The yogi said,” We’re all a little bit crazy in this world. We seek to associate with people who are similarly crazy to us and we sometimes disapprove of people whose craziness we don’t know about. I know who you are and your movie business craziness but you don’t know my craziness. Fools argue and wise people discuss. So let’s learn about each other’s craziness. They ultimately had a very constructive discussion and enjoyed the  trip together. Neither tried to convince the other that his craziness was better or worse than the others. They just learned how to be comfortable in each others company during the journey.

That is what we need in this world right now; a willingness to be comfortable with each other’s existence whether we agree with them or not.  No ridicule and withering criticism…just respecting each other. Why? because at the base of it we’re all crazy from some point of view. So let’s admit that we’re all perhaps more than a little crazy. If we accepted our own craziness and that of others, we’d be on the road to a more civil and constructive tone in public and private discussions. The tone has to improve if all of us realize that we may not be quite so sane as we think we are and that we could be wrong in ways we’d been blind to. Sound crazy…maybe so but what other advice can one crazy person give another.

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/07/15/what-gen-y-doesnt-know-about-itself/

She has sparked a debate which needs to happen now that gen y is getting into the post-college stage in some considerable numbers. What does gen y bring that is really new to the workplace and how does this square with what many of us who have studied and admired gen y expected to happen?

Here’s my take on selected aspects of Penelope’s 5 things gen y doesn’t know about itself

1. Gen Y mistakes the speed of the Internet for their own speed.

This is a common loss of perspective among humans of any generation. gen y finds itself the beneficiary of technological breakthroughs provided by past generations. As it was raised with these technology tools, gen y would appear to be the first generation in recent history to know more than older adults about something as crucial to living as is technology. But what gen y can’t know yet is how to use the technology in a balanced and effective way. If fact we’re all trying to learn this.

2. Gen Y wants to look like a winner more than they want to be a winner.

I am very pleased that gen y is so team oriented.  This orientation may be what we need to recreate a civil, less partisan, public dialogue that includes a respect for everyone’s views. As with anything taken to an extreme team focus can lead to stagnation, lack of initiative and wheel spinning.

3. Gen Y misunderstands entrepreneurship

Gen Y is the “checklist generation” looking for the right answers and very wary of making mistakes. I am again not surprised because we adults of all generations have created the conditions that have led to this state of affairs. The gen yers weren’t the ones who demanded that trophies be given to everyone just for breathing. It was well intentioned but unrealistic parents and teachers. Whether I like it or not, life is a contact sport and while we can smooth the edges for our children, we can’t take out the hard knocks. I’m optimistic that once gen y gets oriented to  the post-college world that they will have their share of successful entrepreneurs.

4. Gen Y thinks they don’t believe in God.

I find gen y quite open about exploring differing paths of spirituality. This is quite refreshing but I share Penelope’s concern that there is too much pitting my God against your God and that kind of conflict is not constructive at any age.

5. Gen Y mistakes their own practical behavior for revolutionary behavior.

I believe practicality can be quite revolutionary. My reasoning is that so much of the antics in our political and social life seem to be based on ideology, fantasy, and an intolerance of dissenting views. As a consequence a practical, constructive approach to interactions with others would seem quite extraordinary if gen y could help all generations to accept such an approach.

A final thing gen y doesn’t know about itself.

Gen y can play a crucial role in improving the quality of work life if they stick to their beliefs in flexibility, career life fit, inclusiveness. team play and balance in all aspects of life. A gen y once asked me when we were going to learn to treat each other with authentic respect in the workplace. My answer was and is: “Any cycle of non-constructive behavior stops when those who have been mistreated themselves say ‘enough already’ and refuse to continue the offensive behavior. So what gen y doesn’t know about itself yet is that they can make a huge contribution by just being themselves and continue living their positive values.

Recently I authored an article for HR Magazine the most influential HR oriented publication in the UK. If you follow the link above you’ll find that the article titled  “Different Slant: How talent or HR professional make a convincing case about key people.”  The original title was “Let the All Whine” and for a variety of  appropriate reasons the magazine chose to use a different title.

I’m inviting you to read the article within the frame that I originally conceived the message: that many highly successful leaders (C-Suite Heroes as I call them in the article) have a huge blind spot which threatens their own success as well as that of their organizations: they are dismissive of any messages that threaten their prerogatives namely to do whatever they please with little regard for “less” successful employees. I believe that HR professionals in particular must be able to argue with facts as well as feeling to be successful in helping these executives with this huge blind spot about the value of all employees not just the “keepers”, i.e., those who fit these executives view of  people they need to care about.

