TRANSPARENT: Being in the Know “What you see is what you get.” The millennial manager is more transparent than managers in previous generations. Millennials say, "If you want my team to be part of the solution, then I think they deserve to know the full story.” Millennials ask, “Wouldn’t it help people make better decisions if they could see the whole picture?” They want companies and leaders to be transparent in their strategies and values; according to millennials, it helps build trust and respect. A millennial manager who supervised 20 employees shared how she became more transparent as a manager and how that aided in her team’s growth. She stated, “I think when I first stepped into the management role, I wasn’t transparent enough because I was learning a lot of both roles. Now that I know what’s going on, I like to relay business decisions that I think will be beneficial for them to know from a growth standpoint. Obviously, there’s some confidentiality, but I do try to share information that I can with them, even if it’s not directly related to their role.”
CASUAL: Just Be Yourself Some people may find wearing jeans or hoodies disrespectful, but millennials hardly think twice about it. Millennials have a tough time understanding how attire affects the ideas coming from their heads or how it hinders getting their work done. Think about college. If you showed up to take an exam in pink pajama pants, did it affect your grade on the test? No way. Millennials carry this perspective to the workplace, where they want to hang on to their individuality and self-expression. Millennials are much more casual in the way that they do business. Business is conducted much more casually, and ideas and strategies can come from anywhere.
BALANCED: Successful at Life as a Whole “Work/life balance was always the elephant in the room. The reality is that now we are talking about it and expect it,” says a millennial manager. Rare is the millennial who jumps at the opportunity to work from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM. In our interviews with millennial managers, we often heard that millennials want to succeed at work and outside of work. One manager said that she wanted her legacy as a manager to be that she was “successful at life”—not just that she was an amazing manager. MW Brad Karsh is president and founder of JB Training Solutions, a company focused on helping professionals achieve more in their careers. A workplace and generational expert, he appears regularly on CNN and has been quoted in dozens of business articles. Courtney Templin, a millennial manager herself, is chief operating officer at JB Training Solutions and sits on the board of the Society for Human Resource Management. Excerpted, with permission of the publisher, from Manager 3.0: A Millennial's Guide to Rewriting the Rules of Management by Brad Karsh and Courtney Templin. Copyright 2013, Brad Karsh and Courtney Templin. Published by AMACOM. For more information, visit www.amacombooks.org If you understand the climate of your organization and how to effectively navigate it, you will improve your ability to communicate, collaborate and approach others. At AMA’s “A Millennial’s Guide to Thriving in a Multigenerational Workplace,” you will learn how to adjust your style to develop an effective online and offline personal brand and relate better to your manager and staff. To find out more, visit www.amanet.org/2002
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MWORLD WINTER 2013-14