so what do we do the natural
thing for humans to do when they feel
threatened or the status quo is being
questioned is to either defer to the new
Power which is enabling or to mitigate
the new power base which is isolating
when we feel threatened we don’t do
balance really well enabling looks like
over emphasizing the individual above
and beyond the purpose of the
organization in hopes of pleasing and
appeasing the workforce in the state so
just because you have a member of a
certain generation that has a need or
want doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a
good idea for example if your new
millennial employee requests the first
five Friday’s off so that they can
return as an alumni to their college
football games that may not be a
precedent that you want to set isolating
looks like reducing the value of the
individual and over emphasizing the
value of the organization the employee
now becomes a means to an end and
they’re irrelevant to the organizational
purpose beyond their immediate use so
just because an organization doesn’t
understand the needs and desires of a
generation doesn’t mean they don’t have
value
one of the biggest complaints I hear
from Millennials right now is they won’t
let me get up from my desk I have to
stay at my desk all day I’d say perhaps
it’s time to consider the fact that not
everybody is made for a desk job so
organizations have to avoid these two
extremes
and rather we need to build bridges and
act in alignment with what the purpose
is we have to have integrity integrity
looks like promoting we through
expectations leader behaviors and lived
values all right so our behaviors and
our values have to match and this
collaborative relation relationship
builds up the individual within the
context of the whole and draws them into
a purpose beyond pleasure or just trying
to find happiness in the workplace so
for example we all need a sense of
belonging we all need to feel respected
where we work and connect it enabling
looks like leaders doing doing whatever
they can to make employees happy
isolating looks like leaders treating
employees simply as resources integrity
looks like leaders treating employees
like people they stay curious about
others rather than passing judgment and
jumping making assumptions about why on
earth this millennial would even imagine
it was okay to call in from the lake
integrity gives us stability so that
we’re able to explore and engage and
understand others from their vantage
point so two things we know to be true
about people the first is that
classification in this case different
generations necessarily separates us the
less we know about each other
the less we care about each other the
second thing is being curious
and staying in relationship brings us
together so the more we know about
others the more we care about them and
then we’re able to engage with each
other in meaningful ways now if we think
about what it looks like to connect each
person from each generation to the
overall purpose of the organization and
for the organization to maintain
integrity in its interactions which with
each of these people this allows the
organization to stay together and the
people within to be different so how do
we manage this we have to be comfortable
in our own skin integrity has to be
found not only within the individuals
but also within the organization we also
have to have space to be curious about
each other we have to be able to engage
in ways that really matter now some
people will say well that sounds really
easy I promise you this is not easy in
fact just this week I talked to somebody
who is going through an entire reorg
they said the number one issue they had
getting through this was the tension
between the different generations so
this is incredibly difficult but it’s
also one of the most meaningful things
you can do throughout your life others
will say well how is this going to keep
the Millennials from leaving my
organization I would say perhaps we’re
asking the wrong question what if we
turn that question around and said are
we building organizations with integrity
and purpose that people want to be a
part of while leveraging the strengths
of the Millennials along the way so the
challenge today is to build
organizations that elevate everybody
around the purpose while maintaining
curiosity about each other the choice of
what we build is ours thank you
you
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