Reasons behind Gen Y faltering at the workplace

Born in the 1980′s or 90′s and struggling to succeed in your career? Devashish Chakravarty tells you where you could be going wrong

Millennials or Gen Y were born in the early ’80s to late ’90s and would have joined the workstream in the new millennium. They breathe life and energy into workplaces, and are also India’s demographic dividend. However, many of them are struggling to succeed. Here are a few reasons for their failure and ways to avoid them.

I DO EVERYTHING, ALL THE TIME

You are a multi-tasker, comfortable wearing both professional and personal identities all the time. This keeps you grounded. However, older colleagues resent your personal life interruptions during work and are disturbed by your Facebook notifications, time spent on WhatsApp or family calls. Your inability to switch off office worries during family time and vice versa, distracts you and impacts your performance. Practise separating your work and personal spaces by setting clear time and habit boundaries.

CAN’T DECIDE ALONE

Gen X parents and teachers have taught GenY to favour collective decision making. Thus, you always discuss before making decisions and try not to rub people the wrong way . However, this behaviour harms your career by slowing down your decision-making process. Practise making decisions alone and accepting others’.

FUN JOBS ONLY

You seek passion and connectedness and not just a salary . This helps you remain engaged and happy . You fail when you are unable to deal with boredom and routine. You don’t stick around long enough to solve really tough problems and become a serial quitter. Your team leaders have little patience for such behaviour, since they are focused on outcomes. To stay motivated, you can continuously create your own narrative with long-term and short-term goals for your current job. As a manager, help millennials find roles based on their motivations and interests.

I WANT A COACH

As a Gen Y colleague, you prefer your manager to be your coach rather than your boss.However, bosses have different leadership styles–aspirational, inspirational, coaching, affiliative, coercive and participative. Chances are, that you are failing simply because you are not getting along with your manager. Your firm may not have the structure or capacity to coach you. To succeed, identify your manager’s leadership style and the best approach to learning from him.

I SHOWED UP, DIDN’T I?

Well-meaning adults told you that winning was not the only thing, what mattered was that you participated. You grew up being rewarded for volunteering and participating in activities.Then you failed terribly at the workplace, expecting to get paid and promoted simply because you turned up for work. Your firm cares about success and outcomes and your attendance is simply a hygiene factor. If you have high expectations of career advancement, rework your approach. Start by taking risks and learning from failures. As you focus on success instead of participation, your choices and actions will evolve, putting you on the growth path.

GIVE ME FREEDOM

You have experienced greater freedom and choices than the previous generation. When you perceive the freedom to define your job you are more engaged and successful at work.However, you often mistake deadlines for a lack of choice. This makes you resentful. The secret is to leverage your freedom to build structures in your work routines. Structuring your work and time will lead to greater efficiencies, buying you success, time and a bigger canvas with greater responsibilities and more freedom.

I DON’T NEED THIS

As a Gen Y person, you are probably easy to get along with and can live with diverse viewpoints. At the same time, you may not have mastered the art of confrontation and disagreement. You avoid difficult conversations and thus suffer poor performances, missed deadlines and opportunities for corrective action.Your boss too has little patience with your avoidance of straight talk and does not encourage you to speak. To overcome your hesitation, do a role-play with a friend and practise each tough conversation in advance. Get used to both giving and receiving critical inputs.

Leadership Failures of Millennials

CONVENIENT DECISIONS:

Do you make decisions based on what is convenient? Your team ignores deadlines, as they know you will do the next convenient thing.Follow through on the promises you make, and your team will do the same for your decisions.

POPULAR CHOICES:

Do you make choices that are popular? Populist decisions veer towards what needs less effort, rather than what is right. Make workable choices by using logic. A successful leader gets there by making unpopular decisions when necessary.

WIIFM:

What’s in it for me? When your team perceives that you are seeking personal benefits in every task that you do, they stop following you. Focus on adding responsibilities to your plate. As you deliver on expectations, you earn the respect of colleagues and their weight behind you.

QUIT FAST:

Do you change decisions when you don’t succeed quickly? A leadership fail. Make decisions quickly and change them with great reluctance, if at all. A few decisions may fail and you will learn from them. The rest will succeed because you did not quit.

FOLLOW FEELINGS:

Do you always do what feels right? You are emotionally-led, unreliable and moody. The quality of your decisions vary dramatically and your success percentages are low. Disregard transient feelings and seek logically thought-out decisions.

source: techgig.com