It is becoming increasingly clear that generation matters in this election. The media have made much of the generational phenomenon and its impact at the polls – in particular the ability of Barack Obama to attract younger voters – but for all the analysis it seems to me that something is being left out. The generational divide at the polls continues to beg some questions. To what can we attribute the surge of civic interest among a group of young citizens who are usually absent from the voting process? What is happening generationally within the Clinton and Obama campaigns? Finally, what if anything might this election cycle suggest about the workplace, this blog’s primary concern?

Something is going on generationally in the Clinton-Obama dynamic that transcends some of the more facile observations being made in the press. No doubt some of them, time-tested but also time-worn, have some truth. Obama’s considerable talents as a speaker surely help him woo a younger, more idealistic crowd. So too does his inclusive, post-partisan message, which appeals to those whose political memory does not stretch further back than the 1990s and find the acrimony that prevails in contemporary discourse distasteful in part because they did not fight the battles of yesteryear that created it.

Conversely, Clinton’s Boomer pedigree and Washington experience endear her to older supporters. Her political acumen, her policy prescriptions, and her association with the halcyon pre-Bush era strike a resonant chord among rank-and-file Democrats unhappy with the country’s direction. Add class, race, education and gender to the mix, and you’ve got the standard litany of analytical tools used to explain the current state of the Democratic race. As I said, though, I suspect that something more subtle is at work.

The candidates’ political narratives have managed, perhaps in spite of themselves, to project two very different images of leadership, and indeed two very different mindsets through which to view the world. Senator Clinton, in my view, is fundamentally a creature of the twentieth century. Her view of government’s place in society, America’s role in the world, and indeed of the very concept of power is a quintessential artifact of the mid-to-late twentieth century. She believes in bureaucracy, in hierarchy, and in her own (and others’) ability to mold the world as they see fit. Her policy proposals are targeted, specific, complex, “wonkish” even, and rely on the notion that, when competently managed, the U.S. government is capable of effectively implementing very specific solutions to very specific problems. On foreign policy, she holds fundamentally to the notion that America remains the global superpower, capable forging order from chaos, deus ex machina style, if it is well guided.

Senator Clinton, in other words, appeals to those who miss the sense of order to which, through all its turmoil, the twentieth century mind still clung. Problems made sense. They could be assessed and addressed through the correct application of power. For voters – older ones in particular – who look around with apprehension and even fear, who long to return to a time when the world made sense, Clinton offers a compelling story.

Obama, in a thousand small ways, demonstrates that he sees the world with different eyes. Though less than fifteen years younger than Senator Clinton, he seems to understand that her hyper-structured worldview is antiquated – perhaps even dangerous. His economic proposals are simpler, designed to nudge the economy in various directions, rather than to pilot it precisely. His international outlook – in particular his willingness to talk to world leaders that Bush (and Senator Clinton’s husband) have shunned – betrays an understanding that the United States’ “unipolar moment” has passed, and that the days when America (or any foreign power) can manipulate the world like pieces on a chessboard are finished. Former President Clinton has warned that nominating Obama would be like “rolling the dice.” In a way, he’s right, because a part of Obama’s appeal is uncertainty. Overall, Obama’s campaign seems to embrace, rather than seek to eliminate, the uncertainties of our age, recognizing that uncertainty will be the dominant characteristic of the twenty-first century. Younger voters, who have never experienced a time “when it all makes sense,” intuitively gravitate towards this understanding. Exhibiting the qualities of their “Civic” generational archetype, they know only confidence in an uncertain world, a confidence – a hope – into which Obama taps.

There is indeed a generation gap. It runs along a fault line within our collective psyche, a fault line marked by apprehension and mystification on one side and courage on the other.
This fault line passes through larger elements of our society than politics, something which I’ll address next time. The key question regarding this fault line recalls a mantra of my generation: Which side are you on?

Note: This post was co-written by myself, a boomer, and my son Matt, a millennial. References to the experiences of the boomer generation should be taken as reflections of my experiences, not of his.

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“Recession fighting measures will help if they come quickly experts say, but there is disagreement over which policies would have the greatest impact.” This is the lead sentence from the Jan 19th Times under the headline “Economists Debate the Quickest Cure.” Below this story is another, with the headline “Bush Proposes $145 Billion Plan to Spur Economy.”

That was Saturday morning. It’s now early Tuesday evening and the economic turmoil felt last week has taken an ominous twist as financial markets worldwide appear to be in free fall. Early morning selling pressure had the Dow down 467 points until the Lone Ranger (Fed Chair Ben Bernanke) rode into town wielding a .75% interest rate cut. To put this in perspective, this would be like Warren Buffet showing up at the World Series of Poker and pushing $30 billion in chips across the table. You’ve gotten people’s attention, but it’s still gambling. If this doesn’t work there is little else the Fed can do in the near term short of having Ben stand at the top of the Fed Bank in NYC throwing piles of thousand-dollar bills off the rooftop.

So now the drama switches to Washington where today several members of Congress said in essence, ‘we need something and we need it fast’. I’m paraphrasing.

Well, this is another fine messs you’ve got me into Ollie! What to do? What to do?