For 23 years the Computerworld Magazine Honors Program has sought to recognize those “visionary applications of information technology that promote positive change”. This program is the largest and most prestigious of its type in the world. This year there were nearly 800 nominees from around the globe being considered in one of 11 categories. In the “training/education” category, Morgan Stanley, an Honors Program sponsor, reached out to its vendors to identify applications which Morgan Stanley believed to be exceptional and which it could nominate with pride.

A vendor that I worked closely with at Deloitte is named BrandGames; it is a Morgan Stanley vendor. Morgan Stanley was impressed by BrandGames role in building a simulation directed at high school students called Virtual Team Challenge (VTM) (see definition below). VTM is an idea which my team under my leadership protected and cultivated for a number of years within Deloitte. VTM continues to receive support after my retirement and is still being used by Deloitte in its outreach to students who might ultimately be in the talent pool from which it will draw. About 15,000 students per year play this game in their respective class rooms now with an exponential increase expected within the next few years.

The exciting thing about VTM being an award winner is that it not only is among the 262 Laureates for 2011, but that VTM was on the short list of the top 5 in its category. Put another way, it is in the top 55 of 262 Laureates, i.e., the top 20 % of award winners and the top 10% of all nominated. This is rarefied air and I couldn’t be more thrilled for Scott Randall and his colleagues at BrandGames and my former colleagues at Deloitte.

Description of VTM

First-ever 3D avatar-based multi-player business simulation, allowing U.S. high school students the ability to learn about the business world and business careers, at no cost to schools.

Why is this type of award program so important?

Of course there are commercial benefits to being recognized by your peers and this is important. However, the prime reason for the enduring value of this program is expressed in the tag line to the program logo: Honoring Those Who Use Information Technology to Benefit Society. As a part of this program Computerworld saves the details of these technological solutions for posterity and makes them available through a research reference capability. The cataloguing and preservation of this intellectual capital demonstrates optimism about the future and endorses the vital concept that a greater good exists that transcends all the petty divisions which seem to afflict humans. Congratulations to Computerworld Magazine and the event sponsors, WYSE, MorganStanley, Booz Allen Hamilton, Sybase, Bank of America, CISCO, LexisNexis, Microsoft, PSI Software AG, Information Builders and Marketwire.

Knowing the above as  fact, why do we in management roles get in the way so often. What do I mean? Let’s take the disconnect between how we raised the newest to the workforce (gen y) and how we treat them once  they’re in the workforce.

Prior to entering the work world we have said to young people:

-         speak your mind,  but once in the workplace  they  are told to be quiet and get to work

-         use technology to the fullest, but their suggestions too often fall on deaf ears and they are told to put away the technology toys.

-        collaborate with others , but their work teams operate in silos

-         seek equilibrium among your life among academic demands, extracurricular activities and just chilling out, but, once employed,  there is great pressure to put work as first priority all the time. These young people rightly perceive lip service being given to career/life fit. In fact  many are under the impression that seeking too much flexibility can be a career-limiting move.

All this cognitive dissonance (disparity between what managers say and what they do) gets in the way of productivity, aka creativity, of not only gen y, but knowledge workers of all generations. And creativity is why employers hire knowledge workers. Many in management roles are highly critical of workers today and perhaps some of the criticism is warranted. However, before we go too far on this path of self-righteousness, I suggest we examine how we get in our own way as managers of people and too often thwart the very human goal of making a difference every day.

This is the uncomfortable place where business leaders find themselves today. “Mr./Ms. CEO, when were you telling the truth? When you treated employees like commodities by cutting support staffs , not filling open positions, pouring on the workload and minimizing salary adjustments to please the marketplace…or when you said that people were you most important assets and you did very little to back that up?

Meantime the CEO has been advised that transparency is what employees want especially  the younger ones (gen y). So he talks about the turn around in business and increased profitability. His intentions are to let people know that the company is going to be around. Yet the employees won’t be partaking in this largess except at the very highest levels and there are no guarantees that the employees will have jobs even if they do a superior job. So the transparency just leaves them dissatisfied if not annoyed.

Is this just a description of life from now on? It doesn’t have to be. Those of us in leadership positions have to do some soul searching because our employees are suffering from “cognitive dissonance”. This social science term means that the words and music don’t match; there is a gap between what we say and what we do. Our empleoyees feel like they are being treated as commodities while we in leadership say they are assets to be invested in.

I don’t have any solutions to present today. This is just the beginning of a series of postings about how we can change some fundamental ways we think about people…how we can eliminate “cognitive dissonance” and still make plenty of money as a business.

