Managing Millennials Part 3

This is the third in a series about Millennials. You can read part 1 here, and part 2, here.
The Millennial Kool-Aid
When we use a label to describe a group of people, we tend to assume it implies uniformity. When it comes to the label “Millennial,” this is definitely not the case.
A talented manager I am acquainted with, responsible for leading a large department, told me a story about being approached by a team member seeking advancement. This was a fascinating conversation for me to hear about because both are Millennials.
For the sake of clarity, I’m going to call the team member “MM”.
MM was a talented worker, capable of handling complex projects and possessing a very good rapport with clients. But MM was also routinely late to work, frequently showing up after 11am, sometimes not until Noon. It was something the manager had addressed with MM on multiple occasions.
Recounting their conversation, the Manager told me, “They asked how to get to the next level, and I said, ‘first, you have to get here on time! Before 10am, on a regular basis’, and they responded, ‘but I am working in the morning. I’m on email and phone, I’m just working from home.’”. The manager laughed in exasperation. “I tried to explain to MM, you can’t lead a team and not be present — you have to actually be in the building. One of your most important jobs as a manager is to be a point of escalation, and you never know when people are going to need you.”
This is a downside to the connectedness Millennials are so adept at in the digital world. They’re so used to functioning in decentralized systems, they don’t always perceive the value of connecting in person.
But just because you’re online doesn’t mean you’re connected.
I’ve seen people regularly skip general status meetings whenever they feel they don’t have a lot to report on individually. Others, when not engaged directly in a meeting, are prone to having sidebar discussions about work or social life while other team members are presenting. When priorities shift between projects they can bail out on one project without notifying the participants or properly handing off their responsibilities.
When one individual I managed had challenges showing up to a regular team meeting, I had a one-on-one conversation with them. I gently reminded them that being physically present and actively listening to your co-workers accomplishes some important things:
- You develop a more complete picture of the overall work in your group and are prepared to step in if co-workers are out sick or unavailable
- Your presence alone visibly demonstrates respect for your co-workers and fosters a sense of community and shared responsibility
They insisted they felt those qualities of respect and awareness. I was clear they had to demonstrate it visibly to have an impact. Because Millennials tend to have a strong awareness of social betterment, I tried to frame this guidance as a way to contribute meaningfully to the group as a whole, not just to obey my authority.
I also underscored that taking this kind of action is a strong indicator someone might be ready to run a larger team, opening the door to promotion as a reward.
When managing, consider:
- Whenever possible, try to communicate about problems in person
- Avoid referencing your personal authority to incentivize behavior, instead focus on the behavior’s effect on peers, and on potential rewards
- Make sure to cite examples of the team members existing positive behavior that benefits the group
Lost in Translation
Some of the most consistent feedback I hear about Millennials centers on their use of written language.
I asked one Millennial manager what they thought about working with other team members from their generation. “Things are often done quickly, with passion and imagination, but they’re not polished. There’s definitely a casualness and lack of emphasis on spelling or grammar in communication.”
This jibes with a more senior colleague who said, “They can be less polished in terms of how to deal with clients, what language to use in emails, what is appropriate/inappropriate, formal vs overly familiar. [They have] poor attention to detail: spelling mistakes drive me mad! Or simple things like getting a client’s name wrong in an email.”
If we accept that technology changes so rapidly it creates generational groups that are literally foreign to each other, it makes sense these groups would speak different languages as well. Unlike previous generational shifts, when technology created new phrases or shifts in the formality of communication (“groovy” in the ’60s, “totally” in the ’80s) Millennials have invented entirely new forms of vocabulary, grammar and syntax.
Thousands of acronyms, LOL, SMH, IDK, have, IMHO* become part of our formal lexicon. Emojis, a completely pictographic language, are used to construct complex sentences, and those who are fluent with them are celebrated for their wit and inventiveness.
*for those who get the jk. ;-)
We cannot dismiss these new languages as childish babble. They are causing real changes in communication within even the most formal institutions.
