In a recent Switch and Shift blog post, I made the point that communication from the top needs to increase dramatically in this day and age. In fact, it’s less about communicating specific messages from the top, and more about creating a culture of transparency. One of the reasons behind this is generational. The people at the top are nearly all Boomers and Xers, two generations that both grew up with the idea that knowledge is power and the basic expectation that only the people at the top have (or need) all the information. The people NOT at the top are largely Millennials, a generation that grew up with the Google internet as a basic utility. They are used to having all the information they could ever need, at their fingertips, all the time.

So the Millennials are asking for a lot more information in the workplace. You can call that “entitled” if you want, but it’s a real disconnect when you can easily find out anything about everything your whole life, and then you enter a job where what you know now depends on whether some middle manager remembered to pass down the right information she received from on high at the managers’ meeting.

Whispering down the chain of command, like it’s some adult version of the game “Operator,” is not going to cut it any more. Find ways to build your “transparency architecture,” as I said in the Switch and Shift post. If you don’t, you will start to alienate the Millennials, which will soon become the largest generation in the workforce. Alienate them at your own risk.