Managing Millennials: 5 Lessons that Social Media Can Teach HR

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As Millennials pour into the workforce, HR executives and business leaders are struggling to adapt their management strategies. Glued to their smartphones and practically wired to social media, Gen Y, sometimes known as “generation we”, has gained an unfair reputation for being distracted, unproductive and self-absorbed. But rather than viewing their immersion in social technology as a negative, I would argue that business leaders need to view the social web as a guide to bringing the best out of young employees.

According to a study by UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, Millennials will make up 46% of the U.S. workforce by 2020. However, a recent study by Bentley University found that 68% of corporate recruiters say that it’s difficult for their organization to manage them. Businesses that fail to address this problem will be at significant disadvantage when it comes to recruiting Millennials and cultivating their potential. Thanks to websites like Glassdoor, potential recruits will know if your company is failing in this area.

To more effectively manage Millennials, we must look to social media for insights on what they value, how they operate and what will motivate them in a work environment. In a profound way, the dominant technology of an era shapes how kids, teenagers and young adults view their world. It’s easy to scorn Gen Y when we look at their obsession with technology from the outside, but when look at the world from their perspective, we’ll gain some the keys to improving their communication, collaboration and productivity.

Here are 5 lessons from social media that HR and business leaders can use to bring out the best in Millennials.

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The 7 Steps to Sales Force Transformation

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Sales force transformation can be the key to driving market-leading profits and top-line growth. But it is not for the faint-hearted, as we outline in our stories and lessons learned in our book, 7 Steps to Sales Force Transformation. A sales transformation fundamentally changes how a company sells, and it radiates across the business both vertically (e.g., align to, and drive, corporate strategy) and horizontally (e.g., must include other functions). It permeates a company’s overall growth strategy, how it recruits and hires, and the types of sales conversations it has with prospects and customers.

What is a Sales Transformation?

We define sales force transformation as one that fundamentally changes the way a sales force sells. This is a big deal, and it’s not going to happen overnight. Typically, these sales transformations take longer than a year and must involve other functional areas – sales cannot succeed as an ‘island’ in the organization. Transforming a sales organization to consistently deliver insights requires new value propositions, case studies and collateral from Marketing, new competencies, skill development, recruiting profiles from HR, and alignment with Operations to refine products and services. A sales transformation is not a tweak, such as changing your sales training curriculum or implementing a new proposal generation application; it’s more like a “rewiring” of the company “house.” It’s multi-dimensional and holistic.

What are the Key Steps?

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About the Authors

Warren Shiver and Michael Perla are the authors of 7 Steps to Sales Force Transformation: Driving Sustainable Change in Your Organization (Palgrave MacMillan). Warren Shiver is the Founder and Managing Partner of Symmetrics Group and has more than 20 years of sales, management and consulting experience. Michael Perla is a Principal with Symmetrics Group, and has more than 20 years of sales effectiveness consulting and strategic marketing experience.

Four Phases of High-Quality Business Performance Assessments

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Business performance assessments are conducted in a series of phases: Identify, Plan & Schedule, Execute, and Close-out. Associated with each phase is a collection of principles, best practices, and warning flags aiding the identification, communication, and acceptance of value-adding, self-critical performance improvement opportunities.

Assessment Phases

  • Identify Phase: The Identify Phase starts the business performance assessment process by defining the broad parameters within and by which the assessment
    will be performed.
  • Plan and Schedule Phase: The business performance assessment process continues with the Plan and Schedule Phase during which the specific assessment activities – document reviews, personnel surveys, activity observations, and individual interviews – to be performed are identified and scheduled.
  • Execute Phase: The Execute Phase is at the center of the business performance assessment process. During this phase, assessors gather and analyze data from a number of sources to identify performance improvement opportunities.
  • Close-out Phase: The Close-out Phase marks the end of the business performance assessment process. Performance improvement opportunities are captured within the corrective action program and assessment documentation is properly cataloged.

As illustrated by StrategyDriven’s Information Development Model, business performance assessments belong to the third tier of performance data refinement. Performance reports at this level benefit from human intelligence added to supporting data during: initial data synthesis, basic trend identification and analysis, multi-trend synthesis, and basic model application. It is the infusion of human knowledge and experience at these points that makes these assessments broadly integrated and highly insightful.

To learn how to maximize the value of your business performance assessment efforts:

Register for StrategyDriven’s FREE Maximizing the Value of Business Performance Assessments online training series

About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal, and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

The Discipline of Listening

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Our brains make it difficult, if not impossible, to fully or accurately comprehend what our Communication Partners wish to convey. We hear their words, of course, but we often end up interpreting them well outside the intent of the Speaker. I spent 3 years researching and writing on this topic for a book, (What?) and came away in awe of the magnitude of this issue and how deeply our unconscious choices prejudice our conversations.

