The more I dive into generational issues, the more convinced I become that 20- and 30-year cohorts are simply too broad; the world is simply changing too fast.

Generations are not defined exclusively by the years they were born, they are also defined by the experiences they share. So when the world changes as significantly and as rapidly as it has been doing lately, and when one considers that people’s most formative years—often assumed to correspond with one’s teen years, more or less—span a period of only 6-7 years, it stands to reason that we’d find distinct cohorts within generations.

And guess what: we can. Unscientifically, here’s one way to slice Gen X… this is unscientific, and is not meant to be exhaustive. This is meant only to illustrate the point that a generation can be logically sliced into narrower cohorts… and to get you thinking about the folks you’re working with in a new way:

Gen X Cohort 1
Reagan Democrats
ERA expiration
Double digit inflation
Middle East out of control (Iran hostage crisis, Sadat, Marines in Lebanon, TWA hostage crisis, El Al attacks in Rome and Vienna, Achille Lauro, Berlin nightclub bombing, Libyan “Line of Death”)
VCRs, CDs, MTV
Judy Blume
Mary Lou Retton
Deer Hunter, First Blood, “Born in the U.S.A.”, Platoon
Standing in line for movies like Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, Star Wars, E.T.
Geraldine Ferraro
AIDS debate (it was not universally accepted as a crisis at first; there was a lot of push-back and organizational sclerosis in dealing with it)
SDI Initiative (Star Wars)
Live Aid
1984
Iron-on t-shirts
Madonna, Run D.M.C.
Japanese manufacturing threat

This cohort comes of age as America finally absorbs the lessons of Vietnam and the economic impact of the oil shocks of the ‘70’s. Double digit inflation comes under control just in time for taxpayers see the president double the national debt and propose even more spending for SDI. Computers proliferate. Kids watch their moms go to work and, because society doesn’t know how to support moms in the work place, they watch out for each other. Even minor cultural events like summer blockbusters are still large, communal events. An actor in the White House, and MTV in the living room, mean that appearances matter from now on. Rules about gender roles are starting to change, but a resurgent national pride and focus on military build up give the era a decidedly masculine feel.

Gen X Cohort 2
Iran-Contra scandal
Chernobyl
Yuppies
1987 market crash
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!”
Hair metal (that’s music, y’all)
Tianimen Square
Salman Rushdie fatwa
I get my drivers license and fill up @ ~$.97/gal (just waxin’ nostalgic)
S&L crisis
AIDS
Barbarians at the Gate, Wall Street
Exxon Valdez
Pan Am flight 103
“Read my lips!”
Wayne’s World
Gulf War
Milli Vanilli
Japanese market collapse

The 1989 earthquake in SF is a great metaphor for this cohort, which seems to experience the results of long-term pressures in quick, big jolts. Chernobyl is the result of crumbling infrastructure; China cracks down on dissidents; America goes to war to secure oil access; S&Ls cost US taxpayers $150 billion—a staggering sum at the time; M&A activity is larger than life; the stock market crash is blamed on program trading; terrorism takes a turn for the spectacular; the entertainment industry is scandalized when Grammy award winners are outed as fakes. The music is loud and the nihilistic, no-tomorrow rock star lifestyle is celebrated to the extreme.

Gen X Cohort 3
Nirvana
Russian economic crisis
Proliferation of the internet
Netscape IPO
Over-commercialization of… everything.
Napster

Nirvana gives the finger to very concept of the institution, with Cobain literally showing up on Rolling Stone in a “Corporate Magazines Suck” t-shirt. With that, the individual enters the scene as a powerful force… big time. Big business as it has been doesn’t know it yet, but it’s days are numbered. Initially, the power of the individual is captured in the negative—think “Loser” by beck and “Creep” by Radiohead—but when Netscape hits, that individualism translates into free market labor and a technical revolution. Napster is a first crack at individuals fighting against the machine and winning… people on the inside are a bit taken aback at just how many victories are scored before the machine fights back, and the disorganized, ham-handed return volley by the industry is laughable.

Certainly, not a scientific cut… not even final thoughts; I could just as easily sliced these cohorts a different way. But as I go through and cut this generational stuff every which way, it does strike me that even within a single generation, multiple, distinct cohorts exist. This is one way of identifying them.

