 Are you a manager trying to understand your millennials? Help is on the way! Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step towards becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. We've heard a lot the last few years about the millennial problem in the workplace. Today I've got four tips for you that will help you A. not view that as a problem and B. approach your millennials effectively so that you can lead them in your workplace. And stay tuned to the end. I'm going to give you a link where you can download our free leadership development plan workbook that will help you set your goals for the next two, five and ten years and build a plan of action to achieve them. A lot has been said in the last few months and few years about the millennial problem in the workplace and in the military it was no different. We started dealing with millennials coming into their very first leadership positions in the air force in the mid-2000s and even though that's a little bit different than a civilian workplace or a corporate environment I think we learned some good lessons that we can apply to the civilian workplace. So the general piece of advice for you before I give you these four tips on how to work with your millennials and lead them effectively is don't view the millennial problem as a problem. Look at this as an opportunity to take advantage of the minds that the millennials bring to the table and use that to accomplish your mission more effectively. And if you're a millennial or you're leading millennials and you've got a different experience or you have some advice or critique on what I'm saying here I'd love to hear from you so leave us a comment I want to get a discussion going about this because I'd like to be able to share these tips and if these tips aren't effective in every case or even not at all I'd love to be able to have a discussion and adapt these tips and refine them to make them effective leadership principles for everyone. Tip number one is to recognize what millennials want. From my experience working with millennials over the last few years in the military and in the civilian world millennials want three things. They want to be heard. They want to participate in the decision-making process and they want their work to have meaning. What's great about this is this is no different from anyone in every other generation. We all want those same things. Millennials have just come to about how to get it a different way. From a very young age millennials were encouraged to pursue their hopes and dreams and they had a much bigger seat at the table when it came to participating in family decision-making processes. Now that's not to cast blame or point fingers at anyone on how we got here. None of that's important. What's important to recognize is millennials view that a little differently. They're used to a much more participative and collaborative decision-making process. Gen Xers like me and even generations that came before we were expected to pay our dues a little bit and to kind of sit quietly and learn before we got to have a seat at the big table making decisions but recognize that millennials come with a different mindset about participating and being collaborative about decision-making can go a long way towards building a strong healthy working relationship with them. Now that you understand that your millennials on your team want exactly the same things that we all want from our careers tip number two as a leader is be flexible where you can. Millennials love flexibility whether it comes with their work schedule or being able to adopt and use the latest technology for example being able to do things from their phone instead of having to sit down at a computer and do it. So as leaders we should look for opportunities to be flexible where we can and when I first got to the rapid reaction squadron in Colorado in early 2007 we had a little bit of tension situation brewing because we had some hardware guys we had some software guys we had some military guys we had some civilians we had some contractors we had a whole mixed bag of people trying to get this mission done and the software guys were very typical software guys they would tend to work late into the night which would mean they would kind of roll in a little later in the day later in the morning or sometimes even in the afternoon and that was causing tension between some of the folks from some of the older generations and the younger generations and so I sat down with the boss and said the commander and said look boss this is what I want to do people are wondering why the software guys can kind of come and go and they please and no one else can I'd like to make it so that we have this flexible work schedule for everyone as long as you meet your deadlines meet your commitments you show up for the things you need to show up for you're not late you're not overtired you're not unproductive I'd like to be able to adopt that for everyone in the squadron not just let the software guys have that privilege the boss was cool with that we did that and that was pretty much how we ran things and it worked really well for the three and a half years I was there so as a leader with millennials look for opportunities where you can be flexible and whether that's on schedule whether that's on how you do the problem but don't limit yourself don't hold back on the standard they need to meet the deadlines they need to meet the timelines they need to meet make sure the project comes out good enough the results come out good enough to meet the standard but let them be flexible and how they figure out how to solve the problem tip number three is to give millennials objectives and not tasks give them a goal to meet and let them figure out how to go solve that problem as we said before set clear standards the result needs to include these things and then there are dealbreakers that if the result includes these things I can't approve it but let them go figure out once they have all the parameters of the problem let them go figure out how to come up with the solution make sure you're clear about any legal or regulatory frameworks they have to meet as part of those standards so don't let them go spin off with a free for all without any guidance at all and if you're a little nervous about this if you're new to let your team have this kind of freedom schedule what I like to call vector checks things I learned from some mentors schedule some vector checks where they check in with you on their progress and the direction they're taking and you can give them guidance on getting them back in that box of parameters if they start to drift out of it finally be a coach and a mentor to your team as we often say here at Evil Genius Leadership one of the most important responsibilities we have as leaders is developing the leaders coming up behind us and this is especially important with millennials because they're looking to have that coaching and mentoring relationship with you and a lot of times what we find uh not just with millennials but with young people in general or people who are new to the work environment that they might come up with an idea for an improvement and that idea may not be fully formed it may not be an idea that we can approve because it's just not fully there yet so if you instead of just saying no take the time to sit down with this person this member of your team and explain to them okay this is where your idea is not fully formed these are the things you would need to do to do the research and put together a plan that would take into perspectives of other take into account perspectives of others and would encompass all the situation that you need to encompass before I could even consider this for approval give them that kind of guidance let them go back and work on it again and let them bring it back to you when they've got it fully formed but take that time to do that coaching and mentoring and the advantage is here you're going to start developing team members who take a leadership role and start taking more initiative to solve the problems on your team before you even know you've got a problem so there are your four tips for effectively leading the millennials on your team and even studying leadership for a while if you've been watching some of our other videos what you're probably thinking to yourself is these aren't unique to leading millennials these are just good leadership principles that we've all been talking about for 20 to 30 years and if you're a millennial or you're leading millennials and you got a different experience like I said earlier I'd love to hear from you leave us a comment or send us an email because what I'd love to do is continue this discussion and be able to refine these tips so that they can help the most people get them out there so they can help others and there's a piece of the puzzle I'm missing I'd really love to know about that so please share your experiences leave us a comment or shoot us an email and what I really want everyone to take away what I really hope you'll take away is that let's not treat this as a millennial problem let's just recognize that when a new generation or new people come into the workforce no matter what their background they all want the same things and that using good leadership principles can help us bridge that gap between what's different about us and we can all find what's the same and effectively accomplish our missions if you found this helpful please like comment and share it with a friend or co-worker click on that link below in the description that'll take you to where you can download our free leadership development plan a workbook that'll help you to set your goals for the next two five and ten years in your career and build a plan of action to achieve them if you have any leadership or business questions leave them in the comments below for us we'd love to hear from you or email us at info at evilgeniusleadership.com evilgeniusleadership.com is also where you can find all of our coaching programs and other information about how we can work with you if you've got some sticking points or are looking for a little more one-on-one training to develop your leadership style thanks for watching today I really appreciate it and remember the future is out there lead the way