Millennial View-FWIW Keep LOL OMG & Other Texting Terms Out of the Workplace
Eric Rodriguez is the voice of The Millennial View here at Management Excellence. His periodic posts offer observations and guidance for early career professionals in the workplace. For those slightly more experienced professionals, Eric’s posts offer ideas and insights for working with the youngest members of your organization.
Last weekend at my grandfather’s 80th birthday party my aunt discussed an issue she had with younger professionals in her workplace.
“Why do some of you kids feel the need to use texting acronyms in everything?” my aunt said. “Sometimes I get emails at work and I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, what does FWIW stand for?”
FWIW means “For What It’s Worth” and my aunt was joking about her frustration, but there is truth in what she said. More and more people are starting to notice a steady trickle of texting acronyms in business emails and conversations. Last week my mom complained about a coworker who used texting abbreviations in emails when she responded to business matters.
Younger professionals (Millennials and Gen Z) are most comfortable with texting acronyms, because we grew up using them through instant messaging and then on our phones. We didn’t invent texting, but we contributed a lot to it. By searching “texting acronyms” an online texting dictionary can be found that has tons of unique abbreviations created in the last decade. One of my favorites is *$, it means Starbucks.
Acronyms are fun and it makes communicating easier, especially when you’re in a hurry. But, when it comes to sending business emails or even talking in the workplace people should probably leave the texting abbreviations to their phones and Facebook walls.
Use of texting acronyms causes a breakdown in communication, and three problems that arise from its use are:
1. Some coworkers, especially those who don’t text, have no idea what these acronyms mean
2. People who use these abbreviations appear lazy and inarticulate to others.
3. Management and coworkers probably won’t be too happy trying to decipher texting acronyms to find out what the messenger is trying to say
Texting abbreviations have absolutely no place in the workplace, and while no one is going to be sent to a gulag for putting an acronym or emoticon (:D) in an email. It is probably a good idea that this behavior never gets used in the office.
None of us could imagine picking up a copy of the newspaper and seeing a headline read “OMG Goldman Sachs Predicts $5.00 A Gallon Gas This Summer,” or downloading a book on an iPad and realizing that the author thought it would be less strenuous to use u instead of you because it’s easier to write that way.
If we wouldn’t want to see the above examples happen, why would anyone want to display texting acronyms in an email, especially one that concerns business?
These abbreviations have no place in good communication; it is confusing to others, sometimes it’s rude, and often it’s unprofessional. Proper correspondence is a component of success and the acronyms should be left for our thumbs and the writing for our fingertips – JMO, Just My Opinion.
The Kids are Alright-Leadership Lessons from the Youngest Workers
Filed under: Leadership, Leading Change, Professional Growth
Chances are, we’ve all read about and heard from mid-career managers complaining about the younger generation entering the workforce.
The “don’t want to pay their dues,” and “you can’t pry them away from their PDAs,” and “poor work ethic” laments are in my opinion, lame copouts by managers stuck in their own inflexible ways. There’s good and bad in every generation, it’s just that this one feels different, because it is.
It’s Time to Look Beyond the Hovering Parents and Participation Trophies:
The “glass is half empty” crowd is quick to point out that today’s youngest workers are a product of the “Helicopter Parent” generation, with us hovering over their every move since birth, fighting their battles and cheering them on, win or lose. Others will offer that this is the “Participation Generation,” where endless hordes of children engaged in sporting activities earned trophies just for showing up. First place or fifth place, it didn’t matter, everyone went home with hardware.
You cannot dismiss a generation based on the behaviors and in some cases, slightly aberrant conditioning of the parents. I opt for the “glass is more than half full” view on this technologically savvy generation growing up in a world that is being transformed based on the march of technology. And I’ll throw my support behind a generation that has participated on teams of some sort for as long as they could walk. This is of course, a world increasingly composed of teams and projects, executed by using technology across borders to innovate, execute and compete. Hmmm. Nice training ground.
There are of course those that say that this generation doesn’t know how to lead. Well, although the following story is tinged with parental pride, there are more than a few leadership lessons that we can all learn from in this example. I know that I have.
Reinforcement that the Kids Might Be Alright:
My oldest son came home from his final day of his summer job rather excited at the feedback that he had received on his performance. The statement from the Executive Director of, “You can work here anytime,” was the one that felt good to him. That’s nice for a parent to hear too, but my leadership ears perked up when he started describing some of the more specific feedback.
