YPLS #2 — We’ll Never Be Successful Leading Millennials If We Don’t Get This Right

The Story

Cole played a number of sports growing up.

His favorite though was football.

The reason, his dad was always the coach.

So from the time he was five up until middle school his teams played close to a hundred games only losing a handful of them.

Now there were a couple reasons for his team’s success.

The first had to do with the lessons his father taught them out on the field.

One of the more valuable lessons being:

It was their beliefs and perceptions that they had about their teammates that would influence and shape each other’s behaviors.

The second reason for their success (specifically Cole’s) was because he could always sense that his dad had the belief that he was going to realize his dream of playing division one college football for a power five conference.

Now it’s important to note that Cole was never the most talented player. Nor was he the biggest, strongest or fastest.

However, that never seemed to matter. It was never even an issue.

The reason being that Cole’s father always spoke to him as the type of player that he knew he could become. He always had Cole focusing on his strengths along with his potential and not once did he let him focus on his limitations.

In addition, Cole’s father constantly reminded him that while he might not have the most natural and god gifted talents, that was ok. It was ok because it wasn’t something that he could control. Therefore, it was never something that he should worry about.

That being said, Cole’s father knew that there was one thing he could always control:

His ability to give the perfect effort and outwork his peers.

It was this simple lesson that led to Cole being on the field every morning at 5am so he could get his training in before school and team practice in the evenings.

He’d spend hours every day working on the fundamentals. He’d spent hours building up his strength and conditioning. He’d spent hours becoming a student of the game.

While all of his friends spent their free time playing video games and just hanging out, Cole was making sacrifices. Sacrifices that led him to making the perfect effort day in and day out while also ensuring that he was always outworking his peers… And you know what?

It paid off.

Cole ended up realizing his dream of playing division one college football for a power five conference.

The Purpose

Here’s why I share this story with you.

There’s a concept in psychology called the Rosenthal Effect (also known as the Pygmalion Effect).

It’s a phenomenon whereby the expectations we have of others oftentimes has an impact on their performance.

For example…

If we hold someone to a higher expectation oftentimes it leads to an increase in performance. The same can be said when we hold someone to a lower expectation.

To bring this concept into play, a number of years ago Cole realized that his father used the Rosenthal Effect on him throughout his own life. He held him to a higher expectation and standard than anyone else ever did, which led to him achieving what most thought was impossible.

Well we need to take this same principle and apply it to the millennials within our companies.

I say this because it’s all too easy to forget the impact that our beliefs (conscious and subconscious) have on others.

This is critical to note because it’s our beliefs that not only drive our behaviors but influence the behaviors of others as well. These behaviors then drive culture and it’s our culture that determines our level of effectiveness when it comes to attracting, developing and retaining millennials.

Thus the reason why we need to bring clarity to our beliefs about millennials before we do anything else. For its these beliefs that will ultimately determine whether you’ll be able to successfully execute the strategies that we’ll be covering throughout this series.

The Exercise

So the question we have to address is:

How do we leverage the Rosenthal Effect ensuring that we attract, develop and retain the top young talent in our respective industries?

The answer comes down to two components:

1. Create clarity of our current beliefs about millennials.
2. Give millennials a Model of Excellence (MOE).

Before reading on, do me a favor real quick and download the YPLS Tool as we’ll be walking step by step through it from here on out.

Component #1 — Clarity of Beliefs

Once you’ve downloaded the tool turn to page two where the title reads, “Millennial Beliefs Clarifier”.

Now it’s this part of the tool that’s going to help you leverage the Rosenthal Effect by creating clarity of your current beliefs about millennials.

So here’s what you’re going to do…

First, you’re going to identify the top three beliefs you have about millennials. You’ll understand the importance of this simple exercise once we run through an example.

Second, you’re going to label these beliefs as being either positive or negative.

Third, you’re going to determine the impact of this belief.

If it’s a positive belief, you’ll answer the question…

How has this belief positively impacted your behaviors when leading millennials?

If it’s a negative belief, you’ll answer the question…

How has this belief negatively impacted your behaviors when leading millennials?

