What's Next Gen X?

Tamara Erickson: Well I think it's helpful to always understand more about the people we work with, why they do the things they do, what they care about, what makes work most exciting for them and the interesting thing about generations is that because we all experience some of the same formative events we tend to have common patterns. Obviously people are influenced by many other things as well but the nice thing about looking at it from a generational perspective is that it at least gives you some clues into one part of what makes work important to this.

Rachel Salaman: So what is that? What does it give us insight into then?

Tamara Erickson: Well it turns out that a lot of our most important conceptual assumptions about what's important in life are formed when we're young, typically between the ages of about 11 and 13, that's when people tend to shift from tangible objects, figuring out how things work and begin to put together conceptual ideas, it's when young people begin to listen to the adults around them for the first time and really try to understand what's this world all about? What's important? Who's important? What do I need to do in order to be successful? And those kinds of answers that they form at that time end up having a big impact on the way they approach work.

Rachel Salaman: And it's really possible to look at one demographic at one point and pull out characteristics that most of the people in that group share?

Tamara Erickson: Well with caution, with caution, as you said appropriately in your introduction because obviously we're influenced when we're 11 to 13 by many other things as well, we may have parents who are particularly conservative or particularly liberal, we may have different cultural influences, so there's a lot going on but because the major world events tend to be ones that we all notice there are some commonalities.

Rachel Salaman: So what are the characteristics of Generation X which we're focusing on today?

Tamara Erickson: Well Gen X, when they were 11 to 13 it was a time of a lot of both economic difficulties throughout Europe, actually throughout Latin America and North America as well, it was a tough time, lots of inflation and stagflation and all those kinds of things, it was a time when companies began to break the social contract that had been in place with employees for many years and it's when we began to see the first widespread layoff occurring throughout Europe and throughout again North America, these folks watched that as kids, so they watched the adults they knew being laid off from corporations that in many cases those adults had spent their entire career with. It's also a time when we saw rapidly increasing divorce rates, so the social fabric was changing. Women were entering the workplace and many of these kids ended up being what we call latchkey kids, home alone in the afternoon, taking care of themselves and so forth. So that's the kind of 11 to 13 year old experience that many people in this generation share.

Rachel Salaman: And what effect did that have on their attitude towards work later on?

Tamara Erickson: Well think about it from the perspective of a 13 year old, you've got institutions whether they're corporations or the institution of marriage, not withstanding the test of time necessarily, and the conclusion that I think many X-ers drew that's kind of deeply embedded in the way they approach the world is that you need to be able to take care of yourself, you don't want to put too much trust in an institution, so the idea of being self-reliant, of keeping your options open, tend to be very important concepts for X-ers and as they approach work we find that X-ers want to translate those ideas into their career planning.

So for example an X-er might talk about his or her career, many of them that I interviewed will say things like well I'm doing this today but I've also got that going on as a side career and I'm going to school to study for a third career and I've been making plans for yet a fourth career in the back of my mind, so it's a sense of keeping many options open that come through as a very prevalent characteristic.

Rachel Salaman: And how is that different from the baby boomers and Generation Y when it comes to their attitudes towards work?

Tamara Erickson: Well it's pretty different. Boomers, you know, we always, when we think about boomers we tend to think of, you know, the 60s and the idealism and so forth but I think from a work perspective the most important influence on boomers was simply that there were so many of them, you know, boomers came along as such a huge group that in most cases the school systems couldn't build classrooms fast enough for them all to have chairs, so many of them had to go to school in temporary buildings because there just simply weren't enough seats and I think that that kind of experience built in boomers a real sense that the world is a zero sum gain, that if you win I lose and that therefore it's going to be important for me to be able to compete, to be the best, so boomers tend, I would say, to have a pretty heavily competitive streak, I would say parenthetically we see that played out in the way many boomers and I'm a boomer, many of us kind of encourage our kids to get out there and compete so we continue that forward but from a work perspective it means that many boomers were quite willing to chomp into the workforce and do everything they could to be successful without necessarily questioning, questioning the rules, questioning why we're working, how we're working etc. So if a corporation said to a boomer we want you to relocate, a boomer would tend to say 'Yes, happy to do it', whereas if a corporation says to an X-er I'd like you to relocate what goes through the X-er's mind immediately is 'Ooh, that'd make me more dependent on this corporation, you know, it would sever other connections, it would cut me off from other options', it doesn't feel safe to an X-er necessarily to comply with that request, very different reactions.

