AchieveGlobal's blog

Managing by Wandering About (MBWA)

By Andrew Calvert In one of my roles at a large US-based manufacturing company, I spent a portion of my week wandering around the office and plant. There were over 300 people in my building – tech support, finance, marketing, purchasing, material handlers, DTP operators and customer service. Quite a mix: Baby boomers, Nation builders, Gen X, Gen Y ... As I wandered around I would stop and chat to people. Often I would have a joke to tell, a story to share, or a question to ask. And that last point is most important ... a question to ask. You see, by wandering about I learned about the people I worked with, their challenges, victories, hopes, and fears. I found out whose daughter just got into medical school, whose parents were visiting (or driving them mad). I also found out who had a proposal into a ministry or was dealing with a troublesome vendor. And it is this information that allowed me to ask questions the next time I saw the person, to build a relationship that I could leverage into meaningful results when I needed to. There were many managers in the building – more than a dozen I can recall. But only two of us used the principal of MBWA. The other managers were ill-informed about employee morale and opinion. People didn’t share ideas with them – even when they were encouraged to. The reason was that speaking to those managers was strange and unusual. By MBWA, my colleague and I were making it normal and safe to speak with us. Fast forward to this economy, where fewer have to do more than ever before. Engaging EVERY employee as fully is possible is critical to getting results. So the next time you have the chance, get out of your seat and take a walk.

Four Generations and Social Networking, Part 2

By Jack McDaniel The results of my generational survey are in, and they’re… interesting. (You can find a recap of the survey’s explanation and description here.) The survey population consisted of 27 people:

• 4 members of the Silent Generation (Born 1925–1942)
• 8 members of the Boomer Generation (Born 1943–1960)
• 5 members of the Generation X (Born 1961–1981)
• 10 members of the Millennials (Born 1982–2002)

Again, this is a highly unscientific, totally unvalidated and thoroughly wacky survey. Kids, don’t try this at home without the recommended protective gear. For an actual, well-researched study on generational differences in the workplace, check out this press release. I’ve seen different cut-off points for each generation. These are defined by Neil Howe and William Strauss. Here are a few of my impressions. Most Favorite: Millennials and Gen X’ers Win All Thumb Wars Text messaging (texting) is the clear favorite of the younger generations. When asked why, a common theme was the immediacy and convenience it provided. Interestingly, several millennials mentioned that it was “less awkward than a phone call.” Are our oral discursive skills atrophying as our written skills strengthen? (Oh, wait; have you seen how people spell when texting?)





  MySpace and Facebook: Use with Caution Hot opinions from all age groups came in about MySpace and Facebook. Millennials were worried about “giving away personal stuff,” while several Boomers and Gen X’ers warned of sexual predators using the tool. One younger participant noted that “It’s more about making your profile look cool and how many friends you have than actually communicating with anyone.” Yet these were also in the “favorites” category for many.         Despite the Hype, These People Aren’t Twittering Only one person in the survey group actually twitters – tweets? – whatever – on a regular basis. I’m dubious that this will have any staying power. To me, it’s redundant to texting. Perhaps some Future Shock use will emerge, but right now, how many times can you post “Going to the store; gonna get gas first” and not bore people to death?     Email Isn’t Going Away No matter what generation you belong to, email is still an extremely popular option for staying in touch with friends and loved ones. More than once it was touted as the “traditional” social networking tool. As a matter of fact, didn’t Jefferson and Adams correspond by email?                       I noted a few differences between the generations, the most striking being what attributes each generation valued in a social networking tool. The more tenured among us prefer tools that allow us to take time to compose our thoughts, while the youngsters look for connectedness and immediacy with our peers. Of course, this is only one point of view, and I could be completely batty. If so, here’s an invitation to set me straight. What differences have you experienced between the generations, and what’s important to you in a socialization tool?

How do older workers respond to technology-based training?

By Todd Beck I'm not sure what you expected to read under that headline - especially from a 44-year "old person" - but let me debunk a myth. I recently read a 2007 study (a very rigorous one) by Southeast Missouri State University that found that, contrary to what the literature is saying, when you compare older workers to millennials, measures such as perceived satisfaction, learning, and motivation of the generations are more homogeneous than different. That really should be no surprise. I'm a GenX, you're a Millenial, she's a Boomer, but all of us are human - always have been, always will be. What I found especially interesting was that the study said older workers might have more interaction with instructors and other participants face-to-face, and are more likely to have an online learning plan. So that made me wonder if technology is the difference or if older workers are somehow more willing to invest in structure and follow-up of what they learn. Maybe older workers value training more. Or maybe we’re just senile so we need the extra help. If you missed it, watch this video where Jack needs extra help as my senile old avatar debates him on AchieveGlobal Island in Second Life.

Whatever Happened to Transformation?

By Craig Perrin It’s a 21st-century axiom: The sum of accessible information is inversely proportional to the human capacity to absorb it. To illustrate, according to Nielsen, by September of this year the average duration of a web page viewed had shrunk to 47 seconds. That trend applies not just to fast-thinking, fast-texting Millennials, but also to engaged Gen Xers and (maybe for different reasons) to wizened Boomers like me. One of the brightest young leaders I know says she can’t stay with a YouTube video for more than 60 seconds. I get 999 cable channels of news, sports, movies, and UFO programming – and I suffer from carpal-tunnel thumb. So, in a terabyte world, many of us now have a kilobyte attention span. Nicholas Carr explored this phenomenon recently in The Atlantic (Is Google Making Us Stupid?). He quotes from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey”:

“Dave, my mind is going,” HAL says, forlornly. “I can feel it. I can feel it.” I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going – so far as I can tell – but it’s changing.

This “remapping” of consciousness is changing my profession, too – corporate learning. At one time, a three-day sales workshop was no big deal. Now, as economic conditions worsen, leaders won’t pull the sales force out of the field. Instead, they simultaneously minimize lost productivity, leverage installed IT, and match shorter attention spans by inserting bite-size learning in tiny crevices of the workday. I’m not saying this is bad. It’s just what’s happening, and it has implications. Clearly, the Google search or equivalent has become a dominant way to learn. A need appears, a question comes up, my memory fails: Who was Vigotsky, anyway? I pull out the iPhone, key in the word, read for 47 seconds, and – oh yeah, Vigotsky – that Russian shrink who laid the groundwork for modern online learning. Yet this instant access to information compels me to ask, Whatever happened to transformation? The historic goal of corporate learning is productive action – application of new skills to boost bottom-line metrics and transform people and culture by realizing dormant abilities. And that question raises other, honestly non-rhetorical questions, some of which I list below – and none of which will likely be answered with a Google search:

• Does information alone bring transformation?
• Is a summary as good as a rehearsal?
• Is knowing the main precursor of doing?
• Does it really take three days to learn how to sell?
• In the future, will everyone be conscious for 47 seconds?