So let’s run through a quick example by saying that one of our beliefs about millennials is:

They’re disloyal and only looking out for their best interests.

This being a negative belief we’d answer the question:

How has this belief negatively impacted your behaviors when leading millennials?

And a possible answer could be:

By having this belief it has made us very skeptical and hesitant to hire millennials. In fact, we’re always looking for reasons not to hire them. I mean why would we want to invest in them if they’re only going to leave our company within a couple of years.That being said, by not hiring millennials this has led to uncertainty about the future of our company. It has negatively impacted our ability to hit our growth goals and we don’t have the young talent for a successful perpetuation.

You’d take a similar approach when answering the question about a positive belief.

Again, it’s our beliefs that drive behaviors. It’s our behaviors that drive culture and it’s our culture that determines how effective we are when it comes to attracting, developing and retaining millennials.

That’s why we need to bring clarity to our beliefs before we do anything else.

Component #2 — Model of Excellence

The second component that will help us leverage the Rosenthal Effect is by giving millennials a MOE.

However, before we get into it I need to make sure I’m making myself clear on three things.

First, when we give millennials a MOE, I’m not saying that we should try to make them become someone they’re not. If that was the case we would never have any success in attracting, developing and retaining them.

What I am saying though is that we need to hold them to a higher standard.

We do this in the following way:

Give them clarity of the beliefs and behaviors they need to develop in order to excel their careers; specifically, as it relates to their position within our companies. Then we must hold them accountable to displaying these beliefs and behaviors on a consistent basis.

In other words, we need to provide them with the guidance and structure on how to become the best version of themselves that they can become. An approach that Cole’s father implemented when leveraging the Rosenthal Effect as well.

Second, the MOE should be used with every millennial in your company (regardless of their position).

Third, you’ll get the best results when you complete the MOE with your millennials.

That being said, here’s an example of how this tool can be filled out.

Let’s say that we just hired a new millennial salesperson.

So in the field titled “Position”, we’d type in “Salesperson”.

Next, we’re going to work together with our millennial salesperson to create a compelling vision of what their career will look like when they excel in this position.

Now the vision needs to be compelling because we want to give them the leverage they need that will drive them to produce at optimal levels early on in their career.

So the first thing we must do when helping our millennial salesperson create their vision is to effectively communicate all the benefits that come with their position.

These benefits could include:

• Having the freedom and flexibility to control their schedule as their success will ultimately be determined by their ability to produce and not the number of hours they work.
• Having the opportunity to sell a product that makes a significant impact in their clients’ businesses.
• Not having a cap on the level of income that they can produce.

By communicating these benefits beforehand it will help us give the millennial salesperson the foundation needed to build their compelling vision.

If you’d like a reference of a vision that might be compelling to a millennial, here’s an example of what it might like to a young salesperson:

Every day I wake up eager and excited for my job because I work for a company that gives me complete autonomy. They give me the freedom and flexibility to work in ways that allow me to produce at my best. However, they also give me the structure, training and support to ensure that I’m always experiencing new levels of growth.

I also sell a product that is making a significant impact in our clients’ businesses. Because of my belief in this product it has helped me become one of the top salespeople in the company.

This has led to a couple things.

First it has helped me create an incredible quality of life for me and my family. We go on weekend trips at least once a month and it has given me the freedom to create my own schedule, which allows me to leave work early so I can coach my kids little league team.

Second, it has put me in a position to acquire ownership in the company. Now being an owner, there’s another level of excitement and variety to my career.

Third, I’m now the Director of Sales giving me the opportunity to train our newest salespeople. Teaching others has turned into one of my greatest passions in life.

Again the purpose of this part of the tool is to help our millennial salesperson create a vision of what their career will look like when they excel in their position. A vision that is so compelling that it will drive them to produce at optimal levels early on in their career.

Now that we’ve created the compelling vision we need to help the millennial salesperson define their outcomes. Outcomes that when achieved will lead them to realizing this vision.

Since we’re using the example of the millennial salesperson, their outcomes will come down to their ability to produce revenue.