Rachel Salaman: And what about Generation Y?

Tamara Erickson: Yes, Y, well they're a little different to, you know, if you think back to when Ys, who are essentially people in their 20s today, 20s and late teens, if you think about them being 11, without question the main topic of conversation among adults at that time was terrorism, it was a time of 9/11, the London subways and that's the kind of experience that those kids internalized at 11 and the interesting thing about terrorism as opposed to say war, which of course many generations have grown up with, is that war has a certain at least rational expectation associated with it, in other words a rational person would understand that if one goes to war there's at least some possibility that something bad might happen, there's no rational possibility that something bad might happen if you go to school. That's random, that's stunning, that's an inexplicably bad event happening in a place where by all rights you should feel very, very safe and so the fundamental thing that our Ys have digested is that they live in a world where random things happen, something could happen at any point, at any time, to anyone in any place and if you think about how you live your life if that were your fundamental mental model, I think it's pretty logical to conclude that you'd want to live every day to the fullest and that's the primary characteristic we see with Ys, they're very immediate, they want every day to be meaningful and challenging and enjoyable and just filled with, filled with life and I think that's a very logical way for them to be, given their experiences as kids.

Rachel Salaman: Yes. So how does that reflect on their attitude towards work?

Tamara Erickson: Well it certainly causes for a lot of misunderstandings, so for example the biggest complaint that I get from executives about Gen Y, almost universally is they're too impatient, that's how they look to us, that's how we perceive them as being very impatient, they want everything now, etc. And what my research would show is that's our interpretation, what I would, what's really happening I believe is that they want to have a, an experience now that is challenging and meaningful. That's a little different from impatience, that says give me something to do today that's real, that has value that's going to make whatever I do today make this day on earth be one that, that really does have some meaning. We tend to interpret them as being maybe pushy when in fact what they're trying to do is to be as to live in the moment.

Rachel Salaman: Well if we return to Generation X now, what particular challenges are they facing at the moment in the workplace?

Tamara Erickson: Okay, well first of all let's think about just where they are, I mean most of them as you said they're, they're kind of in their 30s and 40s, many of them are at a point where they're being considered or asked to step into major leadership positions, they're also at that point when I think many people come to grips with where they're going to end up in terms of at least how high they may get within a particular environment, so they're at a turning point, they're at a point where it's pretty natural to reflect and think about what do I really want to do? And some of the things that I think are very important at this point is this is a time when they should turn their attention from, they should begin to leverage their strength, you know, when we're young we think in terms of maybe overcoming our weaknesses or filling our voids etc but by the time you're in, where the position that Xs are in, this is a time to really understand what do you like? What do you get excited about? What do you do well? And how can you craft your life in a way that brings more of that into it?

Rachel Salaman: Is that an easy thing for people to do, to really know what they do well and what they love?

Tamara Erickson: Well, you know, that's a good question, I would say, you know, it probably isn't that difficult if we take time to think about it and give ourselves the license, the freedom to think about it, what I suggest to people is think about a time when you lose track of time, I mean what are you doing when you, you are so caught up in it that time flies by or what do you like to tell people about when you talk about yourself? What do you feel most proud of and most excited about? And if it's not related to your work environment is there a way you could find work that would bring more of that passion into it? Because it's quite clear that we do the best work when we feel that it has meaning and when we feel passionate about it, so I really encourage people in the book to spend some time and I offer some exercises people can do but spend some time thinking about what is good for you, that you really enjoy.

Rachel Salaman: In the book you talk about this in terms of what you call Life Lures, which are archetypes of work-related passions, could you just talk a little bit about those? You specify six in the book.

Tamara Erickson: Yes, it's quite interesting, we did a very large piece of research looking at a whole variety of psycho-demographic characteristics and at the end of the research they clustered together into six very clear different preferences that people have about work.

It turns out that some of us get very excited if the, about the nature of the work we're doing, if it has long lasting value in particular, we get most excited if we know we're working on something that I call has a legacy element to it. Interestingly this includes not only, you know, say scientists who are inventing something but, but it often includes architects who are designing a building perhaps that will last, artists, writers, entrepreneurs who are building a company, people who really get excited about that sense of something that lives beyond them.

There are other people who are most comfortable and do their best work when they feel very, very secure, when they know what's happening, there's no ambiguity, the rules are clear, what they need to do in order to be judged as successful is laid out as crystal clear, those kinds of things become very, very important. There's a third group of people who really love competing, they love teams, they love being on a team, they love the idea their team is winning. Interestingly people in that category, that category's over-populated by people who assume senior leadership roles in company, people who like to lead teams and lead into competitive battle against other corporations.

