A leader recently unloaded her frustration about the millennials on her team she finds suprisingly rigid and resistant to change. Her tone spoke to a sense of being betrayed by their careless disloyalty to her position. Among other things, there are many assumptions and agendas at work here. Her question is the old question of “How can I get them on board?” After all, they’re supposed to be young risk takers. Right?
If I was coaching her, I would offer a different question: What does it mean to engage people as co-authors of meaningful change? And there are others. What would they love to see possible in their work going out as far into the future as they want? How would they critique changes in their areas that have and haven’t worked well? Are there any forms of acceptable failure from experiments possible in their work?