Managing for Success in the Multigenerational Academic Workplace

Dr. Mark Taylor

This handout is provided as a courtesy to attendees at my programs

for the Texas Region 3 Victoria Spring Conference on May 22, 2019.

Special thanks to Charlotte Baker and Kelly Hauboldt for inviting me

and facilitating my visit.

Slides from both sessions, and some extra, and included. These

slides are not intended as a stand-alone document but support the

information from the program. They should not be redistributed to

non-attendees without the specific permission of Dr. Taylor. Articles,

which can be shared, and more information and resources are

available at www.taylorprograms.com

The clickers I used were ResponseCard

RF LCDs from Turning Technologies.

Find more information about using

audience response systems on my

website www.taylorprograms.com and at

www.turningtechnologies.com

If you have an interest in or questions

about this instructional technology contact

Chuck Reigrut at

creigrut@turningtechnologies.com

Available at www.taylorprograms.com

Available at www.taylorprograms.com

Generational Understanding• We are each a member of a generational cohort

• Were raised in a certain time

• We tend to carry culturally influenced perspectives from that time

• “Pre-evaluative learning”

• Programming

• Not our fault

• But everyone’s own responsibility

• Not stereotypes or over generalizations

• Based on generational research

• Modal data and Trends

• “Typical”/ Normative traits

• Doesn’t perfectly describe everyone

• Major transitions between generations

• A starting place and a language for understanding.

Workplace 2018 and beyond

Traditionals Boomers X NeXt

1 2 3 4

WOKE Traditionals At least 73 years old

Duty / disciplineDuty / discipline

Sacrifice/ thrift

• Personal sacrifice

Group needs over individual needs

• Thrift

• Insecurity

• Duty

• Discipline

• Company loyalty

• Formality

• Hierarchies

• Conformity

• Stability

• Change resistant

• Sobriety

• Not here to have a good time

• Good old days?

Traditionals Boomers

Boomers are not Traditionals

Traditionals Boomers X NeXt

75% had a Mom at home

• Social

• Relational

• Friendly

• Team loyal

• Want to get to know you!

• Intrusive?

• Conflict avoiders?

• Don’t want to hurt anyones’ feelings, especially friends’

• Might create feedback/ criticism issues

• Sensitivity?

• Slow to criticize

• (Think we) changed the world!

• On a mission

• Good with big picture

• Strong professional identity.

• Don’t be intrusive

• Make yourself available to help with other’s development

• Communicate expectations directly

• Offer feedback and corrections directly to

Xers/ carefully with NeXters

• Don’t take disagreement/ conflict

personally

• Be open to changes, especially technology

• Help people focus on the mission.

Boomers…….• Ask and learn

• We will mentor you, help you develop, promote

you

• Criticize us with care

• Develop “feedback seeking skills” as needed

• Articulate your understanding of the mission

• COLLABORATE- tell us what you are doing.

With Boomers…….

Traditionals Boomers X

• A unique, changing time for both children and adults

• Negative cultural narratives about kids as social roles changed

• “Zero population growth”

Low child popularity

• More skeptical, cautious

• Less trusting

• Spending energy on safety/ security needs

• More independent

• More self-sufficient

• More pragmatic, task oriented

• Just get it done

• Scrappy, tough, adaptable

• Great with change

• Loyalty issues

• Company, Team, Self?

• Do want career development

• Advancement issues

• First generation to take pride in lack of interest in advancement.

Generation X

• Be nice- avoid the bluntness

• Talk more about what people are

doing right than correcting mistakes

• Don’t silo

• Recognize the value of relationships,

especially in complex projects

• Brainstorm before acting

• Think process through before starting.

Xers• Be direct/ just say what you need to

say

• Create “check-in points” on projects-

put it on them to come to you

• Talk about their development

• Avoid “life-spill”

• Go digital- don’t call.

With Xers

Traditionals Boomers X NeXt

Kids get popular again!

