Waterloo, Web & Whimsy

Since working on Tribe, I've found myself reading more human resources blogs than ever. A common theme among them is "understanding Gen-Y employees". I find it ironic that although so much effort is being spent discussing how to communicate with members of Gen-Y, very little attention is being paid to using these channels to discuss the flipside of the issue: helping Gen-Ys work with other generations.

So, to put my keyboard where my mouth is, here are my 5 Workplace Lessons for Gen-Ys.

Disclaimer: Please don't take these tips as canon; I'm simply speaking from having watched friends and peers struggle from both sides of this challenge.

1. Much of the workforce doesn't share your values: This point may seem obvious, but it is an important reality to internalize. You may be clear on what you want (e.g. clearly defined job descriptions and responsibilities, regular feedback and reviews, skills development opportunities, friendly work environment, etc). However, what's often missed is that the above benefits truly hold no value for some of your coworkers. Some people don't want reviews, don't want to take classes and don't care if they have a well written job description. Some people want a job that is task-based, are happy with their current responsibilities, and pursue their personal development outside of the workplace.

It's important to understand and believe this, because it is much harder to communicate with someone if you incorrectly assume they share your values. If you can acknowledge that many of their values are different from yours from the start, your interactions will go a lot more smoothly.

Ditto if you can accept that neither set of values is "better" - they are just "different". Don't condemn your co-workers because they don't want reviews or don't want responsibilities. When you do pass a negative judgement (even internally) people can tell and it makes you look close-minded.

2. Don't underestimate experience: I've seen many Gen-Ys hired for specific current expertise (e.g. programmers, community managers, business grads, etc.). Because of their special skills, they are placed in the position of a "specialist" within their organization. The danger of being given the role of expert, is that it becomes easy to discount the input and feedback of others.

Let's face it, knowing how to post something to Twitter or write a blog are skills with a limited shelf life. The world is changing too quickly and skills become out of date almost instantly. In this climate of change, what's far more useful (and exceptionally hard to train) is the ability to work with analogies and transfer learnings: the ability to take past experiences and figure out how to successfully apply them to a new situation. Thinking in terms of analogies is inherent, although it comes easier to some people than others. Honing this ability makes you an adaptable, agile and innovative thinker (a.k.a. a more valuable employee).

The underlying point of this is that people with more experiences have more analogies to apply to a new situation. Rather than immediately discounting the feedback of your more experienced peers (which also makes you look close-minded), try considering that they may have past experiences that are providing unique insights to current situations.

3. Get on LinkedIn. Most managers acknowledge that Facebook, Twitter, etc. are great tools. Beyond these (largely social) tools, most professionals understand the value of LinkedIn. A lot of employers, in their efforts to work with Gen-Y, are adopting more web-based tools, and LinkedIn is one of the tools they use the most. If you want your employer to work with you in the ways you find comfortable, you should extend them the same courtesy. Build your LinkedIn profile and network. You'll be happy you did when you look for your next job.

4. Bone up on "Change Management". A lot of the Gen-Ys I know have strong ideas on elements they would like to change in their workplace. Some of them keep these thoughts to themselves, while others rail against the short-sightedness of management. I see very few taking a planned approach to changing their workplace.

It's unproductive to simply complain about how an organization needs to change. Rather than trying to change your organization by sheer force of will, you may find more success if you take a structured (and more gradual) approach to the change. Many concepts from structured change management processes can be applied to changes you want to make in your workplace, and many managers are comfortable with the concept of a managed change approach.

Yes, this will likely slow down the change process, but it will make the change more palatable to your co-workers and managers (and more likely to happen!).

5. Worry less about doing things the "right" way. In projects that engage multiple generations, a pattern I see repeated is that older team members often rely on what was done before, while younger team members advocate doing what's "right". When we examine what was done before, the reason usually comes back to a gut reaction or an unspoken process. Past experiences get rolled into a hard-to-rationalize recommended course of action. On the flip-side, when we examine the word "right", it often translates into something like "the most secure", "the cleanest process", or "best governance". If you're a Gen-Y employee in this situation, try considering what's "optimal" for the situation instead of what's "right". "Right" often implies an extreme somewhere on a scale, whereas "optimally" implies a maximum benefit, while balancing all factors.

For example, in some situations you need to optimize for ease-of-implementation, sometimes you need to optimize for speed-to-market, and other times optimizing means reducing the effort required to create change. This may mean you need to forgo some features today, or take a less direct route, to obtain the best outcome in the long run. Your more experienced co-workers can often recognize what you're optimizing for (even if it's subconsciously) through their past experiences – if you can temporarily let go of "right" and instead work with the team to determine what's "optimal" you may find it easier to get to a solution that's supported by all sides.

If you have any suggestions for lessons that I should add to this list, please drop me a line (or add a comment to this post), I'd be happy to flesh this out further.

Here's an interesting event coming up: it's being held at the Accelerator Centre and it's a fundraiser for the local arts scene.

