Managing Millennials? Here’s How to Build Trust.

Do you trust your gut? Can you communicate your gut feelings to others effectively? If you manage Millennials on your staff, thie ability to do that is key. Welcome to part five of our “Fierce Conversations” series. We’re offering communication lessons from Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott, along with targeted advice for how to apply those lessons to the day-to-day operations of your eye care practice.

We’ve already covered the first three of Scott’s seven core principles of fierce conversations. If you missed them, start here.

This week, we’re talking about why you should listen to that little voice inside your head.

Principle 5: Obey Your Instincts

“Don’t just trust your instincts,” says Scott. “Obey them.” Your instincts are like a secret conversation with the voice inside you, and only by listening to that voice can you hear the important messages that you didn’t know you needed.

Scott likes to draw a distinction between our private, uncensored thoughts and the careful public expressions we give them.

A truly fierce conversation requires us to say out loud what we’re thinking. The thoughts may not make sense initially, but our gut instinct knows them to be true. When we allow them to come out into the open, we can explore our ideas and help others to better understand their own.

Obeying Instincts at Your Eye Care Practice

Many leaders are uncomfortable when it comes to sharing what they’re really thinking, for fear they’ll offend someone. But millennial-age staffers actually wish that you would share more of your “uncensored” thoughts with them. “My number one tip for managing Millennials is to give immediate feedback – positive or negative,” optometrist Thuy-Lan Nguyen said in a talk at last year’s SECO conference. “Don’t wait for an annual review.” If they’re doing something wrong, they want to hear about the problem when it happens, not in a sit-down meeting after multiple incidents.