Conquering the Digital Divide: Old School vs the Modern Millennial
Are your ideas lost on out-of-touch senior management?
Conversely, do you feel surrounded by self-entitled know it alls?
My friends, I am here to help you both.
Amongst a slew of other things, I moderate experiential strategy workshops. Listen, these aren’t your typical workshops. They are highly customized, immersive, sometimes physically challenging (that’s a half joke), experiences that you absolutely must experience for yourself sometime. These incredibly fun, but intense full day sessions always involve a blend of disciplines and perspectives designed to get the core team out of consensus group thinking and into creative idea generation as rapidly as possible. Teams enter with a problem and leave with answers and a plan. It’s a beautiful thing.
Yes. So, on to my actual point…
An attendee of this one of these sessions was a young rising star is essentially an internal service provider with a lot of great ideas. Trouble is, he is frustrated that he’s become an order taker from “out-of-touch upper management” who just want things their way and aren’t open to his better solutions. From his perspective, their old school close-minded ways keep him and the organization from doing the right things in digital. By the time they come to him, it’s their way and it’s not up for debate.
Does this feel familiar to you?
My message to him was simple and clear. “First, show a little respect. They’ve been around a while and there’s a lot you can learn from them. There’s a lot you can teach them too if they were comfortable enough with you. You need to earn their trust and respect.”
[Insert indignant eye roll from rising star here.]
Rising stars, here’s a little perspective from the opposing side… No one wants to be old school. No one intends to slowly slip into industry irrelevance. But, in today’s world, things can happen quicker than our ability to acknowledge it. And once in that situation, it can feel difficult to ask for help and even more daunting to know where to start. Try to be a little empathetic — that could be you someday.
Many people faced with this challenge revert to their comfort zone of known behaviors. They’ll avoid new methods or concepts out of fear of feeling inadequate or worse, irrelevant (aka “old school”). At this point, it’s about sustaining the status quo and trying to keep their jobs. This is where the rub is with the Modern Millennial, who had been cultivated to challenge that same closed-minded stagnation.
The problem here, is that no one taught the up-and-comers how to help others adapt to the world they were tasked to change.
This brilliant young workforce was in most cases, just thrown into a classic office environment under some lame misconception that it would all just magically work out.
What you’re left with is an analog-born workforce (who, please don’t forget, successfully built up the organization) through hard work and determination. And forcibly blended with them, is this rogue group of digital native up-and-comers who feel frustrated with the mindset misalignment.
This puts everyone involved in an uncomfortable, unproductive place where the corporate culture is frayed and exponential success is inhibited.
The struggle is real… I’ve lived it.
Imagine how different the organization would be if these opposing forces complemented one another.
If your strong ideas have ever been shut down by someone more senior than you, you probably identify with this young, frustrated professional. But, had you ever considered that the knowledge and experience that seasoned veterans of your organization have can help improve your ideas? Let’s explore that a bit in a sec.
As with all things in life, don’t be a dick.
Be polite. Really listen and learn as much as you can. Take notes. Ask empathetic questions that help you understand what’s really needed and see beyond what’s being requested. Know that they have a vast amount of knowledge you don’t. Only after this, take a moment to offer your perspective in plain, approachable language. Don’t attempt to use jargon or acronyms (that’s what insecure dicks do, just so ‘ya know). Alienating the other person with fancy language doesn’t make you sound any smarter or helpful. On the other hand, if they use this type of language with you just say “It sounds interesting, I’d like to learn more about thI’m not following. Can you explain it to me so I understand? It helps me help you better.”
If you want your ideas to be respected, you must first demonstrate respect. Remember how you respond has everything to do with the reaction you’ll receive.
Forget the small talk at the water cooler. Instead, use these quick and informal interactions to share a new idea or concept.
Whenever possible, open dialogue with these individuals ahead of their requests. Tell them about something new that you learned and why you think it might interest them. Over time this relationship you’ve built will make them more prone to ask for your advice versus demanding a specific outcome. This trust gets you a seat at the table instead of the production line.
Seasoned Professionals, I haven’t forgotten about you!
If you relate more to the seasoned professional in this scenario, there’s something for you to learn here too. Sure, it’s frustrating to ask for something and just want it to be done, only to get challenged by some ‘kid straight out of college’. After all, you’re the expert on the subject, right?
The thing is, there’s a good chance you’re not being challenged about the context of your request. It’s more likely that they’re suggesting a new way convey that idea so it’s more approachable in new mediums (they may just suck at expressing it). Hear ‘the kid’ out. Challenge them back by asking how they think the result will be different than how you asked for it. See if you can work together and build off one another’s ideas to come up with something even better.
You’ll gain, not lose, respect by continuing to be open minded to things you’re not the expert in. You don’t have to be a digital guru to be great in digital.
Contrary to what you may feel, you won’t deprecate yourself in the process of asking for help or perspective from a subordinate. You have an immersive, invaluable wealth of industry knowledge that needed to be transferred to the next generation. Strive to form trusted and mutually beneficial alliances with a deserving, positively minded, respectful rising star. Mentor them. Like it or not, they are the future leaders. Teach them the necessary communication and people skills that they lack. In exchange, they’ll teach you the gist of what they know and help you make more grounded decisions.
Partnership is Power… Have an eye for spotting unpolished talent and mentor them.
And while you’ll be the envy of your peers for cracking the millennial code, you’ll know the only secret to it all was “help and be helped”.
As a Strategist, I’ve learned to love talking to non-digitals, especially those with deep experience in areas I’m not an SME (subject matter expert) in. It helps ground me and see in between the lines to uncover new opportunities.
I find that once they’re comfortable, they love to talk about what they’re knowledgeable in. I learn so much about how to improve digital interactions by listening closely to those who aren’t as affected by them.
In exchange, I help them solve problems and teach them how their knowledge can be easily applied to address these challenges in a fresh, new way. In fact, helping them through their challenges often helps me generate new ideas I hadn’t considered previously.
It’s a productive exchange of ideas that leaves everyone better off afterward. Don’t believe me? Try it and tell me how it turns out for you. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
You see where I’m going here… Listen. Learn. Teach.
We’re all struggling to be relevant, authoritative and respected.
The path to getting and staying there isn’t about demonstrating dominance over others. It’s about being as enthusiastically open to learning as you are to teach. Whether you’re that rising star or the seasoned pro, genuinely offer help without expecting it in return. You may be surprised how much you both learn in the process.
Whom can you help today?
More importantly, can I help you?
Wishing you all the best,
Elizabeth Castillo
