A Community of Effort

Although the students arriving on campuses this year cross the starting line of both generations Y and Z, (having been born between 1990 and 2004), they are a generation of tech savvy, socially networked, communicative thinkers whose use of PDAs is as natural as their next breath. In fact, the majority of these thinkers sleep with them by their sides and sleepily text, post and tweet intermittently during the night.

They grew up in a world where everyone gets a trophy, where competition is no longer the main focus of group activities and sharing the win, sharing the loss, working as a team is the norm. They are in constant communication with many of the adults in their lives and consistently want their “friends” to know about everything they do and want to hear what they are doing, too!

This generation embodies and embraces the idea of impermanence. They will work, live, do what they want and they have little to no sense of failure if they have to move back home with their parents, and some just never move out at all. They seek support and encouragement from everyone in their lives. Their social networking abilities are constantly at their fingertips, and the exchange of information and connection is happening at lightening speed.

Here is a generation who has spent their whole lives thus far in a world that has been at war. This generation has been living and trying to play in a context of global unrest, from Desert Storm to 9/11 to the second Iraq War and Afghanistan; they have been here for all of it. They have not known life when the United States was not at war. As parents, relatives and neighbors, how do we release our children into this world? It is our natural instinct to protect and nurture them, to want to ensure their safety; yet we are living in a society that sensationalizes its violent acts and where conflict and personal tragedies ring out from TV and the Internet.

How will these young people be successful in college when they have no idea if there will be a job waiting for them when they get out? How will they repay their student loans? Support themselves? What industry will be left for them to work in? For this generation, the future is not a bright light. It is a daily headline of stocks crashing and major companies closing or going bankrupt. The opportunity to own a home, make a major purchase or live a better life than their parents is almost impossible to fathom. They have seen their parents and relatives losing their jobs. What possibilities do they have?

We want the next generation to be successful; we want them to grow into productive adults who have a passion for life. And we, as parents, relatives and neighbors, also want to make all of the transitions in their lives seamless, smooth and even a little bit easy. But we know we have to let them stumble; let them find their own way. How do we release them to find their way when the world seems so unsafe and uncertain?

As they enter the workforce, organization leaders will need to keep up and will need to change their style and approach to what is coming and how best to harness the energy and ideas of this new generation. Information and knowledge will need to be available and interesting. We—parents, leaders, supporters and society as a whole—will need to stimulate this group of thinkers or we will lose them.

Leaders in organizations will be faced with needing new ways of managing and engaging. This generation has been taught to not only seek out, but also to expect to receive feedback daily. They have lived in a social fluidity that has allowed them, and at times encouraged them, to change their mind, their major, their circumstance and their job based on how they feel and what will “work” for them. While they may have had the opportunity to see someone hold the same job for most of their lives, they do not aspire to do the same, nor does it seem to be an option even if they wanted it to be. This will be a generation of multiple careers and interests, and a confidence that celebrates that wide breadth of choices and experiences.
This generation is no doubt our fastest growing and changing element that will impact the success of not only our, but also future, organizations and our society. In order to gain as much as we can from them, we need to recognize this change and be prepared for it. The question to us all is—are we ready?

…I didn’t get the memo…but I know something’s changed

When was the last time you took a vacation? I mean a real vacation, where you put aside your work, physically and mentally? Do you recall a time when you were able to unplug from your office, without feeling obligated to check in? A time when you could totally unwind, allowing your mind to rest? Let’s face it folks, in the United States, those vacations are a thing of the past.

We know that time to relax and refresh ourselves is critical to well-being and high performance, yet we continue to downplay the importance of “down time.” We live in the only economically “advanced” country that does not guarantee its workforce vacation time. Britain guarantees 20 days of vacation time, Germany 24, France 30 and Holland 50 days a year for government workers. For one of the richest countries in the world, this discrepancy is staggering. Yet, because it is “just vacation,” we treat it as a trivial matter to be ignored or brushed off.

As companies grow, so does the workplace culture that rewards individuals who continually work without taking time off, do not unplug when they get home and are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Profit or productivity may play a part in the development of the “accidental workaholic” as people work more hours not because they want to, but because they feel they have no choice. As companies place more and more value on those who rarely or never take a break, more people see no choice but to allow work to creep into many if not all areas of their lives. The boundaries between work and personal life continue to be blurred, crossed and swiftly eliminated.

