Millennials and the Achievement Gap

As we face the onslaught of Gen Y/Millennials in the workplace, it's wise to remember that these new employees present some special management challenges by virtue of the way they have been educated. Tom Wagner has taken a look at how children are raised and educated in the United States and his conclusions are troubling. In his book, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach The New Survival Skills Our Children Need — and What We Can Do About It, he identifies 7 key survival skills that they appear to lack:

* Critical thinking and problem solving -- at every level in the organization, people need to be rigorous thinkers who test assumptions and don't rely on preconceived notions.
* Collaboration across networks and leading by influence -- increasingly people need the skills to lead across departmental lines by influence rather than authority.
* Agility and adaptability -- given the rate of change, today's job may not exist tomorrow. So, we need people who can learn and change, rather than relying on static technical skills.
* Initiative and entrepreneurship -- we need self-directed people who can find creative solutions to difficult problems.
* Effective oral and written communication -- without good communication skills, it's hard to collaborate, influence or lead.
* Accessing and analyzing information -- we need to be able to select and process information efficiently and effectively.
* Curiosity and Imagination -- we no longer want drones who merely carry out orders. Instead we need employees who participate creatively by adding value to both the process and the end product.

Unfortunately for the employer, you can't just rely on credentials to ensure that prospective employees have these critical skills. A good transcript from a name brand institution may simply indicate that the person in question has learned how to take tests. In Wagner's view, these new graduates may have an even bigger problem:

A senior associate from a major consulting firm told me that recent hires from Ivy League business schools were constantly asking what the right answer was — in [other] words, how to get an “A” for the job they were doing — and were not always very adept at asking the right questions, which was the single most important skill senior executives whom I interviewed identified.

As we prepare to integrate Millennial new hires, we're going to have to be very deliberate in the way we assess their mastery of the 7 survival skills and the way we coach them to improve that mastery. Equally, it would be wise to take a fresh look at the Boomer and Gen X members of your team to see if they have developed and are using these 7 survival skills. The success of your organization depends on it.

KM vs Social Media: Give Peace a Chance

A few weeks ago the blogosphere was hopping in response to the KM vs SM generational war piece Venkatesh Rao launched on an unsuspecting world. I responded at the time that declaration of war was first published, as did other thoughtful folks. Now Venkat's piece has been republished in Social Computing Magazine, alongside Jeff Kelly's rebuttal.

Jeff argues that while some resistance to change is inevitable among human beings, it is unfair to characterize all knowledge managers as resistant to change. In Jeff's personal experience, there are "many more eager adopters than resistant dinosaurs." In fact, many knowledge managers I know have been excited and energized by the possibilities for KM offered by social media. To be honest, much of the resistance to social media that I've observed lately has been exhibited by managers who were skeptical about KM in the first place. This isn't so much about age as it is about outlook and experience.

I'm inclined to agree with Jeff that there is much more constructive peace than destructive war between the generations on this issue. His prognosis of the current situation rings true:

Our technology and society will continue to evolve; people will continue to be resistant to (but finally adapt to) change; youth will continue to disdain their elders until they become tempered by wisdom; and the opportunities to learn and prosper will continue to grow for those wise enough to do so.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Welcoming the Millennials

At some point, most of us realize that fighting the tide is an exercise in futility. The wise among us look for ways to work with and harness the tide. In that spirit, I offer this post on why law firm knowledge management should welcome the Millennials. However, this is NOT about the technological improvements many KM folks have been hoping Millennials will force on our firms. This is about more fundamental improvements in the way we operate.

If reports about Millennials are correct, they are a group of people focused on and motivated by issues and goals that are quite different from those of Gen X and Boomer employees. The latter two groups could be managed by dangling the brass ring in front of them and then reinforcing performance through a strong command and control structure. The boss made the decisions and the Gen X and Boomer employees executed those decisions. Simple and straightforward. By contrast, Millennials are looking for something other than the brass ring. They want opportunities for learning and growth. They want to engage in projects and activities that are personally meaningful. And, they want to maintain a reasonable perspective on work -- as children of workaholics, they want a life with better balance.

What's so crazy about their aspirations? Perhaps the truth is that we're just jealous.

The challenge for Gen X and Boomer knowledge managers is to harness this Millennial energy in a constructive way as Millennial aspirations and methods come up against established ways of doing things. Rather than forcing them into existing rigid structures, consider how a focus on growth and learning might change for the good the types of projects we tackle and the way we carry them out. By giving every member of the staff an opportunity to contribute creatively to the work of your knowledge management department you elevate them from mere worker bees to co-creators and, in one fell swoop, you finally achieve intellectual and creative leverage (which is the basis of any successful law firm).

In making these recommendations, I don't mean to minimize the stress this approach will place on traditional or authoritarian knowledge managers who know what they know and are just looking for employees who will carry out assigned tasks with minimum fuss and maximum efficiency. This is a warning that managers like that will soon be facing a supply problem -- they may find it difficult to find Millennials willing to work on these terms. Then those managers have the choice of either fighting the tide or surfing it. It will be interesting to see what they choose.

Age is a State of Mind

It was so common, that it was a joke -- celebrating one's 39th birthday for the 10th time. However, now we're seeing Baby Boomers who have worked and worked out in order to beat Old Man Time. Their birth certificates may say one thing, but their energy levels, flexibility, physical strength, mental agility and willingness to innovate say another. Finally, the stars are aligned so that your age need not entirely be defined chronologically. Now, it really is plausible to say that age is more a state of mind.

These changes in society have important implications for knowledge management. While some may say we are doomed by our chronology, the reality is that more and more enterprises are finding that the facile assumptions they had at the beginning of a social media implementation are being disproved by their users. Take, for example, Intellipedia, the online wiki for federal intelligence information sharing. According to KM Experts Dispute Age Gap, Intellipedia's actual usage patterns "do not always fit standard expectations."

Chris Rasmussen, social software knowledge manager at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (and a top contributor to Intellipedia), recently reported on how the users of Intellipedia have defied the generational assumptions lots of experts make:

For example, people assume Intellipedia users in their 20s would be the most prolific, but that is not necessarily the case, he said. One of the most active editors is in his 60s. Of the two-dozen most active editors, most are in their 30s and 40s....

(Just for the record, Rasmussen is 33.)

While GenY/Millenials may come to work with greater ease with social computing and more hard computing skills, they don't always have the substantive knowledge or inclination necessary to make valuable contributions at the office. By contrast, Gen X and Baby Boomer employees have the edge on substantive knowledge, but may not have the skills or confidence to try social media tools. Thankfully, most of these tools are intuitive and easy to use. If we can just get them into the hands of these information and experience rich older workers, we should see huge gains in knowledge management programs.

Don't write off your Gen X and Baby Boomer users. Instead, get to know them. You may discover that they are much better candidates for your social media tools that some of their Gen Y/Millenial counterparts. In either case, ditch the generational stereotypes and focus on the individuals. They are only as old as they act and feel -- age is a state of mind.