​This post is originally published on Medium on March 29, 2018. 

Photograph by Andrew B. Myers for TIME; Styling by Joelle Litt

​I recently saw a facebook post by a B-school friend of mine complaining about a young employee on her team not wanting to do admin work. The post was followed by a lot of sympathy and resonance, from many, presumably managers in our age group. (One funny thing is, technically speaking, many new managers/mid-level managers, are also millennials). Here are some of my thoughts on this challenge.

1. Ask yourself: What is my philosophy about managing people

Your beliefs and mindsets determine how you choose to react to situations. Do you believe your employees can be self-motivating under the right circumstances or do they need carrots and sticks? Do you believe your employees have the desire to learn and potential to grow or they are set in their own ways and cannot change much? Do you fundamentally believe that your employees are generally good-hearted, growth-oriented people that can thrive in the right place (does not have to be in the current position at your company)? As a leadership coach, I have observed that the more growth-oriented, open-minded management mindset tends to correlate with more motivated, engaged and collaborative employees.

2. Ask yourself: Am I willing to spend the time and energy necessarily to coach, or at least provide honest feedback to this employee?

Management is hard work. You have many meetings to attend, fires to put out, emails to respond to. Yet, many management/leadership books have talked about that your biggest asset as a manager is your people (or in the article linked, how you empower your people). Are you willing to carve out time out of your busy schedule to invest in this high leverage activity — coaching your inexperienced employees.

3. Ok, I want to coach my millennial employee (really, I just want him to stop complaining), what should I do?

Coaching is a large topic that is hard to cover in one post. I compiled a number of HBR articles at the bottom of the page as resources for managers interested in this topic.

I want to focus on two things, uncovering the root cause of the “entitled” behavior and giving feedback. In the facebook post example above, I got a glimpse of a couple of potential root causes behind the “reject and complain about admin work” behavior in the discussion that followed.

“I don’t want people to see me as an admin person”

“This is not a learning opportunity”

To me, uncovering these thoughts from your young employees is fantastic. The first one signals that he is driven by the fear of “wrong” perception, while the second suggests that she is driven by the fear of “not learning/wasting time”. Wanting to be seen as competent and wanting to learn and grow are generally good qualities we want to see in our employees. Therefore, reframing our thoughts about these young employees, instead of labeling them as “entitled”, think about them through their fear, perhaps, could soften our frustration and increase our empathy for their fears.

When we are less frustrated and more empathetic, it is time to give feedback to our “entitled” but really “riddled with fear (and perhaps insecurities)” young employees. Can you empathize with their true concerns? Can you honestly point out the impression/impact that their behaviors leave on you (and you only)? Avoid judging them, describe your perception as your perception, not the absolute truth, nor the character of the young employee. Here is something I would say:

“I understand that you are afraid that by doing more admin work, others will perceive you as the admin person. I can see it is a real concern for you especially because you are the youngest and most inexperienced member of the team. I want to share my honest feedback though. When I have a team of people, and one person consistently rejects admin work and complains about it, I feel tired and frustrated. The story that starts to form in my head is that “this person is difficult to manage, he/she is not willing to take one for the team, and I start to question how much I can rely on him/her for larger responsibilities or to lead”. As your manager, I believe that this is not the impression that you want to leave for me or others. Therefore, let’s talk about your fear, what are some ways that we can find out if this fear is in your head and based on reality? And let’s talk about ways to truly make a good impression on your colleagues and in the organization? ” — there might also be an opportunity to provide feedback on how he/she can provide feedback to you, the manager, without complaining and sounding negative.

My experience with most junior employees is that many (not all) lack the perspectives (views from different angles not their own) that often come with experience. That is why some of them behave “entitled” by complaining and some of them behave “clueless” like showing up to important meetings dressing absurdly or without preparation. Of course there are also these all-stars that have everything together. But anybody can manage an all-star. If you believe in the potential in people, then it is the manager’s duty to provide honest feedback and help the young people to gain perspective and grow.

4. Lastly, be self-reflective, choose creative and collaborative problem solving, and be open to the young person’s input.

Back when I was pursuing a career in Science, I heard there is a viscous cycle in Academia. Many Ph.D students suffer through years of mis-treatment from P.I.s(Principal Investigator, think Science Professors) that took advantage of their cheap labor. When these Ph.D students finally made their tenure positions and start running a lab, they start treating their students the same ways because “that’s the way how Academia works, and you had to suffer like I did”. It is not a very motivating picture.

