Small Business Boomers

The Business Channel bloggers are scrambling, as in writing posts for each other’s blogs. As I was writing a post about Home Office Deductions for HomeBizNotes, Miki Saxon of LeadershipTurn agreed to write a guest post for us:

Oh, you Boomers. You’ve moved through the decades changing everything as you passed only to be accused by your Gen Y offspring of being ossified, calcified and petrified.

But if you look closely, you’ll see that much of those vaunted differences are just plain, old horsepucky. Here’s a list of attitudes (spelling corrected) that Millennials just won’t tolerate in their bosses (annotations in parentheses are mine).

• Inflexibility.
• Judgmental attitudes.
• Close-mindedness.
• Fear of and an unwillingness to use technology.
• Unwillingness to listen to and respect Gen Y’s opinions, ideas and views. (Respect doesn’t mean agreement.)
• Intimidation.
• Being told they have to “pay their dues”. (The skills, experience and ability to do the job are what’s required.)
• Lack of professional and leadership development through the company. (Based on what the company can afford.)
• Emphasis on traditional dress (coat or suit and tie are out). (Depends-sales reps don’t make presentations in jeans, nor do lawyers go to court in them.)
• Lack of intellectual horsepower. (Relative to whom?)

Well duh. Show me anybody who appreciates these attitudes. Moreover, show me a manager who practices them and I’ll show you a group with low productivity and high turnover.

Every generation is different. Every generation believes that they know best, that they’re right and that anybody who has been around long enough to run things doesn’t/can’t/won’t understand.

The greatest thing about age in the Twenty-first Century is that it’s defined by MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy^TM), rather than chronology-in other words, it’s not the calendar, but the way you think that counts.

(Humor prevents a ‘hardening of the attitudes.’ – Joel Goodman)

Image credit: jonsson

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