When you realise the younger members of your team do not seem to be committed to the long-term success of your business, what do you do? Bemoan the selfishness of the young, or rethink how you’re doing things?

In my early days in this business, I did a course in which the speaker brought up the term WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). He called it everybody’s favourite radio station. I had forgotten about the expression until a participant brought it up when a forum member was voicing his frustration at how some of his younger employees were only interested in what they could take from the business and, in his experience, had no concern for its future survival, not to mind success.

A clash of values

The ensuing conversation did not initially focus on what to do about these ‘selfish’ employees. Instead, it was around why we, as leaders, get so annoyed with this approach. All the members agreed that the reason each of our businesses was successful was that each of us focused on the needs of the business rather than on our own short-term gains. In the past, this attitude rubbed off on key employees, or they shared the mindset to begin with, and so each business went from strength to strength. However, many of the forum participants now saw the fruits of their labour being wiped out by a new generation who did not share their values.

What can we learn from them?

The discussion seemed to be going nowhere until one member made the remark that it could be time we incorporated the WIIFM attitude into our approach to life, without sacrificing the success of the business. Another member surmised that we too were interested in seeing what we could get from our businesses, but that this was a long-term strategy focused on our exit and pension. Another member felt our strength of taking responsibility for the success of the business was also our weakness because it sends a message to everyone in the team that this is ‘my gig’ and there is no space for anyone else.

These revelations led us to address two key questions. The first was how could we enjoy the journey rather than deferring happiness until we retire and sail off into the sunset with our pension and golden handshake. The second was how to create a vision our younger employees can buy into where they too see the success of the business as leading to greater rewards for them in both the short and long term.

As a result of processing the challenge, the participants had the following insights:

• It is important to have regular conversations with employees at all levels about the type of culture the majority of employees would buy into rather than insisting that our approach is the only way for a business to be successful.

• We as leaders need to gradually move from taking all the responsibility for the success of the business to sharing responsibility with our employees.

• We cannot hold back the tide of change. If the new generation has a different outlook on life there is no point in trying to change them. It didn’t work for our parents with us; we had to learn our own lessons and we and society gradually changed to accommodate one another’s values and achieve a new more enriched and diverse culture.

• In order to create the psychological space for others to step up we need to stop seeing ourselves as victims of circumstances but as active participants in steering the ship to a new culture that becomes even better than what we presently have.

What approaches have you successfully used to engage the hearts and minds of others who have a different outlook on life to you? And what other approaches are you open to trying to bring that about?

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