Two weeks ago I wrote a post about an inherent paradox in the conversation about generational differences. The differences we see among generations are both true at the big picture level AND irrelevant at the individual level. Every generation possesses significant diversity and significant “sameness” at the same time. That post was the setup to this one, based on the original question that was posed in one of our Humanize twitter chats, which was “Is the Millennial generation better poised to accept the ideas in Humanize than previous generations.”
My answer in the chat was that in the end, I don’t think one generation is going to be way ahead of any other when it comes to these ideas, but it is possible that the Millennials will have a “leg up.” Let me explain.
In my ebook on Generations, I provide my understanding of the forces that are shaping the Millennial generation. I follow Strauss and Howe’s theory on this, so I define Millennials as those born between 1982 and 2005. I also make the point in the book that anything I say about Millennials…is a guess. They are really too young to define too clearly. Generations are a big-picture and long-term deal. It’s much easier to spot trends when you can look back twenty years or so. When it’s still happening, the trends are harder to spot accurately.
That being said, I think there is value in having the ongoing conversation about the trends, even if we can be definite about them. Based on my survey of the literature and observations in the work world, I identified four trends shaping Millennials:
- Social Internet
- Abundance
- Diversity
- Child-Focused
I explain in the book how these forces affect the value systems of Millennials in ways that I think will show up throughout their whole lives. So what does any of this have to do with Humanize?
In Humanize we argue that becoming more human will allow organizations to tap into potential that our current, mechanical organizations are letting go to waste. Specifically, we point out the value of being more open (decentralization, systems thinking, ownership), trustworthy (transparency, truth, authenticity), generative (inclusion, collaboration, relationship building), and courageous (learning, experimentation, personal development).
Millennials grew up with social media, in an environment where if something they had didn’t work the way they wanted it to, they would use their social networks to figure out how to change it themselves. They grew up with unparalleled abundance, where the default assumption was that resources would be there. They grew up with diversity more as the norm, and the general expectation that groups would have noticeable and wide-ranging differences in them. They grew up with their parents as their friends, where hierarchical lines have been blurred. A lot of these elements are consistent with the ideas in Humanize (decentralization, inclusion, collaboration, etc.). For that reason, I think there is a certain resonance between the Humanize ideas and the trends in the Millennial generation.
But let me be clear: despite the synergy between Humanize and the Millennial trends, the Millennial generation is still getting their first work experiences in organizations that are quite firmly rooted in the mechanical worldview. They have been learning the same best practices that the rest of us have been learning for the past few decades, so I don’t think this is a case of “wait until the Millennials take over and Humanize will be the status quo.”
Creating more human organizations is the job of all of us. Every generation. I think the Millennials might be more positively inclined, but that may just because they’re newer. They haven’t had time to be indoctrinated into the old ways as deeply as the rest of us. But that’s a life-stage issue, not a generational one. So in the end, I don’t think we need a particular focus on generations as we pursue a humanizing strategy within our organizations. We will need to involve everyone, and as such it will help to be aware of generational dynamics, but the real heavy lifting will be in embracing the Humanize elements fully, and that is going to be hard work for every generation.
There is an article in the Volunteer Leadership issue of Associations Now titled, “Balanced Conflict, Better Decisions.”
The conclusions in the article concern me. I’m paraphrasing here, but the article says:
- “Cognitive” conflict is about contradictory perspectives, where “affective” conflict is personalized, emotional, and political.
- Association boards make better decisions by delegating cognitive conflict to task forces, but dealing with affective conflict at Board meetings.
- For-profit boards do this the other way around.
- In a “fair and transparent” process for strategic decisions, “conflict managed or preempted” is step NINE in an eleven step process.
I am a conflict resolution professional, and I spend a LOT of my time helping people to understand what conflict is and how to resolve it. Most of us grow up, go through school, and advance in our careers without getting any formal instruction in conflict or conflict resolution. So I spend a lot of time educating. My twenty years in the conflict resolution field runs counter to the above conclusions in some pretty important ways.
