Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y

CHAPTER SEVEN

TEACH THEM HOW TO MANAGE THEMSELVES

I know I am great. I don't need my boss to tell me I'm great. But I'm great at my talents, whereas you are probably great at your talents. We are both great in our own way. Me? I've always been the athlete who trains harder than anyone else, and that's who I am at work: the guy who will come in the earliest, stay the latest, do the heaviest lifting. But I'm not too good with details. I'll probably mess up on some of the details. Sorry. But I still know I'm great.

—Gen Yer

Here's a story a manager in a large research company told me: “The first time I interviewed this one employee, she told me, ‘I think you are going to be really impressed.’ Then when I hired her, she told me the same thing. The ...