As a quick caveat, this Eagle Scout and college senior son worked for an organization that sponsors summer camps for children with various developmental and learning challenges. He was assigned a primary child to work with and he multi-tasked in multiple roles as a leader, facilitator, and someone that was able to do whatever needed to get done. While there was a great deal of play involved, it was play with a purpose as he led and participated in activities with his primary child and other groups. Ensuring a positive and safe environment, promoting learning and sportsmanship and leading by example were all key components of the role.
The feedback that warmed my leadership heart included the terms and phrases: adaptability, creativity, ability to multi-task, great use of time and importantly, the ability to form a bond and help lead the child (and broader groups of children). I’ll stop here with specifics in the off chance that my son actually reads this post and questions my commitment to father-son confidentiality. Instead, let’s focus on the relevance of the feedback that he received to leading and succeeding in the emerging world.
4 Core Attributes of Our Future Leaders:
1. Adaptability: While we often struggle with change, this is a generation that has grown up while everything changed (9/11 to ubiquitous internet) to rapid acceleration in the forces driving globalization. Older workers struggle with change and easily see the risks and the negatives. The view from this youthful group is more of expecting change and searching for opportunities and the way forward.
2. Creativity: Given the state of near constant ambiguity that most businesses now wade through, the recognition of the need to be creative…to innovate and to pursue it without regard for convention is a huge plus. Most of us with time under our belts hesitate to delve too far into the unknown, and our hesitation costs us considerably in this fast moving world. A good dose of unencumbered creativity is just what many of our institutions and organizations require to move beyond the muck of this current era.
3. Multi-tasking: this 80’s era phrase should probably be replaced by something like parallelization or a word that describes the ability to engage with many on a variety of topics in real time and keep things moving forward. Watch your son or daughter hold court with a group of friends via the keyboard of their telephone, and you’ll understand that this generation gets how to bridge time and distance with a lot of people on a lot of topics simultaneously. The payoff in the workplace is the ability to process on and juggle many complex activities at light speed. Youth was a training ground for a new reality in terms of speed and work demands.
4. Ability to Bond: interestingly, while this might fly in the face of the more transactional communication described above, it’s my observation that this generation has the ability to identify with and relate to individuals across cultures and ethnicities at a level that earlier generations just can’t comprehend. The ability to accept and leverage diversity in the workforce is of course required, but for so many older workers, it’s been a learned behavior and not something innate. This generation is different in that regard.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
At the risk of being redundant, there’s good and bad in every group and in every generation. I’m not excusing the younger workers that display the behaviors that reinforce the negative stereotypes, but I’m not indicting a generation based on these bad apples. If you’re struggling to gain the benefit of the more youthful workers, I’ll submit that you’re likely a large part of the problem. As a more experienced (read: older) worker and leader, take off your generational blinders and look for the individuals motivated to help take your organization forward. Expect great things, work hard to foster the right working environment, and apply the same tenets of effective leadership that we all know are timeless, and you will be doing your part to secure the future.
Leadership Caffeine-It’s Time to Get Serious About Learning from Your Twenty-Somethings
Filed under: Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Management Innovation
One of the recurring themes in my writing and teaching activities is the importance of blending the generations in the workplace. I’ve been a cheerleader for this cause for the past few years and I truly believe that good managers everywhere must find opportunities to leverage the unique perspectives of experience, pragmatism and idealism available from this fascinating mix of time travelers.
I’ve now moved beyond my polite encouragement for managers to find ways to adapt and cope with what seem to be the foreign habits and foreign viewpoints emanating from the more youthful in the workforce. It’s time to get serious about learning and benefitting from this younger generation. What has been treated in the media as a mostly fun topic that describes the foibles of “Helicopter Parents” and the endless flood of childhood “Participation Trophies,” is now a critically important issue and opportunity.
Consider:
- We now live and work in a networked, always-on and increasingly virtual world. For those of us with experience, this is new and exciting, yet in many instances, we struggle to make sense of it, particularly as we seek to develop strategies based on yesterday’s thinking in a world that we no longer recognize. Alternatively, the generation that is coming of age right now understands this world as their own. They are comfortable in its complexity and “virtualness” and capable of moving and navigating seamlessly through it, focused on their mission and not awestruck by its complexity and speed of change.
- Experience is a powerful teacher for all of us, and yet, we are tackling tomorrow’s challenges with yesterday’s solutions. And yes, those that don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it, but we face all new problems that demand newly created solutions using technologies and approaches that have no historical equivalent.
