Gina Wong

Having worked at many large organizations with vastly different cultures, I have observed a changing landscape.  Across the board, young hires are gaining popularity from a recruitment preference.  Up the ladder, we see executive positions held by younger leaders. It is common these days to find a CXO in their early 30s, even at super large corporations.  The likelihood to report to a younger boss even when you are at the peak of your career success is becoming a norm.  Infamous advice from Jack Ma - when you are 20-30, follow a good boss and join a good company. When you are 30-40, if you want to do something, just do it. When you are 40-50 do things you are good at.  When you are 50-60, work for younger people and help to develop them.   

 

The millennials have also created a class or standard of their own - being selective of the companies they want to work for, highly vocal and uninhibited to express their opinions, self-empowered autonomy to create their own corporate wardrobe, impatient with bureaucracy and intolerant to anything slow.  However, the Gen-Y are less entrepreneurial and disruptive than the Gen-Z. 

 

Unlike Gen Y, mostly raised in a protected environment and hence risk adverse.  Gen Z are a totally new breed to watch - at age of 9, Instagram influencers with self-earned revenue in their bank.  Gen Y are somehow raised with a mindset to challenge the norm - moving away from a dystopian society to utopian themes of a perfect world where there are no division of intellect, wealth, class. (Idea for my next blog on Gen Y.. inspired by my daughter asking at age 8 why can't everything in this world be free?.... thought-provoking !)

 

Back to current 2019, Gen-Y has positively influenced the workplace and culture through elevating energy levels, stimulating thought-provoking ideas, bringing out creativity, experimenting without traditional barriers and invigorating passion (ie. passionate about their lives as they are at work).  It is therefore a phenomenal cultural shift for any organization to start reinventing their corporate value statements and identify stimulants to help organically enhance their leadership, teams and culture. 

 

As I researched on leadership and great teaming secrets, I observed a common theme which is theoretically correct and realistically proven.  

 

Building Social Capital

 

What is Social Capital ? Why is Social Capital important ?

 

Social Capital is a form of mutual reliance, dependency and trust.  It is important because helpfulness outpasses intelligent people.  Social support builds bond, loyalty and trust.  It replaces rivalry.  

 

Watch TED Talk Margaret Heffernan's : Why is it time to forget the pecking order at work ?

 

In it, she illustrates why it is bad to have all "super-chickens" in your company - highly intelligent, talented individuals, all "Rock-stars" team.  To give you further description - these are individuals who think they know it all and they can do everyone's job, they do not see the "need" for others and are therefore often on their own directions, strategy and pace.   In such an environment, the climate is described as highly dysfunction and agression, where super-chickens surpress others productivities.  They often "kill each other" and the company and customers suffer in the mid to long term.

 

In another article, I read about 3 unique characteristics of "Really Successful Group", they:-

1) Have high degree of social sensitivity

2) Give equal time to one another

3) Had more women in them (See my blog on Women Leadership !)

 

Henceforth, start thinking how to build a "No-Stars" team where everybody needs everybody, everybody has a valid perspective.  Bring back the teambuilding, D&D events and social 'happy hours', they promote opportunities outside work to know each other better!

 

Emergent Leadership

 

This is an interesting one and one of the side effects (a positive one) from the changing landscape of younger vocal employees, smaller focused teams and shrinking vertical layers (ie. increasing span of control - higher manager : employee ratio).   We see today, fewer managers and even fewer managers of people managers. In some companies, people manager layer is reduced from 3 to 1.  The manager is therefore seen as a Team Lead, as opposed to a Manager-Manager.  With higher calibred employees,  we start to expect that everyone is a leader or act in leadership capacities.  By that, emergent leadership is about being able to 'emerge' and lead in a meeting or situation, where there are no managers or obvious hierarchical decision maker.  It is the ability to put on that invisible manager/leader's hat, orchestrate the discussion among the stakeholders and drive it to achieve meaningful outcomes or in some cases, make a calibrated decision.  Look for humble talents who has the 'knack to influence', 'flair to inspire' and above all, a high EQ!

 

I will expand on this topic as I uncover more themes, matched with realities.  But for now, focus on building Social Capital and promoting Emergent Leadership, these will foster an environment that will help you successfully transition the workforce in this new era.