Open, Honest, and Direct

by Aaron Levy

Look at your calendar for next week. What do you have coming up? What prep work do you need to do? What big projects and small tasks do you need to accomplish by the end of the week? Use these questions to make your to-do list. If you don’t have enough time to do everything on the list, look to the next paragraph.

  Say no, delegate, or delay

  Based on the meetings you already have on your calendar, your personal or family commitments, and the projects you need to make progress on in the coming week, you’ve likely planned more work than you have time to accomplish. Instead of telling yourself you can get it all done, be a bit more realistic and strategic. Use these four questions to determine what you are really going to get done in the week.

  • What takes priority?

  • What should you be saying no to?

  • What can you delegate to someone else?

  • What do you have to delay?

  Once you’ve worked through these questions, you should have a more clearly defined plan of meetings, projects, and tasks. You’re now set up for success in the next week.

  Bonus Chapter

  WHY MILLENNIALS ARE DIFFERENT

  Intention: To share a different perspective on the millennial generation and the world of work.

  Roughly once a week, I’m asked, “Are millennials really that different from other generations?” Yes and no. There is a confluence of factors that play into how the millennial generation is currently seen and understood. To help better explain what I mean, I’ll share the pivotal factors that impact how we see millennials and the current world of work.

  We are different generationally

  Millennials, individuals born between 1982 and 1998, were raised with different inciting incidents (the 9/11 terrorist attacks), different economic factors (the 2008 market crash), and a different culture (helicopter parenting, car seats, and more), which helped to mold us as a population. Where baby boomers are loyal to their companies, and Generation X is more loyal to their careers, millennials’ loyalties lie with their communities. We see work as a calling instead of as a job or even a career. Although it is subtle, this distinction does change the expectations we have for our jobs. Millennials show up looking to make an impact, to be a part of a team, and to do meaningful work that makes a difference in the world.

  Millennials drive companies to challenge the status quo of how the workplace currently operates. To get the most of your people, you have to accept that challenge.

  BOOMER GEN X MILLENNIAL

  • Born 1946-1964

  • Born 1965-1981

  • Born 1982-1998

  • Work is a career

  • Work is a job

  • Work is a calling

  • Loyal to company

  • Loyal to self

  • Loyal to community

  • Value experience

  • Value productivity

  • Value contribution

  • Principled, resolute, creative

  • Savy, practical, independent

  • Selfless, rational, competent

  A new model for the world of work

  Over the past forty years, as technology has enabled us to automate basic tasks, the type of work we’ve done has changed. We are no longer on the assembly line, making the same widget repeatedly. We’ve moved from the working economy brought about by the Industrial Revolution, to the knowledge economy, where companies ask their employees to come up with creative solutions to complex problems. It is no longer sufficient to simply know the task we need to have completed. As knowledge workers, we also need to see the bigger picture, the purpose of our work, and the problem it is solving for our clients to reach the most effective solution.

  The old model, which is contradictory to the type of work we are asking people to do now, is being questioned by millennials. They are the first full generation to enter the workforce unbiased by the old working economy. Although the new type of work is completely different, the workplace model has yet to change. We are no longer working on assembly lines in factories; nevertheless, we are still expecting people to clock in to a physical office nine a.m. to five p.m. every weekday. Many companies are working off a broken model, where you are measured on the time you put in rather than the work you produce. Millennials, the gig economy, and the future of work are calling for companies to focus on outcomes, not hours.

  The rise of on-demand

  Millennials have grown up in an on-demand society with pretty much everything at our fingertips. Take a typical day in the life of a millennial, Chelsea.

  Chelsea wakes up, realizes she’s run out of milk, eggs, and mouthwash, so she hops onto Amazon. By the time she’s home from the gym, there’s a delivery at her doorstep. As she’s finishing breakfast, she orders a ride to work. While at work, Chelsea toggles among her work email, chat, text messages, and social media. On her ride home, she orders dinner from her phone and gets it just in time to sit on her couch and choose among thousands of titles to binge watch for the night.

  We live in a world where virtually anything can be taken care of in a matter of minutes, right from a device the size of our palm. The impact of our habits on society is noticeable. Our need for instant gratification is at an all-time high. If we want something, we no longer understand what it means to wait. This is not just a millennial thing; the need for instant gratification extends to all of us. The use of these new technologies is not limited to millennials. Rather, smartphones and all the rest have been adopted by nearly all generations. Even my seventy-six-year-old uncle walks into dinner with his Bluetooth earpiece in, placing orders on Amazon while at dinner from his smartphone. No matter the generation, we’re no longer used to waiting for what we want because we’ve been so conditioned to not having to wait.

