A few months ago I wrote about an industry conference I attended in Anaheim, California. One of the presentations was given by Dr. Marlene Law Graham, a senior manager at The Boeing Company in Long Beach, California. Dr. Graham's presentation, “Leveraging the Power of Cross-Generational Teams”, focused on four commonly accepted workplace generations, how their respective views toward “work” differ, and how to effectively deal with those differences to resolve conflict. Allow me to grossly oversimplify Dr. Graham’s presentation.
Traditionalists and baby boomers (born roughly between 1925 and 1960) tend to view work as an end in and of itself. They equate productivity with attendance and long hours and believe in “paying your dues”. Generation X and the so-called millennial generation (roughly born between 1961 and 2000) tend to equate productivity with results. They view work as merely a means to an end and are interested in getting the job done so they can move on with the rest of life. Obviously the divisions are not hard and fast, but when the two older and two younger generational definitions are paired, as I've done here, I think the demarcation is very evident. To illustrate, let's consider two companies as if they were generational members. I'll pick the companies.
The Boeing Company was born in 1916. It has survived the Great Depression, two world wars, the Civil Rights Movement, and 9/11. To say the company is seasoned is a dramatic understatement. Its generational attitude is certainly traditionalist; conformity to the rules and long hours are accepted as the norm. The value of something as benign as text messaging might be questioned in this environment (and a colleague recently wrote about how it was).
By contrast, Google was born in 1998, unquestionably making it a millennial child. As such the company’s culture tends to be more results-oriented. A visit to the Googleplex, Google's corporate headquarters, reveals a more relaxed, open attitude towards creativity and innovation. People bring their pets to work, ride Segway scooters up and down the halls, and use conference room projectors to watch the latest DVD movie releases. In a recent
interview with CNET, Google CEO Eric Schmidt responded to a question about new technologies the company is developing by expressing their attitude as follows:
“Let’s not pre-judge what these things are best used for. Let’s build great technology…and our end users will ultimately judge”.
This sentiment is echoed in Google’s policy of 20% time, where engineers can spend one day a week working on a project of their choosing. It doesn’t matter if it looks like work or not, Google’s focus is on the result, and as long as the results keep coming, the process is largely left up to the employee.
Late in 2006, Businessweek ran a story about the aggressive transformation of Best Buy’s corporate headquarters to a Results Oriented Work Eenvironment (ROWE). The concept is that “people are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done.” Three years later, Cali and Jody, the program’s founders, have spun ROWE off into its own subsidiary, bringing the philosophy to the world via their book, private consulting, and a blog. Recently they wrote about a company considering the addition of instant messaging because their younger generation workers are accustomed to it.
“What started out as a tool used by younger workers is being adopted by older workers. That’s what we like to hear: using technology to change the culture of a workplace so that people can have more power and freedom to do their jobs when and where they want.”
Changing the culture of a workplace is where many companies fall short—especially those of the “traditionalist” variety. Companies like the one Cali and Jody wrote about might think they can step into the digital age by simply adding a social networking tool to their workplace. But social networking tools cannot simply be deployed and expected to instantly integrate generational cultures within a company. I've
written before about innovation, and the mistake companies often make by simply pulling innovative tools off the shelf without understanding or addressing the cultural and generational transformation necessary to achieve the desired results.
The more traditional generation tends to view technology as a threat rather than an opportunity. A change to how work is done is a change to how life is defined, and since work is not just a means to an end but more an end unto itself, this can be upsetting. Technology thus
becomes an obstacle rather than a tool. But today's generation has figured out that just because you’re at work doesn’t mean you have to be working--and vice versa. They use technology to blur the traditional definition of "the office" and
studies have shown they are typically more--not less--productive while doing it. It's somewhat of a paradox that the generation that values separation of work and play the most has most intertwined the two.
The ability to always be connected is not inherently good or bad, it's
how that connection is managed and balanced with the rest of life that matters. In Wealth of Networks, Yochai Benkler writes,
“The overarching point is that social production is reshaping the market conditions under which businesses operate. Consumers are changing into users…reshaping the relationships necessary for business success..."
Regardless of whatever title I may have (Industrial Engineer, Lean Practitioner, Father, Writer, etc.) I am a change agent, it's just what I do. As such I must not only be aware of generational differences and the new relationships of a technologically connected business world, I must embrace those differences and offer effective ways to unify the talents and strengths of each generation.
Sometimes that might mean text messaging the boss from Starbucks while checking Facebook. What's wrong with that?