While companies play a major role in the elimination of true down time, we as consumers are a contributing force. The U.S. culture relies on the market that is open 24 hours a day and expects businesses to be open every day. We need to have access to everything at all times. Could our culture support a month long shut down the way they do in Europe? Could we accept not having access to the places we shop every day and could they handle the possible financial shortfall?

We are a technologically equipped society in constant contact with many organizations. We can be reached by a multitude of devices. With cell phones, BlackBerry® and the iPhone, we are vibrating and ringing along lake sides, while we are on the water, at dining tables, bed side and even in the bathroom. We can and do conduct business anywhere, anytime and we are suffering from it far more than we realize. The time that is spent working 12-15 hour days and through our weekends, and our activity formerly known as “vacations” is keeping us from fully engaging with our families, our friends and ultimately ourselves.

What is the ultimate price we are paying for eliminating rest — one of our basic survival needs? If we don’t rest, how do we protect our health? Our well-being? Our personal lives? How do we not only maintain business, but also move forward? We are not Energizer Bunnies®, we cannot continue to go on and on without refreshing and replenishing our energies. There is no easy way out of this culture that we have created.

As organizational leaders and team members we are faced with this challenge and we must find a way to incorporate down time into our plans and our lives. We must look at the benefits that well-rested, refreshed members bring to the table. And we must also recognize within ourselves that our goal is not to just survive, but to thrive. In order to do that, unplugging and refreshing are as necessary as the air we breathe and the cell phones that are affixed to our ears.

Is there a limit to how many ideas you can have in one day? To dreaming new dreams? How many ideas have you had today? In the last five minutes? Ideas are infinite – leading to innovation, greater creativity and new ways of doing things. The challenge, of course, is how do we create an environment in which people feel safe enough to “think” not just alone but together? How do we create organizational environments that can really capitalize on the intellectual genius of their workforce? That is the challenge for the 21st century; and we are still very much in the infancy of this major revolution.

In previous posts we talked about the shift from the Industrial Revolution—an age in which mechanization ruled and people were seen as little more than hands and feet. Organizations are now struggling to make the transition to this new age where a person’s value is measured by their intellectual contributions, of which there are no restrictions or boundaries.

We are transitioning from a model of scarcity—of old mindsets of limitations, production and control to a new mindset of abundance in which competitive advantage comes from individuals’ and teams’ ability to outthink their competitors if given the right supports, systems and processes. We are moving to an age in which our capacity to innovate, and the need for speed of knowledge transfer and application will determine the ability to succeed which means we must trust one another and successfully share ideas and thinking more rapidly. Clearly if there are no limitations to our ability to think then there is no limitation on our ability to be innovative and creative.

The challenge, however, is that while we‘re moving towards a place where our best asset is our intellectual capital, organizations haven’t figured out the many ways to capture and capitalize on it. Mass collaboration and Global Co-Creation enabled by social networking platforms and Web 2.0 technology are a start, but they need to become a way of life inside organizations to make a difference. Most of the performance management and reward systems, promotion systems and structures are not yet designed to embrace and support our ability to think and ideate in organizations. When was the last time you actually had thinking time in your day-to-day work schedule? When was a meeting structured in such a way that people were able to bring their best thinking and not just top-of-mind answers as they hurry through their day?

Ask yourself again, “Is there a limit to what I can think?” If the response is “no,” then in that answer exists the crux of this revolution of ideas and intellectual capital

There are many things that need to change within organizations to make sure it is safe enough for people to share their thinking, and to capture and best leverage this intellectual capital.

Where would you start?

“Over the next two decades, 76 million Americans will be retiring and only 46 million will be entering the workplace to replace them, according to the American Society of Training and Development. The vast majority of those 46 million workers will be from Generation Y, also known as the Millennial generation.” (from Management Techniques for Bringing Out the Best in Generation Y)

In the 1970s, organizations were beginning to focus on the need to be more diverse in response to consumer demands. Now more than ever, it is the marketplace of talent driving the need for diversity and organizational change. Because of the imminent talent shortage caused by the retirement of 76 million Americans over the next 20 years, the Millennial generation is in a position to challenge workforce conventions and make organizational demands that previous generations had no leverage to make. These demands include fast-track career positioning, greater life work integration , additional training and cutting-edge technology, but the demands don’t stop there.

