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MULTIGENERATIONAL TEAMS • COACHING MILLENNIALS • FAMILY LIFE CYCLE • REMOTE-BASED COACHING
What we need to know about generational differences
Coaching Across Generations
VOLUME 14 • NUMBER 3 • WWW.CHOICE-ONLINE.COM
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VOLUME 14 NUMBER 322
Is there really a difference between generations or is it about different stages of life, and how do we coach clients from this lens? What are the different generational needs, expectations, values and conflicts and what is the impact on coaching? What do you need to know about generational differences in order to build rapport and effectively work with them? How do you coach leaders to manage and build relation-ships with team members from different generations? Come along to learn more about intergenerational challenges presenting themselves in coaching.
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VOLUME 14 NUMBER 334
By Susanne Mueller, MA
y 2020, 50 percent of the workforce will be Millenni-als, according to an article in Forbes magazine (Octo-ber, 2014). How can we approach that situation as an
effective leadership coach for this generation? They are ready to be coached, and we are there to discover and em-power their strengths as well as their weaknesses.
Millennials have been raised by helicopter parents hovering over them every single moment, making sure nothing goes wrong, supporting them at all times, giving them instant grat-ification even if there is nothing to celebrate. Millennials got a cute sticker for an A grade but also for a B grade; they were awarded a trophy even if they came in dead last in a competi-tion. Do we need to celebrate active participation to empower them? Unfortunately, such celebrations have produced a gen-eration of people who don’t know their weaknesses. Does that
really help for self-growth, self-awareness or the next step in their career in the real world? Not so much. In the real world they don’t get stickers, trophies, or even pats on the back for every situation or level of effort. Then what?
After listening to a few inspiring TED talks by Millennials, I have come to the conclusion as a leadership coach for fu-ture generations that the Millennial leaders are actually the coolest kids on the block to be coached. They are ready for very harsh feedback, ready to hear the actual and brutal truth, ready to learn about their true weaknesses, ready to fall deep and fail royally; eventually, they will learn how to get up again. Their negative reputation of being lazy and impatient, requiring instant gratification and taking all for granted can actually be a great starting point for the leader-ship coach who is coaching Millennials.
Being lazy and impatient is the way they are growing and thinking; when we look at the model of social emotional in-
Coaching Millennials
Effective leadership for the ‘participation trophy’ generation
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VOLUME 14 NUMBER 3 35
telligence (Goleman, 1995) we focus on self-awareness and self-management, initially. We learn to see who we are and what we project to the world. It is about self-discovery, a-ha moments, relationships and adaptability.
If the parents provide all the services for their children, then the children get used to being helped at all times and don’t work on those essential elements for their personal growth and lead-ership development. How can Millennial leaders learn to make decisions if their parents do everything for them even before it comes to the decision making process? Nonetheless, Millenni-als prefer to be treated like adults, given harsh feedback and told the truth. This is what leadership coaching for the next generation should be.
Exciting times are here to be with Millennial leaders who are willing to learn and change with the guidance of a coach (al-though not in the role as a parent coach or coach as parent). A coach can become their sounding board, their personal confi-dante and their sparring partner. Following are some of the as-pects involved in coaching Millennials.
Self-awareness & Self-managementMillennials have to learn how to deal with their weaknesses, listen to their inner signals, and develop self-confidence Self-confidence seems to be taught at school with all the inflate and puffed-up rewards that unfortunately will not get them anywhere. Those stickers are no help at all when facing the real world. When confronting the reality of a hiring process, the Millennials’ actual self-confidence is fairly lo .
Social AwarenessMillennials are impatient to grow but are willing to grow fast, and they have the potential to grow tremendously if they are in the right environment. They are looking forward
to working within a team where they can contribute. Their aim is to work well and mainly autonomously.
Daniel Pink (2009) puts high emphasis on fostering a workspace on ROWE – Result Only Work Environment. We all know of companies that start in a coffee shop or other non-traditional work environment where they can add major value. The traditional 9 to 5 jobs in some areas are history and the ‘gig economy’ – in which temporary po-sitions and independent workers are common – means they will be working on projects rather than fully belonging to an organization in the traditional sense. “Organizations that have found inventive, sometimes radical, ways to boost au-tonomy are outperforming their competitors.” (Pink, 2009)
This new gig economy means definitions of success for Mil-lennials are not the same as for Baby Boomers. Having a big house, a fast car and a corner office is not the ideal picture for them; enjoying more freedom and having autonomy and mean-ing in a career are much more relevant to that generation.
Relationship ManagementMillennials are here to prove that they can lead, grow and be successful in their own way. Certainly, Steve Jobs’ man-tra “Love what you do, do what you love” is super impor-tant. This is about finding a purpose with self-confidence autonomy and sustainability.
Millennials are the change catalyst for the future. We can all learn from each other, as mentoring initiatives have shown. Senior and more experienced resources in the orga-nization are not afraid to lose their authority when Millen-nials are teaching them social media. On the contrary, the relationship has become better and deeper. Millennials are ready and able to develop others with their social media knowledge, curiosity and forward-thinking mentality.
1. Self Awareness
“Know your story and how it affects you.”
“Make peace with our past.”
“Know your beliefs, your emotions and your
behavior patterns.”
“Know your relationship patterns.”
2. Self Management
“Develop skills for breathing and relaxation.”
“Learn positive, self-affirming beliefs.
“Develop self-soothing and self-motivation skills.”
“Maintain good physical health.”
3. Social Awareness“Understand nonverbal
communication.”
“Develop a positive view of others.”
“Understand the basic emotional needs.”
“Understand ‘games’ and personal integrity.”
4. Relationship Management
“Develop skills for reflectiv listening and empathy.”
“Develop skills for assertive communication.”
“Learn conflic resolution skills.”
“Learn skills for support and affirmation of others.
Four Domains of Emotional Intelligence
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VOLUME 14 NUMBER 336
Here are some of the opportunities for coaching the Millennials:
• Focus on strengths but also on weaknesses. When looking at a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis for an organization, we certain-ly look at weaknesses. Why don’t we do it for a person? If you have a 360 feed-back report, dig deeper on lower scores; don’t focus only on the positive points. Millennials seem to be okay to contem-plate their weaknesses as opportunities to learn and grow.
• Provide harsh feedback – Feedback can be constructive. If Millennials hear “great job” all the time, this is not neces-sarily constructive feedback. By the same token, focusing on negative aspects of their performance does not mean that Millennials are bad employees. There is always room for improvement and op-portunities to provide creative input. In a feedback session, the coach should listen carefully for occasions to strengthen self-confidence and leadership gaps. Millen-nials are bursting with possibilities; let’s unleash their potential fully.
• Let them know it’s okay to fail. Millennials, with their eagerness, want to be involved in the decision making pro-cess and prove that they have a different voice that should be heard. Listen to their ‘crazy’ ideas. Who would have thought that a company like Facebook could be created in a dorm room and be greatly successful? Crazy ideas are cutting-edge ideas that might or might not work. There is always a chance of failure, but if we don’t try we don’t know. Learning from mistakes is the key to growth.
Nobody is ever perfect and there will never be a perfect world. We can only learn from each other in order to become more successful in our lives. Collabora-tion, relationship and leadership go hand in hand where all generations have something special to bring to the table. RESOURCES:“Three things everyone should know about millennial leaders,” by Asha Sharma, CMO of Porch.com, Forbes, October 2014, (www.forbes.com)Drive, Daniel Pink, 2009Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman, 1995
sticky situations
VOLUME 13 NUMBER 1 12
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