Over the past few years I’ve been talking a lot quite a lot about my thoughts on how to create a work environment that’s conducive to attracting and retaining millennials. I certainly don’t presume to be an expert in this matter but I can say that I’ve taken more than a passing interest in it because they are a key resource for our members and the way you work with them is a critical success factor for your business.
Today I happened on a 60 minute video from Harvard that was presented last year by Columbia Professor Ruth Gunther McGrath who is the author of a very interesting book called The End of Competitive Advantage. The entire video is certainly worth watching with your pen and journal close by to take some notes for your firm and your clients.
After seeing the amazing growth of Facebook and Twitter over the past several years I started to think that a team member of the future will have a different relationship with his/her employer than has been the case in the past. In fact I have mentioned in blogs, webinars and key notes that in my opinion the team member of the future is not going to bring just his or her brain and experience to your business but will bring the brains and experience of his or her network of contacts as well.
I have even suggested that when hiring talent it would be worthwhile learning about a candidate’s network and operationally it might be in your interest to encourage your team members to tap into their network. This of course may raise a whole bunch of “control” issues, not to mention privacy, confidentiality and legal concerns but I do not believe it will go away and I do believe it has the potential to offer significant competitive advantage to firms that can figure out how to tap into this resource.
For this reason my ears picked up when she talked about this very issue. You can listen to an excerpt from her presentation below. In it she refers to an article in the Harvard Business Review (June 2013, p49) called Tours of Duty: The New Employer-Employee Compact. It’s worth reading.