Just a week ago, I published my first post on ‘Gen-Omics.’ How timely. In light of this past week’s economic events - the Dow’s 4% decline, the $10 billion quarterly loss reported by Merrill Lynch, the announcement of weak job growth and worse-than-expected news on holiday retail sales - not to mention Bush’s groveling in Saudi Arabia in an effort to get the “leaders” of this neo-medieval monarchy to agree to pump more oil and bail out Wall Street, the announcement of rising wholesale and consumer price indices and the related weakness of the dollar (I could go on), this wasn’t the best week for our economy.

So, let’s do some applied Gen-Omics. Here’s a quick reminder of the basic national income model:

Y = C + I + G + X - M

The fear, of course, is that Y (total income) is falling or will be soon. Actually, that may be a bit of understatement. There are some folks saying Y isn’t just falling, but is in a full-on swan dive. People are talking about the early ‘80’s all over again, or perhaps the return of ‘70’s-era stagflation (rising prices + rising unemployment) largely due to skyrocketing energy costs. In economics terms, this is “human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!” And who we gonna call? Not Bush. In fact, the man should just shut up and go away! Our President hasn’t blessed us with a sneak preview but in all likelihood he is going to tell Americans just what he told them after 9/11: go out and shop! Take the family to Disneyworld. Don’t worry, be happy! Simple Simon is going to give middle and upper-middle class folks a few hundred bucks so the peasants can go to the fair and buy stuff they cannot afford, most of which won’t have been made here!

Some stimulus. I can hear the cheers in Shanghai already.

Here’s a Gen-Omics snapshot. Thinking in generational terms I would propose to give:

• The Silents mostly get an income boost

• The Boomers get some tax relief depending on their tax bracket

• Gen X’ers get tax relief + target consumption incentives + lots more

• Millennials (Gen Y) get ed loan relief + jobs and job training + lots more

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If you took a course in economics you recognize the formula in the title, but not the term “Gen-Omics,” which is my own invention, and should not be confused with the study of DNA. I mean for it to provoke discussion of our economy from a generational perspective. Is “generation” a relevant social category when it comes to making sense of current economic events?

Economic analysis based on race, class, gender - commonplace. But generations? Beyond the endless discussions about the looming social security “crisis,” are there really economic issues that deserve scrutiny on the basis of how generations might perceive and experience these issues? And even if there are generational differences on matters like budget deficits, trade and energy (to name only a few), are these differences important enough to merit analysis on generational terms?

Over the course of this year, and perhaps beyond, I intend to explore such questions. I coin the term gen-omics now because I intuitively sense that the economics of generations may prove more interesting, and perhaps more important, than we think.

We know there is an intense conversation that has been going on for some time about generations in the workplace. Think of this as generational microeconomics. Many of us have created an active discussion about the generational mix at work; in my case through this blog, research, speaking and consulting. Our hypersensitivity to the contemporary dynamics in the workplace makes sense as the workplace is where generations most prominently intersect and interact. But has all of this attention on the workplace come somewhat at the expense of looking at the big picture, the “macro” picture?

In the first act of co-creation of this new field I am calling Gen-omics, let’s go back to a few basics, starting with the essential income model:

Y= C + I + G + X - M

Y = National Income

C = Household Consumption

I= Investment

G = Government Spending

X = Exports

M = Imports

How can this income model help get us started? We’ll start by asking just a few general but topical questions. For instance:

Question 1. If income inequality continues to rise in this country as it has for the past seven years, will this inequality disproportionately effect younger workers ability to consume (C)? Recognizing that young workers almost always make less than older workers, the question is whether young workers will receive a smaller share of national income over time?

For example, we know that many older companies, including now most of the US auto industry, have wage agreements/policies establishing two and even three tiered wage plans that require new hires to work at wage rates less than half those of older workers. In the most recent union contracts negotiated in the auto industry, not only are there now tiered wages systems, but the new hires of today and tomorrow will never reach the wage rates of today’s older workers. What this means in practice is a widening gap between the income of younger workers relative to their older co-workers. And the wage and income gap widens at least in manufacturing. But is this just an auto or manufacturing-sector story? Don’t bet on it.

Question 2. Does the soaring US national debt affect economic outcomes differently for different generations? If the national debt grows - which it almost certainly will - the relative burden shifts to younger people who will live longer and pay a higher portion of their life-long earnings in the form of higher taxes or reduced government services in order to pay the interest on the national debt. As the national debt grows and the interest payments on that debt also grow, there is potentially less government revenue (G) for things like education and health care. Conversely, someone is buying those government bonds and thus making the income of this investment. These securities are purchased by wealthy individuals as a hedge against riskier investments, as well as by institutional investors like mutual funds and pension funds. And who might those collective investors be? Young people? In some cases, yes, but given that most young people are not big savers, most of the income transfer - interest payments on the nation’s debt - is really a generational income transfer from younger to older people (spenders to savers).

Question 3. Does a burgeoning trade deficit (X-M) have a generational effect? Rising imports, especially of cheap Chinese manufactures, could be seen as a plus for younger people who over time will presumably pay less for much of what they buy. Older workers or retirees have presumably done most of their personal consuming and may reap fewer of the benefits of cheap toys and electronics. But, these imports also represent job losses particularly in regions where manufacturing was once prominent like the Midwest and upper Great Lakes. Cheap imports can also have a depressing effect on wages generally, a phenomenon that hurts younger workers just entering the labor force.

