5 Questions for Bruce Tulgan

Our expert author in this edition is Bruce Tulgan, author of  It’s Okay to Be the Boss and the classic Managing Generation X. His latest title, Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y, will be released in March.   We caught up with Bruce between speaking engagements. 

Can you give us an overview of how the generations differ from each other? 

Members of generation X are naturally entrepreneurial; they were raised in an environment that lacked supervision.  Therefore, they prefer to work in an unsupervised setting.  Members of generation Y tend to need more supervision; they grew up with doting parents, and have always been supervised.  Since they have been oversupervised, they typically want to be more independent, but that isn’t necessarily the environment that they thrive in. 

How do these differences play out in the workplace?

There are certainly some tricky generational situations as Generation X and Generation Y become leaders and companies are doing things with more of a Boomer mentality. 

We are always tracking the big picture, tracking the landscape of human capital management and day to day supervision. 

How do you address workplace issues in mixed generation groups?

The funny thing about issues in the workplace is that it is best to put a spotlight on the authentic common ground they share, without which they would not be there.  So finding something they all care about and coming up with a solution or short cut is the first step.  The important thing is for people to put their own energy into finding solutions.  An incidental benefit of this is camaraderie.

I also focus on doing more work better and faster.  I often find unnecessary interdependence, which gets people tangled up. We have to rely on, wait, and coordinate; all of these take time.  Eliminating these unnecessary interdependencies moves the group closer to the efficiency they are seeking.

Another typical impedance to productivity is competing cliques and ring leaders, which often fall on age lines.  This causes bad air on a team.  These kinds of issues usually indicate that the manager is not engaged enough or that employees are not being pushed enough to have rigorous plans and goals.  Managers often have a “False Nice Guy” management tactic that abdicates responsibility.  This creates a power vacuum. 

I am very explicit about transactional nature of work.  Many people are embarrassed about it.  Of course you can have relationships, self actualization, and creative expression, but there is something very clarifying about saying that this is an entity with a clear mission, and employees are engaged in a transactional relationship.  Recognizing this is critical.  It eliminates unnecessary questions and helps increase focus. 

What do you think the current rash of layoffs will mean as we move forward?  Will companies experience a talent vacuum as the economic tides turn?

Employers certainly have been trying to get more lean and flexible.  A primary point has been when it comes to human capital management.  There are smaller fixed core groups (on site uninterrupted, exclusive, relatively long term fixed salary employees) and increasingly larger groups of contingent workers (temps, consultants or independent contractors). 

As the workforce becomes more fluid, and long term fixed employment becomes less the norm, the downsizing has been happening so quickly.  Industry has become much better at this.  Sadly, these are human beings, so we have this bizarre irony.  Companies have become good at cutting human capital fast.  There will be an imbalance in supply and demand in various fields and trades for awhile. 

As demand comes back in to the marketplace, then all of a sudden companies will have the opposite problem.  Right now we have underutilized capacity—workers whose services can’t be used or sold.  Here is the flip side: if demand came rushing back, then we will have unfulfilled demand. It is a delicate balancing act that all businesses need to manage.  Unfulfilled capacity limits growth, but underutilized labor is a huge cost to the organization. 

It will certainly be interesting to watch things unfold as we move forward in the new economy.  Thanks for your time, Bruce. 

Bruce Tulgan can be reached at www.rainmakerthinking.com.