BY ART VAN BODEGRAVEN AND
KENNETH B. ACKERMAN
basictraining
diving into the gen pool
GOTCHA!
You thought there was a typo in the title, didn’t you?
Actually, the rant of the moment is not about genes;
it’s about generations—or to be precise, the conflicts
that sometimes erupt when different generations collide in the workplace.
A few months back, we wrote about the potential for
both conflict and synergies when company vet-erans
find themselves working side by side with the new kids
on the block (“hot shots and old codgers,” May 2010).
But our world isn’t really quite that simple.
Frankly, we sometimes enjoy the posturing of
“General” Larry Platt singing “Pants on the Ground”
on American Idol. And we confess to occasionally fantasizing about a seasoned supply chain professional
dressing down some callow youth the way Gordon
Ramsay would eviscerate an errant sous-chef. In reality, though, the issue is more nuanced than a confrontation of old fogeys and young whippersnappers.
This generational thing permeates all of business
and society. And it has profound implications for how
well we plan and execute in the realm of supply chain
management.
X and Y
Much of today’s management theory focuses on the
best ways to motivate and manage the relative newcomers to the workforce: the so-called Generation “X”
and Generation “Y” workers. David Javitch wrote an
excellent column on the subject for the May issue of
Entrepreneur magazine. In it, he described some of the
traits of Gen X and Gen Y workers, which we have
adapted as follows:
; Generation X: Gen Xers are those born between
the mid-1960s and 1980. They were often “latchkey”
kids who experienced the first big wave of single-par-ent rearing.
The children of Baby Boomers, Gen Xers tend to
have been disillusioned by their parents’ work and life
imbalance, and saw first-hand the consequences of
eroding corporate loyalty to employees.
What they want out of work is room to grow, goals
with some latitude, and a chance to develop new skills
and knowledge. They also seek control over
task/assignment selection; the freedom to make their
own career/project/life choices; and success on their
own terms. Though they’re eager for mentoring and
feedback, what they really want is managerial relation-
ships without micro-management.
Are we watching the right ball?
Effectively managing these two disparate generations
within the larger workforce can certainly be a challenge.
And that’s just the half of it. Oftentimes, there’s the
added complication of integrating them with the leftover Baby Boomers (for all the hoopla, they’ve only just
begun to retire) and Gen Cs (Codgers), who refuse to
quit because they’re having too much fun. Full disclosure: Your intrepid authors are both card-carrying
members of Gen C and defy generational stereotypes—
although it should be noted that one of us believes that
Bluetooth is evidence of poor dental hygiene.
Let’s take a look at what these two groups bring to
the workplace:
; Baby Boomers: Boomers were born from about
1945 into the early 1960s. The offspring of Codgers,
they were often “married” to their jobs. They were usu-
