Leading Millennials: The Data Driven Essentials.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend the 2016 Gallup Summit: How Millennials Want to Work and Live. The focus of the conference was presenting the results on their definitive and comprehensive study on the Millennial cohort and how they impact and shape their work space and life space. To say the least, it was an incredible conference and Gallup is the gold standard in such research. This got me thinking out loud that as older Millennials, Gen. X’ers, and Boomers, we have both the opportunity and obligation to lead this emerging cohort effectively.

So just to clarify, Millennials were born between1980 – 1996 and, according to Gallup, Millennials now comprise 38% of the workforce. The presenting issue, however, is that only 29% are engaged in their work which means that 71% are either not engaged or actively disengaged from their work! Keep in mind these statistics involve hundreds of thousands participants across just about every industry. Such statistics should serve as a wakeup call to those of us in more senior leadership roles.

The kicker is this. Such levels of disengagement are not necessarily the fault or reflect short comings of millennials! I believe it is a reflection of the fact this cohort wants something different in their careers (much the same we slightly older folks did when we started to enter the work place!). So take a look at the list below of what millennials want in the work space and consider how you can adjust your leadership style to meeting Millennial preferences versus the other way around.

• Establishing a Sense of Purpose – Millennials want to know how their work matters and how it contributes to the betterment of society
• Role Development is key – Millennials want learning and professional development experiences so that they can be more effective contributors in the work place
• Coaching style supervision is desired – the old “command and control” management style is lost on millennials. Their want a leader who acts more like a career and life coach versus the uni-directional supervisor who just focuses on the immediate job performance. A simple scan of the management research and book tiles in recent years will support this assertion
• On Going and Frequent Feedback is essential – Millennials want frequent conversations about how they are performing versus waiting until the annual performance review. Keep in mind this does not mean they are always fishing for compliments. Millennials want AUTHENTIC feedback and relationships!
• Focus and Working to Strengths – Millennials want careers where they get to do what they do best! You role as a supervisor and leader is help them to find out what that is!
• They want a Life and not just a job – to a Millennial, work/life balance is a term that has little meaning to them since their work is NOT divorced from their life. Essentially it is one and the same thus the goal has become work/life integration.

Now you may be thinking, “Well that’s interesting but so what?” The fact is that Millennials are more likely to jump from one job to another more than any previous generation. The hard dollar impact of such movement costs the U.S. economy more than $30 Billion annually according to Gallup data!! That’s a billion with a big ‘ol “B”! The good news is that those millennials who experience strong and invested managers/leaders are less likely to jump jobs . . . as I have often said, “soft” skills (or lack thereof!) have hard dollar implications. Finally, the even better news is that much of the list above will have little direct financial costs to an organization! It just calls for a shift in emphasis and energy!

For more information about this report and all the other incredibly useful research the Gallup organization produces, visit www.gallup.com.

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact! In particular, I encourage you to visit THE STUDIO tab that highlights work that myself and two outstanding partners are doing in facilitating strong, multi-generational work places.

Also, as a bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your organization (that Millennials clearly state they need!). Such an initiative would be critical in order to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Principal Consultant – Out Loud Strategies

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

Please “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc

Appreciating “Thankless” Leadership Roles.

Recently I had the incredible opportunity to explore a decommissioned Cold War missile silo that a friend of ours had purchased. Eventually they plan to convert it to a wine cellar but right now it is in pretty rough condition! We crawled through passage ways, walked in knee high water, and scaled ladders over 40 foot drops with only our small flashlights to show the way in total darkness. Standing in the old control rooms and crew quarters, I started to understand better the necessary and often thankless leadership role the professionals who staffed these complexes provided during a very dangerous time in U.S. history. This got me thinking out loud about how we as leaders must often thrive in other (albeit less intense) “thankless” leadership roles.

(View from Control Room facing the tunnel that leads to the Missile Silo)

Granted, everyone wants to be recognized and I have often written about how important appreciation is to a leader’s “toolbox”. The issue becomes when the pursuit of RECOGNITION becomes the motivation versus the IMPACT. I often ask my Master’s students early in the term this one important question:

Could you do your job if no one said “Thank you”?

You see, it’s a gut check question. It is a question that is intended to determine what the true motivations are in leading others. Is it for perks or responsibilities? A means to meet your own needs or to be the one who meets needs? I can guarantee you the airmen who staffed these silos, as many others who had or are now serving, received no public recognition. In fact, I am sure they were discouraged from even talking about what they did!

I think there is value in leading in “thankless” roles. It frees us to focus on the role versus on who is watching us do it. It exercises what sports consultant Jim Loehr calls the “character muscle” of humility. Finally, it really gets to the purest intention of leadership, to do so for its own sake and that of others versus any expectation of return or gain.

I am not saying this is easy by any means, so here are a few tips to help you thrive in a “thankless” leadership role.

• Remember your “WHY”! – why you chose this role to begin with. I doubt it had to do with YOU!
• Determine what is of HIGHER VALUE – what is most important, your impact or your recognition?
• Realize this is Just a PART of Your Life and does not DEFINE Your Life – a leader should not use those they lead as their source of support.

