Life with Millennials

What is the world saying about millennials? Millennials are lazy, they want it all with minimum effort, they ignore legacy and belittle previous experience. Millennials cannot focus and expect excitement in each and every activity, job and person. Wow!

One of the joys in my work is meeting people, discovering backgrounds and learning from diverse experiences. Being born in the first decade of the millennial generation, I found I have as many things in common as I have differences with the true millennials. 

1. No one likes being labeled

We can always find similarities in our style and preferences across a generation, and it mostly relates to our context - a certain reality we are brought up into, the technology we can access, the beliefs that our parents share and so on. But jumping from that to a full generalization is a stretch that does no good.

We all want to be appreciated for our uniqueness and thus every generation has issues with labels. Millennials seems to appreciate these the least, as it's been a topic that the entire world feels entitled to have an opinion on; and it's been amplified to the extreme by media. You can see how the above generalization can be annoying, regarded as unfair and able to activate instantly one's defense mechanisms.

2. The right to freedom

By default, our brain searches for references to help summarize information and put people and situations into known categories. The first rule of building lasting and qualitative relationships is to try to fight that instinct, remaining open and curious.

In many parts of the world, freedom was not a given for centuries. But millennials walked into the workplace expecting freedom in all its forms and having difficulties to follow "the way things are done around here". After the initial shock though, we all started acquiring a taste for this new reality, learning from this generation to rewrite our context. How can that be anything but good?!

Freedom to speak our minds, freedom to think differently, freedom to stop unnecessary activities… all great!

I believe the sweet spot is the blend though - all of this freedom combined with what history has taught us, with what customers have told us over time that they prefer and appreciate, with trials, errors and our valuable learnings.

 3. Creativity vs. productivity

To keep the lights on, productivity is needed. Our previous experience often translates into an increased capacity to do things faster and better. But anyone working in a large organization knows that one of the greatest challenges is to continuously innovate, to move with agility while strengthening the core business.

In general, a team brings together multiple generations, a variety of personalities and characters. To make a team work, there is a need to create the space for individuality and collectiveness. I discovered there are great benefits when we nurture millennials' creativity, ensuring the space to rewrite reality. Truly working as one team is about having an understanding of what's the value add of each member, respecting differences, finding constructive ways of giving feedback and moving together towards a shared goal.

Beyond having room for creativity, working for a higher purpose makes a greater difference today than ever before. Most millennials choose companies that aim to do good, to make the world better. They then follow companies' actions to see whether reality meets marketing messages. It’s a simple test – and the best stay with companies that truly walk the talk. The great news is that when we are driven by a higher purpose, productivity comes along, as we are inclined to do more and become personally invested in a vision we believe in.

Valuing Millennials

With millennials in the workplace, we are learning the true importance of balance, of focusing on what's important in life, of sometimes giving up financial gain for the sake of personal development and... happiness.

Millennials will call out misalignment between messages and actions, and that is a great reality check for leaders and companies. Millennials communicate in a straightforward manner and can help fix issues no one called out until this generation came along.

So it's safe to say the world can learn a lot from this generation of bold, creative, fun people. I am certain that is a generalization we can live with!