I’ve been reading a lot of stuff on blogs and such recently about the new entrants to the workforce dubbed ‘Generation Y’
Now I’m neither a Gen X or a Gen Y myself, as I’m unfortunately born on the cusp of the two (labeled the lost generation or the MTV generation). Not to mention I’m not hip enough for generation Y, yet not greedy and amoral enough to be considered a part of generation X. Yet for the past two years I have found myself managing various staff who deeply belong to Generation Y. Previous to this two years I really didn’t feel that I was ‘getting it.’ By copying my former employer’s pressure cooker style of management I (seemed to have) caused resentment and job dissatisfaction amongst the people who I worked with. Just reflecting on a portion of, what I would call, the more successful past two years that I have spent, I’d now like to scribble about some of my experiences with the Generation Y crew.
I wont go into much detail here for the sake of anonymity but let’s call them ‘Team #1′ and ‘Team #2.’ Both of which, were great experiences for me.
Team #1
Team #1 was a team of developers that were external to my company. Team #1’s CTO has been running his own company since his university days (do generation Y even need to go to university these days?), he openly tells me that he’s failed three times, with his first venture being completely ‘dumb’ yet a humbling experience. Now he is bouncing back to run a profitable company within only two years of graduating. Judging by the work that his company has done for me so far, I’d love to engage them again in future. The energy that I see in his office is immense. People love working for him, people enjoy the environment he’s created and have no resentment about working long hours and going the extra mile when assistance to clients is needed. The team are some of the brightest people I’ve met, but at the same time some of the most humble and willing to consistently learn new things and try things that they might not be 100% comfortable with. A mix that I truly admire.
Interesting features of Team #1. a) The developers seldom start work before 10am and b) I paid a visit to the office one day to find the entire team (directors included) having a HUGE battle on World of Warcraft. Where’s my project? ‘Already complete & fully tested’ I was told, ‘time for a reward for the developers (and a team building exercise)’
Team #2
Team #2 is a team of developers directly under my ‘command,’ i.e. in the same office. I have done my best to keep ‘out of their face’ as much as possible and let them steer most of the development work by myself acting as the ‘mentor’ rather than the boss. To my pleasure they have delivered exactly (almost) what I have been expecting and I’ve not had a single day where I’ve felt stressed out by what they’re doing/or not doing.
The only thing that I’ve not figured out how to do yet is motivate them under times of extreme pressure (since there hasn’t been any). Perhaps the balanced working environment has nullified any sort of air of pressure? Or perhaps I still have a lot more to experience and learn.
Anyway, the lessons I’ve learned so far are quite revealing about our new entrants to the workforce. A new generation Y needs a new style of managing. They need an interesting project to work on which they can feel responsible for and proud of when complete. Give them the opportunity to make themselves shine and they will give their heart and soul to their work.
You might have heard it all before (and there’s probably many more which I can’t think of right now), but based on the experiences listed here; the advice to those managing teams of Generation Y-ers is as follows: (Feel free to comment and add more about your experiences too)
1. Be a mentor, not a boss. If you try the hard line approach, they are more than likely to reject you as an oppressor. Generation Y is much much less likely to want to be controlled by ‘The Man.’ Or perhaps not less likely to want, but less likely to put up with it.
2. Don’t demand them to be at their desk at 8.30am. They’ll likely come after 10, with less resentment of their ‘perceived to be’ constrained rigid working hours and actually end up putting more hours in than they would if instructed to come at 8.30am to 5pm each day. (of course, this does not apply to support staff who need to be available at all times). Let them manage their energy, not their time.
3. Let them discover. Don’t answer their questions directly. (any teacher will tell you that this is the best way to make students learn).
4. Let them play games in office time. They’ll make it up after hours; or in increased levels of productivity during an inspired moment. As in the case of Team #1, an hour or so of Warcraft isn’t going to make a project three months late but paradoxically seems to be the catalyst to greater productivity. Generation Y enjoys intrinsic rewards.
5. Generation Y don’t give a crap about your years of experience and won’t show you any respect for it. Don’t try to interfere with minor issues such as choice of methodology. In this aspect, the Gen Y-ers might come across as a bit arrogant, but do let them figure it out organically and they’ll respect you for believing in their ability to figure things out themselves.
6. Pay them well and keep them engaged. Gen Y won’t sit around complaining about their salary/bad job, yet still turn up to work each day for their resentful cheque/check (unlike Gen X). Gen Y will just leave the company and go somewhere else that engages their talent more… better still: start their own company with friends.