- From the school of the obvious, in yesterday’s world, you could choose to ignore much of the globe. Alternatively, today’s world is filled with unimaginable perils and nearly infinite possibilities. Technology brings the people of the world closer together and there is no group of people better prepared to leverage the new tools and work across cultures with others to solve problems, create new offerings and serve customers. Remember, this young generation plays video games with their friends around the globe, understands how to manage complex social networks in real time from the tips of their thumbs and has grown up in an always-on environment. Talk about some great training for success!
- And while I hesitate to offer social commentary, I can’t help but observe after spending a few years in classrooms with both graduate students and undergraduates in several great institutions in Chicago, that the biases and prejudices of our parents and grandparents seem to be melting into the past. One can hope that I’m right in this observation. I see no evidence of the youth that I work with caring about color or creed. It is my observation that they care about people and each other and evaluate each other on merits and insights and skills. This is as it should be.
Challenges and Opportunities:
- We are running today’s business and dealing with tomorrow’s problems with yesterday’s management approaches. The science and art of management must advance to both cope with the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities of this new world. As a side-note, ask a twenty-something to design the style of organization that will work best in this emerging world, and I’ll guarantee that it won’t include functional silos.
- Age and experience count, but those fortunate enough to have both don’t necessarily have all of the right answers. However, with age and experience comes wisdom, and this valuable resource when combined with the fresh perspectives of youth should be a dangerous combination for solving problems and creating opportunities.
- In my opinion, much of the training that needs to take place is not for the twenty-somethings, but rather for the tremendous number of 30 to 60-somethings that are fearful of or paralyzed by new technologies and new social conventions. If you are old enough to remember life before e-mail, you are also old enough to have lost your edge in learning to leverage new tools. I’ve written this before, but if you don’t know what twitter is, don’t read or write blogs, think social networking is a cocktail party, and have no idea why anyone would play a video game on-line, then you need help. Stat.
The Bottom Line for Now
It’s time to quit talking about the trophy kids and the oft-repeated stereotypes that are dogging the millennial generation. It’s up to those of us that currently hold the reins of leadership to recognize this opportunity for what it is and to get on with the business of preparing to turn over those reins. Judging by the condition of things in the world today, this group has arrived just in the nick of time.
Dream and Act Big: Leadership Caffeine for the Week of April 5, 2009
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine
This week’s jolt of energy is taken from a great interview with Jim Collins in the April, 2009 issue of Inc. Magazine.
Collins connected with Inc. editor, Bo Burlingham to share views on the state of our world, building great businesses and entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial focus is relevant for many that have either been pushed into this world through downsizing or are considering it as they grow weary of the uncertainties of corporate life.
The result is a feast of insightful, refreshing and invigorating quotes. Oh, and I’m taking my motivation from Collins with a cup of the always bold and invigorating Sumatra Mandehling Gayo Mountain from my favorite local roaster, Conscious Cup.
Just a few selected quotes and observations from Collins:
-On what the leading entrepreneurs of the past three decades have in common:
“They defined success on a very big scale.”
-Recalling a quote from Steve Jobs in the late 1980’s that captured the noble vision of entrepreneurship:
“We aren’t creating computers, we are creating bicycles for the minds.”
-On the choice that people face on working for others or working for themselves:
“I see entrepreneurship as more of a life concept. We all make choices about how we live our lives. You can take a paint-by-numbers approach, or you can start with a blank canvas. Starting with a blank canvas is the only way to get a masterpiece, but you could also blow up.”
-On the emerging environment:
“We’re heading into a world characterized by big events, big forces, massive storms. We’re going to be vulnerable little specks high on the mountain when the storm hits out of nowhere. And if we’re not prepared, we’re going to die up there.”
-On why he’s not pessimistic in spite of the emerging environment:
“It is only in times like this that you get a chance to show your strength.”
“In the end, I think we need to have absolute faith in our ability to deal with whatever is thrown at us. And we need to have a complete, realistic paranoia that a lot can be thrown at us.”
-On the source of his optimism:
“A lot of it has to do with the young generation.” Quoting a general at West Point, “This is the most inspired and inspiring generation to come through West Point since 1945.”
“I’m hopeful precisely because of this generation of kids. I really think we ought to give them the keys as soon as we can.”
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Art’s comments:
First, bookmark the interview and read it from start to end. The selected quotes above barely do justice to the wisdom and inspiration that Collins has to offer in this article.
