X and Y

Five years ago, we hired an intern for the summer. He was a bright, smart, and articulate college graduate; he was engaging in conversations, with an eye to the very issues facing our business. At the end of the first week, I envisioned him on our staff, full time. After eight weeks, I was ready to drop him out the window, hoping he’d splat on the parking lot.

That’s because, brilliant as he was, he did nothing. He made the case to participate in every conversation and meeting possible, but I’d be damned if I could get him to complete a single task or meet a deadline. Even the most menial of assignments—and I’m sorry, but that’s stakes on the table for any internship—was never completed.

At the time, I thought it was an anomaly. I was wrong.

Much has been written about the different expectations of the newest members of the workforce—and while I don’t cast a wary eye at every single Y generation associate joining our team, or working for our company, I am finding it difficult to manage them.

I applaud many of their principles: They’re smarter with information, they understand that life isn’t all about the office, and they want flexibility to explore new areas and tackle tougher assignments. But with exceptions here and there, I believe they have highly unrealistic expectations.

I’m now managing the work of two Y generation associates, and I’m struggling to get them aligned with our department’s priorities. One of them is a handful: He was largely unsupervised for the first two years on the job. Now a part of my team, he doesn’t want to put in the time or do the “grunt” work, wants his voice included on strategic decisions, expects the managers and directors to share the tactical load, and recently campaigned for everyone on our team to have the same title. The other is not so brash, but closing the loop or providing status on her progress is not her strong suit. I usually have no idea what she’s doing.

My professional peers and friends all over this planet are experiencing the same thing: The generation X manager, the Y generation associate, and the very different expectations we have of rights, responsibilities, and accountabilities. One of my best friends, though, rightly pointed out that we weren’t all that different when we showed up 15 years ago to the office. The boomers were incredibly frustrated with us.

She’s currently dealing with an associate at her creative firm, one who so impressed as an intern, he was hired on the spot with a senior associate title. As she puts it, they’re all just waiting for him to say something smart. But he doesn’t do anything; he just goes to meetings, talks a lot, and openly argues with her management style and decisions. She finally pulled him aside, and offered some advice: “Look, I want to help you, but you need to know something—you can’t bullshit a bullshitter. This isn’t easy. You have to actually work, or you won’t last.”

Business isn’t a democracy, but it can be more flexible. However, certain deliverables must be met. I’m going to support and encourage their development—these two associates are an investment in our business. I also know that someone can’t be mentored if he or she doesn’t want it. So I’m working to find ways to firmly communicate expectations we have of them and their contributions to the organization, while giving them opportunities to flourish.

Advice from readers is highly appreciated on this one.

Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be. —Office Space (1999)

Preserve, or Move Forward?

Nah. I’m not on vacation, this week or last. I just temporarily fell off the grid. (Sometimes a girl’s gotta work!)

If you haven’t been paying attention (or, like me, are running on information overload), there is a fascinating display of hypocrisy happening right now in the United States: Those who espouse free market principles are the very ones fighting against changes to the social systems that are key to sustaining free markets.

I personally have picked my sides on the debates over health care reform (I want to manage my own health care costs), the ongoing B.S. in—er, sorry, bailout of Detroit (now the government is going to own GM?), Employee Free Choice Act (hell no—did you see what the unions did to Detroit?), and environmental accountability (businesses should report natural resources impact as an expense—and we’ll see things change real fast).

Broadly, however, with the exception of a few companies that “get it,” the general population of publicly-traded corporations is generally taking its typical, staunchly-conservative stance against change. Individual corporations and industry groups are battling some of the proposed changes, citing prohibitive costs and the expense they’ll purportedly absorb if and when any significant changes are proposed or implemented to the social structures in this country.

Why is business playing both sides on this?

Business is the bastion of innovation, of entrepreneurship. It doesn’t wave around early-1970s HBR studies to stupidly validate current or future market opportunities. It changes, it evolves. It knows when to get lean and when to bask in new ideas that maximize the P and lower the L. It’s already adapting to trends in labor, workforce, and consumer spending behaviors throughout the supply chain. It looks ahead, opportunistically, and adapts itself for bigger and better things. And it explains this vision to shareholders, encouraging a long-term view over short-term stock gains. Smart, right?

But when it comes to our country, the corporate brain shuts down. Big business would rather protect an antiquated tax code, continue irrelevant hiring and labor practices borne of the 70s and 80s, and preserve the right of businesses to pollute the hell out of the planet with no accountability whatsoever. And the main argument? Protect the shareholders.

This makes no sense, people. No doubt, not every item on the administration’s agenda is good for business (like EFCA—seriously, people, the unions need to evolve their own operating models first). Successful businesses don’t dream about the past; they dream about the future, and they go there with everything they’ve got.

We should demand our society follow suit. We all win in the long run.

Congress is pushing through some new bill that’s gonna outlaw masks. Our days are numbered. Till then it’s like you always say, we’re society’s only protection. —Watchmen (2009)

My Own Worst Enemy

Sex has been on my mind lately. (Get yours out of the gutter, gentle reader.)

