[MUSIC]
I've really enjoyed this conversation and
I want to turn to another angle and that is promotion.
What do you say to a millennial, hey, I've worked here for six months.
I want to be promoted.
How do you deal with people like that?
Do you say shut up?
>> [LAUGH] Even if you're feeling that inside, that's the wrong answer.
>> Okay.
>> You basically want to make sure that they understand, and you communicate
clearly what is the path to promotion, how long does it take on average,
kind of low end, and high end and what are the criteria.
It comes back to being transparent, and setting clear goals and expectations for
people, and it's not like they're going to go somewhere else and get promoted
in six months in a well functioning company that's doing the right thing.
If you run your company well, and
you communicate well with your people, they'll be okay though, they'll get there.
We were all young and aggressive once.
They're not that different than when we were when we were their age.
We were all type A wanted to get promoted and manage lots of people and
wanted to be 28 and CEO of a huge organization and it took longer.
>> [LAUGH] >> Is that what it is, Michelle?
>> I mean, there's a little bit of undercurrent of this instant
gratification, society, right?
And so this goes back to wanting things faster, sooner, etc.
>> Right.
>> So it is about clear expectations setting,
it is about I think you tell them to bide their time, that's not going to work.
So it is about these are the skill sets that you have to bring to bear.
And what often happens or
what I'm seeing is that when someone has been a great individual contributor, and
they've had success, that is often than the chance that they have to now step up
into managerial role because we know that's a different skill set, right?
And so
there's a paradox here where your success has been being an individual contributor.
And now your success also needs to be tied to the employee that you manage, and
making sure that the incentive alignment within the company is supportive of that,
and also to tease out what does that look like to be a good manager.
The group that I work with of millennials, they are constantly asking for
feedback [LAUGH] but also for how do I do this better?
Can you provide me some tools?
Where's the starting point?
I know how to do this, but I have this operational technical competence.
But how do I translate that to them?
Just there's so
many questions to get to that next level that needs to be addressed.
And I think in the conversations of why not six months say,
well, it's not just about the job you're doing now.
There's a whole world out there that you're going to have to be prepared for.
So I'm going to help you talk about understand what those hurdles are, and
we're going to build towards that.
>> And so
the other thing that Michelle said that's really important is the criteria changes,
what does it mean to be a good manager versus a good individual contributor?
And I found that your ability to skills a leader, the variable that's
got the biggest impact on it is the quality of your direct reports.
And so hiring good people, developing good people and
allowing them to shine, that's what a good manager and a good leader does.
And so I think you're trying to help your younger generation of leaders as they're
evolving, understand that it's no longer really about them.
That being about them is by building a great team of people around them that
make them look good.
Not that they do all the work, but did you develop them?
That's when somebody says, that's a leader I want to follow.
>> So you said what a model of an inspirational leader is for millennials?
Somebody who makes them better?
>> There's probably a million books on this topic of being an inspirational
leader.
The one thing that I think is very tactical but
sometimes gets missed is before they're ever even in the seat,
before some of you mention the seat, there's the hiring process.
And the pace that needs to happen in that hiring process are really important to
making sure you get the right people in the seat,
to making sure that you're the right leader for them.
And the back in the old day there was an interview maybe we had a case study
something like that.
Many companies now are turning toward aptitude tests, personality profiling
to help them get a little more texture around the individual that's coming in.
And you're always shooting a little bit in the dark.
You hope it's going to work, you hope the fits there, but you don't know for sure.
Some of the tests add that additional layer of information.
So that's where I think sometimes gets skipped.
You think you're starting with a static space of employees and
you just need to be an inspirational leader and you hire right [LAUGH] and
it goes to Rob's favorite, that direct report,
how successful you are is how successful those direct reports are on the ride.
>> All right.