Places of Possibility
I encourage everyone to take a few moments and read a fantastic article by Alexander Manu, an adjunct professor at the Rotman School of Management titled Creating ‘Places of Possibility’. See
http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/possibility/.
In it he discusses how you can create growth and innovate as an organization by embracing the generational differences across your workforce. He writes “Unleashing this innovative mindset is about creating a culture that empowers inquisitive minds to imagine the future, and to think beyond the legacy of the past.” By creating these places of possibility you are creating quite a different looking organization. “Both lean and nimble, they embrace risks, partner with spectacularly different competencies than the obvious, and prototype fast, fail fast and fail cheap. These are places where everyone feels empowered to explore and share ideas, with no fear of consequences.”
Until I read this piece I used to believe all the conversation around how you had to engage Millennials (generation born after 1980) differently to keep them focused and interested gave that group too much power and masked a bigger entitlement-issue with them. However, I believe Manu spells out how that cohort truly is different and some of the things that happened in their life and growing up that made them what they are.
Success is how you pair that cohort up with the Baby Boomers and create a ‘Futures Group’ to make sure you get the best from both. “On one hand you have the wisdom, knowledge and life experience of the Boomer, and on the other you have the urgency, the imagination and the free spirit of the Millennial.”
Read the entire piece. It allowed me to think differently about how you can build organizations going forward and the things you can do to spur innovation and create a ‘Place of Possibility’. Like it or not, the workforce is different and new employees coming into all our organizations are going to challenge how we have functioned traditionally - which is a good thing.
Thanks for your time – Chris