  This omnipresence of social media combined with the on-demand lifestyle we live creates an urgency to take action, to leave where you are and find a new job now. The problem is, our social network is not an authentic place to connect with friends; instead, it’s become a place to promote the best versions of ourselves—true or not—to the world. It’s now easier than ever to see what everyone in our social network is doing, where your friend just traveled for vacation, which friend just got a new job, which one just quit their job and went off on a three-month road trip, who’s been promoted, and whose company just raised a bunch of money. In this world, the grass is always greener someplace else; it makes you examine your life and how it compares to the photoshopped versions your network promotes on their feeds.

  Our increased need for instant gratification, coupled with increased options and visibility of others’ success, drives millennials to seek success, contribution, and personal growth at a more rapid rate than previous generations. Technology has accelerated the millennial timeline.

  Acceleration of the midlife crisis

  Rob, like many teenagers, went to high school with the goal, determined by his family, his teachers, and our society, of going to a good college. After college, the societal expectation is for Rob to get a good job. In order not to disrupt the status quo and mostly because he has adopted these expectations as his own, Rob found a good job.

  Each day Rob woke up, went to work, did his job, then came home. This repeated for twenty years when one day Rob woke up asking himself, What am I doing? Why am I here on this earth? What impact do I want to have on the world? What is my purpose?

  Rob hit his midlife crisis, a point in his life where he reexamines his goals and ambitions because for the very first time in his life, there is no one else to tell him what those goals should be. Now he’s got to figure them out on his own.

  Due to a changing world of work, an increased need for instant gratification, and a generation predisposed to seek purpose, millennials are starting to ask these same questions two to three years into their working lives. The midlife crisis has been moved up by fifteen to twenty years and has become, instead, a quarter-life crisis. We are asking at a younger age what we want for ourselves and our lives; wha
t is our purpose?

  Questions like these are leading to a generation of people with a stronger emphasis on finding meaningful work, connecting with others, and personal growth.

  WHAT’S THE POINT?

  Millennials expect more from their work; they want to know the work they are doing is making an impact. They want to feel connected to their team, company, and boss, and they want to continuously grow. To me, that’s an admirable and empowered vision of the world, one where we are forced to think about work in a different light.

  It’s not only that millennials are a different generation. The world of work is changing, and as business owners, we must take notice and adapt or get left behind. For the companies and leaders who prefer to stick to the status quo, it can feel as if they are in a war against the millennial ideals. For businesses who are agile and forward thinking, this new millennial perspective can be their competitive advantage in this war for top talent.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not be possible without energy, passion, and support of my incredible wife and partner, Kim. She was the first set of eyes to review so much of this book. Thank you for giving me the critical feedback I needed to make this work. Thank you for believing in me and us.

  Thank you to my team at Raise The Bar. You rock! To Tina for constantly finding new strategies to share our message and thought leadership with our community of leaders. To Caro for helping put this all together, for your brilliant ideas, your challenging questions, and your energy. To George, your wisdom and boldness make me a better coach and leader. To Shiri for working through these models and theories with our clients and me as we refined them and made them better with each round.

  Thank you to everyone who’s helped me become a better leader and person. To my first boss, Will, for giving me a shot, for thinking big, and allowing me the space to make mistakes and grow. To Marc, for forcing me to think differently, for challenging me while still showing you cared about me. To Andrew, for making me uncomfortable pretty much every day we worked together—I learned so many valuable lessons in such a short time.

  Thank you to my entire family for consistently being there for me, for supporting and showing up the ways I needed. To my brother Ari, for pushing me to be better, for being the entrepreneur I can learn from, and for continuing to serve as an advisor and friend. To my brother Adam, thank you for always being there to hear my wins, my failures, and my dreams for Raise The Bar. For pushing me to get this book out into the world and for continually sharing positive encouragement when I needed it most.

  NOTES

  In this section, you’ll find the sources used in this book along with links and notes for further reading.

  INTRODUCTION

  1. Joseph Luciani, “Why 80 Percent of New Year’s Resolutions Fail,” US News & World Report, accessed April 2019, https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/articles/2015-12-29/why-80-percent-of-new-years-resolutions-fail.

  2. “The 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey,” Deloitte Global, accessed January 2017, https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/About-Deloitte/gx-millenial-survey-2016-exec-summary.pdf.

  3. “The Deloitte Millennial Survey 2018,” Deloitte Global, March 2018, www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html; “How Millennials Want to Work and Live,” Gallup, accessed December 2016, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/238073/millennials-work-live.aspx.

  4. Brandon Rigoni and Bailey Nelson, “For Millennials, Is Job-Hopping Inevitable?” Gallup, accessed November 2016, https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/197234/millennials-job-hopping-inevitable.aspx?g_source=MILLENNIALS&g_medium=topic&g_campaign=tiles.

  5. Natalie Kitroeff, “Unemployment Rate Hits 3.9%, a Rare Low, as Job Market Becomes More Competitive,” The New York Times, May 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/business/economy/jobs-report.html; “The Employment Situation – March 2019,” US Department of Labor, April 2019, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf.

