Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? The conventional wisdom about older workers’ attitudes about work is being challenged by a series of new reports that find older workers are more eager to learn on the job and more willing to go “the extra mile” than younger workers.
Below what you are going to see is the traditional tractor control configuration for a typical Caterpillar tractor. Just from a quick cursory look I have to admit it looks a little difficult to operate with all of those handles and would probably take some training. The problem is that the Gen Y worker of today looks at that set-up and it doesn’t make sense to them or look attractive for work. Recognizing the problem and realizing today’s up and coming generations expect different approches to work. Caterpillar did a redesign.
What you will now see below is Caterpillar’s attempt to make a tractor that a Gen Y’r would be more comfortable operating. And – yes it does look more appealing because it looks as much like a video game set-up as anything else. I guess the next step for companies like Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony is to help companies redesign their antiquated systems to look and run more like a video game. Maybe we could introduce live high scoring for accuracy into the screen of the tractors so the driver can compete with others doing the same job (surely I am jesting — or am I?). Ultimately though Caterpillar is doing the right thing, they are recognizing the trademarks of Gen Y and designing equipment to fit. When companies recognize that you cannot undue generational distinctives it puts them yards ahead against their competitors in the battle for recruiting and retention.
Manpower’s Booth at SHRM
I want to thank all of the thousands of attendees that came through our booth. We hope you had a good time and learned more about how Manpower is able to help today’s companies.
Jeffrey Immelt, GE’s CEO, has received a lot of publicity recently for fostering “imagination breakthroughs” by encouraging managers to think deeply about innovations that will ensure GE’s longer-term success. He has vowed that he will protect those working on the breakthroughs from the “budget slashers” focused on short-term success. Questions that this effort raises include: (1) Why so much publicity? (2) Isn’t “deep thinking” what leaders are paid to do? and (3) Why do these kinds of effort require so much protection?
In their new book, Marketing Metaphoria, Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman suggest some answers to the questions. In decrying the lack of what they call “deep thinking” among managers and especially those responsible for marketing, they suggest some things that get in its way. Among them are: (1) reluctance to take risk, especially when short-term performance is at stake, (2) the fear of disruption resulting from “thinking differently and deeply,” (3) the potential psychological cost of changing one’s mind resulting from deep thinking, and (4) the lack of information providing deep insights on which to base deep thinking.
According to the Zaltmans, while nearly all research techniques commonly used today probe humans only at their conscious level, the subconscious (offering deep insights) really determines behavior, and that explains why humans don’t behave as they say they will, whether in buying or other behaviors. As a result, for example, four in five product introductions perform below expectations.
The Zaltmans expand on ideas they have been studying for some years, namely that strategies of all kinds can be based on insights gained from listening in a disciplined way for metaphors that relatively small numbers of people (consumers, managers, public servants, etc.) use in the course of extended, probing interviews. In these interviews, the object is to use “surface metaphors,” like “I am drowning in debt,” to identify “metaphor themes,” like “Money is like liquid,” and the associated “deep metaphor,” in this case “resource.” They claim that just seven deep metaphors—balance (equilibrium), transformation (changing states or status), journey (as in life), container (keeping things in and keeping things out), connection (feelings of belonging or exclusion), resource (providing survival), and control—describe 70 percent of our inner feelings. The objective is to find deep metaphors that individuals share in common (a true market segment or a basis for resolving a confIict) rather than differences. If we would just take the time to explore them we would be able to realize such things as more substantial, farsighted, successful new product introductions (such as the hybrid auto ten years ago at Toyota); more successful conflict resolution; and more significant innovation, à la GE, in general.
This raises several questions: Have the Zaltmans hit on a basic problem of leadership and management today? Are there appropriate responses other than the one that GE is pursuing? What is your organization doing to combat the absence of deep thinking in decision-making? What are you doing to combat it in thinking about your own life inside and outside the organization? What do you think?
To read more: Gerald Zaltman and Lindsay H. Zaltman, Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal About the Minds of Consumers (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2008); Gerald Zaltman, How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2003)
With today’s Web being more social and average Web users having more than one account in several of these sites, be it MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg or YouTube, it is becoming increasingly cumbersome to manage each account individually. A new wave of social aggregation services aims to make our online social lives a little easier by displaying information from each social networking site in a single location–where one can keep track of every inane action of their friends through feeds. Today there are dozens of social aggregation services including FriendFeed, Spokeo, Iminta, Dandelife, Mugshot and SocialThing! among other start-ups.
If you are a victim of social networking overload pick your poison above and impress your friends with your ability to keep up with their activities.
For decades, American households have been accustomed to hearing alarm beeps early in the morning – signaling that it was time to get up and go to work. But all that is about to or has begun to change. With today’s invention of modern technology of laptops, smartphones/PDAs, broadband/Wi-Fi Internet access and advances in communication technologies, there is little need to be in the office every day. According to the Citrix Online-sponsored ‘Web Commuting & the American Workforce’ study, nearly one-quarter of US workers and 41% of small business owners regularly work from home or another offsite location. More than six in 10 of those who do not currently work remotely said they would like to. Moreover, the flexibility offered by working remotely was valued by respondents ahead of stock options and onsite child care. It is estimated that there are about 50 million ‘mobile workers’ in the US. They either have no desk or spend more than 25% of their time outside the office.