Cheaper imports may also mean higher profits for multinational firms and thus for the shareholders of these firms. Globalization can be a boon to profits in a number of ways. The most obvious is the ability to make things cheaply overseas and sell them at a relatively high price here (hello Nike sneakers). Global supply chains allow firms to outsource some part of the cost of doing business, possibly lowering prices for consumers, but also, again, threatening jobs here and putting downward pressure on wage costs. And who reaps the profits? Shareholders obviously, but again, which generation(s) does most of the savings and investing? In fact, times have never been better over the past decade or two for investors. While the markets are hurting at this moment, campared to, say, 1992, markets around the world have soared to the delight of people here and abroad with the means to invest in a serious way. This excludes most younger workers.

Question 4. Education. It’s now a cliche to mention the value of an education in today’s economy. But this education comes at a very high price. Some economists might say that the higher price reflects the higher value of education and thus the investment in it now makes great economic sense for most college grads. Fair enough. But, college costs and student debt are in the stratosphere and climbing. Yes, perhaps in the long run, over a lifetime, the economic benefits of higher education pay off. but many students today will still be paying off college and grad school debt well into their thirties and forties, the very years when they should also be buying homes and perhaps starting a family. What will that education debt burden mean to these people then?

And who profits in the near term from all of this education debt? The older folks; those savers/investors who have been doing so well in the markets are some of the same investors profiting from the sale of investment instruments used to finance students’ educations. Another income transfer, most likely?

Question 5. Housing.  Well, here’s one issue that might work in the Millennials’ favor. If you are a home owner, and roughly sixty percent of American households are, then you probably have experienced some nervous moments (or worse) lately. We may now be in one of the most severe market corrections in recent memory. Crises always seem to need a name; this one is called the sub-prime mortage crisis. I’ll spare the gory details, but the sum of it to this moment has meant historically high foreclosure rates. In Michigan, tens of thousands of people have lost homes, and many don’t even bother bringing the bank the keys.

As bad as this is, the calamity does not stop there. This bit of market irrational exhuberance is shaking the foundations of the US, and possibly the global, financial markets. Each day brings new news of a pillar of Wall Street announcing monstrous loses attributed to derivatives of bundles of these sub-prime loans that are now worthless. This is getting really serious.

What, though, does this mean for our generational story? Well, which generations own real estate? Older Silents, Boomers, and lots of Gen X’ers.  In fact, without knowing any of the demographics behind this latest financial crisis, I supsect that it is Gen X’ers, working class and poor Gen X’ers who made a grab at a major piece of the American Dream, who are the people now caught in this historic liquidity crisis, and thus are losing their homes in record numbers. Real estate and home values are falling in nearly every region of the country including the once-red-hot-markets in the Northeast. Housing prices in not-so-hot-markets are said to have already fallen more than thirty percent.

One might ask, who hasn’t lost in this economic malestrom?  Millennials!  Most Millennials are not yet of home buying age, and those that are are still renting and paying off student loans. Presumably, however, lots of Millennials will follow the pattern of previous generations and take the plunge into the world of home ownership before too long. And when they do, homes will almost certainly be cheaper than homes have been in decades. It would not surprise me at all to learn that some “savvy” Millennials are prowling the websites of banks to find great deals on foreclosed properties. It was only a few years ago that Boomer parents of Millennials were lamenting out loud that no sooner did they finally finish paying for part of the of college that they had to start thinking about helping with that first down payment, or else see son or daughter spend most of their wages on rent.

And what about rents?  I’m not a landlord, but with so much over capacity out there right now I suspect that this is a good time to be a renter. So good, in fact, that some Millennials may conclude that being permanent renters might not be so bad, tax advantages aside.

Gen-omics? This big one looks like it works in favor of the Millennials while almost everyone else, especailly young Gen X’ers, are getting clobbered.

The questions could go on, at least in my mind anyway. And certainly, not every generational issue looked at in macroeconomic terms leads to an income transfer from younger to older. There are hundreds of issues where the generational winners and losers are reversed, or issues where there are no generational winners or losers at all.

But why should we think about these or other such questions in generational terms? I indicated at the beginning that some balance between the near-obsession with generations in the workplace, especially the rise of the Millennial generation, has everyone looking at the branches on the trees. What about looking at the forest? My view is that the forest holds many important stories, even mysteries, and that we need to pay equal attention to it. After all, it is hard to imagine that some of these macro issues are not, or will not, soon be influencing attitudes in the workplace. Ignored, these macro issues could be mistaken by some as simply workplace issues, rather than social or political ones.

And for me there is a personal side to my questions. I was born a few years after the end of World War II. I grew up during a period of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. Not only were we the wealthiest nation on the planet, but that wealth was shared more equitably than in any previous era. All of this was happening while older Americans were investing in the economic well being of younger Americans through the GI Bill. Taxpayers were also doubling government spending on education at all levels of society. There was a “red scare” and an alleged “missile gap” spawning a massive increase in government investment in basic science as well as increased investment in science in the classroom. Tax dollars built an interstate highway system and put a man on the moon. This, I believe, served our nation well, and those of us who grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s were the principal beneficiaries of this investment. Many of these investments took years to pay off economically. And yet, somewhat older Americans - my parents and grandparents - made made them to all of our benefit.

Clearly these are not the Glory Days. The global economy has changed almost everything about our economic life today in comparison to fifty years ago. No question. Having said that, I am still deeply concerned that beneath the nation’s experience of globalization lies a generational story substantially less promising and less optimistic than the generational story many of us experienced as we came of age.