I hope most of us can aspire to be the manager that we wish to have, especially if you suffered through some terrible managers in the past. Maybe there just isn’t a way to re-distribute the admin work, or turn every task into a learning opportunity, or maybe there is. Invite your challenging employees to be in the problem-solving process with you, and maybe, maybe then, he/she will also see your pain.

The following books/articles might be helpful for anyone struggle with this challenge:

On coaching:
You Can’t Be a Great Manager If You’re Not a Good Coach
Finding the Balance Between Coaching and Managing
4 Reasons Managers Should Spend More Time on Coaching
If You’re Not Helping People Develop, You’re Not Management Material
The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier
​
On feedback & communication:
Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg (one of my favorite books on interpersonal communication)
Thanks for the Feedback by Douglas Stone
Supportive Confrontation (this is a great post)
Making Getting Feedback Less Stressful

I recently came across this interview of Oprah at the Stanford GSB.  Although I have never watched a full episode of Oprah's talk show or read any issue of her magazine, I quickly understood why she is one of the most respected and powerful women in this country.  I found a lot of wisdom in her sharing of her life stories and life philosophies.  One of the key principals that she encourage GSBers to live by is to understand oneself and one's purpose in order to "step up into yourself".  This very much aligns with the coaching and personal development approach I use which starts with developing a strong sense of self-awareness.  

A lot has been written about Oprah and this interview so I am not going to write a long post on this one.  I encourage you to watch the video (it is an hour long, but hey we can all use some inspirations from time to time).  If you are short on time, you can read a summary and the quotes from the two GSB articles below.  Enjoy! 

• Summary of the talk - Oprah Winfrey: "Align Your Personality With Your Purpose and No One Can Touch You."
• Quotes from the talk - The Quotable Oprah Winfrey
  

This post is a part of a series to document the Hive Global Leaders Program that I went through in San Francisco, March 2014.   The other posts in this series are posted below
Introduction
Day 0 (Welcome Reception)
Day 1 (Your World)
Day 2 (Your life) 
Day 3 (Your Org)
Conclusion 

To conclude this series of posts, I wanted to write a few words to summarize my overall impression of the Hive Global Leaders Program.  As you can tell from my previous posts, I had a great time at Hive and took away some very useful information.  Unlike some participants, I did not learn too much more about myself through the "Design Your Life" exercise during Day 2, but the process did help me re-affirm my vision and my plans that I came to Hive with.  The biggest benefit for me was gaining a community of leaders who care about living a meaningful life and creating an impact in the world.  Hive and its community gave me such an energy boost that I could still feel my renewed positive, can-do attitude a month after the program ended.  We currently have an active Facebook group, a number of local reunion events and continuing collaborations on projects and initiatives between Hivers.  I am confident that this community will stay connected and support each other for a very long time.

A few words about the logistics and the people behind the program.  I mentioned that I had reservations before experiencing the program in my introduction post.  It turned out that Ryan and his team were incredibly humble individuals that worked tirelessly to make this a great experience for the participants.  As a management consultant with a critical eye for operational improvement, I was deeply impressed by how seamlessly Hive was run and how few mishaps happened.  

I believe that in some small ways, Hive did change my life.  I highly recommend this program to anyone who is willing to take a step forwards towards leading a life with purpose and making one's positive impact, big or small, in this world.  

This post is a part of a series to document the Hive Global Leaders Program that I went through in San Francisco, March 2014.   The other posts in this series are posted below
Introduction
Day 0 (Welcome Reception)
Day 1 (Your World)
Day 2 (Your life) 
Day 3 (Your Org)
Conclusion

Day 3 – Your Organization

After two days of thinking about the world's problems and our own life purposes, we came together at the basement of Galvanize, a co-working space in SOMA, for the last day's program which focused on developing an organization to enable your vision.  I recently noticed that Hive changed this day's program title from "your organization" to "your work", perhaps as a way to better relate to the actual Hive audience, many of whom work in organizations and does not plan to start companies at least in the near future.  Below is a recount of the last day's program.  


Building an awesome company culture (Dave Kashen, MeetingHero, Quantum Leading)

The first talk of the day was presented by Dave Kashen, whose own story resonated with me deeply.  Dave came from a finance background and dabbled in start-ups after business school.  Through his own pain running a start-up with cultural issues, he discovered his passion for coaching and cultural consulting.  He shared with us his insights and practices on how to create a great and relevant company culture.  You can find Dave's full presentation here.  There is also a video of his talk at the first Hive Global Leaders Program in January at Hive website here. 