What if most of this tough talk about making business a “no coddling zone” is not what it appears to be…all clear eyed,sober realty? What if much of it is really a rationalization for lack of empathy for others and a self-centered focus which we would rather others didn’t realize about us? In short is no coddling  just a  socially acceptable excusing for our reluctance to adopt behaviors which are proven to enhance retention and development of talent…which don’t fit the definition of coddling at all?

A more complete discussion of this topic may be found in Chapter 8 of my newest book Decoding Generational Differences: Changing your mindset…Without losing your mind. To give you a taste of this discussion here is an example. The rationalization is followed by a decoding of what’s really behind our apparent “toughness”, at least given my experience.

Rationalization: If I devote all this effort to managing an employee and he/she still doesn’t get it, we both look foolish and we’ve wasted  time.

Decoded rationalization: I ‘m not very good at giving instructions and I really don’t care to spend the time improving. So I choose to believe that my subordinates are always wrong. Conveniently that makes me the righteously aggrieved party who is busy with the highest of callings, i.e., client/customer service. I can’t help it if the recruiters can’t hire mind readers who are the only people who can succeed working for me.

Does this seem harsh and overdone or just about right? We’ll continue to seek the answer to the statement, Say no to coddling gen y. Great, what are we saying yes to?

I’m sure if we were to ask small business owners and coporate executives, the result would be well north of 50%. One executive praised my newest book, Decoding Generational Differences: Changing your mindset…Without losing your mind...but really believed that it was the job of young people in the workplace to adapt to whatever and however the employer served up the workplace.  Any behavior by managers other than this take no hostages approach  was considered coddling. No further discussion required.

Say no to coddling! OK, but what are we saying yes to?

With this unbending attitude fresh on my mind, I thought I’d look up the definition of  ”coddling”. Most dictionaries would agree that a reasonable definition of coddling is to treat with extreme or excessive care and attention There is a connotation of spoiling and indulging, of losing perspective.

Of course nobody wants to “coddle” if this is what it means. But is it coddling to teach someone how to act appropriately in business? or to show them the value of paying dues or the need for process and following it? Further, is allowing an inexperienced employee to stumble around in the dark and calling it OJT, really an intellignet business approach? Is ignoring ways in which the workforce has fundamentally changed really smart business?

We’ll explore these and related questions in subsequent posts. In the meantime ponder this saying attributed to the economist John Maynard Keynes, “I change my mind if the facts change. What do you do?

In a recent article  (November 8, 2010) on www.HREonline.com Dr. Peter Cappelli argues that “there is less than meets the eye when it comes to generational differences and that we are obsessing about non-existent differences in the interest between young people while ignoring the interests of the huge and growing older workforce”.

As a principal at Deloitte LLP (prior to my retirement last year), I served as leader of one of the pioneering  initiatives on generational differences, and often heard the arguments Dr. Cappelli presents in his article. Based on nearly a decade of leading research in this area, I arrived at four major conclusions regarding generational differences:  1) All generations have much in common; we all share what I call the 3 R”s and 3 C’s;  we want to be respected, recognized, remembered, coached, consulted and connected.  2) There are seven irreversible realities that affect all in the workplace (gen y more than others…at least they are the most vocal), and virtually ensure that the “good old days” can’t come back; these include changes in family structure that lead to need for flexibility, distrust of business,  and the flat world of globalization; 3)  the perception by many that the impact of these realities creates generational differences provides a “hall pass” to talk about workplace issues all of us face such as the impact of technology on how humans work/learn, and how to most effectively develop/retain talent; and 4) given the first three conclusions, all of us regardless of generation need a changed mindset. (More about this in a future post).

Chinese and Indian youth favor business careers much more than USA youth do

Business careers such as business administration, banking/finance, consulting, accounting, are considered very\somewhat exciting professions in a range from 37% to78%. by Chinese and Indian youth. In comparison the same range is 16% to 31% for USA youth…not much passion for business here.

Further, the top 3 careers considered very\somewhat exciting are the same in both China and India: business administration, IT and banking/finance. In comparison for the USA  the top three are: medicine/health care,teaching and law. Business adminitration is a distant fifth  and banking/finance is  a very distant seventh. Interestingly we were advised not to have Law as career choice in India and China as “these careers are not that well known or appealing”.

So what?

There is a decline in both interest and passion for business in USA young people at a time when peers in two huge competitor nations have surging interest and passion for business. We as a nation need to focus attention of why this gap exisits and what can be done about it.  It boggles my mind that 64% of youth surveyed in China find banking/finance to be very\somewhat interesting versus only 22% of  USA youth surveyed. Here we have youth in a nominally communist nation with nearly three times the level of interest in a  career critical to a capitalist economic system such as in the USA.

What do you think?