It’s a millennial world. You’re just trying to do business in it.
Musicians don’t need a record label anymore. Writers don’t need a Big Four publisher anymore. And probably the biggest change of all — employees don’t need a big company to guide their career trajectories for them anymore. There is a new generation of workers who are feasting on an a-la-carte menu of multiple employers, side hustles, freelance gigs and passion projects.
This is made possible by unrestricted access to an array of resources that help them make their most ambitious ideas a reality outside their 9–5 employer’s walls — from getting funding to the marketing and distribution of their ideas:
It’s a free-for-all. And it’s fantastic.
That is, unless you happen to be running one of the big companies still clinging to the idea that young employees ought to be grateful for the opportunity for lifetime employment as a mindless cog. In that case you might be feeling a little crabby. In fact, the narrative around millennial workers in corporate America and in the business press has been pretty much unrelentingly negative. We hear millennials are lazy, self-involved, job-hopping, freeloaders. We hear they need a trophy for just showing up. We hear they are needy, constantly asking for feedback (get this) outside the normal yearly performance review cadence (WTF!??!). Worse, they want their voices heard and to actually feel the impact of the work they do in the world.
As you read about these reactions and judgements from on high, you get the palpable sense that the folks in charge are mostly hoping it’ll all just blow over. Wait… what’s that smell? Oh yeah… that’s definitely eau du magical thinking. So let’s hop on the back of that unicorn over there and take a quick gallop back to reality, shall we?
In 2016, Millennials became the largest slice of the American workforce pie at a whopping 35%, and their dominance is steadily growing. Gen Z are right behind them (for anyone keeping score, Gen Z has been described, both behaviorally and temperamentally, as “millennials on steroids.” The headline here is they aren’t going away. From here on out, it’s a millennial world. You’re just trying to do business in it.
What does this mean? Well first, if you recruit for, or lead, a team at a large or even mid-sized employer, it means you need more than a new recruiting strategy — you need a new world view. You need to let go of the idea that millennials need to change, and embrace the idea that YOU need to change. You need to lean in to the idea that the way to win is to actually become a lighthouse for this new generation — the kind of place that is built to attract and retain folks who want to work differently. Embrace the idea that the way to win is to encourage a culture of intrapreneurship among your youngest employees.
Step two is to unleash all of their pent-up creative energy to solve problems that matter to you and your company. Unleashing means relinquishing some control, giving young workers a voice… and sometimes the reins. You need to provide a process and tools that allow them to advance their ideas and connect with the right people and resources within your company to make those ideas a reality. If that process is easily learnable, repeatable, and transmissible, over time you’ll find yourself leading an army of motivated, capable, and experienced intrapreneurs. And you will find yourself effortlessly attracting hordes of millennials hungry to git ’er done on your behalf.
Step three is recognizing and rewarding those who go above and beyond for your organization. Hard incentives, like money, can be motivating for sure. But softer things like public recognition of skills and achievements can be even stronger motivators. Once you’ve identified your brightest stars, it’s important to support their future efforts. This might mean professional development courses. Or maybe giving them some cash to prototype their next idea. These types of rewards are a win-win because they benefit both your intrapreneurs and your organization.
We’re trying to make all this more Doable. I mean that quite literally — we’ve built a software tool called Doable that helps employees to become better intrapreneurs inside companies of all sizes. It also helps enlightened leadership to unleash the creativity of their staff and to identify and support their most valuable contributors. Right now, teams in over 200 companies are using it to solve problems and seize opportunities. The biggest lesson we’ve learned so far, is that innovation driven from the bottom up creates powerful results.
We are going to continue to document the lessons we learn from being inside these organizations. Anyone reading this and using Doable should feel free to reach out to us to share their feedback and ideas to make it better. Without honest conversation about what’s working and what isn’t, a more intrapreneurial future just ain’t Doable.
