By Manuela Mesquita
“Guysssss can you pay attention please?!”” This is the request, verging on begging, which is so typical of a High School teacher. Capturing the attention of young people has never been easy, not even when the world was slow, and there was no technology to dream along with.
If it wasn’t simple in the past, imagine the difficult task today, trying to get Gen Y, in all its anxiety and impatience to focus.
Whether it’s technology’s fault, or the way in which we were raided, with intense velocity, we have a difficulty even in staying focused in front of the TV. Proof of this is that most child TV shows today don’t last more than 10 minutes.
There’s a legend about HR professionals stating that they spend hours, racking their brains, trying to find the best way to motivate, engage, retain, and get generation Y to focus on relevant topics (or not so relevant topics sometimes.) Whether its in lectures, in the classroom, or in businesses, “paying attention” is the topic of many articles, reports, books, and debates.
So I suggest this: use music, lights, the latest technology, electronic artifices, and 3D movement. This is valid. Always. People often forget that we are the “technological generation.” We will only be happy and focused if technology is present.
We value creativity and most everything which isn’t the norm or commonplace.
In order to illustrate this, I’m going to tell a story. The department of Grupo Foco which outsources its services to Avon, has most of its consultants spread out all over Brazil, and the travel constantly. Communication takes place mostly through e-mail or telephone, or whatever alternative there is to the physical.
Recently we decided to have motivational training, to create stronger relationships between our consultants, who barely knew each other, and discuss new ways of working and developing projects. This training had to take place in one day with a restricted budget.
So we came up with the idea to meet in the countryside, close to Sao Paulo. The dress code was relaxed, people wore whatever they felt like. Participants shopped at the supermarket (where they had a certain amount of money they could spend and a certain amount of time to shop, just like a game.) They had to choose the food they would cook. They split up the tasks and responsibilities based on their abilities, and the fun began. Some were responsible for the food, the music, and setting up the space. Barefoot and having savored the menu they had created, new work strategies began to emerge, as they started to imagine the possibilities to make their work even more efficient.
The results could not have been better. The stress of the office, and of running from place to place, were gone. This allowed them to get to know each other in a deeper way, as they tackled important work questions. Of course, they were very concentrated. Out in the countryside, cell phones didn’t have reception. It was that simply. Mission accomplished through a bit of imagination and “thinking outside of the box.” These are the other things Gen Y loves. We crave everything that’s different and new. Of course, this doesn’t always mean “hi-ultra-tech.” Got it?!
