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THE ULTIMATE METHODOLOGY — EXCELLENT PEOPLE People skills enhance technical skills & stop profits/careers falling through the cracks in activity "Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership." Peter Drucker ("The Practice of Management")

"Project management delivers nothing. People deliver projects." Neville Garnham ("Integrative Leadership in Projects")

Millennials Are What? Fact: Millennials (also known as Generation Y) are considered to be people born somewhere between early 1980s and late 1990s - but, no-one can really agree on the dates. Beyond this, everything else said to be factual attributes about the "group" is rubbish - just as it has been and is for every other packaging of generations that has preceded or follows this generational group. Demographers, sociologists and others who deal in this esoteric space need to get over themselves. Millennials as any other generational cohort are not an homogenized group as if they'd been through a milk production process. Labeling groups and then trying to ascribe common characteristics to it is completely unhelpful in moving people or teams or organisations forward positively. What minor benefits might result from considering such cohorts academically become distorted for the general population when generalized. Continuing academically or in any other forums to live in "Labelsville" rather than "Peoplesville" is counter-productive in the extreme. Publication of these concepts in popular television programs or general media simply causes confusion and perpetuates myths! I am quite disappointed to read commentary in which "millennials" are characterized or criticized as being: Lazy. Entitled. Narcissistic. Job-hopping. Promotion-expecting. Still-living-at-home-with-theirparents. Social-media junkies with a shared and vague passionate desire for fame. Also insecure. Particularly, is this so when these alleged characteristics are said to define "the problem." There is no "problem" with "millennials." Or, perhaps more accurately, these characteristics are no more problems with millennials than they have been with any other generational group in the past or post-millennials. Are there millennials who are pains in the backside for some of their attitudes? Yes, there are. Are there millennials who allegedly blame or suggest that their problem in traditional organisations is about how they are led in the workplace? Yes, there are. How is any of this different from virtually the same situation in previous generations? Remember what Peter Drucker said in 1954 in The Practice of Management: "Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership." Little has changed. The iceberg of inadequate knowledge at the top of organisations about what is happening at the bottom remains in too many instances. Only a few years ago, an undergraduate class was divided into smaller teams to work together on a “We cannot solve our current problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” [Albert Einstein] © TODAY4TOMORROW GROUP PTY LTD ABN 871 611 488 94 - Mail your thoughts or questions to: [email protected]

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THE ULTIMATE METHODOLOGY — EXCELLENT PEOPLE People skills enhance technical skills & stop profits/careers falling through the cracks in activity common assignment chosen by each of the teams. They had been receiving comments on their draft submissions suggesting that they needed to explore more areas in order to understand the subject matter better. Some considered my written comments on their draft submissions too negative, although I tried to suggest positive avenues they needed to consider further. One millennial student (allegedly reflecting his team-of-five's view) was affronted when I told the whole class that they needed to do more work. It's amazing how groups of students do seem at times to go through in "waves" - one year/semester the group is hard-working, while the next is less so. This student told me that they or parents were paying good money for that subject and that "it's your job to get us through it!" I asked him how he proposed I should do that in the absence of them doing adequate research and study to learn the subject. Without a flinch, he told me that I should give all of them the final exam paper (which was compulsory to pass) in advance, tell them the answers and then "we can give back to you what you want!" After momentarily being stunned and mentally picking myself up off the floor, I told them all that "what I wanted" was for them to learn the subject matter and to do that they needed to do to learn it and produce better submissions - namely, more work! Yes, some millennial individuals can be painful. But, it's the individual not the millennial group! When lecturing post-graduate students not so long ago one of them asked: "How do I deal with my manager who every time I make a suggestion says - 'I've been doing this for 20 years! What can you teach me that I don't already know!'." This student also was a millennial as were many in the class. He wasn't straight out of school. He already had several years of workplace employment - part-time and full-time. Yet, this was the workplace environment to which he was subjected on a regular basis. How demoralizing and lacking in incentive for him. Yet, he was and is not alone in those experiences - now or for years past. We worked through some strategies for dealing with his "know-it-all-from-experience" boss. It was a sound learning exercise for his class peers in a subject where influence to achieve objectives was critical to their success in the workplace. Aaron Orendorff's article "The problem with millennials isn’t millennials—it’s how you’re leading them" 1 and reports of interviews with leaders therein may sound like millennials blowing their own trumpets. But, in my view it isn't. For generations past, people in similar environments have wanted to catch the ball and get into the play in a full and respectful, as well as, respected way. Too often they have been forced back into the "swim lanes" of life - stroke after stroke because "this is the way we do things around here." There are those who conform and become functional within organisations. Functionality is important, but functionality without team-driven continuous improvement means that the individual, the team and the business are going backwards. If an organisation is not running faster internally than its market is changing external it is likely to be doomed or merged with a more effective and efficient business. For this to happen, individuals and teams need to be vital without the heady complication of super-sized egos! There are those who refuse to conform and insist on doing things differently. Not differently for the sake of being "different", but rather for doing things better differently. These people are vital! Individuals of any demographic generational group can and have made differences by refusing to conform. I've seen and experienced situations in which "job-hopping" individuals knew no more after 1

