0INTRODUCTION: ENGAGEMENT, DISCOVERY AND THE MILLENNIAL MYTH
ENGAGEMENT
It is told that Distinguished 17th Century architect Sir Christopher Wren, shared a story about Employee Engagement. Yes, there was interest in employee engagement in the year, 1678.
Wren, who was highly regarded for many of London's finest church designs, was visiting the job site of his St. Paul's Cathedral project in London.
His visit took him to the stone mason's pit.
He came upon a mason and asked: What are you doing? the worker answered: I am cutting these stones to a certain size and shape. He asked the same question of a second worker and the worker answered, I am cutting stones for a certain wage. He came to a third mason and asked the question again. This time the worker got up from his work, straightened himself and replied: I am helping Sir Christopher Wren build St. Paul's Cathedral.
This story hits my heart every time I think about it because it is exactly the world and situation I am trying to help my clients create. I want their folks to stand tall and say, I am helping John build the best company he can, I am not anonymous or irrelevant.
On the scale of engagement, who would you say was the most engaged mason?
In our world of ICI (instant competitor imitation*), the one thing that cannot be instantly copied are engaged employees. You know who they are, they are your folks who believe in your vision, assume accountability, live in a productive reasoning mode, are not fearful and defensive; who stand up, hold their shoulders back and say I am part of the team and we are doing this.
I train owners and leaders in the use of tools that allow them to consistently hire and motivate employees who stand tall and think of their work as more than their job. They are teammates on a team driving to a common vision, a common goal.
* ICI - Instant Competitor Imitation: I lived in this world, my company, Layline, was the industry thought leader and what came with this were imitators/copycats... and with the advent of the internet, the speed that a competitor could adjust to a message or offering was basically overnight. The only thing that allowed a gap was incredibly engaged team mates who added that special something, caring, whatever you want to call it, that the customers could feel and appreciate. Employee engagement is still the only defensible position against Instant Competitor Imitation.
The problem with Millennials is...
You can complete that sentence any way you wish. Like all stereotypes it will be false and the odds are favorable that I've heard whatever you come up with. I am lucky, in a typical year I get to spend 8 hours a day across 125 days huddled with senior leadership teams of 30 different companies doing the gutsy work of improving their organizations. The biggest problems at organizations have to do with people and through the years, I've noticed that complaints about people often include the Millennial stereotype excuse.
This confused me. Every week I worked with Millennials who are part of my senior teams, Millennials who are not only smart, engaged, and hard-working, but also poised to take over the world. Why the disconnect? The teams and organizations I worked with did not share a bias against Millennials. What was it that we were doing together breaking this Millennial stereotype?
I went verbal with these Millennials. I started pulling them aside, having discussions with them, trading thoughts and emails, looking for the pattern, probing for what made them different, what was breaking the mold. I distilled my analysis and used it to discover the seven fundamental principles that distinguished companies that were happy with their Millennials from those that were not. From these principles came the Seven Questions at the heart of this book.
As I refined the Seven Questions and shared them with everyone from programmers, receptionists and salespeople to CEOs and business owners, I realized that I had discovered