My abject fascination this past month with the gender divide stems from a recent market share analysis for a key part of our business. The target? The single mom. The winning strategy proposed to target said single mother, resolutely served up by the business team? Motorsports sponsorships.

At the core of this is a question of money and growth. We know, we know, we know, we know, we know. The data is right there under our noses, and the numbers are more significant each time we check them. I can’t speak fluently when it comes to motorsports demographics, but we know where the opportunities rest for us to ride to a new wave of revenue. And yet, something seemingly steps in our way when it comes to taking the role and influence of women seriously, whether as colleagues or consumers. We either paint everything a shade of Pepto Bismol, miss the opportunity all together, or get it completely wrong by assuming all women—even single moms—are unwavering supporters of men’s hobbies and interests. None of these are viable solutions for sustained growth.

And while we applaud the Ledbetter law and await our full $1, it’s way too easy for women to cast a sole, accusing finger in the direction of men. The barriers don’t solely rest with my male colleagues, though more men would do well to try and comprehend the realities of gender inequity.

No, I think the greatest barrier facing women in the U.S. workplace is women. We have our occasional role models, but collectively we are, without a doubt, our own worst enemies.

Just look at how we show up—or don’t: We don’t take the opportunity to challenge the strategic thinking behind current decisions, as if we’re waiting for permission to speak. We bring forward the mighty “mean girls” spirit, working way too hard to form cliques and win popularity contests while our numbers dwindle. We forget how to truly express ourselves, our insecurities shining through as we fail again and again to interpret a company dress code. Camisoles, tube tops, clear plastic platform shoes, Wonderbras, cleavage, flip flops, exposed underwear, and “business suits” from Victoria’s Secret do nothing to help with our credibility among our peers, female or male. I once heard a colleague advising a new hire that our office is a great place to hook up with women. Seriously, what more can we expect if we keep showing up for work like it’s happy hour?

Ladies, we perpetuate the very stereotypes that keep us from the prize, individually and in the spirit of growth. We need the healthier mindset about women in the workplace to begin with ourselves. Nothing will substantially improve, we won’t grow and prosper, and the business will fade if we don’t crack the code on this. And we can’t hold our male colleagues to higher expectations without holding ourselves to the same—or even more.

We know, we know, we know, we know, we know.

If you’re going to let one stupid prick ruin your life, you’re not the girl I thought you were. —Legally Blonde (2001)

Easy on the Attitude

We’ve all heard stories of what works (and what doesn’t) when starting a new job at a management level. Ideally, the new leader takes a measured approach to the first 100 days, evaluating how things work, how the team functions, where progress stands against metrics, and whether the metrics are the right ones to begin with. It’s an opportunity for a new leader’s true colors to shine through—particularly when the job in question was vacated by a less-than-capable predecessor.

Well, there’s a new colleague, in a new leadership role, in a function we’ve struggled with over the past two years. I feel for him, because his predecessor was a classic, bumbling dolt: a raving lunatic a with a special talent for throwing herself in front of anything that might make our work successful, and a magical calculator that boosted her department’s numbers a little higher than they really were. She made our lives a living hell.

This new guy is working hard to make his mark and he’s largely doing all the right things. I think he’s a fast study, because it looks like he did his 100–day survey of the landscape in under a month. I’m cool with his direction, with one exception: He keeps throwing those of us who are still here under the bus for the decisions his predecessor made, and the barriers she put in place. The latest rant: Over the weekend—in an e-mail, no less—he scolded my team like children for something his predecessor scolded us like children for attempting to do six months ago.

Why are we spending so much time looking back? Why can’t we just wipe the slate clean, reset the expectations, and get moving? I suspect he’s getting these questions from the same senior leadership that endorsed his predecessor’s crap, and they’re employing their own CYA strategy. I, on the other hand, have nothing to cover. I’m perfectly fine standing up for my team; my conscience is clear, my paper trail is spotless, and we’re not making excuses.

I’m ready to step up and help this guy be successful, because it’s the right thing to do. But if his attitude keeps up, he’s going to get a lot more than a reason why something isn’t done yet.

Now we had a chance to meet this young man, and boy, that’s just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him. —Office Space (1999)

Resistance . . . is Futile

One of the benefits of increased transparency is that we more quickly spot the problems—and nostalgia is the festering problem of the moment. My peaceful state from the holiday weekend has already been shattered.

Listen, dear manager: If you can’t tell me the objective for your work—how it contributes to our top line for this year—then I’m not going to be a fan of you sticking to the same plan you were working last year. It didn’t work then, and you haven’t changed it. So why will it work now?

It’s time to purge, dear manager. Get rid of those old plans. Clean off the slate. Start with a fresh perspective, and build a new plan from there.

I don’t know how to put it more plainly: YOU MUST CHANGE. What you do affects all of us. Let the past go—it didn’t work for any of us anyway.

“Resistance is futile.” —Star Trek: The Next Generation (1990)