Those are just a couple of the lessons I’ve learned so far. I guess there is more and more for me to learn and figure out as I go.
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June 1st, 2009
Yep. So this is the way to butcher Shakespeare:
All the world’s a start-up,
And all the employees and employers merely players:
They have their exits and their seed funding;
And one entrepreneur in his time plays many roles,
His acts being of many ages. At first the visionary,
Thinking and daydreaming during his employer’s time.
And then the prototyping, with his midnight oil
And bloodshot eyes in the morning, creeping like snail
To his day job. And then the demonstrator,
Pitching like furnace, with a profitable ballad
Made to his uncle’s bank account. Then the formation
Full of strange mission statements and, once again, bearded like a student,
Coding for honor, sudden and quick with their development,
Seeking the dot com bubble revival
Even in the recession’s mouth. And then the profits,
In fair compensation to all that pledged their allegiance,
With eyes excitable and suit of formal cut,
Full of presentations and modern technologies;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts,
Into the lean and slipper’d consultant,
With spectacles on nose and iphone on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his restless mind; and excitable voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
For another crazy idea that may shape history,
Is second willing to do it all again,
Sans fear, sans self-doubt, sans worries, sans regrets.
(feel free to add suggestions for changes of lines)
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May 31st, 2009
This was written in 1997 by Leif Edvinsson and Michael Malone. Nice musings on how our 21st century would be, but how much of it is actually true? Has everyone rushed to the cool places?
“… the twenty-first century will see radical changes in where and how people live. In particular, the combination of powerful information technologies will make it possible for people to live and work anywhere and still enjoy most of the fruits of life in a big city or suburbia or the countryside— from culture and the arts to role-playing and simulated participation in distant world events.”
“These same technologies will also make work more and more portable, shifting jobs from centralized work sites to virtual offices located at home or on the road or in neighborhood centers”
“If we can live and work anywhere, where shall we live and work?”
“… in one of life’s bigger ironies, freedom always brings with it new responsibilities. Faced with this infinite choice of how and where to live and work, what will we choose? Will everyone race to the cities, or to the countryside? Will mountain and seaside resorts suddenly swell with new year-round residents? …”
Extracts from ‘Intellectual Capital: The proven way to establish your company’s real value by measuring its hidden brainpower. Leif Edvinsson and Michael S. Malone’
From a personal standpoint. I’d still rather live in the city where everything is convenient and it is easy to set up meetings with people (face to face communication is always the best!). The other voice inside me is telling me to go and live in the countryside where it is nice and quiet and it is fertile ground for my own creative thoughts.
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April 26th, 2009
They are often advertised in the newspaper, in the tabloids or hidden away somewhere in the back of the paper where the advertising comes cheap (rat #1. why would a rich organization need cheapo advertising?). Some other tell tale signs are:
- Usually “FREE” (note that the word ‘free’ will be in capitals, larger than the other fonts, colourful, etc). In Singapore the ‘free’ statement would usually be in one of those awful clipart explosions ala:
- Repeat the word ’success’ over and over again.
- Show pictures of ’success’ cheezy grins, happy families, high performance sports cars, you name it. All the stuff they want you to want.
- Picture of a young smug guy/girl in a shirt and tie who “made it.” (note to self: When I make a shedload of money, no more shirt and tie… only shorts and tee-shirt for my private beach/island)
- Overuse of words like ‘freedom’ and ‘destiny’
- Trading mistakes that your brokers don’t want you to know! (really? because I would have thought if I get rich then my broker gets rich too, no?)
- Limited seats! Register Now! (don’t fall behind okay!)
and best of all
- Make money and become a millionaire in just 20 minutes a day. (That would be awesome! If I spend 8 hours a day, that means I can be worth $24 million easily). Something isn’t right here.
Even if there is a magic way to make loads of risk free money out of shares; can all of this free information can be condensed into a one day seminar? If so, are those people on a two year masters degree in financial engineering wasting their time and money? They could just go for a one day seminar instead!
So many rats. Dear oh dear. Know any others?
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April 20th, 2009
When we say “No Idea” does it mean that we have no idea? Or does it mean, “give me a moment I’m thinking of a solution?”
Sometimes this concept might be lost in translation. A non-anglophone might interpret it as meaning “I don’t know,” thus giving the impression of incompetency.
I learned recently that saying “Not Bad” in a Chinese context actually means “Really Good!” whereas in our English world it could simply mean what it states: “Not bad, not amazing… acceptable.” (unless we change our tone with it).
I guess we must be careful with our words when speaking to non-native speakers of our own language.
