17 January 2009

Don't be perceived as sucker

I was reading bunch of articles in HBR. The interesting reads started with a good case study which was powerful, helped me to validate some of my ideas and gave new insights. The core theme of case study is how to deal with people or boss-subordinate relationship to be precise. It is quite usual and reasonable for your subordinate to think you as sucker if you really suck (from his perspective). You cannot just cover up. Get your basics right and update your knowledge.

While the global economy is in a see-saw, the companies are preparing to improve productivity and come out with a distruptive innovation to transform their capabilities, market share, growth and bottom line. If you are in knowledge-based industry where the productivity is in the hands of human resources, your ability to connect with people and understanding your team plays a key role for your organization's success. Period.

Today, the world is seeing a transformation in learning. The people, apart from reading books, they started to learn from their work. Some of the old tools and management styles will not excite the next generation. It is time for the old generation to understand the expectations of the new generation and channelize them. The new generation see their managers as not managers but as coach. They do not see their work only as work but also as case study.

So, it is quite natural to have differences of opinion among people of different generations as both the generations have blurred vision about the other. It is high time for the managers not only to know about individual behavioral patterns of their teams, it is worth spending the time on understanding the generation gap and leverage it to the team's advantage. As you move up, you will come across people of many generations. So, learn it now else it will be too late to learn. Jim Collins used to say about himself as life long student. It is an evergreen word and it perfectly fits now.