A Generational Shift• From the independent, adaptable,

pragmatic scrappers of Gen X

• To the era of the wanted, precious, protected, perfected child

• Child centric families

• Around whom the family revolves

• A good environment to grow

narcissism

• Self-centered, low empathy,

need for approval.

www.taylorprograms.com

How We Built Gen Next• When Boomers became parents they reacted

to the Traditional parenting they received

• Critical- we always could have done better

• “Good enough” reduces effort

• Distant- they were not our buddies

• They were not that into our lives

• Physical- they would hit us

• Authoritarian- their way or….

• “I brought you into this world..”

Self-Esteem Parenting• New parenting model developed from the Human Potential Movement

• The first generation where “feeling good about yourself” was the mission

• More important than doing well

• Uncritical- praising

• Close/ involved (co-dependent)

• No spanking- for better and worse

• Parents less authority figures/ more like friends or peers

• “Don’t tell them/ ask them.”

• Facilitators- offering lots of choices (vs. compliance)

• “To help them learn to choose well.”

• At the expense of compliance

• Praise/ rewards without effort leads to confusion and entitlement

• Possibly overrating skills

• Possibly underrating necessary effort

• Remain closer to parents as adults.

Workplace Expectations• General friendliness from everyone

• Assistance

• Concern for their well being

• Options/ flexibility

• Forgiveness

• Lots of praise

• Lots of thanks.

General Issues with workplace readiness® Less working experience

® Unfamiliar with workplace expectations

® Leadership issues

® Inexperienced with “authority”

® Feedback issues

® Sensitive to criticism

® Persistence issues

® Easy to quit

® Digital issues

® Difficulty disengaging.

Purposeful• Want to be involved in something important

• Believe they are meant to do something meaningful

• Want to change the world for the better

• Interested in social change

• Generally of a progressive nature

• Inclusion, equity, environmental

• Diverse and value diversity

• Value fairness and human rights

• “Everyone is entitled to..”

• Alert to aggressions

• Will defend others

• Connect with their sense of purpose and sense of mission.

Workplace Readiness “Most colleges are

seriously out of step with

the real world in getting

students ready to become

workers in the post-

college world”.

Graduates

Employers

Assessments of College

Graduates’ Skills: % reporting “well prepared” in each

area

Hart Research for AACU 2016

What the workplace wants1. Critical thinking/ analytical reasoning

2. Apply knowledge and skills to real world

3. Effective oral communication

4. Work effectively in teams

5. Communicate effectively in writing

6. Show ethical judgement and decision making

7. Analyze and solve complex problems

8. Locate, organize and evaluate information

9. Manage in a diverse environment

10. Innovate and create

Hiring NeXt ® Cherry-picking vs. acceptance

® This is the cohort ® Hire for credentials/ availability

® Demonstration vs. paper

® Plan to develop after the hire

® Hiring must be superfast

® “Good ones” in high demand

® Multiple approvals = kiss of death

® Watch for policy issues that interfere with early persistence

® They will need time off in first two weeks

® “Easy to quit”

® Need to engage quickly with people, tasks and mission

® Defer rewards ® Lower starting pay/ six month bonus?

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Helicopters, Snowplows, and Bulldozers: Managingstudents’parents

BY MARK TAYLOR

MENTION PARENTS TO ADMINISTRATORS, STAFF, OR

FACULTY AT MOST COLLEGES TODAY, AND YOU WILL

YEAR A LITANY OF COMPLAINTS ABOUT MONITOR-

ING, INTERFERENCE, AND DOWNRIGHT INTRUSION IN

THEIR WORK WITH STUDENTS. FROM ADMISSION AND

HOUSING THROUGH COURSE SELECTION, TO EMPLOY-

MENT AND STUDENT ORGANIZATION INVOLVEMENT,

PARENTS ARE INSERTING AND ASSERTING THEMSELVES

LIKE NEVER BEFORE. More companies are involving parents, especially those who want to recruit and retain the most qualified NeXters.

Developmental Supervision• Management/ supervision focusing on

• improving their competencies

• socializing them to policies, philosophies, etc.

• Coaching/ mentoring/ teaching/ supporting…

1. Accepting them as they are

2. Understanding/ diagnosing their strengths and needs

3. Understanding the needs of the academic workplace

Skills, values, tolerances

4. Having a plan to help them develop these competencies

• Helping them become independent problem solvers

• Leading them to work out solutions on their own

• “What do you think we should do?”

