Archiv der Kategorie: Change management

Here you find all about change management.

New things – younger and older together

The special about new things is the fact that they did not exist before. This includes new products, like phones, with and without cables, as well as new work styles. Some changes take place over a longer period of time. Others happen really fast. The phone, for example, took more than seventy years until five percent of the Germans were connected – the mobile phone needed nine years and Facebook only three. Do you create these innovations better with younger or older people?

Veränderungaltjung bw

Since this topic is a tightrope walk of stereotypes, I want to make clear that the descriptive traits are not valid for all younger or older. Nevertheless, due to the differences in the life stages, there are resulting advantages for the department or the company, as soon as you know how to use them together. Thus the answer is already given: New things you create the best with younger AND older ones. What defines the two groups?

  • Older (Postwar generation, Baby Boomers)
    These are essentially people born before 1966. They are in the second half of their career. The postwar generation is approaching retirement. They are sharpened by the economic recovery and learned that personal employment pays off. They live in order to work and are driven by a positive, future-oriented perspective. Due to their experiences they know that the collection of the relevant information, the development of new things and their implementation need time. It enables them to keep on going during a longer period. Their skepticism towards hierarchies results in the fact that they want to address and solve critical topics actively. They are burdened with experiences that lead quickly to killer phrases, like ‘it never worked’. At the same time these memories provide solutions for basic problems of alignment, realization and implementation. They are thus basic stakes for the application of new things.
  • Younger (generation X Y Z)
    The group of the youths consists of those, who are born after 1966. The GenX is in the center of its career, the GenY at the beginning and the GenZ will start their careers within the next years. They have in common that they are technic-minded and that they care for work life balance. They are used to receive in short intervals much information and alternation. That makes them curious, impatient, short-term-oriented and quickly critical and resistant. However, they are unencumbered and free of self-limitation that enables them to present new ideas. Their education provided them with the most current concepts and solutions. Therefore, they are the crucial driver for new things beyond the established ones.

Based on the descriptions it becomes clear that each style has important, complementary elements. The curiosity and the impatience of the youths offer the substantial momentum that helps older people out of their routine. At the same time the stamina of the older ones creates sufficient time that can be invested into the projects, in order to raise it above the Tipping Point. For a working interaction, time should be invested in workshops, so that the employees can exchange their approaches and better understand and appreciate the approaches of the others. But it needs rules that satisfy all, as well as an agenda that do disconnect anybody by too slow or to fast action.

Bottom line: New things will lead to results in cooperation between younger and older, which benefits all. The correct mix adds effectiveness mutually. On the one hand the older people receive the momentum, in order to be able to think new things. On the other hand the youths profit from the wealth of experience of those, who already brought things on the way several times. For this reason it is important to avoid imbalance in the age structure of their departments and to ensure the advantages of mixed teams through respective training and cooperation models.

Lonely leaders – soloists without impact

Some managers hamper progress in the enterprise with their avalanche-like excessive desire for action, when they do not pay attention to the feedback of their employees. They always run with new ideas ahead of the staff without completing anything. Half-done initiatives and a large number of demoralized employees remain. The successors have no other choice than to repair the damage – again and again. And this happens although the leaders should have noticed that they are only soloists without impact, if they do not have the support of the staff.

Sollerfüllung

Especially in the areas of service and administration, where no physical products are created, the commitment of the persons employed is the basis for good performances. Results that are difficult to measure, like the relationship with the customers, the appropriate application of resources and the consistent external representation of the corporate values, are critical, if a manager does not consider the ideas of the staff. How can you avoid losing your employees during your day-to-day work?

  • Listening
    Those bosses, who practice active listening within respective meetings (e.g. town halls, round tables), take thereby the foot off the brake. In return they receive the insights and the opinions of the employees, who eventually improve the results and the balance sheet of the boss.
  • Agreeing upon obligation AND freestyle
    Goals create the framework, in which the employees act. In general the targets describe, what the employees have to do. Additionally the goals should also be fixed. It enables the employees to provide additional personal contributions. That way dedication becomes again worthwhile. Beyond that the superiors get additional possible use from the extra abilities of the employees.
  • Service level Agreements (SLAs)
    With external service providers it has paid off to agree upon the deliverables, the response time and the speed with SLAs. The description of the required quality prevents a halfhearted target fulfillment. The thresholds are specified for the particular case to be processed and can be subsequently evaluated for defined periods. In such a way the service level becomes a seizable component of the goal agreement.
  • The open checklist
    Checklists examine the fulfillment of the essential aspects of a task. The task fulfillment becomes as good as the prepared checklist. With the classical checklist you get only a target fulfillment.
    Item 1? Checked off.
    Item 2? Checked off.
    Item 3? Checked off.
    Patient dead.With an open checklist that does not only contain of Yes/No questions, but also asks open key questions (like who, where, when, how), the work to rule is prevented.
    Which deliverables were accomplished?
    What characterizes the customer?
    What did we learn?
    What should we avoid?The customers will notice the difference immediately.
  • Sharing responsibility
    The strongest weapon against inner resignation is the joint definition of the basis of daily work. The employees specify the requirements and goals for the respective period in a joint discussion together with the managers. Self-defined and comprehensible goals are pursued more active by the employees and supply the bosses with a better overview, than abstract, hardly seizable agreements.

Bottom line: Superiors, who do not integrate their employees into their leadership, will have difficulties in the future. They lose the people through

  • their inner resignation,
  • the work to rule and
  • the target fulfillment.

Those leaders harm themselves. In the mid-term nobody wants to work for them. The lonely leader, who believes that he knows and can do everything and does not pay attention to the feedback of the employees, becomes over time nothing else but a soloist without impact.