Brush with Art Fundraising Event
Reception and Silent Auction with Refreshments
Date: Thursday November 5th, 7pm - 9pm
Location: Accelerator Centre, Room 240
Cost: $25

There's no official website that I could find for it - but here are the details:

The November 5th event is a reception and silent auction with refreshments. In the course of the evening Brush with Art will be presenting the proceeds of last year's fundraising film premier to the recipient organizations. The cost to attend the reception is $25.00 per person. One of the items featured in the silent auction is a very special outing with KW|AG's own Director General, Alf Bogusky-have a look:

On The Road With Alf

Join KW|AG Director General Alf Bogusky on an early morning drive to some of his favourite countryside locales, including a few of the sites featured in our 2008 Geoffrey James' Field Notes exhibition. Alf's countryside ramblings provide him with insight and inspiration. Come and share your ideas with him, and generate some new ones along the way, while enjoying the beautiful Waterloo County landscape. Round out your morning with breakfast at Angie's, another of Alf's favourite haunts. Trip to be arranged at a mutually convenient time, within a one-year period

Over its history, Brush with Art has raised over $150,000 to support the visual arts in Waterloo Region. The funds they raise are given to the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery (KW|AG), Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery and the Cambridge Galleries to enhance their education programs for 1,000's of children in our Region. As well Brush with Art has created an endowment managed by the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation through which a grant is given annually to a worthwhile visual arts project in the Region.

If you would like to go, tickets are on sale at the front-desk of the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery (519-579-5860)

For the last few weeks I've been experimenting with what it feels like to read a print newspaper every day. I chose to use the National Post for this experiment (although I occasionally swap it out for a Globe & Mail). Today, unequivocally, I'm reverting to my online-only habits.

The reason? Simply put: the local print papers make me ill. The sheer volume of negative news that fills the pages leaves me physically unwell. Here's a sampling of the articles in today's paper:

"Windsor raid lands son of Imam slain by FBI"
"Crowd looks on as girl, 15, gang raped, police say"
"Daytime murder in Naples remains unsolved"
"Rwandan sentenced to life for Genocide"
"British Columbia's Macabre Mystery"
"Pair planned to kill classmates with Molotov cocktails, court told"
"Crop protection - Booby traps, armed guards getting common"

And I haven't even made it to page 10.

I'm not contending that bad news doesn't exist or that it should be hidden from the public - I recognize that bad news does sell more papers. However, personally, I'd rather believe that I live in a world that has more news worth celebrating than news to fear. In a society where we people are information-rich and attention-poor, we need to pick and choose our sources of information and I am reverting to my online sources. For those that are interested, here are some of the tools I use to better tailor my incoming feed of news:

http://www.dailyperfect.com (they predict the news you're interested in - very cool)
http://www.twitter.com (yes, I use it for my news)
[AgnosticPlatform] (a locally developed app that will be open to the public mid-november. exciting)

Sorry National Post, but your generic sensationalism has overwhelmed my desire for local updates. Instead, I will continue to crawl the web looking for more satisfying fare. 

Yesterday I presented at the Creative Community Forum (if you have no idea what I spoke about - here is a blog post with my thoughts). After the talk I was asked "Then what would you change?" Here's my answer:

Fundamentally, this is a communications problem. Additional services (like an Arts Accelerator) will help, but it won't make a difference if we don't change the way we communicate. At the core of this issue is that Waterloo Region's demographic and cultural makeup has changed, but the communication methods used by our arts community (on average) hasn't.

1. Spend less money on newspaper and bus shelter ads. Yes, these work for a certain demographic, but we have immigrant and young professionals that will never see these ads. We need to redistribute some of that marketing budget.
    
2. Make a concerted effort to reach out to the local non-institutional communication groups. We have entrepreneurs and cultural groups maintaining extensive lists specifically to distribute this type of information. We should start syndicating some of their content (let the community know what they are up to) and we should start distributing our institutional content to those list managers in a more organized and consistent way.
     
3. Allocate a small budget for experimental marketing. Have someone responsible for always trying new tools like new magazines that crop up, new technologies, new community groups. We need to be more agile.
    
4. Use Social Media better. I don't mean to develop a comprehensive strategy, rather just make it part of the daily operations. Each of our galleries should be using Twitter to describe their events and programs, and they should be following movers and shakers locally to identify how they can make their programs more relevant to the community.
    
5. Speak specifically about opportunity to the students. Ken Coats, dean of UW Arts admitted that the university needs to be more open. Very much like attracting students to a job, we need to attract these students to stay and innovate. Communitech and VeloCity act like "tech entrepreneurship" recruiters on campus. We should create similar "arts entrepreneurship" recruiters.

Yes, the above answers may not be a comprehensive solution (any and all suggestions are welcome) but I do believe they represent some great steps that are still in line with the Creative Enterprise Agenda.

And, for those that are interested in some louder, more audacious goals - here are some ideas I'd enjoy fleshing out with anyone that would like to chat over coffee:

1. A VeloCity style student residence, with more of a focus on arts & culture
2. Moving the UW fine arts campus to Kitchener Civic Block
3. Starting an arts-oriented venture or angel group