Second, consider how his guidance and observations can help you deal with your situation, whether you plan on being an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur.
Great things tend to flow from tough times and when people focus on defining success not necessarily in monetary terms but on a grand scale.
My own real world example in process: I’m working with a group to change the shape of volunteer management and volunteerism in our local community. Our emerging goal is nothing less than to transform Volunteer management practices in this country. Lofty yes, but doable? Absolutely.
The same lofty ambitions can drive for-profit organizations, but it requires thinking beyond success and focusing on significance.
And last and not least, I love his perspective on the younger generation. While the media focuses on what they describe as a: texting-obsessed, trophy-laden, what’s in it for me generation, I am with Collins in seeing the reality to be very different. (See my article: In Hopeful Praise of the Millennials.)
As you have occasion to work with, lead and support the development of this younger generation, perhaps it is time to think deeply about the challenges we have saddled them with and offer our support and hope instead of our criticism.
The Bottom-Line for the New Week:
OK, grab that second cup and go forth into the new week motivated to do something great. The longest journey starts of course with the first step, and the greatest monuments start with the first stone. Take that first step or lay down that cornerstone and dream big!
Leader: What’s Your Strategy for Managing Your 30 and 40-Somethings?
After too many conversations to count with talented individuals in their late thirties or early forties that are asking, “Is this it?” about their professional lives, I am compelled to offer some advice for their leaders. I’ll start with: “Wake Up and Pay Attention!”
Professionals in this age range are at a critical juncture in their careers. They are experienced, hard working and confident in how to contribute. They’ve made and learned from many of the mistakes of youth and they’ve begun to develop something so critical for organizational success: wisdom based on experience. They’ve also generally decided what motivates them, what they like in a leader, the type of work that they are best at, and that life is too short to spend time in the wrong place or working for the wrong person.
The common theme that I am hearing in my discussions with these talented and motivated professionals is frustration over the inability of their superiors to leverage their skills and experience. It’s not a whining theme…it’s an “I am capable and experienced and want to be treated as such and contribute more” lament. It is very different from the whining that many people engage in about the person that they work for.
Comments include (paraphrased):
Instead of the challenges that we talked about when I interviewed, I jumped in to fill a gap in operations and now I can’t get out of this mundane role.
The charisma of the CEO during the interview process is gone now that I’m an employee. His general response to every idea or suggestion is anger.
They didn’t need someone with my experience, they needed a college graduate or someone fresh out of the service that wouldn’t know any better about constantly having orders barked at them.
There’s no reward in this work.
I’ve been doing the same basic things for 20 years…it’s boring and I can’t take it any more.
They need to decide if they are going to use me or they will lose me.
My life is racing past me but my career is stuck in futile mode.
I kept offering to help on the big issues and I was told I was overstepping my boundaries so I gave up.
And so on.
The Leader’s Suggestion List for Managing 30 and 40-Somethings:
- Recognize and leverage the growing need of people in this age range to contribute at an increasing level. Figure out how to do this and watch the accomplishment list grow.
- Design positions and assignments that are challenging and provide these professionals the latitude they need to succeed.
- I’ve noticed that after 15 years of working, many professionals develop a hunger for learning. Feed this hunger through professional development and even better, feed the hunger and leverage the experience by asking these professionals to teach in the organization.
- Work on your self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Frankly, you shouldn’t treat anyone by typically responding with anger as was cited above, and especially don’t treat experienced professionals like that and expect to keep them.
- Provide opportunities for mid-career professionals to mentor younger employees.
- A few months after hiring an experienced professional, sit down and genuinely seek their input and perspectives on issues and improvements. Let them take ownership of some of their ideas and drive the improvements.
- Use judo on the situation and let the individuals set their own stretch goals.
- Tune in to an individual’s mid-life career objectives and work together to develop a program that supports achievement of those objectives.
- Match mid-career professionals with both early-career and nearing retirement employees to collaborate on problem solving and project development. The mixing of the generations is beneficial for all parties involved.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
As a leader, you cannot afford to allow the best, brightest and most-experienced employees to feel detached and unmotivated. I suspect that more often than not, you as the leader have a hand in creating this problem, and you definitely can help solve it. It’s time to sit down, talk and most importantly, listen to what your thirty and forty-somethings have to say. These are the leaders in your immediate future. Don’t come up short just when these talented professionals are ready to pay off.
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