  6. E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan, Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior (New York, NY: Plenum, 1985); E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan, “The ‘What’ and ‘Why’ of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior,” Psychological Inquiry 11 (2000), 227–268; R. M. Ryan & E. L. Deci, “Self-determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being,” American Psychologist 55 (2000), 68–78.

  7. Tom Nolan, “The No. 1 Employee Benefit That No One’s Talking About,” Gallup, accessed November 2018, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/232955/no-employee-benefit-no-one-talking.aspx.

  CHAPTER 2

  1. Larry Emond, “2 Reasons Why Employee Engagement Programs Fall Short,” Gallup, accessed August 2017, www.gallup.com/workplace/236147/reasons-why-employee-engagement-programs-fallshort.aspx?g_source=ALL_GALLUP_HEADLINES&g.

  CHAPTER 3

  1. Pierre Gurdjian, Thomas Halbeisen, and Kevin Lane, “Why Leadership-Development Programs Fail,” McKinsey & Company, accessed March 2017, https://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/leadership/why-leadership-development-programs-fail.

  CHAPTER 4

  1. “Some Interesting Facts about Listening,” Transform Inc., accessed March 2017, https://transforminc.com/2014/07/interesting-factslistening/.

  2. Adam Grant, Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success (New York: Penguin Books, 2013); R. Rosenthal and L. Jacobson, “Teachers’ expectancies: Determinants of pupils’ IQ gains,” Psychological Reports 19 (1966): 115–118.

  3. R. Rosenthal and L. Jacobson, Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils’ Intellectual Development (Bancyfelin, Carmarthen, Wales: Crown House Publishing, 1992).

  4. Brené Brown, “RSA Short: Empathy,” accessed January 2016, https://brenebrown.com/videos/rsa-short-empathy/.

  CHAPTER 5

  1. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, “Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” (PDF), Science 185, no. 4157 (1974): 1124–1131, doi:10.1126/science.185.4157.1124, PMID 17835457 reprinted in Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, Amos Tversky, eds., Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982): 3–20, ISBN 9780521284141. See also: Michael Lewis, The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2016) and Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).

  2. Steven Ruiz, “Re-scouting Tom Brady at Michigan: Why NFL teams had no excuse for passing on him,” For The Win, accessed January 2019, https://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/10/nfl-patriots-tom-brady-draft-college-michigan-scouting-report.

  3. Drake Baer, “Kahneman: Your Cognitive Biases Act Like Optical Illusions,” The Cut, accessed December 2017, https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/kahneman-biases-act-like-optical-illusions.html.

  4. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, “Extensional Versus Intuitive Reasoning: The Conjunction Fallacy in Probability Judgment,” Psychological Review, 90:4 (1983): 293-315.

  5. Gino Wickman, Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business (Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, 2007).

  6. I drew inspiration for this framework from the ancient Japanese proverb on the three wise monkeys and the insights of my colleague George. “Three Wise Monkeys,” Wikipedia, accessed March 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_wise_monkeys#Meaning_of_the_proverb.

  CHAPTER 6

  1. Charles Duhigg, “What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team,” The New York Times, February 25, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html; “Understand Team Effectiveness,” re:Work, accessed April 2018, https://rework.withgoogle.com/print/guides/5721312655835136/.

  2. Amy C. Edmondson, “Managing the Risk of Learning: Psychological Safety in Work Teams,” Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 02-062, March 2002; Adam Grant, “The Daily Show’s Secret to Creativity,” WorkLife with Adam Grant, TED.com, March 8, 2018, https://www.ted.com/talks/work
life_with_adam_grant_creative_burstiness_at_the_daily_show.

  3. Adam Grant, “Why You Should Stop Serving the Feedback Sandwich,” Inc.com, accessed February 2019, https://www.inc.com/linkedin/adam-grant/stop-serving-feedback-sandwich-adam-grant.html.

  4. Craig Wortmann, “Performance Feedback: 4-Step Model to Give & Receive,” LinkedIn, accessed April 2017, www.linkedin.com/pulse/performance-feedback-4-step-model-give-receive-craig-wortmann/.

  CHAPTER 7

  1. Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life (Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2003).

  2. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (1946). Reprint edition (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006).

  3. Michelle Norris and Melissa Block, “Civil-Rights Activist, Ex-Klansman C. P. Ellis,” All Things Considered, National Public Radio, November 8, 2005, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4994854. Diane Bloom, “An Unlikely Friendship,” PBS, February 1, 2019, https://www.pbs.org/video/an-unlikely-friendship-tbnri0/.

  CHAPTER 8

  1. E. Aronson, B. Willerman, & J. Floyd, (1966). “The effect of a pratfall on increasing interpersonal attractiveness,” Psychonomic Science 4, no. 6 (1966), 227–228.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Open, Honest, and Direct: A Guide to Unlocking Your Team’s Potential is Aaron Levy’s first book. In addition to being a new author, Aaron is the Founder and CEO of Raise The Bar, an organization focused on helping companies create high-performing teams by building better leaders.