First, I’ve had it with the good/bad conflict thing, particularly when all things rational are good and all things emotional or political are bad. Stop this. Brain science tells us otherwise. The emotional center of your brain literally sends its signals faster than the rational center. You have your emotions BEFORE you have a chance to rationalize them away. As such, all conflict has an emotional component to it simply because all conflict involves human beings. We need to accept this fact and start dealing with it. Politics are woven into our cognitive conflict all the time. Conflict is about differing interests and needs, which sometimes connect to rational ideas, and sometimes to things like meaning, values, emotions, and the political needs of interest groups. It’s all in there, and we need to build the capacity to deal with all that complexity.
Second, you don’t delegate conflict. If you can delegate it to another group, then wasn’t really your conflict to begin with. I’m all for pushing conflict down in the organization–get the people who have the conflict to actually resolve it, instead of letting them push it up the chain. Often, they are just being weak/lazy when they ask the higher ups to resolve it. Of course if the Board is supposed to be making strategic decisions, and those strategy choices have conflict embedded in them (which they usually do), then that Board needs to suck it up and deal with the conflict. If the Board doesn’t have time to do this, then we should be more honest and say that our Board’s role is in high-level oversight of strategic decisions, rather than in making strategic decisions themselves.
Third, I’m going to go out on a limb here (since I have ZERO experience with corporate boards) and boldly declare that corporate boards have absolutely nothing to do with associations and should never be used as a basis for comparison. Period. It’s useless to compare because the context and rules are so different. Let’s not waste our time.
Fourth, you don’t manage conflict at the end. You manage it all the time. You manage it when the issues are defined at the very beginning, you manage it when you decide how to collect data. You manage it when you analyze the data, and you obviously manage it when you work through to agreement on what to do next. And when you resolve a particular conflict, it often simply sets you up for the next conflict you are going to deal with. Conflict is a natural part of every system. It flows all the time. It emerges on a timeline that you can’t particularly control. Forcing these organic dynamics into our mechanical processes is a recipe for failure.
I know conflict is not easy. And I know that when emotions and politics get involved, it can get harder. And yes, we’ve all been part of groups where decisions fail (or are not made) because conflict got in the way. But the question is not should conflict be a part, or what kind of conflict should be there. Conflict is there. The systems that are most effective in shaping their own future will have very strong and refined skills in dealing with conflict (of all types). The people who operate in positions of authority in these systems will be able to behave more effectively in conflict situations. Start building that capacity, and you’ll start to see better decisions.
During a Twitter chat last week, I had some back and forth with a couple of people on the topic of generational differences. The conversation was focused on the Humanize book, and the initial question was whether the Millennial generation is more likely to embrace more “human” organizations than previous generations. I do promise another post that talks about that issue specifically, but I wanted to start with an important point about generations (that was impossible to make in 140 characters on Twitter).
Really understanding and acting on generational differences requires a certain comfort with paradox.
Actually, I would suggest that comfort with paradox is a critical leadership capacity, but for now let’s focus on generations. Generations are not simple things. A “generation” represents a group of millions and millions of people, who were born during a rather extended period–up to 20 years generally. If you scan those millions of people you will obviously see incredible difference. Every individual in there is unique, and even when we group people into categories (gender, ethnicity, race, econcomic class, etc.) you’ll once again see very different groups. Tons of difference.
Yet grouped together as a generation, we see sameness. We see a big picture trend that shows how that group of millions of people is noticeably different from another group of millions of people who were born during a different era. The Baby Boomer generation is different than Generation X. That is clearly visible, and as I cite in my e-book, there is some pretty strong theory that explains that. Even though there is tremendous diversity within each generation, there is still a sameness that warrants the distinction among those generations.