In the weeks and months ahead I hope to continue to pursue this new field of gen-omics. Your contributions are welcome. This is not intended as a forum to incite the generational equivalent of class war. On the contrary. My goal is to first explore the very idea of gen-omics and and from there see if we gain a deeper and more revealing analysis of generational life in our society writ large as well as in the workplace where the generations meet.

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It’s a bright sunny Saturday morning.  A normal wintry chill has replaced the searing cold of the past few days.  Just 40 miles north of here, every political pundit and political junkie, along with thousands of campaign volunteers, are moving briskly over the crusty but substantial snow cover of New Hampshire trying to figure out what will happen next in this campaign season.

Truth.  It’s already happened. The era of Boomer politics is over.  A new generation is rising, urged on by a new voice.  Personally, I feel almost giddy with delight.  Those with an instinct for metaphysics can now debate: is the Voice, the masterfully eloquent voice of Barack Obama, so compelling, so inspiring, so not-just-from-the-world-of-politics but from a world that merges spirit, mind, and body into an alchemical fountain of positive transformative energy, a voice that acts on the young as a political siren song from which they cannot escape, and thus they come?  Or is Mr Obama tapping into an energy that has already been rising, thus making him one beneficiary of something that has already been evident but is only now moving beyond the realms of culture and consumption?

Obama and the Millennial Generation are like two powerful, mutually attractive energy fields that draw each other inwards, creating something new and powerfully transformative.  When the hinge of history moves, it sometimes moves swiftly.

So many now seem perplexed and bemused by it all.  But when Barack Obama becomes President Obama one year from now, it will mark not just an extraordinary moment in the history of our nation, but an epoch-shifting generational moment.  The Boomer candidates, and the one Silent generation candidate in the Democratic field, Joe Biden, made a critical miscalculation.  The candidates and their handlers assumed that the pattern of political participation on the part of young people would hold true to the historical pattern of apathy and non-participation.  These Boomers were making the same fatal assumptions about Millennials that so many business leaders have been making for the past several years.  Ah, they’re just kids, what do they know?  The Boomer arrogance, an arrogance fed by moral as well as egoist certitude, has been the achilles heel of this generation since its rise to power in the early 1990’s.  The arrogance of the Clintons has perhaps not been so clumsy and costly as the arrogance of George W. Bush, but it is fed by the same river.

Am I getting carried away with my own giddiness over the prospect of being able to listen Presidnent Obama’s innaugural address?  Will I be watching on Tuesday night as the Boomers regroup and reclaim power?  Perhaps.  But as one who has been following the rise of the Millennial generation, I am now more convinced than ever that we are witnessing the passing of the torch and that even a temporary glitch like a less-than-stellar showing in New Hampshire on Tuesday will not derail the Obama express.

We can no longer refer to the Millennials as “rising”.  They rose on Thursday night and they are not going to fade.  They will sweep Mr Obama into the White House.  And in record time they will find a way to gain more power in the last domain where there presence is still seems perplexing.  While the Boomer political pundits sat in bars in Des Moines talkng with each other, the Millennials stole the show.  And while Boomer business consultants advise their Boomer colleagues who run America how to “manage” the Millennials - the business equivalents to those Des Moines barflys - the Millennials will soon find a way to run our economy.

Another reason for me to feel giddy.

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In the mid-1980’s I was a new father and a grad student. Many a morning was spent with my (now) older son singing along with Mr. Rogers before heading off for the child care center or sometimes my office at school. Little did I or my son know that we were in the analog company of a subversive. Minister, teacher, children’s television show host; all a ruse. Our new friend Mr Rogers, it seemed was really engaged in a scheme to undermine the very foundation of our nation’s economic success - our work ethic. And here I thought it was Habermas and the critical thinkers of the Frankfurt School that would undo the Puritan ethic’s cultural power. And just how, you ask, did Mr. Roger’s (Fred to many) succeed where radicals and miscreants of all manner and stripe had failed? He told my son, along with so many others of his generation, that he was SPECIAL. And, of course, I was complicit. As a parent I parroted this word over and over again until this message was ensconced as a cellular memory in my son’s deepest unconscious mind. Little did I or my son realize that this nice kindly man in his cardigan sweater would turn his generation into narcissistic ingrates, unwilling to comply with the boss.

How do I know it was Fred? I heard it the other night on 60 minutes from Uncle Morley Safer and a very smart looking reporter from the Wall Street Journal named Jeffrey. Jeffrey, along with a few other “sources” - all consultants - were rather gleefully telling old Morley about young workers in America. They told us yet again all about the pampered, entitled, self-indulgent, oblivious-to-anyone-but-themselves Millennials. You know, the story all of the Boomers love to tell because it makes them look so good by comparison. The Boomers, of course, are paragons of Smithian virtue, and thankfully so, because were it not for the Boomers’ nose-to-the-grindstone attitude (and, oh yes, once in a while we (grudgingly) mention Generation X) our economy and society would have simply collapsed while the Millennials partied on, oblivious. And the coup de grace, the high point of this searing social journalism, came at the moment when Uncle Morley asked Jeffrey who had rendered this generation so unwilling to look beyond their own noses: why, it was none other than Fred Rogers. Guilty as charged.