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March 24th, 2009
In the past we often used pen and paper to get our work done.
Nowadays we believe that sitting in front of a computer for long enough will surely enough produce some decent work given enough time.
My own experiments with this show that either 1) I am not using the tool correctly, or 2) it is a fallacy. In fact, sometimes I just feel myself staring at my computer screen whilst time disintegrates.
I have been pondering over this and find that we might be missing some creative catalysts such as twiddling our pens, staring at artifacts in the given room/area that we are seated, scribbling wildly, enjoying the fun of tearing something up, having the ability to change our location easily or even work outside without an electrical outlet. I’m sure there are many others too.
Furthermore, it is quite difficult to concentrate on our thinking at hand without an email or an instant message popping up on our screen to disrupt us.
The questions are: should we go back to pen and paper? Although the computer has increased our productivity, has it increased or decreased our creativeness? The kind of vocations that the ‘creative class’ are engaged in these days are not simply entering pre-defined work orders (ala Taylorism) but require much more thinking, creativity, harmonization of experience and learned knowledge, etc. Are computers/machines perhaps a legacy of Taylorism that do more to prevent unadulterated creativity than to fertilize it?
An interesting point on this comes in the form of Craig Grannell’s five tools to help designers make better websites. Those are: Basecamp, Firefox Web developer toolbar, Subversion, Silverback and most importantly ‘pen and paper‘
It appears to be a very long time before the computer will replace us, or at least, our thinking ability.
Let us go forth, draw, scribble, dream, write and let us see if we can free our minds to produce much better work away from our computer than chained to it.
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March 1st, 2009
Talk about people who give meaning to the phrase ‘larger than life.’ Randy Pausch deserves this title. Okay, given that I’m a tad over a year late but, I’ve just finished watching his ‘final lecture’ in the ‘final lecture’ series at Carnegie Mellon. The video is linked to his homepage:
http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/
Noted that in his lecture he gives thanks to his mentors, heroes, family, friends, inspirations and most notably his students. I agree and think we’d be nobody without the people who touch us from all sides of our lives.
An excellent asset of knowledge that not just Carnegie Mellon will miss, but I’m sure the whole world will.
His daily update pages, while somewhat surreal, are still up on the site too:
http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.htm
Maybe he rest in peace, and his work and legacy be continued through his students and protégés.
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December 30th, 2008
It seems like the nice folks at Thomson Reuters have provided us with a gem of a report written by Dr Eve Y. Zhou and Bob Stembridge.
A gem it is indeed. It seems like the Chinese government are really pushing for an innovation economy by 2020. The incentives are there for companies to file their innovations as they are 1) paid for by the government and 2) further monetary incentives are being given to those who can successfully get patents registered in foreign countries too.
Such incentives seem to be working too, at least so far in the areas of: Digital computers, Telephone and data transmission systems, Natural products and polymers, Computer peripheral equipment and the Fermentation industry. With quite a large amount of filings being made in the last ten years.
I’m not too sure about the law being passed that will force foreign companies to file their innovations in China first or risk losing legal protection. Could this be a potential barrier that foreign companies, who wish to invest in the country, might have to face? On the other hand, at the rate China is going, will the country even need foreign companies in 2020?
Only the future will tell.
You can download the full report here:
Patented in China the Present and Future State of Innovation in China |
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December 18th, 2008
It is not a secret, your private life might just not be so secret anymore.
Remember the nosy old lady who lived down your street when you were young? The one who told your parents she saw you somewhere, or doing something, you shouldn’t have been? Well it appears she just went cyber.
Thanks to web 2.0 and the social web, our personal data is pretty easily accessible. Moreover, thanks to facebook and the likes, another side of us is now also exposed to the the whole world. Now everyone can see our least flattering pictures and drunken antics. We just can’t guarantee that we can stay anonymous anymore. Even if you think you can, I’m sure there’s at least something that can be found about you on Google.
So this brings up some questions:
- Is it ethical for a HR person to check up on potential employees? If the information is there, why not?
- Do employers have to realise that they are not going to be able to find a squeaky clean person who hasn’t gotten a bit too drunk from time to time and had pictures of them plastered all over facebook?
- How about insurance companies? Might they increase your premium after they see your sky diving holidays and random trips to conflict zones?
- What other implications are there for losing your anonymity? Psychological (loss of real identity?), social (family jealous that you’re spending too much time with friends?), legal? (can evidence be used in a court of law?).
Or do we all just need to lighten up and accept each other for who we are? Humans after all.
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December 4th, 2008
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