Posted under Gen X & Gen Y

I recently read a manuscript about Gen X in the workplace, and as I did so, I was struck by how much of a transitional generation we are. Perhaps because of all the flux that has occurred (and continues to occur) in our time, we have always struggled to have a positive identity; so many of the experiences we share are negatives. In no particular order:

-3 Mile Island
-AIDS
-Tylenol scare
-Drinking age went up from 18 to 21
-Existential self-awareness of grunge
-Emo bands before them
-Cobain’s suicide
-Bush’s famous broken promise, “No new taxes”
-Clinton’s impeachment

Even positives are often construed as negatives:
-The Berlin Wall fell; communism failed
-The Gulf War: military victory, social and geopolitical mess
-Wall Street (“Greed is good…” Don’t expect loyalty!)
-Political Correct movement… which stamped out discrimination on its face, and also gutted fearless, honest dialog
-Dot com boom… and bust

And what’s the hallmark of our generation? Arguably, it’s our snarky, ironic, self-awareness-laden sense of humor. From the Church Lady to Colbert, with guest appearances by Garafalo and Spade, our humor has a dark overtone.

What does it mean? I dunno, maybe nothing. But as I was reading through the manuscript and cataloging for myself all the things that define us, I struggled… I interpreted the negative definitions to mean that we are not defined… we are so used to be neither this nor that, it only seemed fitting to then ascribe that same “neither” quality to our trends… hence language framed in the negative. Indeed, most of the major trends I could think of had us either a little ahead of the curve or a little behind it… very few had us right in the middle. I thought that the absence of a defining characteristic was maybe in our genes (remember “slacker?”), sort of like a collective egolessness.

Then I thought about Sherpas.

Like Gen X, Sherpas have long been part of incredible journeys, but they’ve always been just a step to the side, never in the limelight and never really part of the action. Defining the Sherpa who carried Sir Edmund Hillary’s pack for him up Mt. Everest would have taken the spotlight off Sir HIllary… and that might have ruined the the romance and majesty of the trek. Focus too heavily on Tonto, and the mystique of the “Lone” Ranger falls apart. I felt like maybe society on the whole needs us to be undefined. We’re the ones laying the ladders over the crevasses, scoping the paths, installing the ropes… taking over for the Boomers who were happy to establish base camp and prepping the pass for the Yers who we already know want to hit the peak.

But unlike the work of the mountaineering, Nepalese Sherpa, the infrastructure we are laying is far more subtle. And disruptive:

-Technology: We put together Web 1.0. Most of us who were in it knew full well we were pushing these technologies beyond their capacities, that the collapse was only a matter of time, but we also knew that we needed to lay the infrastructure hard and fast in order to force corporate America (the driving force of change in our society) to take notice.
-Management: We have been flattening organizations for over a decade. Along with the Dot Com Boom came another important trend: flatter organizations. That era ushered in the idea of the meritocracy like none other: don’t like your job? Leave for a better one across the street. You’re the best programmer in the city? You could command salary and perks commensurate with your capabilities despite not being a management muckety-muck.
-Values: We have been putting a torch to wanton commercialism since day one (though this trend seems to be becoming undone). One morning when my dad and I had breakfast in 1997, he was stunned to see me in a swag t-shirt and ripped jeans. “You should dress like the CEO,” he said. “I do,” I replied. Nice suits? Brand names? Not necessary. We had our fill when Guess and Girbaud had us wearing acid wash jeans and ballon-y cotton pants. We learned early that being a slave to fashion could make you look dumb, and we haven’t forgotten the lesson.

The analogy is not perfect, but the idea seems to fit. And as we enter roles of real responsibility, it’ll now be our job to shepherd society through radical change in the economy overall, from a capitalism as we used to know it to something more fluid, global, and (de)centralized. Something that, like us, has yet to be defined, that retains elements of what preceded it and includes elements of a future that is still taking shape.

We’re not in the old world, and we’re not yet in the new. We are very much in between, and it’s up to Gen X to lay the foundation that gets us from the former to the latter.

America’s economic Sherpas.

Posted under Gen X & Gen Y

In technology?

Planning on moving from functional expert to manager to executive?

This presentation is for you.

If it’s helpful, let me know.

If it’s not helpful, let me know fast.

Posted under Coaching & Consulting, Gen X & Gen Y, Leadership

“Help! I have all this responsibility and no authority to get it done!”

OK, I’ll help: authority is designed to formalize and strengthen your ability to influence others, not to replace it. If there is something you need done and you can’t figure out how to do it by influence, then having authority won’t help. In fact, here’s what’d happen if you had sufficient authority right now to push your agenda through:

You’d call up whoever it is whose help you needed, and you’d ask for help.

They’d say, “No.”

You’d pull rank and tell them they have no choice.

They’d tell you to go stick it.

Or, after you pull rank and tell them they have no choice, they say, “OK, whatever you say.” And fail to deliver, just to spite you.

Now whatcha gonna do? Tell your boss that you got had by an employee? That you didn’t see it coming? That you were perfect and it was your dang employee who dropped the ball? Because now that you have authority, ultimately your failure to deliver is due to one of only two things: your inability to prioritize activities or your inability to manage people.

Yikes.

