Mason Executive Partner Lynne Walker explains millenials to the rest of us

Who can think about the future when we are mired in the economic crisis of today?  Lynne Walker, Mason School of Business Executive Partner can, and she is actively pursuing research on our future leaders - professional Millenials. 

As part of the ongoing Speaker Series in the Flex MBA Program, Walker presented some of her preliminary findings on Monday, March 16, 2009 to Flex MBA students, some of whom had participated in her research.

Walker combines data-driven analysis of this up-and-coming generation with pithy descriptors to highlight her findings about Millenials in the workplace.  Baby Boomers "Live to Work," Gen Xers "Work to Live" and Millenials "Work my Way."  Ready or not, Millenials are coming:  Fifteen percent of the workforce now, they will overtake Baby Boomers and Gen Xers to become the majority generation in the work place by 2015.

What are Millenials like?  Walker captured their spirit by describing a project for Millenial MBA students, in which they were asked to work collaboratively to solve problems under a deadline.  To the dismay of the executives running the program, rather than turning to each other to talk, the Millenials immediately got on their Blackberries.  The executives were aghast that the students deliberately disregarded their instructions until they realized that what the Millenials were doing was contacting people they knew who might be able to help them solve the problem.  They were following instructions - just not at all the way the Baby Boomers expected.

And the unexpected seems to be the norm with Millenials, as Lynne Walker pointed out.  Therefore, she stresses the importance of gaining a "cultural" understanding of the outlook, motivators and attitudes of this new generation, so that the rest of us can work effectively with them. 

Walker is a big Millenials fan - she knows they are hopeful, ambitious, loyal and civic-minded, and that relationships are paramount to them.  She is also realistic about their other characteristics - impatience, need for externally-imposed structure and their challenges in the area of independent decision making.

Walker closed with "Ten Strategies for Success" for Millenials, the most important being a concept that hasn't changed much over the generations - "Deliver exceptional results."