So the bottom line is leadership is not always glamorous or high profile. Millions of great leaders do so every day just because there is a job to be done and they have elected to do it. So what it’s worth coming from me . . . THANK YOU!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact! Also, as a bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be critical in order to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Principal Consultant – Out Loud Strategies

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

Please “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc

Fried BBQ Ribs and other GREAT Ideas!

A few months ago, I was on an “Innovation Retreat” with two long-time colleagues. Our focus was to create a new approach to generational leadership within organizations (more on that later!). We were having lunch one day and one of the specials offered was fried, BBQ ribs, obviously we were in a Southern locale! These were ribs that had been smoked for hours, battered, and then deep fried. Genius . . .  Absolute Genius! Now you may not think such a culinary concoction sounds very appetizing but it did get me thinking out loud that CREATIVITY is an important leadership trait and how can we better harness innovation.

Just last week, the excellent Leadercast speaker event was held in Atlanta, GA. The theme this year was “Architects of Tomorrow” and featured a great innovator, Steve Wozniak, who is one of the founders of Apple. He shared three important principals to drive creativity which included:

• Think outside the box
• Look for new ways to do things
• Understand the user and your audience

Now let’s apply these principals to our lunch special example stated above. The chefs certainly thought out of the box! They created something new that I have never seen before (and trust me, I have eaten a lot of barbeque in travels!). Finally, and here is the real important part, they understood their users which were primarily people that liked fried food and barbeque (and I am a huge fan of both!). The result: they sold out of this new delicacy in less than an hour!

It is the last principal of understanding your users, however, that is a GREAT IDEA but I think many leaders miss in their attempts to be innovative. When we are leading, we have to make sure our ideas make sense to those that are leading. Sure, you could manufacture a toaster that also has cell phone capability, but why would you want to and who would use it?!?! Or you could have a great vision about how to move your team forward but if it is unclear or overly complex, it will not get traction among your constituents. It is this aspect of CLARITY that author and speaker Andy Stanley states as the other half of the leadership equation. Yes, you must have a compelling vision but it will not move the needle if no one but you understands it!

You see, the INNOVATION or CREATIVITY we practice every day is usually not the huge breakthroughs or product ideas, it is really how we inspire others to accomplish what is most important to our enterprise. Even in the day-to-day aspects of leading we have to think outside traditional boundaries of what motivates people, especially in the multi-generational workplace. We have to invent new ways to communicate what is important or else our message starts to fade into the background. Finally, we have to understand and communicate to our audience. As leadership expert John Maxwell states:

"What you say is not as important as what your audience understands!"

Finally, an effective leader knows how to harvest the great ideas of others. Simply ask them, “What do you think”? A simple question from your audience will spur creativity and provide clarity both at the same time!

If you want more information about Leadercast and how to attend the live event in Atlanta or in simulcast locations next year, visit: www.leadercast.com

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact! Also, as a bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be critical in order to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Principal Consultant – Out Loud Strategies

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

Please “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc

Forget about what’s in your wallet, what’s on your “leadership wall”?

Due to my affiliation with the John Maxwell team, I have access to powerful content. One involves a video lesson John was teaching called “Leadership Off the Wall”. Essentially he was referring to the pictures, books, items, etc. that he notices every time he walks into the office of some of the world’s top leaders in business and government. This got me thinking out loud about what our own offices, homes, etc. say about us as leaders.

Theorist and author Edgar Schein is an authority on organizational culture. He stipulates that one of the defining levels of an organization’s culture are its artifacts. In other words those logos, mission statements, publications, etc. that an organization puts on display. So what does your work space say about you? What is there that offers a glimpse of what you value, how you lead others, or what is important to you?

Here are some examples that I have seen or read about:

President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk stating “The buck stops here” which was his way of saying that the Office of the President should never defer a decision or leave a problem for the next administration.

A childhood friend of mine had a mural professionally painted in his garage next to the home’s interior entrance. It stated things that they stood for as a family like “we do fun, we do forgiveness, we do tough love”, etc. What a great reminder for his family that they see at the start and end of each day!

Author, speaker, and Pastor Andy Stanley keeps a simple index card on his desk that asks three core questions.

What are we doing?

Why are we doing it?

How do I fit in?

The point is he uses this card to keep his organization focused on its primary mission.

I have a former supervisor who keeps a simple cardboard sign under his desk pad that has the word “IMPACT” written on it. He has had it there for the 27 years he has been with the same organization and it is both a reminder and a challenge for him to make a positive impact on people every day.

In my own office you will find lots of leadership books from many authors and a stack on the floor that still needs to be read! Pictures of former students and staff that I value highly are there as well. Perhaps the most important “artifact” is a copy of a PowerPoint slide that asks “Are you making things better for those that follow you?” I place it right by my door so that every time I walk out, it is a reminder to focus on people versus things.

Again, these are just examples of what you have in your work space allows you to demonstrate to others what you value and what they can learn from you. Motivational posters, pictures of your family and friends, awards and recognitions, etc. will all point visitors to your “true north” in terms of what you value. So take a look. What could you add or replace that will make a good reminder of why you do what you do? The thing to remember that whether we are speaking or not, we are ALWAYS Leading Out Loud!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact! Also, as a bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be critical in order to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Principal Consultant – Out Loud Strategies

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

Feel free to “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc