How to manage talented young professionals?- 3 things managers should do to build team excellence

The most difficult part is to embrace change, welcome discrepancies, acknowledge, accept and learn actively from the new excellence.

Possibly no one would deny that change is painful; and learning itself is partly tormenting, partly enjoyable; not even mentioning to learn from someone who is so much younger and less experienced than you. Therefore, sensing the pressure from the younger generation is not a shameful experience but very understandable.

This morning after I put down my coffee cup and just routinely scrolled down my social media page, I found something stunning yet a bit striking to me again. It was a video shared by a successful mum of a global law firm partner, about her two teenage daughters performing in a studio. One of them is singing Havana effortlessly while moving her fingers on a piano keyboard, the other one was hitting a weird looking drum instrument I can not recognize. Together the team orchestrated an innovative and flavourful piece of music. I instantly put a thumb up in the video comment session, in the meantime, sensing pressure, like a sneaky and cold tiny snake climbing up from the tip of my tailbone to the back of my neck.

Sorry for the uncomforting metaphor, but as the generation Z entering the workforce, I constantly felt the pressure because of the young professionals' excellence. I'm quite proud of being able to admit this feeling because it's not easy to face our own weaknesses when comparing to someone so much junior and less experienced.

There are so many young talents emerging from every company and from every industry, who are better equipped with good education, solid knowledge and skills, thirst for new tech, and a mind full of innovations. Many managers feel being constantly challenged, extremely uncomfortable working with them. How to manage the brilliant young professionals, so that your life is made easier and your team is not calling your names behind your back?

1. Relax and listen to them

I might sound ridiculous when I say you need to listen to them because you are the decision maker, and technically you are the person others listen to.

But young generations have numerous fresh ideas we never heard of, their ideas spark new inspirations, inspirations bring new strategies and better plans.

If you liked to play your boss face, and appear to be rigid and rejecting most of the time to your team members, young people will shy away from sharing their true feelings with you. You lose the opportunity of accessing more fantastic ideas from them. So relax and listen to them. Maybe make them select the top 3 ideas they have and write an email or note to you if your time is very limited.

2. Make them understand you are the boss

This seems to contradict to what I just said, but while you are buddying up with them, trying to figure out what's inside their genius brains; you need to be cautious because they may think you are dumb secretly.

Everyone has his or her expertise, meaning no one is better than another person in all aspects. It's perfectly okay for the manager to not be better at doing the things his or her team members are doing, and it's the manager's responsibility to make his or her team understand the manager does not need to be better at every task the team members have, especially in tech sectors. After all, that's why a team is built, to combine everyone's skill to achieve desired business objectives together. The manager's task is to manage his or her people, not to become a god.

But in the meantime, managers should be able to possess the ability to ready to learn and improve him or herself all the time, in many aspects. Continuous self-improvement is always appreciated, and the notion should be emphasized within the team.

Do not mingle with your team members all the time, set them free for self-improvement; leave some time to improve yourself, and stay together with your families because they deserve your time.

Make them know you are the boss because they become better around you willingly; you lead the direction, they helped to the success while improving themselves on the way.

3. Identify their weaknesses

Good managers excel at identifying the strength of their team members, but excellent leaders identify weaknesses in people.

Talk with them and note down what you have noticed about your team members: Strength and weaknesses. Design a scenario to let them recognize their weaknesses, or point out directly to them, help them set quantifiable goals and a limited time frame to improve themselves, help them get better and overcome their weaknesses one by one.

They may not appreciate your help at the beginning, but after a while, they will realize you helped them in the best ways. It's very important to make them feel being empowered while you are helping them to improve, not being criticized or diminished.

All these tactics probably have crossed your minds many times already. But it's very easy to lose focus when there are inner noises and the ones from outside. Managers should be ascetic to the right values and good practices. It's a journey worthwhile if one could constantly better himself via self-examining and overcoming all difficulties.