80 Million Millennials Change the Business Environment

Posted on August 4th, 2008 in Business Thinking and Writing, Diversity: Generations, Culture and Inclusivity, Organizational Development by Glynis

1    What your customers say.
2    What your employees say.
3    The Generation Y / Millennial guarantee.
4    County funds for CPS services

1.     What your customers say:

Generation Y is a worldwide phenomenon. In the USA, our 80 million Millennials are a daily challenge to how we strategize, manage, and market.

Open a business publication.  Organizations are constantly criticized for poor service that is specifically blamed on disengaged GenYs. I tested this today: the St Pete’s Times listed AOL, Comcast, Sprint, Abercrombie & Fitch, Qwest, Capital One, Bank of America, Time Warner Cable, HSBC Finance, and Cox Communications as examples: http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/article749365.ece

There are well-researched solutions to these issues. There are specific management skill-sets and behaviors that prevent or cure the problem.

Three tips for creating competency-based systems

Posted on May 27th, 2008 in Business Thinking and Writing, Organizational Development by Glynis

It is very easy to spend months, or $$$$$ on a competency-based program, and end up with very little to show for it.

Three tips:

Tip One: You are likely to run into a very specific problem, unless you are working with a fully-qualified competency expert. (Look for an international qualification, specifically in competencies, like City and Guilds.)

Here is the problem: as you discuss competencies, you become very familiar with the information. You therefore take the material to higher and higher levels of abstraction. You also start to clump the competencies together, so you end up with about 12 broad abstract statements, covering a whole position. These are no use at all.

Managing Gen Y: strategic or operational management skills required?

Posted on May 26th, 2008 in Diversity: Generations, Culture and Inclusivity, Organizational Development by Glynis

80 million Millennials are changing every aspect of the business environment, and they’re your customers, suppliers and employees.

CPS is finding that a lot of companies don’t have comprehensive strategies to manage this generation. They are paying heavily with low productivity, high turnover etc. They are also failing to make good use of the many opportunities the Millennials bring.

We found, however, that some managers want a more strategic approach to this challenge, whereas others simply want the hands-on skills for dealing with Ryan, Ashley, Jessica and Daniel now.

The dollar value of writing skills - and how quickly they can be built.

Posted on May 7th, 2008 in Business Thinking and Writing by Glynis

1            Putting a dollar value on writing skills
2            A real-life example of how writing skills can be improved quickly

1 Your junior-level staff member writes a couple of emails more quickly. Saving: about $600 in a 282-day year.

If his/her emails become better communications, the cost benefits multiply. Effective writing helps create productive processes, happier customers and better teamwork.

If a senior manager writes a couple of emails more quickly each day, the payoff moves up to about $3,000 each year.  It is impossible to put a price on the benefits of senior managers writing clear, persuasive, effective communications, as these are so valuable in an economy where customers, suppliers and knowledge workers communicate by writing.

GenYs are not the only frustrating ones.

Posted on April 15th, 2008 in Business Thinking and Writing, Diversity: Generations, Culture and Inclusivity, Organizational Development by Glynis

It’s common to hear complaints about GenYs, but the Millennial Generation has its own frustrations. There are far too many to list here, but a common one is that they are full of innovative ideas which are ignored. Every cohort has new ideas, but this one thinks in a dramatically different way from the generations before them, even when compared with GenX. And they often have the “Mouth” to say so.

But your Millennials are finding out a great truth about business - that risk takers and innovators are a good thing in theory, but in practice they usually receive a very cool reception.

The role of “learning scientists” in creating organizational growth and wealth.

Posted on April 15th, 2008 in Business Thinking and Writing by Glynis

We all know that the US economy (as valued by Wall Street) has grown a couple of trillion dollars since 1994, and that this has not been industrial growth. You don’t see new oil refineries and steel mills popping up all over the landscape.

But it has been real growth, real wealth, not only share issuance.  It has come largely from knowledge-based activity. We have created hundreds of billions of dollars in market capitalization - in real growth - as we shift gradually from an industrial age, to what has been called the Information Age, the Digital Age or the Age of Knowledge.

Branding your organization, your learning mission and yourself

Posted on April 12th, 2008 in Business Thinking and Writing by Glynis

1 How does your organization tell its story (brand) in an age of web transparency?
2 How does your learning and development team tell the story of your services and/or products?
3 Does your organization buy stories over quality?
4 Do you know (and monitor) your personal brand?

1 How does your organization tell its story (brand itself) in an age of web transparency?

We’ve always added value to goods and services with stories. A good story, with its associated emotions and images, can make bottled water worth seven times the price of gasoline. A tatty old rug with a history is a valuable antique… a shrimp cooked by a famous chef can cost twenty times more than one from a chain restaurant.

I’m sure that your strategic people get together regularly to review the “sizzle” which adds value to your services and products.

Questions to ask include: are you telling your story in a different way from the way you told it five years ago? Hot buttons are changing, and even a subtle shift will show on your bottom line.

Trust and understanding between collective and individualist cultures

Posted on April 6th, 2008 in Diversity: Generations, Culture and Inclusivity by Glynis

Many organizations are staffed by a mix of people from individualist cultures (e.g. USA, Canada, Western European cultures) and collectivist cultures (e.g. Latino, Asian, African cultures).

Building trust and understanding between these diverse groups is not easy, either for the team members concerned, or for managers and learning specialists who facilitate the process.

Everyone has an “I” consciousness and a “we” consciousness. The “I” focuses on self achievement, self responsibility and autonomy. The “we” identity focuses on connection to our reference groups, and our relatedness. This emphasis varies from person to person, and from culture to culture.

Retaining valuable “women who don’t ask”

Posted on April 6th, 2008 in Diversity: Generations, Culture and Inclusivity by Glynis

Research shows that even young, highly-educated and assertive women do not ask for what they want, or know how to maneuver their way through systems that penalize them for asking.

The cost, to both women and organizations, is high.

Research proves that when women do ask for what they want, they do not do so as clearly, quickly or as often as men do. GenX and GenY women are following in the footsteps of their Boomer and Traditional predecessors in this pattern.

Women also tend to think that what is offered (“what is on the table”) is all that is available. Men draw on their socialization (which includes things like being taught how to slip the Maitre d’ a few bucks for a better table) and assume that their wants and needs might be met if they speak up, irrespective of what seems to be on offer.

Organizations suffer. Their valuable women work and wait for rewards or options, then one day, *poof*! They’re working for your competitor or running their own small business, and you’re saying “why didn’t she TELL me she wanted that position, the same salary as John, that title, a new computer screen, a more flexible schedule, a space heater? It would have cost so little … a tiny fraction of what this is costing us now!”

Building organization-wide business thinking

Posted on April 6th, 2008 in Business Thinking and Writing by Glynis

1 Everyone needs to maintain or increase organizational profit in a time of economic slowdown
2 One proven route to profitability: build the financial and business intelligence in all your employees

In a time of economic weakness, it’s especially important to make sure that all your key people are financially intelligent.

And not only key people - all your people. Back in the Age of Industry, only managers were expected to understand revenue and expenditure. Now everyone needs to ask:

1) How can we increase the numbers above the line?

You can simplify this into four starting points:

a) How can we sell more of our existing products or services to our existing customers?
b) How can we sell more of our existing products and services to new clients?
c) How can we sell new products or services to existing customers?
d) How can we sell new products or services to new customers?

… and what can I, personally, and my team, do about it?

Next Page »