For the first time in our history, we have five generations in the workforce, each generation bringing a different perspective and their own set of expectations. Millennials are now the largest generation in the workforce, and employers must rethink their workforce norms. As diversity grows with this generational shift, employers across the globe are challenged to adopt best practices for building and maintaining a generational inclusive workforce to attract and retain top talent in their organization. In order to meet the needs of today’s workforce, here are four best practices to transform your culture and build a generational inclusive workforce:

One Sentence Engagement? Is it truly possible to condense the science of employee engagement into a single sentence? It is and I’m about to convince you of that. But first I need to explain why I’m taking this extreme exercise in reductionism. Studying leadership and employee engagement has been a passion of mine for the last couple of decades. As an entrepreneur, I used engagement to chase and eventually catch a Best Place to Work award. As an author, one book on engagement somehow turned into three. One speech turned into a global tour. And this article on engagement is number one hundred and something. I know of no topic that is more important to the long-term success of a business than engagement.

Change is often uncomfortable, and adapting to it can be messy. Whether you’re implementing The Great Game of Business®, staging an acquisition, creating a new culture committee, or looking into employee ownership, consider these tips from CEOs that can help business leaders communicate your message in ways that build buy-in and rally your team behind the effort.   

Over the last three years, I’ve interviewed over 200 highly successful CEOs, military officers, entrepreneurs and leadership gurus including John C. Maxwell, Ken Blanchard, Stephen M.R. Covey, Liz Wiseman, Kim Scott, Patty McCord and others. I always get them to reveal their number one secret to workplace leadership; what advice would they give to a younger version of themselves? After analyzing their answers 10 themes emerged.

As I was growing up on the shop floors of manufacturing plants, I was constantly bombarded with best practices that had names like total quality management, management by objectives and lean manufacturing. The idea was that the company’s management was trying to make us more productive and efficient. If one person could run a machine and still have time to stand around, we would give him two more machines to run. That was breakthrough thinking, essentially operating those two extra machines for free since we increased the productivity of this worker.

This is an employee engagement message from the heart. I’m doing my best to strip away HR-speak, academic jargon, and journalistic style in an attempt to actually reach crazy-busy front-line managers who’ve heard it all before. It’s my vain attempt to actually influence someone. Despite the best intentions of so many, the truth about employee engagement isn’t getting out. You need to understand…

Excerpted from The Great Game of Business. Like most American companies, International Harvester operated on the principle that everybody should focus on doing the specific job he or she was assigned. The corollary was that you should only give people the information required to do their specific jobs; everything else should be treated as some kind of corporate secret. Somehow it had become common wisdom that this was a good way to run a business—in fact, the only right way to run a business. That is the biggest myth of all.

From characteristics of successful GGOB practitioners, to forecasting tips, to biggest mistakes and how to avoid them, our Great Game® coaches tackle these common issues in this segment of "Ask the Coaches."

Excerpted from The Great Game of Business. The common wisdom is that people should prove themselves before they get promoted. I always promoted people as fast as I could. Sometimes I promoted them right out of my department. I liked giving people opportunities, and I didn't want them to get bored and stale, but I had an ulterior motive as well: it made my job a lot easier to have friends all over the company.

Excerpted from The Great Game of Business. It's very common for managers, especially new managers, to think they're supposed to have solutions for any problems that arise on their watch. That kind of thinking can get you into deep trouble. For one thing, it sets you up to fail because no one has all the answers. For another, it undermines your credibility because everyone knows that no one has all the answers. It also isolates you from people. A big pitfall of managers at all levels is the notion they have to be perfect. I know supervisors who can't hold a meeting because they're afraid someone might ask a question they can't answer. As I mentioned earlier, I know CEOs who can't leave their offices unless their ties are straight and every hair is in place. Managers like that wind up hating their jobs. They feel they have to live up to an image, to be an idol, to be a representative of a position.

Excerpted from The Great Game of Business. We've all heard how you have to be an S.O.B. to succeed in business. How you have to step on other people to get results. How it's okay to throw your weight around because it's a tough world and you win through intimidation. It's all a crock. I've worked on the shop floor. Believe me, nobody there wants to hear a guy telling you to bust your butt if he's rolling around in a Mercedes and beating up the people he works with. When you flaunt what you've got, when you intimidate, when you treat people badly, you lose power. I've watched guys like that throughout my life. I've learned it's just a matter of time before they get theirs.

With different levels of employees, do you structure bonus and reward programs equally? Does GGOB implementation differ between professional and support staff? Are staff privy to others' salary information? Our Great Game® coaches answer how to tackle these tricky questions in this segment of "Ask the Coaches."