What’s New in Business

Generation blend: Managing across the technology age gap

by Rob Salkowitz, John Wiley & Sons, 2008.
With three-plus generations currently active in the workplace, there are many books that examine the different work styles of generations. There are also many books written about how technology affects people in the workplace. What has not been explored in depth, however, is how technology affects the interactions of generations in the workplace, until Salkowitz’s Generation Blend: Managing across the technology age gap. This book focuses on how new ways of communicating, collaborating and managing information technology affects all employees, and gives organizations a plan for how to create understanding amongst the generations.
The most prevalent generations currently in the work place are the Baby Boomers (born 1946-1962), Generation X (born 1963-1980), and the Millennials (born 1981-2000). Due to shared experiences at the same point in history, there are certain qualities possessed by each generation that affect their workplace styles as well as their attitude towards technology. Baby boomers are often thought to be skeptical of new technology, especially given media coverage of the potential dangers. Generation X is thought to be techoliterate, comfortable with technology although cautious; while Millennials are considered technosavvy, often adopting new technologies without fully considering the risks.
After examining the conflicts that may arise amongst the generations due to the digital technology age gap, and giving full descriptions of the workstyles of the 3 prevalent generations in the workplace, Salkowitz offers 5 questions that any organization should ask themselves in order to best manage the technology age gap, which should help create understanding amongst generations regarding the utilization (or lack thereof) of certain technologies by the organization. Case studies are presented both to illustrate why the technology age gap may actually be beneficial to the workplace, as well as to give examples of the different steps that each of the generations may be taking to eliminate the technology age gap.

Toxic People: Decontaminate Difficult People at Work without Using Weapons or Duct Tape

by Marsha Petrie Sue, John Wiley and Sons, 2007.

Toxic people at work not only bring themselves down, but also the people around them if allowed to. We can’t control other peoples’ actions or behaviors, but we can control our response to them. Marsha Sue identifies the six toxic roles in most workplaces. They are: the steamroller, the zipper lip, the backstabber, the know-it-all, the needy weenie and the whine and cheeser. The behavior types exhibited by these people include the bully, the clam, the psychopath, the arrogant expert, the wimp or worrywart and the chronic complainer.

Toxic People explores each category in-depth and helps us see what we need to do to keep communication open with them, but not buy into their issues. We need to remember that we can control three things: what I think, what I say and how I behave, but we can’t control others. Toxic People trains us to recognize these people and teaches how to better deal with them. We can’t let them bring us down or get in the way of accomplishing what is needed.

Marsha Sue shares many scenarios where toxic behavior caused problems for many businesses. The stories show us others interacting with toxic people and how they addressed the situations. By applying lessons learned in the scenarios we can rise above the toxic people, work with them when needed and become better at how we respond to these situations.

Chapters also address toxic people and their effects on your business. Do you let the behavior go on or do you need to get rid of the people bringing others down with their behavior? Areas addressed for toxic cleanup include: listening, controlling the uncontrollable, customer service, mental looting, toxic infections, and ruffled feathers.

Make Your Contacts Count: Networking Know-how for Business and Career Success

by Anne Baber and Lynne Waymon, AMACOM, 2007.

Many people think of networking as attending a business meeting such as Business After Hours, however networking is a lot more. To be truly good at networking and able to use these skills to help or advance your career you must be networking at all times and in all locations that make up your life. When developing and using the skills that make up networking become a normal part of all of your interactions you will be amazed at the opportunities that open up for you in all aspects of your life.

Anne Babar and Lynne Waymon share with us a step-by-step process to create, cultivate and make the most of all of your contacts. They include short tests to help you evaluate where you are and where you want to go, but most importantly they guide you through the process of how to get there.

They cover such topics as “netiquette,” avoiding the top twenty turn-offs and what topics to talk about. Opening and maintaining a conversation is what stops many of us from “networking” and since we don’t feel adept at conversations we choose not to network and lose many opportunities. Chapters address everything from topics to cover and avoid, maintaining the flow and closing the conversations to move on to the next opportunity. Reading and implementing the steps covered will make all of us stronger networkers and have us looking for new opportunities to apply what we now know.

You Want Me to Work with Who? Eleven Keys to a Stress-free Satisfying and Successful Work Life…No Matter Who You Work with

by Julie Jansen, Penguin Books, 2006

Everyone must learn to work with people from all walks of life. This book will help you determine whom you are dealing with and give insights on how to work with them.

There are eleven keys to get results when working with others:

Confidence
Curiosity
Decisiveness
Empathy
Flexibility
Humor
Intelligence
Optimism
Perseverance
Respect
Self-awareness.

Although most of us think that people exhibit different personalities like: the bully, the rigid, the rude or the disorganized; among other personalities, what people are really doing is suffering from the lack of or overabundance of one of these eleven keys.

Each chapter is a different key and gives a definition, other keys important to the use of this key, pointers for working with people who are lacking in or have an excessive amount of this key, assessment quizzes to determine you own level of this key, and tips and techniques for improving this key in yourself and others you work with.

The pointers include stories of people who exhibit this key and how it was dealt with in their particular situation. It includes how to deal with people if you are the peer, the manager of, or less senior to the person lacking in or with an over abundance of this key.
These sections are extremely helpful in identifying what you can deal with and ways to learn to live with it if you can’t change it.

The assessment section gives questions to answer to find out where you fit in the grading scale for this key, explains how to score the assessment and then explains where the most effective range is and why. It includes a section to create an action plan to improve in this area. It also gives activities to strengthen the key.

Sometimes we can succeed in making people around us change to enable us to work better with them and sometimes we need to learn to accept and work with the personalities and issues that the person brings to the work environment. Awareness of what we can actually impact is key to our success in the workplace.