Make Expectations Clear• Don’t assume that they understand the “basics” of the

workplace

• Times, dress codes, expectations of activity,

language, customer focus…

• Talk about when to

1. Follow-protocols and procedures

• Hard rules they (and students) must follow

2. Make their own decision

• Show some flexibility

3. Innovate

• Develop a creative solution.

Orientation/ Mentoring• A Third Freshman Year

• They have less working experience

• Different experiences with authority

• Consider something between practice teaching and

full-time in their own classroom

• Half-time for six months will option to go full time

as you wish?

• Assign a peer and a senior mentor

• You only have to socialize one

• Let them socialize the next one

• Positive impact on both.

A Kinder, Gentler Workplace• Sensitive to criticism, and will run away

• May not be used to being told what to do

• Easy for them to quit

• May respond better to being asked than being

told

• Respond well to thanks and appreciation

• Talk more about what people are doing right than what they are doing wrong

• Don’t wait for a mistake to talk to them

• Look for things to be nice about

• Praise publicly, correct privately

• Wait/ think before making a public correction.

Effective correction1. Star with Recognition/ appreciation of something good they have done/

expectation they have met

2. Offer the necessary Feedback/ correction that relates to their goals/ our

goals

• Do they know what went wrong and why?

• Very clear indication of what they need to do differently and why

3. Assess their ability and willingness and get a commitment

• Can you do this?

• Will you do this?

4. End with the Expectation of success and encouragement

• You are going to do great!

Leadership Fundamentals 1Look happy

• Smile a lot

• Creates an atmosphere

• Makes others happy

• Makes workers feel safe/ secure/ liked

• Impacts your own mood

• Makes you happy

• Should be your default expression

• Encourage smiling in others.

Be positive

• about the work/ mission

• about the organization

• about their ability to be successful

• Talk more about what people are doing right than what

they are doing wrong

• Correct with care

• Sandwich feedback

• Don’t ask “Why?”

• Requires a justification

• Ask “How?”

• Just an explanation

• “What do you think we should do?”

Leadership Fundamentals 2Be clear

• Make expectations well understood

• Ideally, engage at mission level

• Address both ability and willingness

• Do they know what to do?

• Are they able to do it?

• Do they have the resources?

• Do they believe in their efficacy?

• Are they willing to do it?

• It is their priority?

• Teach the unable

• Motivate the unwilling

• or let them go.

Leadership Fundamentals 3

Be competent The Leadership Irony

• The farther up you go, the less likely you are to be competent to do the work of those below you

• So how do you show competence if you are supervising them in work you couldn’t do?

• Show your competence in leadership

• Understand organizational needs

• Focus on mission

• Empower others

• Bonus

• Manage students’ parents

• Intervene with difficult students.

Leadership Fundamentals 41. Look happy

smile a lot

2. Be positive

more praise than corrections

• Ask “How did it happen?”; not “Why?”

3. Be clear

address ability and willingness

4. Be competent

if you can’t do their jobs, help them be the best

they can be,

Leadership Fundamentals

Meet Generation WOKE

Dr. Mark Taylor

Traditionals Boomers X NeXt WOKE

• Lots of new data, especially on teenagers

• They can be described as/ trending toward

1. Digital enmeshed/ dependent/ damaged?

2. Developmentally delayed

3. Stressed/ anxious/ depressed

4. Emotionally fragile

5. WOKE

6. More competent/ less confident.

• Not all will show all traits…

Generation WOKE - An Emerging Cohort

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/

• Addicted to screens from an early age

• Averaging 6 to 8 hours a day out of school with new media

• 2 more on “TV” (I suspect this is more with the advent of whole seasons being released at once and binge watching)

• Gradually disconnecting from the physical world into screens, immersive gaming, social media, on-line shopping and services…

• Need for human contact fading?

