Echoes of some of the things we discuss on a day-to-day basis, courtesy of ej.
Here’s an excerpt :
Blending Life And Work Into A Whole Experience
Gen “Why”-ers think first about where they want to live and what kind of lifestyle they want to lead. Then they place their careers into that context and find jobs. They believe that life is to be enjoyed and see no reason why they can’t balance work, family and personal lives. Brands need to understand how much this group wants to blend their lives into one seamless experience. This is very different from the career choices that their parents made where “the job” dictated everything. Enjoying life frequently took a back seat to career, and was put on hold until after retirement. This idea of enjoyment first is often hard for senior “boomer” managers to understand. Yet, if they allow for and consider some newer more flexible work style approaches they would find that Gen “Why”-ers can choose to be highly productive. Best Buy’s Minneapolis headquarters recently transformed its rigid, herd riding culture, which equated physical presence with productivity into something far more flexible. The new, fluid structure called ROWE for “Results Only Work Environment” takes the attitude that performance on output beats watching the clock for hours any day. All of a sudden it is not where you work, the time of day you are working, or the amount of hours you choose to work, but your overall performance and contribution that counts. This makes total sense to Gen “Why”-ers. After all, this highly entrepreneurial group, who grew up multi-tasking with the great advantages of technology, can create a flow chart, design a sales presentation, listen to music, while making a tomatillo quesadilla. (more…)
(I personally prefer the tag “Y” instead of “Why” when refering to this particular Generation… someone should inform Ms. (Mr?) Cottingham that only older people use the term “Generation Why”)