It gets worse for all of us. Certainly the Millennials lack a work ethic, a byproduct of the fact, according to one insightful corporate consultant, that they all spent their summers climbing Mt Everest or at archeaological excavations in Peru to please Harvard admissions officers rather than mowing their neighbors’ lawns. As a former paper boy, of course, I can attest to the fact that getting up at 5 a.m. on cold winter mornings to make my appointed news rounds made me who I am today. CBS, though, can’t leave it at that. No. This is prime time and we need a BIG word to describe this phenomenon. And we, or rather the consultants and journalist we interview, have one for us: narcissism. Now there’s a worthy descriptor for these young ne’r-do-wells. The Millennials, it would seem, are simply the most narcissistic generation in American history.

What’s wrong with young workers today? Here’s the answer according the experts who spoke with Uncle Morely: Millennials have spent so much time staring at their own reflection in the pool that they have fallen in love - with themselves, their yoga classes, their lattes, their iPods, and all of the other accoutrements of the Me Generation. This is not the first time I have taken note of this now ubiquitous critique.

In previous posts I have taken up some of my concerns about the seemingly endless salvo of verbal munitions fired in the direction of young workers. But the persistent charge of narcissism will not go away. I made a promise to myself that I would not be baited again into this plebian argument; but, now that it has the gold standard impremateur of legitimacy (i.e. 60 Minutes), well, the topic deserves one more try. After all, I really liked Mr Rogers.

So, I will say again. Are their young people now or soon-to-be in the workplace who were over-protected and spoiled? Of course there are; this is America. This is the land that lives by one golden rule: He who dies with the most toys, wins! The philosopher and social critic Christopher Lash, in a momumental work Culture of Narcissism, called this phenomenon one of the central facts of social life in America. This work was published in 1991, long before the Millennials matured. There is a caution here. Why stop with the Millennials as narcissists. What drives the Boomers? Is it our love of work? Our sense of obligation to society writ large? Or is it the mortgage payments on the 15,000 square foot exurban McMansions, the leased luxury sedans, the ski chalets and golf resort condos that really push us to the office night and day? And who was standing on the side lines at all the games, recitals, and other performances basking in the glow of their children’s alleged achievements? Who told their kids that the Ivies were the route to success and made it an obsession since they were old enough to hold a pencil ?

People should be careful throwing around such serious accusations, particularly with such an appalling lack of humility and self-awareness. Enough. And oh, by the way Uncle Morley, you cannot indulge those who so easily level these charges against an entire generation and then add that they are also pretty bright and tech savvy. Everyone knows this. It’s not the same thing.

In the interest of balance and fairness, here is a quick summary of some of the other facts about Millennials.

This generation is taking many of the casualties in Iraq,

This generation has nearly single handedly revived civic action in this country.

This generation is showing a remarkable zest for entrepreneurial work, both social and commercial.

This generation is likely to lead this country away from our carbon gouging consumables. The social change economy is powered by young people who are working hard to make a difference. Millennials world-wide are staffing the growing number of NGOs challenging the growing power of authoritarian and autocratic regimes and governments around the world, sometimes putting their lives at risk in the process.

The narrative of narcissism is culturally problematic as a critique of a single generation. It also offers no real way of inter-generational engagement. Those who promote and perpetuate this narrative by definition place themselves in a position of superior virtue which would be hard to back up if the light where shone in their direction.

This generation is like every generation, a product of it’s history and culture. This generation’s warts are our warts. And this generation’s great promise is a reflection of the the better angels of our society.

What Fred Rogers saw was the special light that burns in all of us. He was special.

By the way, Jeffrey, journalist from the WSJ, Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood first aired in 1968, years before the first Millennial was born. How is it that his influence skipped a generation? I’m sorry, did I just let a fact get in the way of your story?

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This past Monday I saw Stonehenge for the first time. It was a picture perfect early fall day in the countryside southwest of London, with a luminous royal blue sky, and a brisk wind rolled down the browning plains that form the backdrop for this famously mysterious prehistoric monument. Despite my mind’s recognition that we (my wife Paula was with me) were present as tourists; as I circled Stonehenge close enough to wonder at the practical feat of its construction, the place evoked a certain Tirnagog-esque timelessness.

I was in England attending a retreat of geoscientists employed by one of the largest energy companies in the world. This was the annual gathering of the leaders of the company’s geoscience team. They met at Bishopstrow House, a beautiful but somewhat dated country manor just twenty kilometers from Stondhenge. The central topic: how to atrract, retain, and motivate the next generation of scientists. This is where I came in. My role as the plenary speaker was to offer some of the big picture thinking about the “generations question” and to offer my thoughts on retention and motivation as a way to stimulate conversation and dialogue.

Of the twenty attendees, all but two were self-identified “Boomers”; one obvious reason to be thinking hard about retention. A late afternoon brainstorming session revealed a lot of concerns about mentoring. Many of the participants felt strongly that mentoring successfully was one big piece of the retention puzzle. What, though, constitutes good mentoring?

Guiding a young career is certainly one part of mentoring. Offering new and younger recruits practical advice on how to navigate byzantine layers of bureaucracy, without reverting to mayhem or simply walking off the job, is another suitable topic. There were lots of other worthy ideas and suggestions but they shall remain the purview of those attending the meeting.