If you can be comfortable with that paradox, then you can start to really use the knowledge about generations to your benefit. You won’t make the mistake of trying to use the generations to determine how the people in your office will behave. That’s silly. Generational tendencies don’t predict individual behavior, nor were they ever intended to. But generational differences can help you guide a conversation among colleagues about your organizational culture and processes, because it may help you understand some of the different behaviors and approaches. It guides the conversation, rather than providing the answers.
So don’t be afraid to say that Generation X is cynical. We are, even though I know that not everyone in that generation is cynical, nor are the cynical ones (like me) cynical all the time. The “truth” is that we are cynical and we are not. Behind paradoxes like that lies wisdom that we can really use.
As authors Pfeffer and Sutton point out, there are nearly 2,000 books published each year, just in the “Business” category. There is no shortage of knowledge out there at our fingertips: knowledge about the best management practices, the best strategies, the best structures, the best cultures. There is an abundance of knowledge out there to support leaders in creating powerful and effective organizations. The problem, however, is not what we know—we know enough. The problem is that we do not act based on our knowledge. Even when we know what we should do, we often do not do it. The question is “Why?” and the authors provide some insightful answers in their book, The Knowing-Doing Gap.
The authors conducted in-depth case studies on a number of companies to identify why some companies acted on their knowledge while others did not. Their findings are simple but powerful. They demonstrate clearly how organizations set themselves up for failure by doing everything but acting on what they know is the best course. They show what it looks like when organizations substitute talk (meetings, decisions, presentations) for action. They explain the pitfalls of relying on “how it’s always been done” as a strategy. They show how well intended programs that measure productivity can actually prevent organizations from acting on the right knowledge. They also discuss the powerful intangibles like fear and internal competition that lead people to withhold knowledge or refrain from acting on it.
They admit, of course, that their book is simply yet another piece of “knowledge” out there, and that reading the book is not enough. You must act on it. You must look at your organization and understand what you need to do differently to ensure that what people know is translated into appropriate action. They do provide some detailed case studies of organizations that have successfully bridged the knowing-doing gap, and that is helpful as a model.
I think this book is a “must-read” for leaders who need to get the most out of their organizations. It allows you to zero in on some key patterns of organizational behavior that disrupt the connection between knowledge and action. With some limited but strategic changes, you can usually reap significant long-term benefits.
This is why Maddie and I listed it as a “must-read” in Chapter 6, How to Be Open, in Humanize. In fact, Pfeffer and Sutton have the distinction of being the only authors to be listed TWICE in our end-of-chapter “Must Read” sections (a review of Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense is on my list).
Maddie tagged me in a “how are you going to change the world in 2012″ meme in a blog post last week. She was inspired by this post by Craig Newmark, and now she’s asked a whole host of us to talk about what we’re going to do in 2012 and how we’re going to change the world.
That’s a pretty big question. Maddie’s good at that.
So here’s what I’m going to do.
1. I am going to change the world with Humanize. Maddie mentioned this in her post too, obviously, so this is something we are going to do together, but I am committed to elevating the conversations that are inherent in Humanize and getting it out there in the world. I’m flat-out thrilled with the response we’ve gotten on the book. Danny Brown said it was one of the two best social media books to come out in 2011. Elizabeth Engel said it was genius. Eric Brown instructed everyone to “Buy it. Read it. Read it again… and then read it again. It is that good.” Yes, these people already knew us. But this feedback is serious, and it confirms that Maddie and I hit on something really big with this book. Now it’s time to expand the circle of people and networks who start using the book and really start changing our world, one (human) organization at a time.
2. I am going to change…change. I’m growing weary of the idea that change is hard, and that we resist change, and that change needs to be managed. Those ideas are all logical. They make sense. We have experiences that seem to fit with these ideas. I get it. But like the allure of “best practices,” these ideas are actually holding us back. They are convenient excuses for not stepping up and creating the organziations (and the world) that we need right now. The focus of my consulting in 2012 is going to be on creating change that works. It is going to be with people and groups who are interested in making things happen, solving problems, and moving forward. All of that requires change, but does NOT require fancy change management programs or motivational posters. It requires discipline and clarity and hard work and being human. But I know we can do it, so let’s get crackin.
