What Motivates Gen Y?
I recently spoke about managing generational differences at a leadership conference. After my talk, a Boomer asked me “How do I motivate my Gen Y son? He has so much potential, yet seems to want to do so little with his life.” This is a common question from both parents and employers; it’s clearly a big issue in today’s workplace and will only get bigger as the Gen Y’s mature.
Let’s answer this question in two stages:
1. Remember that each generation has its own prism through which it views life. So a Boomer’s goal and motivations are different than a Gen X or a Gen Y’s motivations. Try not to place your motivations on someone else’s life; instead, find ways to connect with them and listen to what excites them.
2. In general, Gen Y values meaningful experiences, education, making a difference, balance and connections. So use those values as the starting point for the conversation. Find out what connections are important to them. How they would like to make a difference in the world? Inquire about past experiences that were meaningful to them.Once you know these aspects of your employee or child, their motivations become quite clear.
For example, let’s say your Gen Y son enjoys music, travel and working with youth. Find a way to incorporate these into a larger goal or motivation. Maybe it’ll be creating a music program for international schools. Or traveling with American music programs to other countries. Or teaching music to inner city kids. The options are limitless, once you know what excites and is important to him.
How can you do the same thing at work? Say a Gen Y HR employee likes computers, history and mentoring new employees. You would like this employee to get more engaged at work; she would like some new experiences. So what can you create together? Perhaps she could mentor new employees on the computer protocols. Or create a podcast of the company history. Or create a new employee work-sheet on the industry’s milestones and best practices. All of these motivate her to stay engaged at work, while helping you think out of the box. Now that motivates everyone!