There is, though, one additional insight that I can pass along because in a way it is mine and it came out of the after-dinner conversation (isn’t this almost always where the good stuff comes up?). Anyways, there I was surrounded by some of the best geoscientists in the world. I posed the question; what does it take to do your job - that is, the job of finding new and presumably untapped sources of energy - really well? Naturally there was a lot of discussion about technology, but the rest of the answer surprised me. I might sum it up as the “boots on the ground” view. In other words, the consensus at the dinner table was that success is a function of great technology combined with all of the senses and all of one’s experience in the field; the place where senses and technology converge. Translation for young scientists: Get out there and get your boots dirty.

How does this relate to good mentoring? Here’s my interpretation. A good mentor first and foremost encourages opportunities for new hires to get close to the product, and even closer to the customer, as often as possible. This is where the real learning takes place. And the role of the mentor is to help the new hire(s) make sense of her or his experiences. A good mentor helps to structure real learning and then follows through with the reflexive part of this experiential learning process.

It is by this process that experience becomes learning and learning becomes knowledge. Good mentoring goes beyond the issue of generational differences and recognizes the importance of wisdom and the value of the timeless. Good mentors simultaneously pass on and affirm hard won life lessons. Good mentoring helps the relatively uninitiated navigate and negotiate, but it also reminds the novice that a part of our collective knowledge is timeless, carried and transported by generations as a gift, just as thousands of years ago generations carried blue stone to Stonehenge as a gift to the ages.

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First post in ages. But I just read a few of Penelope Trunk’s recent posts (her latest has a link to a fabulous video I’d not seen before), and that was inspiration enough. I hadn’t stopped posting because I lost interest, it’s that over the summer I found yet one more important practice to find time for - yoga. Based on the number of yoga studios that I am now noticing everywhere, I’d say I’m coming late to this party. In this case, though, late is better than never. I started out going two or three times very early in the morning, and I’ve continued to do so, but I also discovered “hot yoga” at another local studio. The instructors/teachers, Kat, Jenn and now Peter are just amazing people, and a bit part of what keeps us all coming back, even when the temps rise to well over 100 degrees.

But here’s the deal. Every one of these wonderful people - in a caring way - give the same message: you’ve got to show up. You’ve gotta get on the mat and sweat if you want to develop.

Then there is the family. Our son Robert had a great summer working at a local Y day camp. Add two weeks of film school and there wasn’t much time for anything else, so for his eighteenth birthday we took a 1400 mile road trip to Niagra Falls, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Six Flags. A few days after returning, just enough time to get some crucial work done, we were off again for Seattle to visit family and attend Bumbershoot.

What is Bumbershoot? It is simply one of the best Festivals I have ever attended. It’s three days of non-stop music, film (the Seattle International Film Festival), performance art, comedy, high quality crafts, great food and a whole lot more. Set at a generous location just beneath the Seattle Needle, we had three days of stellar weather, bright blue skies and no rain. A glorious spatial landscape to take in a number of thoughtful films, rockin’ good music and some lively comedy.

What calls me to mention Bumbershoot was the mood; a mood set by the generations in attendance, but especially the Millennials. It’s hard for me to go anywhere now without taking note of something cultural related to generations, and when you find yourself in one place at one moment in time with tens of thousands of other folks, well, it’s an observer’s paradise. So when I say that the mood was exhilheratingly upbeat, positive, inquisitive, supportive, inspiring and disarmingly open, you response is, ‘no kidding man, you were at a music and film festival in a great city on a beautiful weekend. Mellow? Of course it was mellow! What did you expect? Altamont?’

No. But I might have expected some hassles. I might have expected to witness or sense some sort of conflicts or ill tempered human interactions. And there might of been, but we didn’t see it or sense it. What I did see was lots and lots of young people, engaged, aware and connected. Okay, let me be careful again. Before I sound like some sappy and patronizing Boomer, let me say this carefully. There was a mood during the whole time we were at Bumbershoot and I want to make a somewhat serious observation that it was not a mood of escapism or even just entertainment. There was entertainment-a-plenty; some great performances of all kinds. But in addition, there was an awareness that was not collective self-indulgence or self-satisfaction. There was, amidst the festive atmosphere, a collective awareness of people being in the world doing what they love to do, doing it together, acknowledging their interdependence, all the while consciously recognizing the transformative power of art.

As you would expect, every generation alive today in the US was well represented. But the mood that I’ve tried to describe was set by the Millennials. Do I have a point to all of this? Well, certainly not one big point. But a few oberservations. This was generational blending at its best. The festival itself was remarkably well organizaed and run. And I could see lots of people younger and older folks deeply involved in making it all happen. But what I saw was the enactment, the moment to moment creation of generation, a living and dynamic process of connection and narrative. This was most apparent in the theaters in between the short films when the whole room filled with a buzz of connectedness. There is a kind of ease dropping one is permitted in public spaces such as theaters. And the chatter was nearly as interesting as the films.

I carried my awareness of this generational mood to Chicago later in the week. I gave a talk at a retreat of executives from Fishback Financial Services, a financial holding company. We had a wonderful discussion about generational issues in the workplace. It felt good especially talking again about Millennials at work. Now I think I’ll just call this mood Bumbershoot.

An now I have to find my own new work-life balance. Family, work, blogging and yoga. Hope I can hold on to some of that good Bumbershoot buzz.

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Lost in the Forest

Lost

Standstill, the trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a branch does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

A powerful poem by David Whyte. It bespeaks the wisdom of the native peoples of the northwestern United States. The Poem is David’s homage to the stories told by the elders of the northwest tribes to tribal youth eager and impatient to experience and test themselves in the world. The narrative traditions of most ancient cultures centered around the task of bringing to adolescents and young adults an awareness of the wild and unpredictable world around them. These stories were a major part of the social survival strategy of cultures much stronger than ours.

