Stop Pissing Me Off What to Do When the People You Work with Drive You Crazy (9 page)

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diversity: it ain’t love at First sight

In my experience, while each situation is unique, there are two big overlooked reasons why people in the workplace can seem impossibly difficult to you:

n Unacknowledged and unresolved diversity issues

n Unrecognized (and frequently untreated) mental health issues

Let’s deal with diversity first.

When someone you work with drives you batty, it helps to consider whether there are generational, cultural, or ethnic differences that may be contributing to the clashes. Consider these stats:

n By 2010, almost 70 percent of the new entrants into the U.S. workforce will be women and people of color. By 2020, more than 50 percent of workers will be older than fifty years old.

n In 2003, 53.7 percent of all mothers with infants were involved in the labor force, up from 31 percent in 1976. n According to the U.S. Census Bureau projections, in less than fifty years, immigration will cause the population of the U.S. to increase from its present 288 million to more than 400 million.

And consider the explosive movement of U.S. jobs to India and China. In April 2006, for example, Google announced a Chinese-language brand name for its search engine: GU Ge, or “harvesting song.” However, Google found that many new hires, accustomed to following explicit instructions, had a hard time with Western management style, in which it is common

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to confront a boss, and seizing the initiative without specific direction is embraced.

To help East meet West, Google is trying out new Internetbased training and team-building exercises, sometimes even before new hires begin work. The company is also recruiting mentors. It’s finding Mandarin-speaking experts skilled in the ways of Western research and development to advise new employees and assist them with the transition to a work life that is different from anything they’ve ever known.

generation x, y, and Myspace?

Generation X is the generation that followed the baby boomers. The X’ers were born between 1965 and 1976 or so, depending on whose research you follow. They have been defined by the media as a group vastly different from the intense, hardworking boomers. Deserved or not, the X’ers have acquired the labels of slackers, more interested in having personal time than in going the extra mile to win a promotion. They value independence, technology, and informality. They were the original latchkey kids and the first group to experience MTV. Any generation is more than a demographic chart, and the X’ers are no exception. They are the most diverse generation in history. According to the U.S. Census, about a third of them are nonwhite or Hispanic. Most of them grew up after the Civil Rights movement and thus tend to be more tolerant of differences among people.

The generation that is following the X’ers is young, brash, and just hitting the work force. Anyone born in 1977 or after is considered part of the Y Generation, but some demographers consider the back end to be 1989, while others say it’s as late as 2002.

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Following closely on the heels of the Y Generation is the cohort recently dubbed by
Newsweek
as the “MySpace” generation—based on the popular online social networking site. Like their older Generation Y and X siblings, they are great multitaskers—adept at moving from phone to video to computer games to instant messaging, sometimes all at once. These generational groups are also willing and wanting to question the status quo. They push back against parents, and they do the same with employers. They’ve grown up with constant consultations about what they think and feel, in the classroom and at home. Employers, who don’t readily embrace that practice, find themselves on the receiving end of blank stares at best, and, at worst, outright or passive-aggressive rebellion. How should you deal with these iPod-toting technical wizards (especially when you want to strangle them with their headphone cords)? Communication is key—but recognize that generations communicate differently. As a colleague or manager, you need to understand and work within that framework if you want results.

talking with the enemy

Experts report that there is more information in the daily
New
York Times
than someone born in the 1700s knew in an entire lifetime. Instead of poring through library stacks, students can Google what they need in an instant. They may have access to more information than ever before, but they often don’t have the time or the wisdom to make sense of the data deluge. Also, consider the younger generation’s frame of reference. The Beloit College Mindset List, released by humanities professor Tom McBride and public-affairs director Ron Nief, is an annual catalog of seventy-five cultural landmarks that give

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us some perspective on how the current freshman class views the world. Check out these examples from the list:

n “They have known only two presidents.”

n “The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.”

n “Carbon copies are oddities found in their grandparents’

attics.”

n “Reality shows have always been on television.”

n “Madden has always been a game, not a Super Bowl winning coach.”

And of course, they’re the instant-and text-messaging champs. The key question among responsible colleagues is when and when not to use these methods of communication. Ask people from different generations and you’re likely to get different answers.

The recent crop of college grads, those born in the early 1980s, have brought with them a set of technological tools that make fax machines, voice mail, and spreadsheet software look positively quaint. They’ve grown up with scanning, text messaging, and Googling, and they’re not about to stop once they’ve hit the working world.

Nor should they. Those skills are big assets when it comes to multitasking and productivity. But they’re also a nightmare for many of their over-35 bosses, who understand that while technology is a useful tool, it doesn’t replace in-person interaction as a primary means of doing business. Today’s bosses, like Jerry McGruder, can’t understand why their young employees, for all their brains and technical acumen, hardly ever walk in the door, sit down, and actually talk to them. The Generation Y employees often use instant messaging (IM), rather than talking to someone in person—frequently sending messages

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without thinking. What some Gen Y’ers don’t see is that the meaning and value of gestures and other nonverbal skills don’t come through in a text message.

Many organizations are finding that they need to emphasize face-to-face and telephone skills, which they see as lacking in IM-happy college grads. The good news is that most new hires are smart, talented, and open to learning. Where they differ from their predecessors is in their requests for more hands-on, interactive training. However, you may find that some do not have the patience to sit through an eight-hour class. You have to talk fast to keep their attention.