There's some of us out there who are just purely, I would have to say adrenaline junkies, you know, we want to live on the edge, we want to feel that, you know, we're always going for the big win or the possibility of the big bust and so being in that kind of boom and bust environment is what really gets our blood flowing. There are some people who care a great deal about flexibility, those tend to be people who have something else going on their life, such that work builds a strictly secondary role. It may be that they're going to school or they have young kids or whatever but they really value a job and an employer that can put flexibility at the top of the list and I'm sad to say the sixth category, we did find one group of people that we simply couldn't find anything they liked about work, they didn't like their colleagues or their customers or really just about anything, so hopefully you're not in that category.

Rachel Salaman: No, I don't think so. So is the idea that if we can identify which category we fit into we're more likely to do work we actually enjoy?

Tamara Erickson: Yes, absolutely. I mean if you're, let's say for example you really do your best work when you feel very secure and the environment is very well defined but you're in a company that's quite chaotic, there's a lot of risk, financial uncertainty etc, you're not going to do your best work, you're not going to be happy etc and so whether you can do it today or whether it needs to be something you worked toward over the next couple of years as the company improves, you need to get yourself into an environment where you're going to be more comfortable, more engaged and better able to work and the same would be true for all those examples.

Rachel Salaman: Well you give a lot of other tips for Generation X-ers who want to get ahead at work, specifically in the job they currently have rather than moving to another one and one of those is to maximize your effectiveness. What are your suggestions here?

Tamara Erickson: Well one of them is to make sure you've surrounded yourself with the people you need in order to be effective. We're learning more and more about the power of networks and social networks within corporations and so one of the things I recommend is that you think about the people who influence your success and make sure that you have strong positive personal relationships with those individuals. Don't think about it as something you can do on your own, think about it as something that kind of needs a, needs a community and make sure you're investing some time to build your supportive community.

Rachel Salaman: You also talk about leveraging what you do and this includes managing up. How does that work in practice?

Tamara Erickson: Well I suggest you think of yourself almost like a product and you're the product manager so think about your brand image, what is your brand? What do people in your company know you, what are they recognized for? First of all is that something you want to be recognized for? Do you need to change your brand? But let's assume it is, then how can you make that more prominent and there are some chips to that, for example one that I suggest is let's say for example you think you're a very, very good project manager, you're very dependable and you want people throughout the company when they, when they're looking for the most dependable, make it happen person to think of you, okay so the chip is can you find something outside of work, let's say managing a building project for your local school or something of that sort, some kind of volunteer work that you might do, a conversational opportunity to reinforce your brand in the workplace? So in other words around the water cooler you can talk about the fact that you've been given this big responsibility in your community and that it's going well and so forth. So continue to reinforce the characteristics that you want to have people think of you for at work.

Rachel Salaman: And how does that relate to managing up?

Tamara Erickson: Well managing up, the key there of course is to understand what your boss is measured on and what he or she values but it's also to recognize that in most cases if your boss is a boomer and you're an X-er I would say just as a given and of course there will be exceptions to every rule but there's a general rule you have to assume they don't have a clue what you want, that almost everything a boomer would think you might want is not what you want and they're not mind readers, no-one is, so the number one, you know, suggestion there is it's really incumbent upon you to be very clear about what would be an attractive career path to use. So your boss may be, you know, thinking they're working on your best behalf, trying to strategize how to get you promoted up the ladder into some narrow little specialized niche, when the idea of doing that scares you to death and what you'd rather do is move latterly and get some additional breadth of experience that would give you more options down the road of different places you can, you've got to speak up and say that, there's no way the boomer would ever imagine that that's what you want and so it's really important to talk about your career path goals with your boss.

Rachel Salaman: Whether another of your tips addresses one of the key concerns of Gen Xs, you talk about how to balance the demands of the organization with other priorities in your life. Tell us about being smart and lazy.