3. I am going to change myself. I have to put my money where my mouth is, don’t I? If this change thing isn’t so bad, then I should prove it, right?
So I will.
I’m going to live my theory and change all the time, without drama or trauma. I will demonstrate that clarity and discipline that I’m talking about. I know it’s cliche, but changing the world really does start with you. All of us have room to step up, to be more responsible, to live bigger, to be clearer about our purpose, to be more honest with our selves and our systems, and to deliver the gift that the world needs delivered through us. So I am going to step up, and into it.
And in doing all of this, I am going to change the world.
2011 was a crazy year. Maddie and I wrote a book, which certainly ranks as my top accomplishment for the year. And we did it while holding down full time jobs! I am thrilled with the feedback we’ve been getting (we’re up to 15 reviews on Amazon!). And the first few keynotes and webinars I’ve done on the book have been well received too. I can’t wait to share more in 2012.
2011 also marks the end, for the most part, as my role as Executive Director of association clients at MSP. The two clients that I was managing are transitioning out, so in 2012, my full attention will be on MSP’s consulting division. It has been a great learning experience to serve as staff executive for these associations, but I am really looking forward to getting back to expanding the speaking and consulting work, particularly with the book out now. Keep your eyes open in early 2012 for some announcements regarding a new set of consulting programs coming from me.
Here’s 2011 by the numbers:
Miles running: 216 (up 43. Finally reversed the trend!)
Miles biking: 1465 (down 190 because I didn’t do my Ride Allegheny trip)
United miles: 32,430 (up 5,000)
Following on Twitter: 1516 (up 608)
Followers on Twitter: 1905 (up 707)
Tweets: 6,149 (1,620 this year; more than last year)
Facebook Friends: 353 (up 80)
Linked In Contacts: 409 (up 142)
GMJN Posts: 674 (70 this year; that’s down, but hey I wrote a book!)
GMJN Comments: 934 (130 this year)
GMJN Page views: 83,197 (19,148 this year)
Common Thread Blog Posts: 8 (down 
SocialFishing Blog Posts: 12 (some of my best posts are over there)
Google Reader Feeds: 88
Yesterday I was interviewed by Michele Price on her Breakthrough Business Strategy internet radio show about our book, Humanize. In the conversation Michele asked about my background in conflict resolution and we talked a bit about how training in conflict resolution might be a good idea for people engaging in social media. I, of course, think conflict resolution training is good for everyone, but it’s my field so I’m biased. But there is a connection between the work of social media and conflict.
For example, Maddie and I, mention conflict quite a bit in Humanize. It’s a key skill in developing more “ownership” behavior among employees, which is part of becoming more Open. Conflict also needs to be addressed at the process level if you want your processes to deliver more truth in your organization, which is a part of becoming more Trustworthy as an organization. In short, if your organization gets into social media, it’s going to be giving up control and getting more and more people active in the conversation. With that expansion, conflict is inevitable, so you’d better be equipped to deal with it.
But the more I talk about the role of managing conflict in both doing social media better and in running organizations more effectively, the more I come back to one of the biggest problems with our collective inability to deal with conflict: it prevents action. Consider the idea of having your employees take more “ownership.” You want them to go out there and take initiative, solve problems, delight customers, etc. That’s ownership, and that goes beyond just following orders or reading a script. But as soon as you leave the script or make your own decisions, you invite conflict. Someone might not be happy with what you’re going to do. That’s inevitable.
But when you are afraid of conflict, then right at that moment, you flinch. And you reconsider your action. And you decide maybe to think about it for a while, or to ask someone’s advice. You pause. You don’t act.