Elders today do not tell stories. The elders in our society seem now to be either lost themselves, preoccupied, or just disinterested. We were not born with cultural sextants. Thus when the elders abrogate their traditional role, its left to a younger group of pathfinders too help the young find their way in the forest. Penelope Trunk is one of those younger pathfinders and she seems to relish the role.

Her book, Brazen Careerist, published earlier this summer, is written primarily for her peers and her younger Gen Y cousins. A primer, not a pocket guide, this book could have been titled Zen and the Art of Career Maintenance. Trunk adopts a voice somewhere between that of an older sister and a Buddhist teacher, dropping kernels in advance of the thirty-five million or so twenty-somethings in the U.S., many of whom, she believes, need a trail map, especially in the workplace.

Her style, honed from writing her blog, also entitled Brazen Careerist, is startlingly direct. From page one of the Introduction, Trunk makes bold claims, declaring that young workers are “revolutionizing” corporate life with a work style and world view that sets them apart from any other generation. From the outset she establishes a dynamic tension between the prevailing, but weakening, mores and norms of corporate life, and the needs and wants of younger people on a quest.

It is this quest that interests her, and she leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind where her sympathies lie. She describes the seemingly erratic and unpredictable behavior of her younger generational cousins, the Millennials, as “Flailing”. Many in business might call it immaturity and irresponsibility. Not so says Trunk. Flailing is but the necessary and rational response of a generation sensing the eroding boundaries, if not the crumbling pillars, of old social models. Predictability in corporate life, if not in life generally, is a thing of the past. The key to success now? Embrace the world of e-lancers, freelancers, free agents and contingent agents of all types, in a festival of permanent indeterminacy that offers a kind of radical freedom unprecedented in history.

In the era of the Great Transformation Trunk sees:

• The end of gender based pay disparity
• The end of the glass ceiling
• The end of the grind
• The end of consulting
• The end of the stay-at-home parents
• The end of hierarchy

And we’re still in the introduction.

Brazen Careerist is a semi-autobiographical book. For those who follow her blog, it is clear that Trunk is no stranger to good solid social science research. The sciences, though, are not her book’s primary anchor. As a pathfinder, Trunk gives us her story of getting lost in the forest, along with the life stories of friends and family. While I admire her nakedly revelatory voice, at times the sweep of her assertions seems out of balance with the evidence she presents. The evidence is out there, starting with one of my favorite books, The Future of Work, and I know that Trunk knows the literature. When it comes to the Great Transformation, Trunk is a disciple with the zeal of a convert. I don’t have any real quarrel with the broad argument in this book, I just think it’s going to take a while before chaos theory rules the Board Room. Twenty-five years of organizational consulting, much of it in the U.S. auto industry, leaves me with a very healthy respect for the resiliency of “old” structures, systems, and practices that characterize a firm or an industry.

The strength of this book lies in its grounded and pragmatic approach to what I call the Millennial Paradox. This generation, the Millennials, demands and relishes choice (freedom). But as philosophers have been telling us for centuries, freedom, the awakening of the self to its own consciousness and the self’s awareness of its capacity for independent action in the world, can sometimes be hard to handle. For most of human history this wasn’t such a big deal. The urge to survive was enough to keep our minds occupied and out of troubled psychic waters. And if we did start to feel a bit full of ourselves, well, there was the culture ready to step in and pretty much tell us how to live our lives. The existentialist Albert Camus took a stab at this question a while back and more or less came to the Jack Nicholson point of view that most of us cannot handle the truth, the truth of our own freedom that is.

But, here come the Millennials, with more choices than any other generation in history, and Trunk tells them, hey, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, embrace the chaos and celebrate by trying on identities like Imelda Marcos used to try on shoes. And here’s the Buddhist part, Trunk also tells them to breathe. Relax. You see that giant buffet out there called the economy? Try as much of it as you can before you order off the menu. The path Trunk cautions against is the path of settling for a bad job, a bad boss, or bad co-workers.

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So I went to hear Tom Wolfe a few weeks ago. This iconic figure was more than a disappointment. Dressed in his omnipresent white suit, Wolfe invited the audience to go on a grand intellectual tour, invoking some of the titans of western philosophy, especially Neitzche, to buttress his main point - the end of  western civilization as we know it is at hand.  Flirting with the suburban audience, most of whom seem to take the bait, Wolfe  used  parts of what he claims  was his “study” of the sexual mores of contemporary college students, along with an article in the New York Post about sexual norms in the City,  to point us in the direction of the cultural and spiritual Apocalypse.  When you cut through all the bombast about the depravity of young people, especially young women, who’s sin apparently is that they told a Post reporter that they were enjoying their sex lives, the portrait the Wolfe was painting of the Millennial Generation (he did not use this term) was disturbing and dangerous.

Wolfe represents a body of commentators that I call the Alarmists, referring to our typology or system for understanding what is being said, and by whom, about Millennials.  Mr. Wolfe’s clarion call to battle reprsents nothing short of the defense of our civilization.  But on a scale less grandiose and audacious, there are voices of equal trepidation heralding Armageddon in the American work place.  Mr. Wolfe titillates bored suburban Boomers with his salacious reportage from the edge of history.  His near-octogenarian crankiness in the end is somewhat harmless, other than the fact that it perpetuates a cultural stereotype.  Alarmists of another type, though, have been hard at work creating myths about Gen Y in the workplace, myths that have, I surmise, done harm to many younger workers.