A colleague who serves a large financial institution remarked, “I was talking with my clients yesterday about how they appreciated the casual environment we [Millennials] created. ‘Why make it formal when it doesn’t need to be’ was a direct quote, from my banking client. A bank! A financial institution rooted in more than 40 years of corporate bureaucracy. We text our bosses and clients the same way we text our friends. We wear sneakers and jeans to work every day. It equates to how we view the world. I don’t need a suit to be an expert, and I don’t need every “i” dotted or “t” crossed to bring value.”
Even so, not everyone has been drinking the Millennium Kool-Aid. We have to balance this cultural shift with an awareness that there are business partners and senior managers for whom formality and detail are important symbols of trust and stability.
Just as an emoji sentence is hard for a Boomer or older Gen X-er to decode, important subtleties of tone in an email may not be as immediately apparent to a Millennial.
Consider the way people in the U.S. pass out business cards to colleagues: often they’re dealt out across the table like cards at a poker game. That simple gesture is highly insulting to someone from Japan, who will ceremoniously extend their card with both hands, making eye contact with each individual, one at a time. No one in the US intends their quick and efficient distribution as an insult, but more effective people will make an effort to be sensitive and respectful of different cultural values.
I think this metaphor of different cultures can be very helpful when we think about how Millennials communicate with older generations. If we assume most people want to show respect for each other but might not know the proper way to express it, we can help Millennials understand the importance of context for different communications.
- Highlight the differences of a client’s culture
- Explain that, for some people, casual tone signals a lack of commitment
- Encourage Millennials to observe the communication style of a senior manager or client at first, just as they would someone from a foreign country and to mirror their tone and precision in written communication
- Remind them to give relationships time to grow, and that casual communication is sometimes a reward earned after establishing mutual trust
The Devil You Know (is Still The Devil)
This story is a cautionary tale about overconfidence in your own value system.
In 2006 I was invited to participate as a consultant in a key leadership meeting to devise strategy for group of agencies serving the pharmaceutical industry. From a history in print publishing, the group had grown into very profitable business creating interactive products on CD and DVD/ROM. Of course, a large portion of the conversation focused on new technologies and growth opportunities.
At one point, someone switched the powerpoint slide, showing an image of a discussion board on a public website for individuals living with a particular disease. An early form of peer-to-peer social media, it was a place they could share stories about their medical treatment and experiences.
The reaction in the room was incredible. The message board was openly mocked and disparaged. The top medical director for the company said, “These things are flat out dangerous. People don’t know what kind of information is on that thing.” A senior executive pointed at the message board and said, “Of all the things we’ve looked at today, that one scares me.” The group’s CEO said, “The industry we work for will never tolerate being involved in communication that can’t be regulated by compliance. They’ll never advertise next to it, or post anything on it. It’s a dead end.”
That same year Twitter had launched and Facebook had opened its platform to the public. I mentioned the explosive growth of those platforms as proof that social media was meeting a definite need. As to their business value, I cited YouTube, a 1-year old video sharing network that had just been acquired by Google for $1.5 Billion. The president of one of the agencies was contemptuous. “If teenagers need to waste their time pushing out dumb videos and stupid comments, let them.”
That entire agency group is no longer in existence, which probably goes without saying.
The point I want to make is, I hear striking similarities between the executives in that room and some of my colleagues today when they talk about Millennials. They’re expressing anger and derision at something invasive and different, something that challenges convention. But just because a group of people in power have a unity of opinion about the way the world works doesn’t mean they’re right. We should at least consider the possibility Millennials are behaving reasonably for the world they live in.
Darwin’s theory of evolution is often misquoted. It’s not the strongest who survive, but those who are best able to adapt to change in their environment. And today, the world is changing more ever more rapidly, at a pace that will only accelerate.
While we struggle to adapt our businesses and careers to these swiftly evolving times, it might help to consider unconventional points of view that aren’t clouded by historical assumptions. And we just might start by asking Millennials for those ideas.

Stuart Hynson Culpepper is a Group Director of Product and Experience for Havas NY, where he works at the intersection of media, digital interface and community.
