Millennials are here to stay. With their presence in the workplace expected to grow to 75 percent by 2025, this next generation of leaders is already surging into offices across the globe in massive numbers. But, having grown up differently, the largest living generation brings with them a unique set of millennial expectations, needs, desires, and values that has already had an undeniable effect on the business landscape—a huge and damaging generational gap.
Today, managers struggle to simultaneously inspire initiative and support the infamous flexibility millennials demand, older employees are known to halt collaboration and innovation by operating within the all too popular “millennials are the enemy” mindset, and millennials’ desire to work and make a difference is stifled by miscommunication and misunderstanding. Unfortunately, these problems and more are increasing and costing businesses in terms of engagement and strategies for attracting, training, and retaining this next generation of leaders.
In Chasing Relevance, Dan Negroni argues that business leaders and millennials alike should lean into the divide and embrace it as an opportunity. By creating powerful, authentic relationships, fostering accountability, and teaching real, practical skills, organizations can both adapt their existing leaders to the changing landscape of work and empower millennial employees to deliver authentic and impactful value.
