‘Millennials value professional exposure they get by switching functions’
Workplaces have an eclectic mix of various personalities. In her new book Corporate
Avatars, author Disha (who uses only one name) decodes how to deal with each personality type. Disha discusses the challenges millennials face and the new viewpoints they bring to the workplace. Edited excerpts:
How are the distinct characteristics of millennials—from the way they use technology, their entrepreneurial spirit to cultural attitudes—challenging companies to change the way we work?
Millennials have their lives revolve around technology. From ordering food to booking cabs, from reading news to connecting with friends; their day begins and ends with technology. Mobiles have changed the way we live. They are exposed to and more comfortable with trying out new technology advancements every day. From an era of newspapers, millennials are moving towards blogging and social sharing. Leaders today have a great opportunity and medium to stay connected with their employees. Social platforms are the best ways to get people interested to join your workforce and attract talent. Companies are making huge investments in HR analytics which helps them manage the lifecycle of their employees and gives ideas and answers beyond the obvious.
From being enthusiastic about working for a bigger company, this generation prefers taking risk and starting on their own or work in smaller companies where they get to share bigger responsibilities. No longer do people prefer the comfort and safety of one job; but rather value the professional exposure they get by switching functions, companies and even industries. They flourish in ambiguity, love to own bigger responsibilities and challenges, are inquisitive to learn more. All this is changing the ways corporates manage talent. Corporates need to find ways to keep them engaged, show them clear growth paths and value their judgement calls.Making them a part of a larger vision becomes critical for hiring and retaining them.
What are the opportunities and challenges that come with millennial leadership?
The ownership level and risk appetite is higher and helping corporates take bigger bets by bringing this generation on-board. Their innovative mindset has indeed helped bring a start-up revolution in the last decade. They are passionate about their work and bring a lot of fresh ideas on the table. Their comfort with technology helps them think ahead and suggest game changing opportunities to the leaders. Their quest to build something big and meaningful is both a boon and bane. Millennials are not satisfied just by compensating them well. Their desire to add meaning needs a larger effort from companies to keep them engaged with the company’s larger vision. Millennials look for work which is impactful and fun. Once engaged, they love taking on newer challenges and give more than 100% in ensuring their team’s success. They crave for and thrive in environments which are fun and more open than bureaucratic.
They value flexibility and feel that with newer technological advances, they can work from anywhere. Corporates are shifting gears from fixed working schedules to flexible hours and looking for ways to balance outputs with employee satisfaction. This generation is always looking for instant gratification in terms of their career growths. In the absence of this ability to provide such instant gratifications, high attritions are challenging corporates and making them hunt for sustainable ways of employee engagement.
In your book, you have mentioned various office personality types. Is it a good idea to have the same kinds of people in a team, or mix them up?
The answer to this question will depend on a lot of factors like industry, team size, stage of the company, etc. In my book, there are more than 50 personality types. Some of them fit best in an individual contributor role, the others are better suited for working in teams.
Diversity does bring in a lot of fresh perspectives. But people with different personality types are likely to have more conflicts when working together. Bringing someone who is a risk-taker and teaming him with someone who is not comes with its own set of challenges and opportunities. If the leader can work on resolving personality conflicts, the overall productivity goes levels up. The trick here is to then have effective strong leaders who can play a balancing role. Else, the overall team tends to lose.
Your book deals with diversity in a way. Different working styles, different personality trends. How important is a leader’s role in diversity efforts?
The leader’s role becomes extremely critical in balancing personality conflicts and ensuring people are able to have streamlined processes to resolve the conflicts. Imagine a team having two people – one having a detail orientation and the other biased for action. If the leader cannot balance the two attitudes and form mechanisms to ensure there is extreme of neither but a healthy mix of the two; the team is likely to disintegrate. However, if the leader does manage to show one the importance of the other, then the overall output is both quick and detailed.
Today, when everyone at an entry level has access to the company’s top management and feels an equal stakeholder, the role of a leader in managing diverse expectations and aligning everyone to a common goal becomes the key to a team’s success.
How can you become an entry level leader?
By being passionate, curious, adept at your domain and empowering people around you. The day you realize if people around you stop growing, you would stop growing too is when you have finally worn a leader’s hat.