• Depending on screens for what were once skills

• Remembering, talking, maps, math, composition, imagining/

creating

• Replacing other out of school (developmental) activities

• Fitness, social, maturational consequences

• Impacts on neurology (attention), physiology (obesity)

• Impacts mood- Increases in screen time (>3 hrs) correlate with increases in loneliness/ unhappiness/ depression.

1. Digitally enmeshed/ dependent/ damaged

• Help young people understand the impact of screen time on

mood, physiology, social lives, family lives, etc.

• Understanding “good” vs. “bad” uses of screen time

• Good- study, research, reading

• Not as good- social media, gaming

• Limit screen time for all children

• None for under one year

• One hour to ninety minutes after

• Recognizing the need for other activities

• Fitness

• Social/ developmental

1. Digitally enmeshed/ dependent/ damaged

2. Developmentally Delayed

From iGen

Slow to

• Drive

• Party

• Date

• Work

• Leave home

without ‘rents

• Take risks

• X/ NeXt delayed

adulthood by prolonging

adolescence

• WOKE is delaying

adolescence by

prolonging childhood

• Many are so slow to

engage with adolescent

level/ independence

seeking developmental

tasks.

2. Developmentally DelayedFrom iGen

• Many parents don’t see teens’ failures to be more

independent as bad

• It predicts more problems later in life (in college,

at work, in relationships) if they don’t develop

these skills

• They become people things “happen to” rather

than them controlling their lives

• Some experimentation is part of healthy

adolescent experience

• While they are coming home and parents can

bebrief

• Some paid work is especially developmentally

critical.

3. Stressed/ Anxious/ Depressed• Living in scary, stressed, polarized world

• May not feel safe in school, in public, at church…

• Safety and security needs are low level needs

• Academically and extracurricularly pressured

• Limited social coping skills

• Plus the on-line issues

• Bullying/ mobbing, judgements

• Suicide/ self-harm on the rise

• Active shooter drills in schools not helping them

feel safe

3. Stressed/ Anxious/ Depressed• Monitor academical and

extracurricular pressures

• Make sure they know how to study

• Offer safe environments

• Teach coping skills directly

• Cognitive emotional skills

• Relaxation and mindfulness

• “If you see something, say

something” for suicide, self-harm,

bullying and mobbing.

• Easily threatened and distressed

• May need to retreat to a “safe space”

• May not take feedback/ correction well

• “Why are you shouting at me?”

• May be disturbed by hearing perspectives

they don’t agree with

• May think they should be protected from

hearing any distressing words

• or disagreement with their words

• Where a NeXter may push back,

WOKE might crumble.

4. Emotionally Fragile• Increasingly aware of, interested in, and active in social and economic

issues, especially around issues of social justice

• Many systems don’t seem safe and/or fair to them ® World often not safe for girls and women, People of color, GLBTQ

people, immigrants, students like them…

® May be recognizing that economic and political systems seem rigged to contribute to social and economic inequality

® Educational systems are often stifling (discipline and control instead of support and growth)

® Often express sympathy for school shooters

• They recognize that social problems are their problems

• There are no “other people”; there are just people

• “We are all DACA.”

• They are working on gun issues, bullying, poverty… ® Often have a sense of mission and think it is up to them.

5. WOKE

• Likely to be more engaged and work harder in school

• From the participation trophy kids of NeXt who

• Assumed they will be successful

• Think they deserved the reward (grade) for showing up

• Underrated the effort required to be successful

• Overrated their skills

• Didn’t accept responsibility for own learning

• Were less competent but happier

• To the opposite with Gen WOKE

• Worry about ability to be successful

• More likely to be engaged in their learning/ work

• More likely to accept responsibility/ blame themselves

• More competent but less happy.

6. More competent• We will see how it goes

• Many families are struggling to help kids disengage

• Some kids see it as a problem themselves

• Many parents don’t think teens being slow to date,

party, drive and work is necessarily bad

• K-12 schools struggle with students

• developmental needs

• anxiety and their safety concerns

• active shooter drills not helping

• civil disobedience activities.

Generation WOKE - An Emerging Cohort

To access articles and resources visit www.taylorprograms.com

For questions, additional resources or information about

programs contact Dr. Mark Taylor at

mark@taylorprograms.com