Jay Robb reviews business books

Book review: Managing Generation Y

Not Everyone Gets a Trophy: How to Manage Generation Y

By Bruce Tulgan

(Jossey-Bass, $29.95)

I had a flashback during a meeting the other day.

Back to the early days of my career when I was told to dial down the enthusiasm at work. To avoid starting every sentence with "what if" and "how about."

To be respectful, deferential and heed the wisdom of elders. To stop swinging for a home run with every trip to the plate. To think before speaking and soften the edges. To not bend, break or rewrite every rule. To colour between the lines. To sit quietly, listen attentively and take notes. And to realize that when senior execs wrap up meetings by asking if anyone has anything to add, it's a rhetorical question, a cue to bring the party to a quick close and not an open invitation to serve up yet another big idea.

With experience and a few scars at the midpoint of a pretty cool career, I've finally learned when to turn down and crank up the dial. When to go along to get along. When to swing for the fences and when to settle for a base hit. When to listen, when to pretend to listen and when to speak out and step up.

So back to the meeting. There were a bunch of baby boomers, a couple Gen Xers and a few 20-somethings around the table. And when the meeting wound down and the rhetorical question got asked, up went the hand from the Generation Y poster child and out came the questions and big ideas. And while some of us in the room silently cursed the breaking of the unwritten rule and thought the rookie had overstepped, I had my flashback, thought the kids are all right and knew that our future's in good hands.

Author Bruce Tulgan advises employers on how to work with Generation Y, a generation with the potential to be the most high-performing workforce in history. Born between 1978 and 2000, this generation of workers is eager to hit the ground running, tackle and solve big problems and add real value. They're collaborative, confident and self-possessed, even when the rest of us have no clue what's going.

Yet as many managers and employers will tell you, this high-performing cohort may also prove to be the most high-maintenance workforce we've ever seen. Tween and teen precociousness is continuing well into adulthood and carrying into the workplace. With Gen Y, Tulgan says 30 is the new 20 and we have overinvolved, helicopter parents to thank.

"Every step of the way, Gen Yers' parents have guided, directed, supported, coached and protected them. Gen Yers have been respected, nurtured, scheduled, measured, discussed, diagnosed, medicated, programmed, accommodated, included, awarded and rewarded as long as they can remember."

If you think managing Gen Yers and putting up with the attitude and precociousness isn't worth the effort, take a good look around the office and shop floor. The recession may have created a buyer's market for talent, but it hasn't stopped time. With each passing day and hour, all those baby boomers move ever closer to retirement (many already are). There aren't enough of us Gen Xers to go around, so be prepared for a massive influx of Generation Y.

To lock in the best and brightest of this generation, smart employers are revisiting, reviewing and revising how they hire and train new employees. Contrary to popular belief, Gen Yers aren't disloyal and unwilling to make real commitments to their employees.

"They can be very loyal," says Tulgan. "But they don't exhibit the kind of loyalty you find in a kingdom: blind loyalty to hierarchy, tight observance of rites of passage, patience for recognition and rewards."

Instead, Generation Y offers free-market, just-in-time transactional loyalty, the same kind of loyalty you have with customers and clients.

The ideal job for Gen Yers is what Tulgan calls a self-building job. This is a generation that's looking to make an impact while building themselves up with the experiences and resources that you can offer. They want to learn, grow and collect proof along the way that their ability adds value. Once you've met the threshold of competitive salaries and wages, Gen Yers care about flexible schedules, relationships, task choice, learning opportunities and location.

Tulgan tells employers that the most important day for 20-somethings is their first day on the job. Treat Day 1 like you're planning your kid's birthday. No, you don't need balloons, cake and a clown. Just greet your new hires and get them engaged. Don't park them in a cubicle and bury them with busy work so they'll stay out of the way and let you get your work done. And shipping new hires off for two long days of induction by PowerPoint guarantees disengagement.

"If it takes you months or years to get Gen Yers up to speed and into meaningful roles on your team, then you'll have serious problems keeping high-potential Gen Yers engaged and growing," says Tulgan. "Don't tell me you are struggling to manage and retain the best Gen Yers and then tell me it's going to take months or years before they can do important work."