The Problem with Goal-Center Listening

As a coach to coaches, sellers, and managers, I’m painfully aware of how sellers often listen only to ‘recognize a need’, or coaches listen for a problem they’ve had success resolving before, or managers listen for a difficulty they know how to regulate.

By listening for something specific, we end up taking away a myth as meaning. With mischaracterized and potentially inaccurate data (compounded over the length of the conversation), we then have no accurate data with which to base follow-on decisions, not to mention that everyone potentially walks away from the conversation with mistaken beliefs, feelings, and expectations. And then we blame the Other for any failure. Sadly, because our brains don’t tell us they have misunderstood or biased what was meant (we actually believe we’ve ‘heard’ accurately), we’re rarely aware that we have missed the meaning or the possibility, until it’s too late.

Tips to Listen Accurately

Here are some questions to think about as you consider adding some discipline to your listening skills:

  1. Prepare and De-stress. Before each conversation, clear your mind of any expectations or hopes, or feelings from past conversations. Otherwise your brain will unconsciously seek confirmation (Confirmation Bias) for that very thing while ignoring or misconstruing possibilities (minimizing your chances of success or creativity).
  2. Humility and humor. Unless you have written a script that everyone speaking has signed off on, you have no way of knowing what your Communication Partner will say, mean, need, or feel. I often hear people attempt to push their own agenda and don’t recognize what the Other has conveyed. Since there is no such thing as win/lose, this tends to create lose/lose, although the offended Communication Partner might not mention it during the conversation.
  3. Flexibility. All conversations demand flexibility to be present to the messages within the dialogue that actually occurs. The larger the bias or expectation going in, the harder it is to achieve, the greater the gap in understanding and expectation, and the greater the fallout from unrealized possibility.
  4. Trust. I know it’s hard to walk away without getting exactly what you want, or to hear things that don’t match your needs or expectations, but somewhere in the conversation there is a creative win for everyone. It may not look or act like your dream, but it will be something that everyone can accept. Besides, if you’re not trusting the dialogue actually occurring, you’re merely pushing your own agenda. And then you can’t even trust the outcome you’ve devised.

Unless both sides of a conversation fully understand what the Other intends to convey, there is no reality to work with and everyone risks unnecessary failure or limited possibility: it might have been possible to achieve success in a different way, or maintain a relationship over time for future possibilities. In almost every in-person coaching session I have had, my client has missed real possibilities (even of getting exactly what they want) in pursuit of hearing what they believe they should hear.

Here are some questions to think about as you consider adding some discipline to your listening skills:

  • How adept are you at entering conversations with no needs, no expectations, no biases?
  • How capable are you of showing up in a conversation with the ability to have a We Space – not two “I’s” which lead nowhere except self-serving exchanges, but a genuine melding of the people involved to find the win for all?
  • What do you need to believe differently to recognize that when you enter conversations with personal biases, assumptions, and triggers, that you will only succeed those times when the Other has the exact same biases, assumptions, and triggers – and all those who could truly benefit from your expertise and heart will not be able to hear you either (regardless of how well-meaning or accurate you are)?
  • How willing are you to learn to show up with an open mind, recognize when you have biases or expectations and quiet them before starting the exchange?
  • How can you react to something you’re not prepared for in a way that encourages collaborative dialogue?

You can continue doing what you’ve been doing, of course. But for those times you seek excellence in your conversations, a bit of preparation is in order.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is a visionary, original thinker, and thought leader in change management and decision facilitation. She works as a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant, and has authored 9 books including the NYTimes Business BestsellerSelling with Integrity. Morgen developed the Buying Facilitation® method (www.sharondrewmorgen.com) in 1985 to facilitate change decisions, notably to help buyers buy and help leaders and coaches affect permanent change. Her newest book What? www.didihearyou.com explains how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She can be reached at [email protected]

What Does It Mean to “Show Up”?

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Some people intrinsically have the ability to show up; it’s inborn in them. And some people have to grow it, nurture it, practice it their whole lives — work at it every day.

The people who already have it, their life’s work is to keep stepping in bigger and bigger, staying on their edge to create more impact. These people need to work at keeping themselves sharp, growing, and accountable, while helping others to do so as well. Their job is to lead, teach, and pay it forward.

The people who are learning how to show up, and maybe even struggling with it, their job is to just do it, to surround themselves with the right people, and to focus on the bigger vision for impact for what they want to create and make to help them move through it.

No matter where you are, I believe your job is to continue working on it, showing up bigger and bigger, using your super powers for good, and expanding your range for leadership and joy in your life.

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About the Author

Anese CavanaughAnese Cavanaugh is devoted to helping people show up and bring their best selves to the table in order to create significant positive impact in their lives. She is the creator of the IEP Method® (Intentional Energetic Presence), an advisor and thinking partner to leaders and organizations around the world, and author of Contagious Culture: Show Up, Set the Tone, and Intentionally Create an Organization that Thrives (McGraw Hill, 11/15). Follow her @AneseCavanaugh.