OK, so suddenly, influence is starting to look better. That means you need a model for influencing others, so you’re in luck: there are lots of them. Here’s one:

Influence can happen through one of three ways:

1. Power: think might, brute strength, political clout. Pros: fast, expedient, and you WIN. Cons: you develop enemies, create animosity and resentment, and because power erodes with use, every time you use your power, you weaken yourself relative to those around you. (Think of military power: once a bomb is dropped, it is gone until it is replaced; once a division is mobilized, it is no longer available to commit elsewhere; similarly, once a political favor is called in, it’s been called in, and needs to be replaced.)
2. Rights: think formal authority, contracts, mediation… basically, anytime a third party or outside, objective standard is used to determine an outcome. Pros: objective (perceived as fair). Cons: slow, not so objective (how impartial do you think you’d feel after losing a court case?), indistinguishable from power under certain circumstances, introduces 3rd parties (with their own interests, interpretations, and perceptions) into the mix.
3. Interests: think influence, trade-offs, win-win negotiations (the real kind, not the coersive, “power dressed up as a fake win-win“ kind). Pros: lasting outcomes, don’t need formal authority, long term relationship is preserved. Cons: can be slow, require both parties to be invested in the relationship, can create future vulnerabilities, not always perceived as fair in the moment

We often hear about influence, power, interests, authority, and win-win or win-lose scenarios, but we don’t often hear about them in context. Hopefully, this context helps bring just a bit of visibility to why formal authority is so alluring and the real costs of using it, vis-a-vis a softer, more influence-based approach.

Posted under Coaching & Consulting, Team Dynamics, Gen X & Gen Y

A: As a manager, one of the things you might want to look for in a subordinate is the ability to self-direct. And why not? Having a team of self-starters makes your job as a manager nice and easy, right?

Actually, not so fast. Before we dive into the tactics of what to look for when hiring for the “self-starter” competency, consider first how having an intrinsically motivated individual on your team will impact things:

1. This person will act on limited information, seeking forgiveness, not permission.
2. This person will expose others on the team who do not work as hard.
3. This person will build relationships with your peers and possibly even your superiors.
4. This person may make you work harder just to keep up with your subordinate.
5. This person may take an informal leadership role on your team.
6. This person may not need you as much as you will need this person.

In short, this person may make you feel threatened in your current job, as s/he causes previous practices to be called into question while building powerful relationships around you and demonstrating superior results.

Generally, I find that most people think they want self-starters because they have this image for themselves of sitting back and relaxing while their team of self-starters do all the work… then, during the interview, when looking at a self-starter, many of them begin to realize, intuitively, what’s in store; it takes a courageous manager with ambitions of his or her own (or a strong teaching orientation) to tolerate strength below in the hierarchy. Managers who are not so secure in their own roles, when faced with the self-directed candidate in person, may start to find behaviors that sounded good in theory to look “annoying,” “pushy,” and “arrogant.”

But now, I’m an optimist; in my world, managers are fearless, and they truly want the best and brightest for their teams, even at the expense of their own security. So, ye manager, if you are going to assume the risks that come with building the absolute best team possible, you’re going to want the following information:

When looking at a job candidate and considering whether the person is a self-starter, watch for the following:

1. How does the person respond to you in the interview itself? Does the candidate repeatedly wait to be asked a question before offering information? Do they repeatedly ask for clarity about their answers? Do they constrain their answers to the bare minimum? Do they avoid small talk, relationship-building, and other non-Q&A interactions? Or, do they take the interview and run with it, leaving you with the slight feeling that if you don’t jump in, they may take the process slightly off-course from where you want it to go? Do they offer well constructed, thorough answers that have “hooks”—points of interest that provide easy segues to follow up questions? Do they gently challenge you? Do they show as much energy at the end of the interview as at the beginning?
2. How does the person behave outside the interview? We don’t care so much how the person describes himself or herself, because we don’t know how self-aware the person is and therefore can’t trust their interpretations of their own behaviors, but we do care about how they say they will act. For instance, how will they decide on which job offer to take? Who else will be part of their decision process; are those people counselors who will aid them or authorities who will give them implicit permission? How did they make decisions in the past—can you find a theme that this person consistently had decisions “vetted” by authority figures before making them? I know parents are becoming a more integral part of the hiring process, and one of the questions that raises for me is, does this candidate know how to make a decision alone? The involvement of parents clouds the issue, making it more difficult to know if the candidate is truly self-directed… or is having his or her strings pulled by mom and dad.

One other thing you can do is narrow down what you mean by self-starter. There are a number of competencies you could look for that cluster around that same concept, such as decisiveness, comfort with ambiguity, ambition, forward-looking, action oriented, results oriented… sometimes, being able to tease these competencies apart can make it easier to understand what exactly you are looking for, and can help you distinguish between two candidates who both seem to have the quality you are looking for, but who express it differently.

Posted under Q&A, Coaching & Consulting, Job Interviews, Gen X & Gen Y