Tulgan also recommends practicing what he coins "in loco parentis" management. "You can't fight the overparenting phenomenon, so run with it. Your Gen Y employees want it. They need it. Without strong management, there is a void where their parents have always been." So show your 20-somethings that you care. Give them boundaries and structure.

"Yes, Generation Y will be more difficult to recruit, retain, motivate and manage than any other new generation to enter the workforce," says Tulgan.

"But this will also be the most high-performing workforce in history for those who know how to manage them properly."

Book review: Social networking and the Whuffie Factor

The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business

By Tara Hunt

Crown Business

$28.95

The other week I met with four folks who are doing cool work on the environmental front with support from the Hamilton Community Foundation. We got together in a meeting room at Trivaris and spent the morning talking about social media.

Now, I'm anything but a resident expert on social media. And I'm pretty sure I was brought in by the foundation to prove a point. If this guy can use social media then anyone can do it and probably do it better.

I took the group on a behind-the-scenes tour of the blogs I use at work and for recycling book reviews. Next, we swung over to Slideshare where one of my PowerPoints has been looked at 2,370 times. We made a stop at Wikipedia and then wound up at Twitter, where hundreds of people are following my postings for reasons that still remain a mystery.

It took a while for folks to warm up to all things social media. Already working long hours on shoestring budgets, they asked smart questions. Was blogging, Twittering, writing on Facebook and posting videos on YouTube really worth the time, effort and money? What was the return on investment? Social media seemed to be all noise and no signal, a time-waster that 20-somethings indulged in when they didn't feel like working.

So I tried to hammer home three key points to the folks in the room. Your organizations all have great stories to tell and sell and a built-in audience wanting and waiting to connect with you and support your cause. Social media either costs nothing or next to nothing to use and can actually save you time and money (no more printing and stuffing newsletters in envelopes!). And you can take a leadership role by playing the part of party host and cruise director, starting and joining conversations and connecting smart people, big ideas and best practices both here at home and around the world.

And then I plugged The Whuffie Factor by author and community marketing guru Tara Hunt of Saskatoon. "Catching the social networking wave of Web 2.0 is neither easy nor as straightforward as it might seem at first blush," says Hunt. "Simply spending money and trying to buy your way into online communities works about as well as a dude in a Brooks Brother suit trying to fit in at the skateboard park. To succeed in this Web 2.0 world, you have to turn conventional wisdom on its head and become a social capitalist."

So what exactly is Whuffie, a concept Hunt borrowed from science-fiction author Cory Doctorow. Hunt calls Whuffie "the residual outcome -- the currency -- of your reputation. You lose or gain it based on positive or negative actions, your contributions to the community and what people think of you."

You build Whuffie by being nice, networked and notable. Social media gives you easy-to-use tools to accomplish all three. And the social capital you build buys you real-world market capital. It raises your profile. Enhances your reputation. Earns you long-term loyalty. Wins you friends and fans who sing your praises, do business with you.

"Market capital and social capital are converging more than many recognize," says Hunt. "There may even come a day that social capital is seen as viable currency in the market economy."

To build Whuffie, turn the bullhorn around. Stop talking and start listening. Become part of the community you serve and then get out of the office and into that community. Create amazing experiences that people love. Embrace the chaos and find your higher purpose. Give back to the community you serve and do it often.

Social media turbocharges your community marketing efforts in a world where we're inundated with sales pitches, burned by false promises broken in the past and overwhelmed with choices. We don't care what people have to say, sell or give away. We're too busy listening to our friends. The people we trust and care about.

"The fact of the matter is that people are talking more and more, and they are becoming more and more conscious of where they are spending their dollars," says Hunt.

"When a person has a choice between two similar products and one has only been executing on a traditional branding strategy of advertising and product placement whereas the other one has really connected personally with the shopper, which do you think they will buy? No matter what industry you are in, no matter how established or early-stage your business is, this shift is going to affect you ... if it hasn't already."

So if you're not connecting with your community and building social capital, Hunt will show you how to go and raise serious Whuffie.