I thought Dave's presentation was insightful and thought-provoking.  Though I also knew that building a great culture or changing an existing culture can be extremely hard.  What was presented by Dave can only serve as a starting point for experimentation when we actually delve into real work at our own companies.  Here are some of my key takeaways from Dave's talk. 

• Three key questions to ask yourself: What's been driving you? What would you do if you know you couldn't fail? What problem is worthy of your life? 
• Value-driven start-up starts with clearly-defined core values that are aligned with an inspiring vision which drives people's behaviors.  
• Building an awesome culture starts with the "why". See Simon Sinek's TEDx talk on "How great leaders inspire action" below to get more inspirations. 

• Language vs. action:  Organization is a network of conversations.  However, alignment lives in the domain of action, not in the language.  Therefore, core values need to be both clearly articulated (in common language) and clearly demonstrated through observable behavior and org practices (in action). 

Life story of Peter Shannon (Peter Shannon, Firelake Capital) 

Peter came from Firelake capital, a venture capital firm that focuses on disruptive technology innovations that aim to solve world's most pressing problems.  I originally thought his talk would be on how to raise VC funds for social entrepreneurs.  It turned out that the talk was mainly about Peter's life stories.  Peter talked about how he followed his instincts and made some well-thought-out decisions that allowed him to combine his skill-sets and interests to pursue a career that he felt passionate about.   I appreciated his sincerity and humility which is sometimes hard to find in the ego-centric VC world.  

One benefit corporation and leaps of faith (Rose Broome, Handup)

Dressed in a beautiful floral sundress, Rose stood on stage and spoke to us earnestly and enthusiastically about her journey to start Handup, a social enterprise that provides a platform for donors to donate directly to homeless individuals in their neighborhoods.  She spoke about her struggles searching her own path and taking the leap of faith to do something that was risky, uncertain and yet exhilarating.  She briefly touched upon the topic on incorporation choices and introduced us to the concept of a legal benefit corporation.  What stuck with me most though was her candidness in admitting the difficulties she faced when she took the leap of faith and her passion for doing something good for the community through her start-up.  

Hive participant story-telling time

This was a unique session during which participants signed up to tell a 2-minute story to the entire group, with no restriction on the content or the format.  It ended up being an exciting, inspiring and refreshing experience.  Many of our new friends shared skills and knowledge they accumulated over the years.  Some shared significant moments in their lives that shaped who they are today.  One talented young man even conducted an impromptus acapella with 15 volunteers on stage (see picture below).  It was a humbling experience to see what people were willing to share, to experiment and to be vulnerable on stage.  I wished I had not hesitated at the last moment and ended up not taking my chance to share.   

The story of a fellow Hiver - Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah

Below was a video that we watched at Hive to learn about the story about one of our own, Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah.  Some Hivers learned about Emmanuel's story over dinner conversation the night before and asked him to share the story with the whole group.  Now I cannot wait to share his story with you.  

Before hearing Emmanuel talk and seeing this video, many of us had no idea he had suffered and achieved so much in his life.  At the end of the video, we stood up and clapped fiercely for the hero sitting among us.  On one hand, compared to Emmanuel's struggle and triumph, my problems in life suddenly seem so minute and trivial.  On the other hand, I had to remind myself that every human being lives a different yet unique life with its own valid challenges, big or small.  We cannot become others.  We can only take inspirations and courage from others and try to live our own lives fuller and more impactful.  For that, I thank Emmanuel.  

You can learn more about Emmanuel's current effort from Emmanuel's Dream.org. 

"Needs & Gifts" Wall 

On the first day of Hive, we were instructed to fill out a "Needs & Gifts" worksheet during which we wrote down three things we needed help with and three gifts that we could offer to the Hive community.  The worksheets were then put on the wall during the next three days for everybody to review.  If you felt that you could help with any need or if you found any gift helpful to you, you could paste a small post-it note with your name on it to that person's sheet.  Here is what the wall looked like at the end of the third day.  

For me personally, I received lots of interests in my trial coaching offerings which was absolutely helpful for me to launch my own practice.  It also felt great that you could help someone with what you are good at.  I am still in the process of following up with everybody who showed interests in my needs and gifts, but I can say with certainty that I am already benefiting from this simple exercise.  

