I created a cool course based on Coaching Up and Down the Generations. I thought you might like to see the four distinctions I included in the workshop.

• Think about how these distinctions show up in your daily habits and how your work would be affected (enlivened) if they did show up.

One other point. I created this class to take the place of traditional “generations” classes. I find the whole “four generations in the workplace” stuff a bit tedious and I think many books and programs side-step most important learning. Understanding the Boomers, Xs and Ys is helpful, but the real opportunity comes when we are all more open and coachable. Young blue-hairs with old blue-hairs, having a good time getting the work done. The course is called:

The Workplace Electric: Multi-Directional Communication, Connection, and Collaboration

Four-hour instructor led class that teaches four distinctions through the use of five exercises.

Overall Idea:

Imagine a workplace where you got to meet and work with fascinating and talented people, where you tested and developed your intelligence every day, and where you were highly sought after for input, ideas, coaching, and collaboration. Imagine standing in the center of a busy intersection where exciting initiatives and nimble processes zoomed by to shape an exciting future. Imagine being a critical member of one or more super teams – people who do their best work together and catalyze each other’s discovery and growth. That would be a pretty awesome workplace, wouldn’t it? It is possible when you learn how to communicate, connect, and collaborate up and down generations and utilize differences to improve individual and group productivity and growth.  I call this great place The Workplace Electric – a super-charged culture and environment.

You have probably heard that the band, Guns and Roses, were booed and pelted with bottles in Ireland because they were 1 1/2 hours late for starting the show. As I listened to the news story on the radio, I felt a moment of disgust and found myself thinking, “how dare you be so self-absorbed!” Sure, this is not unexpected from some rock stars, but let’s think this through for a moment:

What’s the cost of 90 minutes of time for thousands of people? What might the opportunity costs be? The costs are HUMONGOUS. What would you have to tell yourself that would make showing up 90 minutes late for a concert (where people PAID to see YOU) an OK THING TO DO? I can’t imagine the mindset that rationalizes that this as acceptable performance.
Let’s relate this to management and work professionalism, now. How many of you are habitually late? What if you suffered from the politically correct versions of being booed and pelted when you showed up late? What if people did not wait for you?

I will be doing a talk tomorrow about middle management excellence. Here are six of the points I will be expanding upon – tell me what you think:

Overall premise: Managers are our engines that turn intentions (mission, strategies, goals) into performance and into results.It has never been harder to be a middle manager and we need great middle management more than ever (we don’t need to call it that, but we need the work mucking about at the core of where processes, people, and plans intersect and sometimes collide).

1. Let’s reframe middle management. It is the best and most challenging job available! If you want to have maximum impact, be a middle manager. Doing so will require that you see dysfunction as a part of your reason for being (and not become a victim of it).

2. Great managers do what others don’t or won’t. How fast and smoothly the engine runs depends on deliberate and proactive choices you make each day, many times a day. Great managers approach and blast away barriers. They have conversations others are put off and they don’t let busy work get in the way of truly important tasks.

I love the well-known approach that executive coach Marshall Goldsmith uses called “feedforward.” Feedforward is an alternative to giving feedback that is easier and more helpful. Here is how feedforward works. The performer states how he or she would like to develop or grow in the future. This should be a simple statement like:

• I would like to build stronger collaboration within my departments.
• I would like to become a more effective listener.
• I would like to spend more time building talent.
• I would like to think, act, and lead more strategically.

With a feedforward exercise, each person shares his or her goal and asks for ideas for how they can accomplish it. The “coach” offers a few ideas and the performer says, “thank you.” Then they switch roles. Here is a description of why feedforward works from Marshall’s website:

The term “thought leadership” is a hot buzz word to describe what we used to call scholars, gurus, and experts. It’s not exactly the same thing as these other terms, but along the same lines, and it seems to be the term of choice because I see it popping up all over the place.

A though leader is someone who continues to work hard to stay current and knowledgeable in a field and adds to the collective knowledge of that field.

Often, thought leaders (those we recognize or those who proclaim themselves though leaders) tend to be outside the organization. Most consultants, for example, want to be regarded as thought leaders. I did a presentation yesterday for ASTD and they introduced me as a thought leader in management and leadership.