http://mashable.com/2017/05/30/problem-with-millennials-isnt-millennials-leadership/#4NHhPB8Siaqo

“We cannot solve our current problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” [Albert Einstein] © TODAY4TOMORROW GROUP PTY LTD ABN 871 611 488 94 - Mail your thoughts or questions to: [email protected]

Suite D1 / 21 Coleridge Street Stafford Heights Q 4053

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THE ULTIMATE METHODOLOGY — EXCELLENT PEOPLE People skills enhance technical skills & stop profits/careers falling through the cracks in activity they had finished several years of job-hopping than what they knew before they started that exercise. They got promoted - regrettably, too often promoted to the highest level of their incompetence. How will this be any different for millennials? Who knows - only time will tell! But we need to understand the individuals and stop lumping-them-together and criticizing them as a demographic cohort. When I was in my twenties, I made a firm resolution never to stay with any one employer or my own business for more than seven years. The career life-cycle was then about 30-40 years. About 20 years ago, the career life-cycle was estimated to be then about six years. In more recent times, it's been suggested that it's getting closer to three years; and, that many jobs 5-10 years from now have not yet been created. It is shortening dramatically in my view; and organisations need to learn to adapt to it. Staff retention is a wonderful concept. However, most organisations are quite poor at bringing it about effectively in the changed environment that is today. Older generations need to be more complicit in helping younger generations to prosper and reach untrammeled heights of personal fulfilment for themselves, those they love and future generations. Individuals can make a difference. Influence of individuals on teams can assist teams to make a difference. Strong teams come from strong individuals who start with personal leadership of themselves and let their actions speak for them. I'm proud or perhaps just tickled with the idea that on several occasions some five years or so after I left several organisations; I received reliable advice that my teams and I had made a difference. Why is it that we find it so difficult to give the individuals within "millennials" the same benefit of the doubt and encouragement? Millennials is an academic construct. It has no effective meaning beyond some esoteric non-scientific fabrications about which no significant cause-effect relationship can be established with other determinants as a cohort. To attempt to do so is about trying to predicate "group-think" to all millennials! This is simply so wrong. Personally, I've met too many of them (with a younger son who is one of them) for me to have the faintest belief that they think, act and live in the same way as all of the others in the cohort. Or, that they all display the self-centered characteristics nominated in the early paragraph above. If I might borrow from Aaron Orendorff's article, and quote the words of Simon Sinek: “'We now have a responsibility to make up the shortfall and help this amazing, idealistic, fantastic generation build their confidence, learn patience, learn the social skills, [and] find a better balance between life and technology because quite frankly it’s the right thing to do.' Even if millennials are the problem… it’s leaders like you who can offer the solution." There's a dearth of leadership in businesses (private, public and NFP/Charities) and throughout our communities. Learn to lead through effect personal leadership - it starts with your leadership of you and the example you set.

@Neville_Garnham

THE Productivity Philosopher June 2017

********* END OF ARTICLE ********* If you wish to comment about aspects of this article, please forward them to the email shown in the footer or start a conversation on the social media platform where you discovered this article. “We cannot solve our current problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” [Albert Einstein] © TODAY4TOMORROW GROUP PTY LTD ABN 871 611 488 94 - Mail your thoughts or questions to: [email protected]

Suite D1 / 21 Coleridge Street Stafford Heights Q 4053

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