MLab Management 2.0: Peter Cheese, Accenture

 

   Peter Cheese focused even more on how Generation Y is changing management work.

You probably already know, or have access to, all the statistics concerning the four generations in the workplace, so I’m not going to repeat these.

However, Cheese did provide a useful summary of Gen Y’s characteristics (from Don Tapscott).  The main one is Collaboration:

“Having a high degree of influence with networks.  Expecting to contribute to thought leadership and having a different view of authority in the workforce.”

 

The unfortunate side effect of this characteristic is that Gen Y can appear needy.  But this is actually about us (there were mainly baby boomers in the room) as parents – we need them to receive certificates for coming 5th, not them.

 

These characteristics of Gen Y do (should) have an impact on talent management and organisation:

• Talent strategy –what skills and capabilities are needed
• Employee value propositions targeted to specific talent segments such as Gen Y
• New sources of talent accessible in different ways
• New leadership and people management demands
• New ways of learning and accessing knowledge
• Collaboration and networking as management and organisational mantra
• Enabling better innovation and engagement
• Rapid change and organizational agility – learner, more networked.

 

Web 2.0 can help.  Marketing used to be three channels and is now multiples.  It’s the same in conencting to talent both internally and externally.

 

More importantly, we need to think more strategically – so relationship capital (Cheese’s term for social capital) – rather than just people.

 

 

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More on the Google Generation

Despite my previous post, I do tend to come down on the side that thinks there are key cultural differences in abilities and behaviours between older and younger generations in the workforce.

This is partly based upon working alongside some of them at Buck (until recently, a part-time employer). And partly from the descriptions provided by others (I'm a big fan of Tammy Erickson's Across the Ages for example).

But I've never heard anyone express the divide quite so well as Wayne Turmel in one his Cranky Middle Manager podcasts recently, referring to his daughter's cheerleading group:

"So I've got a bunch of high school cheer leaders in my living room. They're working on a new dance routine. One of them has her mac laptop open on her lap and she's busy downloading a bunch of songclips so they have music for the dance routine. My daughter and her friends are working on the dance moves but here's the problem: They've only got 6 members of the 18 member team. How is everyone going to know whether they like it - time is short. Here's what they do. While one is busy mixing the mucis, one other one graps her cellphone, records the first few moves of the dance and they upload it to YouTube, text all their friends and say check this out and let us know what you think at rehearsal tomorrow. If we don't want to be completely irrlevant in their lives or at least get that look in their eyes you get when what you're saying is completely irrlevant to them, get with the programme. Even if you're not a native technology speaker, take a class!"

I look forward to having some more personal vignettes when my own daughters grow up - after all, the eldest (5) has already had a go at cheerleading, but I think social networking is still some way off (Club Penguin besides of course).

British Libary on the Google Generation

I spent a day at the British Library last week doing some background research on social media sort of stuff. I picked up a newsletter that amongst other things, referred to a report, Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future, written by CIBER at UCL.



The research challenges many areas of common wisdom about Gen Y:

• They are more comfortable with technology, but older users are catching up fast


• They have shifted decisively to texting vs talking (unproven)


• They multitask in all areas of their lives (unproven)


• They have zero tolerance for delay (no, older people are impatient too)


• They are expert searchers (no, this is a gangerous myth - digital and information literacies do not go hand in hand).

From my own experience, all of these behaviours still seem true, but I think this research is a useful check that they may not be as significant as we often, and some blogs would lead us to, think.