I know some young folks. I work with some young folks. The stereotype that the younger generations don’t want to work is false, in my opinion. What they don’t want to do is work the same way we have for ages because they recognize that it’s not a sound system.
Every poor manager I’ve ever dealt with has been a poor communicator. Almost every shortcoming or problem I’ve seen people have with a manager or coworker could be filed under a problem with communication. It’s THE thing in the workplace. Ideas, expectations, priorities, and everything else in the workplace come down to the ability to communicate. If you cannot communicate clearly, you are lost, and the people who work for you or lost.
Yet how many organizations promote the top performer or their most senior individual contributor without ever considering whether they are good communicators? And how many prioritize teaching them how to communicate as managers?
I’ll let you go to the article to read about those non-negotiables, but I agree. I think this is the real problem when it comes to bosses complaining about how remote isn’t a good option. They haven’t managed a remote team; they’ve been managing a team that works outside the office. There is a difference.
Everything that brings us the most happiness and spreads that happiness across society gets set aside because we are supposed to identify ourselves based on our jobs.
So yeah, maybe the French won’t necessarily still get to retire with a pension at 62. (though Nathan does a good job of explaining why that isn’t impossible, this was a choice made to protect the wealthy from being taxed, after all.) I still think many of us could learn something from the French, and Europe in general, about where our jobs fit into the fuller picture of our lives. If you aren’t making time to “live,” what’s the point of all that time spent at our jobs?
This, of course, is the rub. The value of a one-on-one meeting is subject to the ability of the manager and the direct report to conduct a quality meeting. While that sounds pretty simple, let me ask you a question.
Have you ever been taught how to have a quality one-on-one meeting with your boss or with a direct report?
As learners, we should do everything we can to give ourselves a better chance to change our brains when trying to learn new skills. Learning about neuroplasticity and the best way to encourage that brain state would be a good place to start, and then we can move on with our lifetime of learning.