"Here we are now, entertain us" - Decoding Gen-Connect
One of my latest columns focuses on what will likely be the corporate issue of 2008 - managing generational challenges in the workplace.
In the column, "Here we are now, entertain us," I take a look at the unique attitudes that Gen-Connect is now starting to bring in to the workplace. There are several key observations from the article that are critical to understanding the future of the workforce:
- What is clear is that we are witnessing the death of the long-term career and corporate loyalty, which will soon be but a quaint memory from the previous century.
- I often tell the story of a young engineering graduate who turned down a job with an architectural firm because its 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. work hours conflicted with the time he expected to be carving arcs into deep powder in the mountains. It’s a real attitude, and it’s already happening around us. The challenge, when such trends are so patently obvious, is trying to figure out what to do about it. And a good part of the solution will come through the transformation of rewards and remuneration.
- Gen-connect has very little patience, particularly when it comes to being rewarded for good work or significant effort. These youngsters are used to instant rewards: their Xbox/Wii video-game-oriented world has them accomplishing a goal, moving up a level, and earning some points or other valuable form of currency that helps them accumulate additional armour, weapons or whatever else is needed to accomplish the game’s next challenge.
- That’s why, at a recent conference, I framed the issue of rewards transformation to an audience of financial professionals this way: “Organizations that can attract, engage, retain and amuse an increasingly complex workforce will be the ones who find success in the rapidly evolving global economy.”
- Put the emphasis on the word amuse. Today’s Gen Y doesn’t, and tomorrow’s Gen-connect certainly won’t, have any patience whatsoever for slow and steady career paths.
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Making generations work - Cardboard people and plasma people
Can you innovate across the generations? If you can't -- then you've got a big problem to fix!
I do a tremendous number of keynotes that focus on the issue of "managing millenials," and the complexities of change occurring in the workplace. See, for example, my blog post, "Don't Mess with my Powder, Dude." (below)
Yet organizations need to move beyond the staffing issues that come with new generations: they must also ensure that they can innovate at the rapid rates demanded in our new world, and they need to do that by keeping up with the new ideas and innovations occuring with younger staff.
In this video clip, I take a look at the story of the "plasma people" and the "carboard people." Innovation occurs when different generations -- with different attitudes to change -- can cooperate and see eye to eye, and take advantage of different strengths. In this clip, I tell tjhe story where this clearly wasn't the case!
This is a video clip from a recent keynote that I gave for hundreds of executives from the grocery and consumer products industries, titled Faster is the New Fast: Innovating for the New. High Velocity Customer . This story also became the opening chapter in my book, Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast.
Watch the video clip
Related postings:
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What's happening with our workforce?
Last week, there was a common theme to my keynotes for the University of Oklahoma and for the national Blue Cross Blue Shield Association : "what's happening with our workforce?"
There is an intense degree of interest amongst executives as to the extent of the looming skills shortage, how to retain and attract critical skill sets, and how to deal with the challenges of the next generation.
I've rolled this into an overall keynote topic: "What's Happening With Our Workforce: Achieving Competitive Advantage Through Skills Agility." In these types of talks, I've been taking a look at a wide variety of trends:
- every organization is faced with an increasingly complex, restless, age-diverse disloyal, and highly specialized workforce -- and a workforce that will have the longest life-span ever, from hyperactive 15 year olds to wizened, not-ready-to-quit 85 year olds.
- with the coming "end of retirement," most companies will come to realize they'll need a lot of telephones with big buttons for members the 70+ folks who are still a part of their workforce -- and a lot of innovative workplace practices as well
- the arrival of "Gen-Connect" -- the kids who have been wired with a mouse since birth -- will lead to the question of whether "good luck" will be the only possible response to the question of "Managing Gen-Y."
- this workplace weirdness will only be compounded by the ongoing rapid evolution of knowledge and skills, such that most organizations will find it impossible to find the highly specialized skills needed in the economy of the future
- The "War for Talent" will be the new competitive battleground, and organizations that can attract, engage, retain and amuse an increasingly complex workforce will be the ones who find success in the rapidly evolving global economy.
- in an era such as this, firms are faced with a future that requires a new form of human capital agility: the ability to deploy the right skills at the right time for the right purpose -- regardless of where the skill might be required, or where the skill is sourced
- at the same time, organizations are faced with an increasingly global talent base, a reality that demands new forms of collaboration, insightful project management, and deep insight into the effective utilization of those skills. The way to the future is clear: the no longer about managing time: it's about successful skills deployment
I've captured these thoughts on the workplace challenges of the future in a recent Trends Overview: 21st Unique Characteristics of 21st Centuries Skills, available here.
Given the number of calls that I receive, this is certainly one of the hottest topics for 2007!
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Managing Gen-Connect
Everyone is talking about Gen-Y.
I've come to call the next generation, Gen-Connect. Their attitudes towards careers, which is very unique, is caught in this video clip.
As I posted previously in this blog, "This next generation is completely different in terms of how they think. Kids today 15 and under coming into the workforce are not going to want to have a job, they're not going to want to have a career path, they’re not going to want to work for a company. They are the ultimate entrepreneurs. You're not going to be able to hire them. You're going to be able to contract them at best."
