Please, take out your magical management mirror for a second. Some of you may need to stop and buy a mirror. It's okay; we will wait for you. Or maybe you are one of those managers who believes that time is wasted on self-analysis. In that case, humor me and go rent a mirror. Or just proceed to the final section because you probably would not understand the next six chapters anyway. Sad, but true.
Are You..., Your Father?
I was thinking about my grandfather, my Dad's father, the other day. Let me tell you, my grandfather was a great businessman. He was the last surviving partner of his public accounting firm. Possibly surviving on his stubborn streak alone. He was a tough conservative "old-school" German accountant. He started as a child laborer and worked his way to the top, without so much as a high-school education. But was revered and occasionally feared throughout the local accounting and municipal communities. He was respectfully referred to as, the "Father of Municipal Accounting" in the many local areas surrounding Pittsburgh. He worked until the end, with no real thoughts of retirement or traveling. With him the characteristics you saw, were what you got, period.
He had but one unique quirk. Maybe you remember, back in those days almost all of the breakfast cereal boxes came with "mail in" offers on the back of the boxes. Each featured a new "gizmo", gimmick, or toy. And this thrifty old German was addicted.
I can remember the twinkle in his eye, and the excitement in his voice as he proudly displayed his newest gadget. Thank God he lived before the days of the cable home shopping channels, or we would have had "Pocket Fisherman" everywhere. It seemed so out of character for this conservative living legend.
Now my father is also extremely intelligent, well respected and a great businessman. I love my Dad, but he must have genetically inherited the same affliction. Is that possible? He is also a "Gizmo-King". Most of his gadgets were related to golf. They too, had a life span of about two weeks before they were discarded to the garage.
He even had personalized tee markers for his practice full-sized golf net, and a real bent grass putting green in his back yard. He bought the green as a kit for about $45.00. What a bargain it was not. Do you need to hear more?
He had all the new training clubs, all of the new technology, and fought his entire life to break into the 90's. The green is gone, the small bunker is now a sand box, and he does not play much golf these days. Now he is hooked on the guitar. I wonder where that golf net is today?
I can remember laughing at the two of them. It seemed as though they were the two most unlikely suckers for every new fad. If you knew them professionally, you too, would have never believed it.
So here I am today in my office, 3 steps away from my "AB-roller", my "AB-DOer II', my video tapes, and my fancy electronic belt that shocks my belly so I don't need to do stomach crunches. If the truth were known, I have never used the one-year-old belt (scary), please do not tell my wife, but I bought two of them. And my slightly rounded belly, well I can tell you that it is still round but it does not look too bad when I have a nice tan.
Now, here is the moral to the story. Unconsciously or subconsciously I have emulated my mentors. Again, I do not want to get into a debate on whether this behavior is learned, or inherent. I only know, although I am not proud of it, it is there.
Do you ever catch yourself sounding like your parents? Or, do you ever catch yourself repeating phrases you learned from one of your previous managers? Is it scary?
As much as all of us like to think of ourselves as independent managers, it is just not true. We are all products of our frames of references or experiences. Consciously, subconsciously our minds have absorbed the data, and then out it comes, sometimes without even hitting the "print" key.
Only today, the scenario is different. The Gen X managers and Employees will not react in a traditional manner. Quite the opposite. I am not sure we can change the ingrained conditioning of our past experiences, but we can increase the awareness of the different dynamics in place in management today.
Conditional Management
After reading about the characteristics of Gen X employees, can we agree that "Fear" as a motivation technique will no longer be as effective as it was on the past generation? After all, what do the Gen Xers have to be afraid of? Losing their jobs? The facts clearly demonstrate that finding a new job, or losing a job, is not intimidating to members of Generation X. ( many change jobs every 18 - 36 months) Some do not even respect having a job.
I might that suggest that fear as a motivation technique will only work once or twice on today's employee, at the most. In fact, it may not work at all on Gen X employees, so please choose your spots wisely.
If you do not perform...then...
If you find yourself saying this phrase, you may want to change. Or at the very least change it to a positive connotation. "If we can accomplish...then this will occur..." or ask the employees to finish, "What do you think will happen if..."
I really do not care where you got your MBA, what your heritage may be, how old you are, what size pants you wear, or if they come in male or female sizes. I only want to ask you if you consider yourself to be in management? Are you improving? Are you working on your skills?
Maybe we all need to take a moment and think about the 5 most positive attributes of the managers we have reported to in the past. Then score yourself from strong to weak on each of those attributes. Our past conditioning seems to be negative in connotation. What can we do to better condition the positives?