Leaders Eat Last | Appendix: A Practical Guide to Leading Millennials

The Appendix focuses on how companies can adapt to their younger generation and how millennials can adapt to working with other generations. Read along to see how Optus employees reacted to the Appendix.

TAKEAWAYS

The main takeaways from the Appendix are:

• We, as an older generation in the workforce, need to recalibrate our view of Millennial’s entering corporate America.
• As parents we have a big impact on how our children will impact the world when they get older.
• I liked the practical suggestions for leading Millennials; conference room free of cell phones, note taking on paper, teach leadership, etc.
• The main takeaway I got from the Appendix is that to better understand and utilize the new ways my generations approach work and life, we all have to work together. It isn’t on just our seniors to understand us or only on us to adapt to the way other generations operate. We all have to collaborate and find new ways to work together and become better.

FAVORITE QUOTES

• “A true mentor is never too busy to mentor.”
• “Sacrifice credit.”
• “I honestly believe it would do less long-term damage to a kid to put them up for adoption than to hand them a device every single time we don’t want to deal with them.”
• “Real learning happens when things go wrong or when we screw up.”
• “Beg for criticism. All criticism is good both positive and negative.”

DAY-TO-DAY

Our employees had a lot of great ideas for how they could implement ideas from the Appendix into their day-to-day lives.

• Lead by example in everything you do and say.
• No more cell phones at the table or during meetings, going cold turkey from my phone.
• GET OFF MY PHONE. At home. At work. In front of my kids. At dinner. Just put it away while I’m with people to help form long lasting trusting relationships.
• There is a whole 5.5 pages about things I can implement in my day-to-day life as a Millennial. In this part of the Appendix, I decided that if something I read made me feel uncomfortable, it was probably because I am guilty of doing it but don’t want to stop. My cell phone is always within arm’s reach of me. I’m not oblivious to the fact that it distracts from real human connection, but it is something to consider when I am at dinner or spending time with my family and friends. I might be more inclined to leave my phone in the car or to let someone else hold onto it for me and just enjoy the moment.
• I can take advantage of other people’s ideas and utilizing their strength for things I can’t do as well.
• Put the damn phone away. Learn to enjoy the struggle and the process.
• Learn to embrace my failures and learn from them.

LEAD THE WAY

Being a leader means more than being in a management position. Leadership can take many forms, whether at work or at home. Some great ideas for how to improve your leadership skills from the Appendix include:

• Teach/Learn how to give and receive feedback
• Use the strategies to lead, build trust, and inspire the people around me to take care of and support each other.
• Talk openly about personal failures or lessons learned.
• Give credit where it is due and celebrate my team.
• Allow people to go through the process and not give them the quick answer.

SUM IT UP

• Celebrate your team
• Lead by example
• Millennials need help
• Use devices less
• Help millennials contribute

Thank you for joining us on our journey through Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek. We hope you learned something new and enjoyed the book as much as we did.