Their attitudes are part of what is driving 10 very unique attributes of 21st century skills, which was captured in a blog post here.
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"....the concept of nine-to-five will have just absolutely disappeared...."
At this point, I've been working at home for close to eighteen years. When you've been doing it that long, and you've built up a thriving global business, you gain some real insight into how the economy is shifting. Not only that, but you have a remarkable relationship with your family, with some unique visits into the home office through the years.
Business Edge magazine is now running a "20 questions" interview with me in which I'm talking about a variety of stuff.
Inevitably, talk turned to the next generation, the workplace, and the change occurring with careers. This is a topic that I've frequently been talking about on stage, under the title, "Hyper-boomers, Gen-Connect and Manure Managers: How the Heck Do We Manage the Workplace Challenges of the Future?"
The interview highlights some of my thoughts on what is happening with the future of the workplace.
- “This next generation is completely different in terms of how they think. Kids today 15 and under coming into the workforce are not going to want to have a job, they’re not going to want to have a career path, they’re not going to want to work for a company. They are the ultimate entrepreneurs. You’re not going to be able to hire them. You’re going to be able to contract them at best."
- "Everybody’s talking about the retirement of (Baby) Boomers. That’s one aspect of it. Everybody’s talking about how difficult it is to attract the next generation. And you’ve got all these employers running around and asking, how do we become the employer of choice and how do we make people like us? But I don’t think that’s the issue. The big issue is that skills are becoming extremely specialized. There’s so much knowledge happening and so much stuff happening so fast. I’ve got a certain set of skills, but increasingly, those skills become narrower and narrower."
- "…the concept of nine-to-five will have just absolutely disappeared. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to become a nation of home offices, but I think there will be a lot more choices that people will be making as to where and how and when they’re going to be doing the work and what constitutes the organization. You talk to senior managers and CEOs today and they talk about how they have to become more collaborative and team oriented. I think the generation of 15- to 20-year-olds just look at that talk and go, ‘duh.’ They say: ‘We do that, we’re on instant messaging, we’ve got webcams, we’re just collaborative by nature and we don’t give a heck whether we’re in the same room or not. We know how to work cross-country, around the world, globally and how to form instant teams. We come together to form some function, then disband and move on to the next thing because we’re the generation that gets bored so darned easily.’ I think they’re just going to shake up the concept of the workplace to a huge degree. The reason that hasn’t happened is because of simple Boomer resistance to change.”
You can read the full interview here.
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Sporting Goods Business: "Trend Expert Will Keynote SGMA Conference"
This press release came out mid-August while I was off busy building sandcastles....
Trend Expert Will Keynote SGMA Conference; (3:15) Today's teens and pre-teens live, breathe, learn, teach, talk, listen, create, and innovate through a widely networked world that facilitates feedback so quickly that it's rapidly changing how this generation will expect results and satisfaction from new products. Those are the preliminary thoughts of futurist and trends expert Jim Carroll who refers to today's teens and pre-teens as "GenConnect."
Carroll will focus on “GenConnect” when he delivers a keynote speech, “The Velocity of Change," at SGMA’s Sports + Technology Convergence this fall (October 24-26; Estancia Resort & Spa; La Jolla, CA).
Carroll estimates, partly from research and partly from the sociological observations of his own two young techies at home, that “GenConnect” is so wired and multi-tasked that it’s rapidly lowering their attention spans and dramatically raising their expectations for product performance.
For “GenConnect,” return on investment is all about the customer experience. As they become more technologically involved, their expectations for product innovations revolve around interactivity and connectivity. And as technology advances, their patience diminishes.
“GenConnect” is the beneficiary of super-fast, on-demand technology – and companies building products would do well to remember this. With this principle in mind, Carroll finds sporting goods a great place to capture the attention of this young consumer. According to Carroll, “every sport thing we know has become wired.”
It’s apparent that the sporting goods industry seems to have found many applications of technology in building a new user experience. From the integration of monitoring devices and athletic shoes comes smart feedback for fitness buffs. For a real thrill, Carroll points to the snowboard and ski industry. From Burton’s deal with Motorola for BlueTooth integration to on-board motion analysis to smart-goggles for maps/trail conditions to on-hill marketing opportunities through ski and snowboard connectivity, there’s “a lot going on with sticks and planks,” noted Carroll.
Jim will address The Velocity of Change and the keys to more agile innovation in the product lifecycle process.
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Why the world is becoming faster!
I've put up a new video clip from my keynote for the Society of Cable Telecom Engineers ; this short clip focuses on the issue of why the rate of change around us is going to accelerate, because of simple demographic realities.
I find that a lot of people think about the future in terms of what they see around them today. In this clip, I try to help people realize just how quickly business models and everything else are set to change as the next generation takes over.
Watch the clip
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New article - Gen-Y and the workforce
"One of the more challenging issues that organizations will have to deal in the next few years is how to successfully integrate “Gen-Y” into the workforce........ there hasn’t been a lot of thought given as to how to successfully integrate this new and diverse age demographic into the workforce, an issue that is becoming more important with every passing day. The fact is, these kids are unique in more ways than one, and hence, forward thinking executives should take the time to learn how to take advantage of their uniqueness, and how to best manage and motivate them." Read my latest article and think about what it might mean to your organization "
(PDF)
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