Is it possible that it’s the older workers who will ultimately have to adjust, forced to do away with the personal touch in favor of pure speed and efficiency? After all, the young techsavvy employees of today are tomorrow’s company bosses. The answer is yes—and no. While increasingly faster communications are here to stay, face-to-face skills have been a staple for getting business done for too long to think they will ever go out of style altogether. There will likely be a happy medium. If you can’t build relationships with people, you can’t do business.
working out the gen gap

With all these differences, is it any wonder that the generations can piss each other off? What is the solution? Ideally, the generations should try to learn from each other. Try to pair young workers with older ones. The young may be able to help the older with technology; the older can teach social and business etiquette skills. One of my clients, a pharmaceutical company, did just that. Getting ready for a merger, they found the younger research and development scientists in a tizzy because they had never worked for anything other than a start-up

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organization. They were being acquired by a large pharmaceutical giant. The solution: Pair them with old hands who had been through more mergers and spinoffs than could be counted. The surprising perk was that the older workers became more technologically savvy and learned some new research techniques—not to mention picking up some tips on downloading oldies to their iPods!

clueless Behavior versus actionable Behavior

While 24/7 communication can be a boon for productivity, it also creates environments ripe for inappropriate communication and its ensuing conflict. “The most important thing, whether it’s e-mail or instant messaging, is that the technology gives you a chance to communicate before you think,” says Rita Kirk, professor of communications at Southern Methodist University. Consider the extreme case of former Florida Congressman Mark Foley, who became the poster boy for bad judgment when his sexually explicit text communications with teenage congressional pages led to his abrupt resignation. As outlined in Chapter 3, behavior crosses the line when it’s threatening, sexual, and racial or based on some other protected characteristic. For some reason, however, people continue to think that e-mail at work is private; it’s not. The company owns its own mail system and has a right to access it at any time. With regard to your own behavior, assume that your boss or a judge is reading your e-mail. Remember: the “e”

in “e-mail” stands for evidence.

If someone is e-mailing, instant messaging, or text messaging you inappropriately, you need to ask that person to stop, using one of the techniques described in the next chapter, or complain to HR or your manager using one of the techniques

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discussed in Chapter 16, if the skills in the next chapter fail. As a general rule, it’s always best to first try to talk to the person directly before going to your manager or HR.

he said/she said: ending the war of the sexes

In her new memoir,
Tough Choices
, Carly Fiorina, the expelled CEO of Hewlett-Packard—and the first female head of a
For-
tune
20 company—explains that she prided herself at succeeding in a man’s world without whining about sexism. On her first day at HP, she proclaimed, “The glass ceiling doesn’t exist.” Now? Not so much . . .

“I think somehow men understand other men’s need for respect differently than they understand it for a woman,” Fiorina told Lesley Stahl on
60 Minutes
. The male-dominated board’s handling of her exit was “heartless in some ways and disrespectful in other ways,” she said. “Maybe they took great pleasure in seeing me beat up publicly for weeks and weeks.

“In the chat rooms around Silicon Valley, from the time I arrived until long after I left HP, I was routinely referred to as either a ‘bimbo’ or a ‘bitch,’” she writes. “Too soft or too hard, and presumptuous, besides.” She adds, “I watched with interest as male CEOs fired people and were hailed as ‘decisive.’

I was labeled ‘vindictive.’” She reels off things that offended her: The editor of
BusinessWeek
asked her if she was wearing an Armani suit. She felt that adjectives such as “flash,” “glamorous,” and “diamond-studded” were meant to make her seem superficial. Rarely, she argues, are male executives’ styles examined in such depth.

Stories referred to her by her first name. There was “painful commentary” that she’d chosen not to have children because she was “too ambitious.” (Even though, Fiorina actually had

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two children.) “When I finally reached the top, after striving my entire career to be judged by results and accomplishments,”

she concludes, “the coverage of my gender, my appearance, and the perceptions of my personality would vastly outweigh anything else.”

The latest entrant into the gender wars, Columbia Business School, has introduced a new program that teaches the importance of a more empathetic and sensitive leadership style in global business. Students learn how to read facial expressions, body language, and posture, and get coaching on their brain’s

“mirror neurons”—how what they’re thinking and feeling can affect others. “This less autocratic leadership style draws on capabilities in which women are as good as men,” says Michael Morris, a professor of psychology and management, who is running the business school’s new program.

Daniel Goleman, whose new book
Social Intelligence
is being taught in the program, points out that “while women are, in general, better at reading emotions, men tend to be better at managing them during crises. Women tend to be more sophisticated in reading social interactions but also tend to ruminate more when things go wrong.”

While some might quibble with this broad statement, you, as a worker, may need to strengthen your own communication skills in order to deal skillfully with the opposite sex. Again, it’s not a matter of right or wrong but of changing the one person we do have control over: ourselves. We can learn how to be flexible with our own communication styles.

One of my clients learned the hard way that the war of the sexes still rages in the workplace. Coached by a mentor at her old law firm to be direct with support staff, she endeavored to do that at a new firm. She was brief, clear, and direct. It failed miserably. Although the terms
law firm
and
soft culture
often don’t belong in the same sentence, my coaching client didn’t

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recognize that the new firm did, indeed, have a much softer culture. Consequently, the support staff found her approach to be nothing more than condescending and abrupt antics. She—as did Fiorina—had run smack into the old gender stereotype: men can be rewarded for hard-charging and direct, even angry behavior, but women may be penalized for the same tactics. Instead of being applauded, they’re called bitches. I had to inform my client of the sad truth that women’s styles are still examined differently. Women who fail in male-dominated workplaces leave a trail behind them: “We tried hiring a woman but it didn’t work out.” You rarely hear,