So on page four in the “Annual Outcome” field we’ll work with them to determine their annual production goal. This will be followed by creating their monthly production goals, which we’ll type in the “Monthly Outcomes” fields.

Next up is one of the most important sections of the MOE.

The reason being that this is where we’ll be helping them create clarity around the type of person they need to become in order to excel in their position.

To put it another way, this is where we’ll be helping them define the beliefs and behaviors they need to adopt in order to achieve their monthly and annual outcome(s).

So turn to page five of the tool and you’ll see that we’ve included fields for beliefs and behaviors.

As mentioned above, these beliefs and behaviors will need to be in alignment with the outcomes(s) that the millennial salesperson created on page four.

Here are a few examples:

Beliefs

1. What I have to offer is so valuable that it’s unethical of me not to give an all out effort when selling my company’s product.
2. Every rejection I face is meant to test my level of commitment. Therefore, I will persist until I succeed. Then I will persist again. I will not be denied.
3. If I’m not able to sell what I have to offer then I will be hurting my prospects, their companies and their families.
4. My prospects absolutely need what I have to offer. In fact, this is their only option because there is no better option. They just don’t know it yet and it’s on me to make sure that they do.
5. I will be in the top percent of all salespeople in my industry. For one of the greatest skills that one can acquire in life is the ability to sell, influence and effectively communicate with others.

Behaviors

1. I will make 50+ calls a day.
2. I will deliver at least 8 prospect sales presentations a week.
3. I will attend at least 3 events that my prospects and clients will be at every month.
4. I will reach out to at least 7 clients a week with resources, connections, etc. that will advance their top initiatives for the year.
5. I will schedule at least 10 minutes every morning to practice my sales presentation, role play, etc.
6. I will consistently follow up with prospects (even when they say no) until they become clients.
7. I will read at least one book and/or attend one conference a month that will advance my skills and build my business acumen.
8. I will hold myself to a higher standard than anyone else ever could while also making sure that I’m always exceeding the expectations of my prospects, clients and colleagues.

Having now gone through those examples that brings us to the end of the tool.

Once completed, we’ll want to make sure that we both have a copy of it.

There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, our millennials need to know exactly what’s expected of them.

That’s why we designed the MOE in the way that we did.

It’s a highly effective resource that will provide our millennials with the clarity and structure that they need to excel early on in their careers.

Second, we must stress the importance and purpose to our millennials that they review their MOE at least two times a day throughout the first six weeks on the job.

The reason being that they need to be consistently conditioning their minds to display these new beliefs and behaviors.

Third, we must always be speaking to them as the type of person they need to become in order to become a top performer in their position and this tool will play an instrumental role in making this happen.

As for the importance of this, just think back to the story in the beginning of the post and the impact Cole’s father had on him simply by implementing this strategy.

Recap & Key Takeaways

So that brings us back to the question that was asked earlier:

How do we leverage the Rosenthal Effect ensuring that we attract, develop and retain the top young talent in our respective industries?

Well as we just covered the answer comes down to the two components:

1. Create clarity of our current beliefs about millennials.
2. Give millennials a Model of Excellence (MOE).

With that being said, if there’s one principle you can take away from this post that will deliver immediate results in your company and in the lives of your millennials it would be this:

The beliefs and perceptions that we have about others influences and shapes their behavior.

While it’s a simple principle to understand it’s one that few take advantage of. It’s also one of the reasons why many are still looking for answers when it comes to leading millennials.

The fact of the matter is that we can implement the most effective strategies out there when it comes to attracting, developing and retaining millennials (which, I’ll be giving you throughout this series). However, we’ll never create the results we desire if we focus on the negative stereotypes and perceived limitations that are associated with the millennial generation.

Instead we must see millennials as each being unique in their own ways. We must focus on their strengths and capabilities. We must see the good in them. Then we must speak to them as the type of person we know they’re capable of becoming.

For those that take what you’ve learned here today and fully commit to implementing it, you’ll experience a level of loyalty and performance from your millennials that has never been experienced before.

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