Full disclosure: I’m part of the Millennial generation. Think what you want.
This isn’t going to be another rant about the unfair judgments people make about my generation as a whole. Or about the dumb stuff some of my peers do that make us all look bad in the eyes of bosses and colleagues. This is a very sincere request for people in positions to be leaders, bosses and mentors to young professionals to make it difficult for the people working for you to perpetuate the negative stereotypes associated with our age group. It’s a millennial’s plea.
Stop whining about why we suck, and start teaching us. Even if it’s the the hard way.
Edit the crap out of what we write.
Seriously, do not spare our feelings when you’re reviewing our drafts. Sure, flag typos or grammar mistakes, but if we totally missed the point of the assignment, failed to include important information, got lazy about formatting or company writing standards and the like, make sure we know about it. It sucks to see something you wrote get ripped apart with a red pen, but the impact of seeing it and having to fix each mistake one by one will do wonders for quicker improvement. If we send you a draft, you edit it and never show us where you made changes, it’s really difficult to learn. SHOW us where we made mistakes. You’ll make us better writers. As a supervisor, your job will always be easier if your staff are good writers.
Make us take notes in meetings.
We should have enough sense to be doing this anyway, but if we’re responsible for taking notes for someone in addition to ourselves, we’re going to listen more carefully, think more critically about what we hear and learn how to pull the important information out of the discussion. If you can offer a little prep or background before the meeting starts, then great, it’ll help us better understand the big picture. If we know someone else is relying on our notes, we’ll keep the phone put away, pay attention, be better listeners and maybe even be able to contribute some decent ideas. A big bonus to supervisors is that we may catch something you didn’t, or point out a knowledge gap you may not realize needs to be filled.
Make us defend our ideas.
Not in terms of a debate about who is right and who is wrong, but if you are going to seek our input, ask us questions about why we’ve arrived at that conclusion and make us explain it. One, it’ll help teach us to more eloquently express what we mean. Two, it’ll make us take a critical look at what we’re about to say before we say it. Three, we’ll do our research to try to avoid looking stupid. And four, we’ll learn to listen first and then speak up later. If you teach us critical thinking like this, we’ll be a lot better at contributing meaningful and relevant ideas to projects of all kinds. Isn’t it easier to be a supervisor to someone who cranks out solid ideas?
Make us show our research process.
If we know we’ll have to show you how we found information, we’re going to do a better job of keeping track of things along the way. This will make everyone’s life easier when it comes time to source facts or defend a conclusion. We’ll also tend to work harder at finding more reliable sources of information and won’t fall into the Wikipedia rut as easily. As a supervisor, you’ll be able to see our thought process in what we think is reliable information and help us shake bad research habits by pointing out where we went wrong. You’ll also be able to teach us how to package our research in a way that’s helpful to others. Over time, it’ll become second nature to know how to validate what we claim. As a supervisor, you’ll know your work has solid legs to stand on.
Make us responsible for the outcome of our work.
It’s one thing to bust our butts to help with something we know someone else will get credit for. If done well, we’ll always feel slighted if no one ever knows how hard we worked at a success. If done poorly, we’re let off the hook way too easily for not creating better work. If we’re a major part of a project, make sure we’re associated with it when it goes up the ladder—for better or worse. Teaching us to take responsibility for what we work on will teach us how to deal with all types of feedback. It’ll make us stronger. And it only helps you as a supervisor if our work is stronger.
Young professionals are eager to learn and contribute. Not every millennial is going to be a stellar employee, but the better job supervisors do of mentoring and teaching, the better staff they’re going to have. Really, it just benefits the higher-ups in the long run to cultivate young talent. So next time your young employee messes up or ticks you off, try to look for a teaching opportunity. You won’t regret it.
Becky, great post and I agree with everything in it. The only other thing I’d add is that everything you wrote applies to more than just “your generation”. Good leaders should do everything you listed. I think it fosters personal and professional development regardless of the generation you belong to. It makes the team better and obviously it makes the work / product better.
As for you being a “millennial”…I hate labels. They are impersonal. Don’t label yourself. You are Becky Johns…cool person who is on an incredible journey and learning at every step.
You’re absolutely right. Teaching can and should happen at any level. I guess the only reason for the label is that opinions about my generation as employees are overwhelmingly negative, at least most of the stuff that gets written and passed around in the context of this industry. While I don’t like throwing myself onto that pile, I’m willing to accept the label because I like to believe I’m working hard to change those negative views. Maybe misguided, but my thinking is that maybe I can be an example of the good ones.
Thanks for your thoughts, as always, Patrick. You are an awesome example of someone that takes mentorship and education seriously. Love that about you!