Tamara Erickson: That's one of my favorites and I can't take credit for it, I actually listened to a speech many years ago given by a guy who worked for the Disney Corporation who was the Head of their Imagineering Division and he said, you know, imagine a two by two matrix and imagine that one axis is, you know, kind of smart and dumb and the other axis is energetic and lazy, he said, you know, which of those four quadrants would you want to have people in? And of course the audience immediately rules out well you don't want people who are dumb and lazy, okay we can draw an x through that, we probably don't want people who are dumb at all, okay we'll x that out but then naturally everyone goes to I want smart and energetic and he argued you really don't, smart energetic people, you know, they, you know, run around and do a lot of stuff but the ones that are really going to add tremendous value are the smart and lazy ones because they're going to think about how to do it easier, how to simplify, how to, you know, cut corners in ways that make everybody's life a little easier and so I think one of the key things that we need to do is step back occasionally from all the things we're doing and ask ourselves, you know, would there be an easier way to get this done, do we have to do it to this degree of detail? How could we kind of rethink the overall flow or division of work in ways that would, that would simply live for, you know, not just me, it's not a matter of putting my work off on you but how can I simplify the whole system in a way that becomes better? So being lazy is kind of my code word for thinking about how to do things in the easiest possible way.

Rachel Salaman: As you mentioned earlier a lot of Generation X-ers will now be in leadership positions at work or moving towards them and your book reflects this by devoting a whole chapter to leadership and you make the point that leadership means something different to each generation. Could you talk us through those differences?

Tamara Erickson: Well it does and I think it's partly, you know, it's a combination of both the generational differences and also probably the demands of the time. You know, one of my conclusions from working with Gen X for the past couple of years is I've become a huge fan, supporter, believer in Gen X. I think that many people in that generation have exactly the characteristics that are required for leadership today. We live in such an uncertain world with so many different options that need to be considered that having someone who thinks in terms of options and, you know, keeping multiple points of view and balance etc. is exactly what we need, I think that we see the basic characteristics that I described earlier played out in many leadership roles. Boomers tend to think as leaders in terms of how can I win? And in fact if you listen to the language in many corporations, not all, but many, have a very combative set of analogies that are used, you know, the competition kind of thing, you know, it has a very kind of win lose, zero sum, hostile kind of feel to it, which I think was comfortable for many boomers. It was, you know, how boomers tended to see the world but if X-ers think more about networks, about partnerships, about reducing risk options as I said, I think we're going to see a shift in the leadership style that will be very appropriate.

Rachel Salaman: And what about Generation Y, are they even thinking about leadership?

Tamara Erickson: Well they are, I think it's a little early to say how their leadership style will evolve but I do think that they're really looking for opportunities to figure things out. You know, the interesting thing to me about Ys is, I call them do a little, learn a little, in other words they're less inclined to study something for a long time and then go off and just do it. They're much more inclined to want to try it, run into a problem, ask somebody, try it, ask somebody, you know, this kind of learning in small steps and I suspect we'll see that applied as they begin to increasingly take leadership responsibility where they'll be more comfortable maybe than boomers have been at letting people try things and figure them out and learn as they go.

Rachel Salaman: Well just finally then, in broad terms, what does the future of work look like for Generation X?

Tamara Erickson: The answer, you know, I think has two sides to it. I do think that we're in a situation where the nature of work is changing in ways that people who have educations and higher levels of skills are at a significant advantage over those who are looking for kind of classic blue collar types of jobs. So X-ers are the highest educated generation so far, that's not counting the Ys because they're not quite finished, they'll probably be a little higher educated even than X-ers but certainly X-ers have high levels of education, they've invested in that, as a generation they're well suited and I think X-ers who, who have that kind of educational ability to participate in knowledge-based jobs will be very successful, it's a small generation, we desperately need them, corporations need them to step into leadership roles, there really aren't very many of them when you compare them to the number of boomers who are sitting in leadership chairs today, so I think that in many cases the outlook is very positive but we do have to recognize that as the economy reduces manufacturing-based jobs, particularly in places like the UK and throughout really much of Western Europe and North America, that people who don't have that educational background will be increasingly disadvantaged in the economy.

Rachel Salaman: And what will happen to them?

Tamara Erickson: Well I think they need to get retrained. I think education is the answer and one of the things I encourage corporations to think a lot about is how they can invest in people who've proven to be very good workers in one sphere and help them develop skills that would take them forward over the next couple of decades.

Rachel Salaman: Tammy Erickson thank you very much for joining us.

Tamara Erickson: Thank you for having me, my pleasure.

The name of Tammy's book again is What's Next Gen X?: Keeping Up, Moving Ahead and Getting the Career You Want. You can find out more about her work at www.tammyerickson.com.

Rachel Salaman: I'll be back in a few weeks with another Expert Interview, until then, goodbye.