But look at my definition above again. Wouldn’t we want our managers and leaders to also be thought leaders? I do! Great managers and leaders stay current and they add to our understanding of what it takes to catalyze greatness in others and produce extraordinary results.

Great managers read, explore, discuss, experiment, and innovate. They are active participants in the craft of management and they help future professionals.

I like it when people refer to me as a thought leader, because I work hard to stay on the edge of my field. I hope, however, that this is nothing special and unique, that all managers and leaders endeavor to be thought leaders, too.

I was talking to a small group of managers who were discussing elements of their ideal culture. One person mentioned that they thought the ideal culture was one where all employees cared about and helped shaped the organization’s future. Another manager said, “man, they don’t care about that, they just want to do their jobs and the best care about their customers. And isn’t that enough?” The first manager disagreed and suggested that perhaps managers ought to do more to require employees to care about the business. And then he caught himself, immediately realizing the fundamental error of his statement.

You know this!  And yet, I see this idea, or shades of this idea, come up again and again. We think that if we clarify expectations and hold people accountable that we can “manage” increases in how much employees care and their engagement.

Care is an element of ownership, and it is a gift. We can’t make people care. But we can lead in ways that inspire, uplift, and engage our employees’ hearts and minds.

I like this short and provocative post by the Renegade HR blog called, If Managers Did Their Jobs…. Chris is suggesting that much of what HR professionals currently do is really management.

I have also thought that much of what OD (organization development) professionals so is management. I even thought about writing a book called, OD Lite for Managers to help build back their OD capabilities.

Theoretically, I agree that with a highly performing management team, what HR and OD does changes (or goes away). EXCEPT that most managers, even the very best, don’t have the time to do all these things. The way most organizations have structured their management teams makes it very difficult for talented managers to get the most important work done. Many managers are all mucked up with gnatty tasks put on their list by well-meaning but unenlightened internal customers (HR being one of these, which is interesting, vicious cycle?)

And many organizations are so focused and pressured by short term results or survival, that they don’t invest in enough management – they are TOO flat to be able to build good management. Their managers are spread too thin and have too many direct reports, projects, and priorities to execute.

I did a search for articles and blog posts about managing up to use for pre-work for a training session I have coming up. I did not find a great list that was also highly actionable, so I created a list of my own. But first, here is my working definition of managing up:

Managing up: Caring enough about your work and the success of the organization to do whatever you can to help your boss be most successful. This includes proactively communicating, collaborating, assisting, and coaching your boss when helpful. Your boss will make better decisions and represent you and your team well if you ensure he or she has timely and full information and when you demonstrate that you are an effective and open partner.

The “what if I have a bad boss?” clause: Managing up is important whether your boss is pleasant and stellar or unpleasant and unremarkable. In fact, he or she might need your help and partnership even more if he or she is struggling. Yes, it can be a pain/frustrating experience to practively engage with an unpleasant boss, but consider it a part of your work. Don’t let your personal opinion of your boss get in the way. If he or she is not effective, these things have a way of working out.

I was traveling yesterday and the airport I was leaving from got hit with bad weather. I was there very early and started to get worried as saw the delays and cancellations go up on the board. I was flying from Florida to Atlanta to Cincinnati. My connection in Altanta was tight and earlier Atlanta flights were leaving late and a couple were cancelled. If I missed my connection in Atlanta, I would be stuck there overnight.

I called Delta to discuss – proactively – some options. Oh, one more bit of data. The flight I was book on was oversold and they might be looking for volunteers to take alternative flights.

Perhaps the most common question I get is what someone should do about a boss that drives them crazy. The reasons for the madness vary, but they clump up into the following themes of annoyance:

• Micromanagement (also the closely related control freak)
• Slimy behavior
• Changing their employee’s work in a passive aggressive way
• Cold, aloof, and general unfriendliness
• Makes you and the organization look bad
• Wishy washy
• Won’t shut up
• Not sharp enough for the job; not up to the challenge

Looking at the list, we all probably have some shades of at least one of these traits – we are all beautifully flawed. But some bosses seem more flawed than others. Perhaps they were victims of a rogue sports coach with a love of asserting authority over everything, or maybe their parents handed them over to pubescent acid-dropping babysitters, or perhaps they went to a famous university and became convinced that this should mean more than it does.