Keep on keepin’ on, Becky. I’m enjoying watching your journey and growth!
incredible post and great insight! I also agree that this applies to everyone, not just our generation. Teaching is important as is accountability. We have flaws, as does everyone, call us out and help us learn!
I love this. When I look back and think about the best bosses I’ve ever had, they were always the ones that took time to offer the constructive criticism I needed to improve. I am 30, so sometimes I’m grouped with Millennials and sometimes Generation X. I have learned more from good mentors than I ever learned in college, although I will say I had a handful of professors that morphed into mentors at a later date. There is no better way to get what you want from an employee than to help them grow and develop as a professional, and empower them to take on difficult tasks.
A well thought-out post Becky. As a former supervisor of yours, I would make one addition. The person being supervised has to take on the responsibility of learning what the teacher is trying to teach. I believe your willingness to learn made teaching you that much easier. You weren’t content with just fixing the writing, you wanted to know why you had to fix it, what I would done differently in the first place and how to make sure that the next time you handed something in it came back with less red ink.
You can lead a horse to water but can’t make them drink is a cliche, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t valid. A good manager will make sure they are teaching those they are supervising. A good employee will take advantage of the lessons offered.
A supervisor should always feel a little threatened by the growth and advancement of their employees. It helps us focus on our own education and growth, which means it forces us to insist on learning more from our supervisors as well. It’s a domino effect that helps everybody win.
So, you mean I was the best intern ever, right?
Really, though. This post was majorly inspired by how much I learned from you. Looking back, I can’t ever remember having a boss that wanted me to learn and improve so much. Your leadership and mentorship has always meant the world to me, and you know that.
I wanted to learn and wanted to improve, and because I’m fairly good at taking feedback, maybe that was easier. But even difficult young employees, deep down, want to be better and sometimes it just takes a little longer to crack the shell.
I wish there were more people like you supervising young professionals. Keep doing what you do.
What Ari said – folks need to be willing to listen in order to benefit from mentoring/feedback. I remind myself that “it’s not about me” when receiving or giving feedback, to help not take things personally but instead recognize that it’s about making the work (and the person) better.
Love this post! I completely agree with you. As a Gen Y member, I find it infinitely frustrating when employers do not take the time to teach or train, and then blame their employees for not doing their jobs. I don’t know when older generations decided that teaching was secondary to making money, but it seems that is the case in many places. Good mentors are as rare as good teachers in the public school system.
I’d love to see a post about how to cultivate your relationship with a mentor, or how employees can help manage their employers to get the best feedback possible. Thanks!
Awesome suggestions. I’ll put them in the queue.
Becky – great suggestions. I try and do most of the things that you suggest but knowing that smart folks like yourself find that it’s actually helpful will encourage me to do it all the more.
Best,
Aaron | @aaronstrout
Aaron, I’ve got no doubt you’re an awesome mentor and teacher. Probably wouldn’t be speaking about it at SXSW if you weren’t
The thing is…teaching can be tedious. And not everyone has the best attitude about learning all the time. But doing things like this, giving a little tough love when needed and really going through the process of truly instructing someone how to do something saves tons of time, headache and frustration in the long run.
Learning the system can be hard. Sometimes that’s in a new job. Sometimes it’s with a new boss or colleague. And sometimes it’s just getting a handle on the preferences of how things need to be done. In any case, the more teaching that’s done up front, but the better quality work is going to result in the long run.
I’m at the opposite end of my career life, but I think you are completely correct. I also think that judging people on the basis of their age is ridiculous. I have found the same percentage of smart, hard-working people in the millennium generation, in GenX and in the baby boom generation.
Great post for teachers too. I had a student thank me recently for all the feedback I gave him on a presentation he made. As he noted, most of the time he just gets a grade and he really appreciated the fact that I was direct in what he could do to improve.
Becky, very good post indeed. I am not myself a member of the Y generation and used to have some prejudices against it.
I do think that the clash of culture and behaviour is a major one. But I don’t think that the gen y can’t learn or act or do anything interesting. As a whole our society and work life is changing a lot and some people of my generation are unable to adapt to these changes and I do think that they look upon your generation from a pedestal as they are unable to understand the differences.
And I agree with you when you ask to be included, to have things explained to you if needed and also to listen to you. If you ever end up with someone who is unable to bring you something, help you, guide you and also who is unable to learn from you then you need to look for someone else. If anyone, whatever his generation is unable to defend his thoughts or the reason for his acts/recommendations or even worse is not pushed to do so there is a major problem in our society.
So keep on defending your ideas, and be ready to fight for them and at the same time be ready to accept when you are wrong. I have been wrong quite often but learned from my mistakes and my best teachers or boss where the ones who asked me why? and how did you come to that conclusion.
Seeing this post I can only say that I am quite happy with the “millennials” and hope all the best for you.