Monday, March 16, 2009

More Millennial Traits

Many of your current Creatives, and a growing number in the future, will be members of the Millennial Generation. They, like every generational cohort, have a number of interesting characteristics that you should take into account when leading them. Obviously, these are broad generalizations and you should deal with each individual...well, individually, but it helps to have some reasonable expectations about their perspective.

They like feedback. A lot. The Millennial Generation is referred to by some as the "Trophy Generation." Many parents, in an attempt to protect their children from disappointments they faced as kids, reduced the emphasis on competition and made sure youngsters were rewarded just for participating in something, not necessarily for winning. "A for effort" seems to have taken on new meaning here. Ironically, as kids the Millennials also found themselves pushed into more organized activities, including sports, where they received constant feedback from parents and coaches.

They want to fit their job around their life, not the other way around. Having seen their parents shuttle them around despite professional demands on their time, Millennials entering the workforce expect to be able to take time off from work for personal events or set a work schedule that matches their personal desires. They will be more interested in telework and are more likely to hop from job to job as their personal circumstances change.

They want responsibility. Now. With all the positive feedback they received early in their lives, they are pretty sure they're the best that ever was, and they expect you to acknowledge it. Add to that the instant gratification they've grown used to courtesy of modern technology (why spend hours researching in the library when Wikipedia is on your laptop?) and they may not feel the need to work their way up from the bottom. They have a strong desire to work hard and do good work, and they want to see that recognized and be put into positions of authority where they can make things happen.

Individuality is a trend. Many Millennials say they avoid trends and maintain their individuality, to the point that individuality is the greatest trend of all. Many of the tools they use to express that individuality are used by millions of others. Writing blogs detailing aspects of their everyday lives or presenting their views on their topic of choice, posting videos of their activities on YouTube, creating Picasa and Flickr albums showing all the unique stuff they and their friends do...everybody tries hard not to be like everybody else. Important safety tip: do not make fun of the irony of Hot Topic being a national chain of stores that sells nonconformity. Just don't.

You may be a Millennial yourself and just accept all this as the natural state of being. You might also be someone who says "well, back in MY day, this is how we did things." If the latter, you have a couple choices as a leader. First, you can focus on how you think things SHOULD be, rather than how they ARE, and in the process, you're liable to end up with very few employees. If you want, you can just accept these traits and try to ignore them. Or, if you're a really good leader, you can find ways to use these traits to improve the quality of your Creatives' work and outperform your competition. Your choice.

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