The Challenges facing Millennials and how great Leadership wins
Watch Simon Sinek explain the Millennial generation?s challenges, and begin to understand where to apply great leadership to achieve your Strategic Business Plans.
This video clip broke the internet?? with about 55 million views of the Facebook video upload so far, and in case you have not seen it?? it is one of the best, most eloquent and enlightened summary of a sector of our workforce that some areas of management still struggle to understand.
The greatest challenge in understanding the ?other side?s viewpoint?is simply that we do not take enough time to truly empathize with others. Once we master the emotionally intelligent skill of empathy, and start to put ourselves in other people?s shoes, then we can start to make headway towards the goals and measures that will lead to operational success and realization of our Strategic Plans.
Leadership of businesses – and the strategies that companies devise for the delivery of their business results ? is not a one-way street. Great leaders understand that for their vision to become the business reality, it takes buy-in from all levels of personnel in the organization.
In devising the road map to take the organization from point A to point B, great management thinkers and leaders will break down each component part of their strategic business plan to ensure that the bite-sized chunks set as steps in the process are manageable for the people who will carry out those activities.
It starts with VISION
This starts with the Vision and the end destination in mind, but along that journey each team and team member will have input into where to focus and how to deliver the steps that will lead to that vision?s success. This is the most important element to success. As you heard in the video, the instant gratification that Millennials seek can be a liability, but it can also be turned into a powerful motivator when the right environment and culture is used. Motivating for short term goals within a broader big-picture Strategic Plan is going to yield far more success, and eliminate some of the despondency that Millennials can suffer.
So, if you are setting out the To-Do list to take action on your New Year?s resolutions, start by outlining the Vision and what the end result ought to look like.
Then take account of the people that are going to assist you in achieving that result, and be sure to allow them the opportunity to voice their ideas for how to bring this to fruition.
Be sure to include key measurements and motivators that appeal to those involved yet also align with the broader goals.
This is where the skills of the leadership in the business will be tested. There will be differing approaches to the direction that leadership will take, to motivate and challenge the smaller teams to give their best efforts. The approaches will vary depending on the business; the team demographic (Millennials may or may not be a large part of any separate team!); even the cultural background of the team members as multinationals can also struggle sometimes to roll-out big-picture plans across different countries and cultures.
When business leaders devise and roll-out Strategic Business Plans, these need to take account of the complexities likely to be encountered across the different areas of the organization. So, even with a simple SME strategic plan, there are potentially a multitude of small steps and measurements that will be used to monitor progress at team or demographic level. Millennials are just one more point to consider.
So, go on, watch this video. Understand (with empathy) that different generations have different values and points of reference. The video is not taking a swipe at Millennials nor is it taking a hard line against the senior management who may be Baby-Boomers (after all some of the management may well be young-gun Millennials). Understand that the nuances of leadership adaptability ? depending on the audience are the key elements.
This is the oft-spoken emotional intelligence skill, and it has to be paired with intelligent strategic planning skills, not just to achieve Plan A, nor to account for the possibility of the unforeseen leading to Plan B, but for the deeper elements that will impact success! The needs to be thought around the Plan C part of the road-map ? to account for culture, demographics and the human element that will ensure ultimate success of the Strategic Plan.
It?s interesting to note the commotion that this video caused ? clearly it touched a nerve ? even though Simon Sinek, the speaker/author, researched the content and was only replying to the most common question he was always being asked. Simon has gone on to post a follow-up to this video.
Available here:
