The last two and a half years have provided me with a lot of opportunity to work with Gen Y pharmaceutical sales trainers. They have defied every negative thing that I ever read about them. At first I was a bit taken off-guard by their lovey-dovey nature because it was a radical departure from Gen X cynicism that I had come to expect during sales training, leadership development, and train-the-trainer sessions. The merits and drawbacks of Gen Y’s schooling of team projects where everyone’s a winner are fodder for a doctoral thesis and beyond my ability and desire.
What I can say is that as a business owner and performance consultant is that they give me hope and make me want to mentor and serve their development as tomorrow’s leaders. The empathy and camaraderie they demonstrate is exactly the discretionary effort that fuels business results. To begin to tap their power: let them help to hire people they work with, make sure their management “gets and cares for them” and balance team/individual contributions in the performance management system.
Each time I work with these young professionals, I leave feeling like, if the world doesn’t beat it out of them, our future is in great hands!
I feel the same way, but often write about them, …just because. It is like us baby boomers HAVE to embarrass them or something, but I share your thoughts. Frankly, I have NEVER been a follower of the management belief that they (or any other generation) deserves some different way of interacting. Everyone is different and the manager who understands that is far better off. However, there are characterisitics that are noticeable just like we had I am sure. One of my favorites New Yorker cartoons shows a young boy coming home from a baseball game with a trophy as big as he is, and he says “We lost.” That is particularly funny for me, because 20 years ago, we had to debate some folks in little league here who didn’t want to keep score.
And then Bruce Tulgan just writes his recent book on Generation Y called “Not Everyone Gets a Trophy”…so that part just came out pretty easily.
Thanks for stopping by and reading and understanding, too.
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The last two and a half years have provided me with a lot of opportunity to work with Gen Y pharmaceutical sales trainers. They have defied every negative thing that I ever read about them. At first I was a bit taken off-guard by their lovey-dovey nature because it was a radical departure from Gen X cynicism that I had come to expect during sales training, leadership development, and train-the-trainer sessions. The merits and drawbacks of Gen Y’s schooling of team projects where everyone’s a winner are fodder for a doctoral thesis and beyond my ability and desire.
What I can say is that as a business owner and performance consultant is that they give me hope and make me want to mentor and serve their development as tomorrow’s leaders. The empathy and camaraderie they demonstrate is exactly the discretionary effort that fuels business results. To begin to tap their power: let them help to hire people they work with, make sure their management “gets and cares for them” and balance team/individual contributions in the performance management system.
Each time I work with these young professionals, I leave feeling like, if the world doesn’t beat it out of them, our future is in great hands!
I feel the same way, but often write about them, …just because. It is like us baby boomers HAVE to embarrass them or something, but I share your thoughts. Frankly, I have NEVER been a follower of the management belief that they (or any other generation) deserves some different way of interacting. Everyone is different and the manager who understands that is far better off. However, there are characterisitics that are noticeable just like we had I am sure. One of my favorites New Yorker cartoons shows a young boy coming home from a baseball game with a trophy as big as he is, and he says “We lost.” That is particularly funny for me, because 20 years ago, we had to debate some folks in little league here who didn’t want to keep score.
And then Bruce Tulgan just writes his recent book on Generation Y called “Not Everyone Gets a Trophy”…so that part just came out pretty easily.
Thanks for stopping by and reading and understanding, too.