The three-day Hive Global Leaders Program officially ended with everybody sitting in a large circle and taking turns stepping into the center to share our "finalized" life purpose (in reality, this will always be a work in progress).  Each of us received our Hive t-shirt and our framed life plan, which I proudly display at my desk at home these days.  The idea was that that if we make our life plan visible to ourselves and others on a daily basis, we would be more likely to achieve these goals.  We shall see how it goes with me! 

Read about my experiences during the other days at Hive
Introduction
Day 0 (Welcome Reception)
Day 1 (Your World)
Day 2 (Your life) 
Day 3 (Your Org)
Conclusion

This post is a part of a series to document the Hive Global Leaders Program that I went through in San Francisco, March 2014.   The other posts in this series are posted below
Introduction
Day 0 (Welcome Reception)
Day 1 (Your World)
Day 2 (Your life) 
Day 3 (Your Org)
Conclusion

Day 2 (Your Life)
After a refreshing morning yoga session, the Hive participants reconvened for the second day's program.  The focus of the second day's program was our unique lives, dreams and purposes.  We were provided with a workbook called "Designing Your Life" and were guided by Ryan to work through the self-reflection exercises individually.  Here are a number of questions that the workbook asked us to reflect on

• What do you really love doing? 
• What does humanity need? 
• How can I create what humanity needs while doing what I love? 
• What are my personal financial goals? 
• How can I create what humanity needs while meeting my financial goals? 
• Describe the world you want to see in 2050.
• I will be a force of energy in the world dedicated to…
• Simply stated, my life purpose is… (15 words or less, can be understood by a 5th grader)
• How might I make this happen
• My desired way of being will be...
• How will others remember what I'm up to? 

After drafting the initial versions of our life purposes, we got on the big bus to a mysterious location (turned out to be Bernal Heights Park) to complete the last portion of our workbook (again, in solitude).  As I sat on the slanted hill overlooking rolls of beautiful Victorian houses sprawling throughout the city, I entered a quiet and peaceful space within myself and contemplated all my hopes and dreams and what kind of steps I would need to take to get there.  After drafting out our life time, 10-year, 1-year and 90-day goals and action plans, we came back together as a group and enjoyed a beautiful lunch underneath the sun while chatting optimistically about our plans and futures with each other.  

Real Food (Rebecca Jean Alonzi, Rebecca Jean Catering) 

The afternoon session started with a presentation from Rebecca Jean Alonzi, a former Hive participant, about real food (usually defined as natural, organic and/or locally grown food that is good for your health).  I unfortunately missed majority of the presentation because I was scheduled for a free chair massage the Hive program provided, which was wonderful of course.  Nonetheless, I caught the beginning of Rebecca's talk and heard her inspirational story of evolving from a line cook to starting her own very successful catering business (her business is 5-star on yelp, which is quite telling).  There it was another tenacious individual who is so passionate about what she does that she never gave up on working hard to achieving her dreams.  I was yet inspired again. 

Mindfulness & Presence for Global Change Makers (Rich Fernandez, Wisdom Labs) 

The last talk of the day was delivered by Rich Fernandez, a trained psychologist, on mindfulness and presence.  Rich shared some neuroscience-backed theory behind mindfulness and how our brains work under stress.  More importantly, he guided us through a couple of mindfulness exercises which definitely brought a sense of peacefulness and self-awareness to the room.  Below are a couple of takeaways that I jotted down from this session.  

• Mindfulness practice improves response flexibility: simple mindfulness practices such as focused breathing creates space between stimulus and response, and thus, provides us the opportunity to choose our response.  

I particularly enjoyed this talk because of my interests in meditation, mindfulness and human psychology.  It was also encouraging to see other participants, many of whom did not know much about medication, try mindfulness practices with openness and curiosity.  

The day ended with us taking the bus over the bay bridge to treasure island for an impromptus dance party under the "dancing lady" sculpture, a sunset sing-a-long and a delicious dinner at a trendy winery venue.  We conversed into late night over deliciously prepared 3-course dinner and constant flow of wine.  Personally, I met more individuals that I hadn't got a chance to talk to during the past two days and had some heart-to-heart coaching conversations.  Positive energy and bright-eyed optimism fueled the entire evening.  It felt good to be a part of it.  

Read about my experiences during the other days at Hive
Introduction
Day 0 (Welcome Reception)
Day 1 (Your World)
Day 2 (Your life) 
Day 3 (Your Org)
Conclusion