The Millennial generation is working to change the rules. They see themselves as consumers in a different sense – they are CHOOSING where and how they are going to work. This generation is unwilling to be pioneers of diversity and inclusion. Many of them watched their parents play those roles and their expectation is that organizations have become more diverse, instituted workplace flexibility and removed the barriers that have been identified over the past twenty plus years. They know they are expected to deliver – and they expect organizations to live up to those same rules. They are ready to contribute.

A recent New York Times article discussed one such example of Millennial expectations. Stanford Law students have undertaken a project to evaluate and hold accountable the prestigious law firms for their results with respect to diversity (the numbers of women, people of color and gay lawyers who are partners) and inclusive practices (including workplace flexibility and the number of required billable hours) by handing out “diversity report cards” to the big law firms

Beyond refusing to accept positions at firms that scored poorly, these “best and brightest” students have bigger plans. They will be lobbying top schools and universities to restrict recruiting by firms who scored in the bottom of the rankings. The students also have plans to send the scores to the general counsels of all Fortune 500 companies with the recommendation that the rankings be considered when selecting lawyers and law firms.

This is the first generation who can say, “Here are the rules we want to play by, so if you want the best and the brightest you need to be positioned to utilize our talents.” For this generation, it’s not all about the money; it’s about a healthy life work integration, an inclusive environment that is conducive to collaboration and innovation, a culture that invites their voice, their input and their ideas and most importantly, it’s about feeling valued and able to contribute.

“Firms that want the best students will be forced to respond to the market pressures that we’re creating,” said Andrew Bruck, a law student at Stanford and a leader of the project. This is just one more example of how the game is changing for organizations, and for those that say they just need more time to make improvements, it just might be too late.

Too often, organizations conceive of their diversity and inclusion efforts as pre-packaged, isolated programs that will, in a few simple steps, make the organization diverse. From a consultant’s perspective, to be working at a strategic systems level and trying to have the right conversations is frustrating when an organization is mired in an event-based diversity mindset; when what the organization really wants is diversity in a box.

Just when I think the conversation about inclusion has finally progressed passed the insulting Diversity in a Box portion, I’m reminded that many organizations are still not only working within this framework, but certain that it is the right thing to do. One of those reminders came last week during a potential client presentation.

Upon arriving on site I was greeted by a member of the organization’s Diversity Council and I asked her how that day’s event aligned with and connected to the organization’s inclusion efforts and diversity strategy. I learned the organization used to have diversity awareness months during the year; each month dedicated to and celebrating a different group. For example: Hispanic Month, Asia-Pacific Month, Disabled Month, and GLBT Month. But if that wasn’t bad enough she told me that the organization recently consolidated all its diversity into one month.

Now intrigued I pushed and asked what other efforts had been made to work towards a more diverse and inclusive culture and was told associates participated in an exercise during which they wore blindfolds and earmuffs so they could better empathize with those who are blind and Deaf. During a similar exercise in futility the associates pretended they were elephants and giraffes and together had to figure out how to build a house that would accommodate both.

At this point I was in a surreal situation that epitomized every stereotypical “Diversity in a Box” effort there is. I often joke about organizations having ethnic food months; but they were actually doing it. How about a Diversity through Poetry Monthly Newsletter? They’ve got one. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse; it did.

The Supervisor of the Diversity Council member with whom I was speaking walked up and introduced herself and I thought; “Now I’ll get the real scoop on what efforts are really being made.” After explaining to me how the firm has affinity groups that work with the Marketing Department to tell them how to market to their people (groan) she abruptly stopped and asked me, “Do you have any advice with what we should do with our Asian population?” What we should DO with the Asian Population? Beyond being speechless I was disheartened that this organization, one that is widely recognized for doing Diversity well, is still doing it in a Box.

Diversity is not a problem to be managed; it is an opportunity to be leveraged for business growth and performance enhancement. To approach it in a segmented fashion, with a numbers driven approach, is an approach that is doomed to failure and also illustrates a complete misunderstanding of the meaning of leveraging diversity.

A truly diverse organization moves well beyond numbers and pockets of effort; it explicitly ties the essence of diversity – valuing people – to its mission, vision and purpose. Diversity can not be reached through newsletters and ethnic food month and is not an end unto itself; it is a vehicle for invigorating the organization and improving it in every way.