But the young know so much now..!

These days, we have more information available at our fingertips than ever before. How does this affect our workplaces?

I've been reading Dan Pink's 'To Sell in Human' recently and one of the things that stuck out to me is that selling used to be about the buyer getting information from the seller - and now most buyers have more information than the seller - because they can find out everything they need to know online. Dan Pink suggests that this fundamentally changes the way that we should design our sales processes - to make it more conversational and exploratory based on the customer's needs.

I wondered how this would affect the younger people in our world of work. In years gone by, a new young employee at a company would have information they'd learned about a role from their education - but a lot of educational settings don't reflect real life, so the young person would be a junior, learning the ropes, making the teas and coffees to learn from their seniors.

Nowadays, young people can enter the workplace with more real experience - and more tools at their fingertips to help them do their role. Their reliance on the more senior team members is way less.

This can go one of two ways -

1. Young people don't get any support from seniors: I've heard a lot of stories about organisations letting their senior, more experienced staff go, in favour of a cheaper, younger workforce. Or stories of younger colleagues working in a silo - not asking for help because they believe they can use AI to answer all of their questions (I generalise to make the point)

2. Organisations work to change the relationship that their younger employees have with the seniors: Make it more about mentorship (in both directions), coaching and support. There are so many nuances to working in a complex environment - things that can't be taught - they. can only be experienced. That's the role an experienced person will need to get used to in a modern workplace.

By acknowledging the greater level of information that young people have available to them and learning to change the support they receive to make the most of that, we can have multi generational teams that flourish, not falter.

This also remind me of the concept of servant leadership. A concept that I've been trying to master and teach others for 10+ years. Let me know if I can help you too.

What challenges are you facing in your team right now? Tell me in comments.