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CONCHIUS latest research includes in-depth interviews with more than 100 Chinese and Western managers about managing the new 80’s generation. We wanted to see what are the strengths and challenges with the new work force rapidly becoming the core resource in companies in China. A big challenge found was that managers experience the 80’s generation to be less disciplined and often unwilling to follow even basic rules and procedures.

As a manager, it’s your job to make certain that you address problems leading to low productivity and decrease employee morale. Poor discipline is a pattern of behavior and it is not going to disappear by itself.

Two common mistakes when addressing discipline issues:
•    Focus too much on employee’s emotions, attitudes and personalities. There is a famous quote for this - “shoveling mercury with a pitchfork”. Meaning that you work hard but it does not get you anywhere. Another way of saying it is - changing people is difficult.
•    Spend too much energy on being liked by all employees. This gives non-performers the uneasy feeling that everything is fine. Rather than holding people
accountable, you let them off the hook.

Both these mistakes encourage employees to take an immature position in their communication with you as a manager.  As a result too many employees in the 80’s generation end up being “re-parented” by their managers, rather than having an adult-to-adult relationship.

Managing agreements
A leader’s first responsibility is to make sure their employee relationships are built upon an adult-to-adult basis. From our research and studies, the most effective managers do not focus on managing feelings and changing personalities. Instead they focus on managing agreements.

A leader makes agreements with team members and enters into those agreements on an adult-to-adult basis. All communication is done with respect. There is no giving in to the temptation of being the intimidating, bossy, or all-knowing manager.

Managing agreements means that you set clear expectations for your employees - which you both understand and agree on. Once agreements are made, they are easy to follow up on and people don’t have to be managed anymore. What gets managed is the agreement. Instead of falling into the trap of making issues personal you can openly communicate about the agreement. Talking about agreements makes it easier to discuss performance issues and other ‘uncomfortable’ subjects.

The 80’s generation employees are multi-taskers
The 80’s generation tends to be a generation of multitasking. Not only do they prefer to do things in their own way, they often tend to do many things at one time. You can see them sending e-mails, talking on the phone, and working on several projects at the same time. This makes them seem undisciplined and managers often feel that their focus is on the ‘wrong’ things resulting in unstructured workdays and little or no scheduling of tasks at hand.

There are two ways in which managers can counter this:
1.    Provide timely and regular feedback. Remember that young employees, just as when they were recent students, are used to getting grades on every assignment. They need feedback and want to know if they are doing a good job.
2.    Set short deadlines. Keep assignments focused with a deadline within a month. This makes it more unlikely that they will slide or change direction while executing.  Break up bigger and longer assignments into clear deliveries with set dead-lines.
2½.     Be flexible. Their working style may work great for them, even if it is different from yours.

Managing agreements and directing the 80’s generation’s energy and passion is important for their growth and success. CONCHIUS research report with other findings and how-to’s will be published in our newsletter. Managing the 80’s generation is a challenge and when successful great strengths will be available for you, your team and organization.

- Peter J Karlsson