Is there pain out there?  Absolutely.  Are there responsible critics pointing out some of the foibles of youth as they enter the workplace? No doubt.  So what separates the reasonable critics from the Alarmists?  Tone.  The book Ready or Not, Here Life Comes is a perfect example of a highly moralistic and judgmental work that seems short on evidence and long on diatribe.  Other examples include: When Generations Collide, Generational Warfare, Generational Conflict and Generation Me.

The big issue is attitude or work ethic.  For Wolfe the problem seems to be the generalized breakdown of social values writ large.  Pulling back just a bit from that dark-side-of-the-moon vision of the world and into the workplace, the Alarmists want us to believe the sky is falling (or soon will) as Gen Y’ers, or Millennnials, gain presence and momentum in the work force.

The Alarmist represents one distinctive Type in our four quadrant model  which also includes the Objectifiers, the Bridgers, and the Authentic Voices (Millennials).  Thankfully, the early popularity of the Alarmists has faded as more Millennnials enter the workplace.  Their legacy can be heard more in the fading signals, like distant stars, that continue to create a context for other voices.  The early and dire prognosis of the future of the American workplace still reverberates as nearly all who write about  Gen Y somehow have to refute the early myths even as their half-lives fade.

So let me not dwell on what I hope is the early-but-now-past mythologizing about the Millennials at work.  A typology, of course, has to start somewhere.  The posts about the Bridgers, the Millennials, and even the Objectifiers, though, promise to be a lot more interesting and rewarding to write.

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“Après moi, le déluge” (After me, the flood). Words associated with Louis XV’s powerful mistress Madame de Pompadour (or the king himself) in reference to the fact that a whole lot of French peasants were getting pretty tired of life as they knew it. The good Madame was, I’m sure, neither a physicist nor epidemiologist, but she had a good feel for history and she sensed that the French monarchy had arrived at a “tipping point.” Scientists refer to a “tipping point” as that moment when something that was a previously rare phenomenon rapidly emerges and becomes more common or perhaps even a new dominant state. In France it simply meant, “off with their heads.”

And so, my question: Are we at a tipping point for Millennials entering the workplace? And a follow up question: Does it feel like le déluge? Lets look for some signs. Does the cover story in Fortune Magazine, along with, a NY Times op-ed piece, a new and important book, and a deluge of stories about young people in the workplace on NPR, represent a sign? You be the judge.

Lets start with last week’s Fortune magazine cover story by Nadira A. Hira on how to manage Gen Y’ers. Substantively, this is not a ground-breaking piece. In fact, it’s more of an introductory primer which repeats many of the core characteristics and qualities of Millennials. While not important critically, the publication and placement of this piece in one of the most widely read business mags is very significant.

Once you’ve read this piece, give your eyes a rest and go to the website for the NPR program On Point, produced by WBUR in Boston and hosted by Tom Ashbrook. In recent weeks Ashbrook has done a show on Gen Y in the workplace and a show on job prospects for college seniors. The program on Gen Y featured Nadira, the Gen Y author of the Fortune article (most On Point programs can be downloaded as podcasts from iTunes).

And if you missed it, there is the publication of the new book by Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist fame, “Brazen Careerist, The New Rules for Success.” A full review of this important new work will follow on this blog very soon. But I note it’s publication, and the success this book is having, as a further indication of the exponential growth in interest by young people in the ways of corporate America.

The proliferation of articles, books, media events, podcasts, and yes, blogs, about the emergence of Millennials, or Gen Y’ers, in the workplace is NOT the force itself, but rather a manifestation of the very real tremors being felt by senior executives and managers at all levels as they increasingly bear witness to the demographic shift taking place more or less under their noses. And now the coup de grace, an op-ed piece in the Sunday NYT by none other than the man himself, Tom Friedman. Could there be any further evidence of a tipping point? Friedman writes a glowing piece about young people, not as workers but as global citizens. He is moved by the optimism and the quiet determination of young people to make a difference in the world. In almost Brokaw-esque language, Friedman announces to the world the arrival of a new generation of Americans, fully prepared to meet the great challenges of our time. Be careful Tom, there’s a psychologist out there about to accuse you of the sin of excessive praise.

Back to Madame de Pompadour. If the “signs” indicate that the rate of change in work force demographics is accelerating, why do so many people in business sense this shift as a deluge, in short, something to be feared? Simple. Most organizations are not prepared for the change. The anxious chuckles from executive suites across America, along with the nervous jokes about the kids with tatoos and iPods, mask a deeper concern about the future of the enterprise, as well as forebodings about the future of our economy. Our advice, with all due respect, stop joking and start reading.

And after you’ve read the primers, go have a serious talk, a real serious and open talk with your recruiters and other HR professionals, who have been fighting in the trenches to give your organization a chance to compete for the talent you will need to thrive in the years ahead. The looming labor shortage (talk with them about this as well) of skilled workers means a war for talent in the years ahead. Folks in your organization have been fighting this war for a while now. They know we are at a tipping point.

Talent and opportunity come to the prepared mind. For the unprepared mind, it will soon feel like le déluge.

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