4-16-10 To The Under-30 Crowd

And…. Also to the over-30 crowd! Allow me to explain. I received an email today from my aunt (thanks Deb!) and it got me to thinking, once again, about why we so desperately need age diversity in the work force. (You can see one of my original posts about this here. 3-22-10 Age Diversity, Part 2)

At any rate, the body of the email follows. And yes, it DID make me smile and laugh out loud. But it also reminded me that all of the things that the original author (who is unknown to me) said about the under-30 crowd are also what makes them so unique and valuable in the workplace. For example, the technology of today fuels their curiosity and creativity. And the technology that they demanded helps us all (where WOULD we be without email or the internet?!). Those are just a couple of examples that come to mind. I’m sure that you can think of many, many more.

So, read, enjoy, laugh…. But most importantly, think about how it changes the way you view your younger colleagues.

Cheers!

Growing up without a cell phone

If you are 30, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot.... BOTH ways… yadda, yadda, yadda.

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends." OH MY GOD !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat bastards!

And not many of us had microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

And car seats and seat belts - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd

3-17-10 Age Diversity, Part 1

I mentioned in a previous post (2-3-10 Executive Lessons in Sports) how important it is to remember your older “players” on the team. Across the board, our workforce is aging….. Many of the baby-boomers will continue to work for many, many years. And true, it probably isn’t politically correct to single out one group of workers based on age (but I never claimed to be PC here!). The fact is, every executive NEEDS the old-timers on their team. Why?

There are a lot of reasons. But here are a few that come to my mind……

First, they have knowledge and experience. You are now thinking, well DUH! But stop and think about it. When you need something big done, or something done quickly, or just something done….. Don’t you have a “go to” person? And I’m betting that this go to person is probably one of your older workers. They have the experience and they know what you need without you having to lay out every little step. Right?

Second, they tend to just quietly get things done. Not a lot of fanfare. Not a lot of hand-holding. They just quietly go about their business, generally accomplishing a ton of work. While you must have a few of the Type A, hair-on-fire-type of people on your team, you really need more of the “quiet doers”. Typically those are your older workers.

Third, they have the requisite network of contacts. In most organizations, business is conducted through a network of contacts. Longevity necessarily means that the person’s network is vast. This translates into ease of doing business.

And finally, along with knowledge, the senior workers typically know where all of the skeletons are buried. And while that has its own pitfalls, that knowledge is typically good for business. The older workers know which rats nests to tip-toe around. Yea, I know, you think that you want those rats nests cleaned up, not avoided. But be realistic, some just won’t go away, no matter what is done. So you want someone that won’t blunder into a problem that lingers over the decades.

So what is it that an executive should be doing for the older workers?

Well, first you have to keep them engaged. NO retirement-in-place. Not always an easy thing to do. But, if you consciously make an effort to make your older workers the “go to” people, you’ve made a start. And I don’t just mean that you are the one that goes to them. I also mean that you make the effort to direct others to these workers --- over and over. We all have egos and it feels good to be the “one” that people from all over the organization come to for a particular expertise.

Next, you have to tap into the knowledge, experience, and network. Of course, this means making sure they have the opportunity to use their knowledge, experience, and network. And it also includes the absolute requirement that they use this experience to train the kids in the organization. They WILL retire someday and you want the skeletons’ locations to be firmly entrenched in the minds of their replacements.

And finally, you have to reward them. It is so easy, as a manager, to skew the merit pool towards the kids. After all, the older workers already make a lot of money, right? And it isn’t like they are going anywhere else, right? Maybe. But if you don’t reward them, then you do run the risk of retirement-in-place. And remember, for a senior worker, an annual salary increase might not be the best reward. It is okay to talk with them about what rewards they would like. Perhaps a few extra days a month away from work is a better reward…Or a lump sum merit…. Or giving them the opportunity to take their spouse on the next business trip (expenses paid, of course). The point is, ask them. You will likely be pleasantly surprised with the conversation.

Next time? What to do with the workplace kids…….

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!