Now, I’m not a fan of continuous, random, compulsive action. Thinking and gathering more data are hallmarks of mine, actually. But you need the self awareness to recognize when you need more data and when you are just afraid of potential conflict. Remember, the conflicts that we create when we are doing our work are very rarely life and death ones. They’re not even cuts and brusises ones. When you learn how to deal with conflict, you gain the confidence to take action. You know you’ll be able to handle these conflicts as they emerge.
And we need more action right now. We need people to step up. We need people to live bigger than they have been. If conflict resolution skills can help us move in that direction, then yes, we all need that.
Monday, December 19, Maddie and I will be interviewed by Michelle Price on her “Breakthrough Business Strategies” radio program, talking about our Humanize book. You’ll be able to listen either online or on the phone, and I think you can submit questions via twitter, using the hashtag #BBSradio. And if you haven’t picked up your copy of Humanize yet, Michelle will be rewarding three of the listeners of the show with a free book.
The interview will air LIVE at noon eastern time on Monday the 19th. Please join us!
Duncan Watts has a great blog post on HBR that talks about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Specifically, he has noticed how perplexed many of us are by the fact that the movement itself has no single, identifiable leader. How can it continue without someone to set a direction and lead the people there?
Interestingly, Watts points out that we don’t make the same demand of a forest fire. It’s the systemic conditions that caused and sustain the forest fire, so that single spark that set it off really isn’t the issue. But it’s hard for us to see a human endeavor that way. Our culture has been so saturated with the myth of the heroic individual leader, that we demand to see what we are expecting, even if it doesn’t make sense. In fact, if we don’t see it, we may dismiss what we are seeing altogether:
With no one figure to credit or blame, with no face to put on a sprawling inchoate movement, and with no hierarchy of power, we simply don’t know how to process what “it” is, and therefore how to think about it. And because this absence of a familiar personality-centric narrative makes us uncomfortable, we are tempted to reject the whole thing as somehow not real. Or instead, we insist that in order to be taken seriously, the movement must first change to reflect what we expect from serious organizations — namely a charismatic leader to whom we can attribute everything.
It is time to wake up. It is time to start understanding what we are seeing in our world, rather than only looking at the parts that we already understand. This is particularly important for leadership. The individual-centric model is not cutting it. We need to stop demanding that our “leaders” be in control of everything and lead us in that hierarchical way. Watts predicts that if the OWS movement grows bigger, we will end up getting that leader or focal point that we want
Leaders, in other words, are necessary, but not because they are the source of social change. Rather their real function is to occupy the role that allows the rest of us to make sense of what is happening.
I think the top of the hierarchy is less about controlling/directing and much more about helping everyone else make sense of things. They are the keepers of the story. We make sense of the world through stories. That is the human way. We can’t help it. For our collective efforts to be successful, we need leaders who understand story and can use it to set a clear context for the rest of us to take action. We need really good people at the top of our hierarchies. We just need them to be doing different things than most of them are doing right now.
I suppose that sounds obvious, but when I talk to people about changing the way they lead and manage organizations, I’m not so sure it’s that obvious. Instead, there seems to be a default assumption that in the future, management will look roughly like it does today, except that somehow it will be better and people won’t be so unhappy in organizations. If I present an idea that is substantially different than today’s practice, it is almost always met with doubt and suspicion.
This is holding us back. I’m not sure how we got to this place, where it is literally difficult for us to imagine a management that is different from what we already know. But it’s a real problem.
I got excited reading Gary Hamel’s cover article in HBR this month. He has an awesome case study of an organization that literally operates without a centralized cadre of managers to run things. I strongly encourage you to read it. It might hurt your brain, but that’s a good thing.
I know that if you look at the history of management, you don’t see much innovation. We ARE doing things roughly the same way we were doing them back in the 1950s, it turns out. But we are not confined to that fate moving forward. In fact, I think we are at a critical juncture where we MUST choose to change management in a significant way.
But that requires that we accept, as a given, that things will never be the same. I think that’s the jumping off point.
Jamie is a Vice President at MSP where he leads the consulting division. 
