Competency and Performance Solutions

The following article, by Glynis Ross-Munro, was published in the Summer 2009 edition of The Woman Advocate, Vol. 14, No. 4,by the American Bar Association. Copyright is shared with the author.

Glynis is President of Competency and Performance Solutions, a Tampa-based consultancy that assists firms with generational differences, collaborative thinking skills, culture and inclusiveness. She has been married to a lawyer for 33 years.

The success of a legal team depends on collaboration and teamwork. In the current workplace, that means solid communication between four generations of professional and support staff, clients, business partners, witnesses and others. This is no easy task. Continue reading »

You’re dealing with a client, co-worker, outsource project team member or supplier, and need to guess more about his/her thought style to work more effectively together.

You can guess a client’s or remote colleague’s generation from their writing, and give them appropriate service or packaged data.

Mature/Traditional: No emoticons. The writer thinks smiley faces are unprofessional and signs of lazy writing. You’ll tend to see longer, more complex sentences, and spelling is really good. Paragraphing is usually excellent, with careful punctuation. Continue reading »

Research shows that even young, highly-educated and assertive women do not ask for what they want, or know how to maneuver their way through systems that penalize them for asking.

The cost, to both women and organizations, is high.

Research proves that when women do ask for what they want, they do not do so as clearly, quickly or as often as men do. GenX and GenY women are following in the footsteps of their Boomer and Traditional predecessors in this pattern.

Women also tend to think that what is offered (“what is on the table”) is all that is available. Men draw on their socialization (which includes things like being taught how to slip the Maitre d’ a few bucks for a better table) and assume that their wants and needs might be met if they speak up, irrespective of what seems to be on offer.

Organizations suffer. Their valuable women work and wait for rewards or options, then one day, *poof*! They’re working for your competitor or running their own small business, and you’re saying “why didn’t she TELL me she wanted that position, the same salary as John, that title, a new computer screen, a more flexible schedule, a space heater? It would have cost so little … a tiny fraction of what this is costing us now!”
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These days, Baby Boomer managers often complain about their GenY employees (“kids these days…”)

But maybe Boomers should worry less about GenY (described by Marcus Buckingham as the generation who got prizes for coming 8th in a race). Some Boomers still need to learn that you can’t win against GenX if you use the old-fashioned methods of business power broking.

There are still a lot of Boomer and Traditional managers who have days of thinking “I’ll do it my way, now I am the boss”, forgetting that the rules of the business game have changed … forever.

Deep in the cubicles of the corporate jungles there is an army, trained to deal with their parents’ generation. One result is that the Boomer who thinks in terms of “my way or the highway” soon finds out that this only works if the person who is going to hit the highway is the Boomer him/herself.
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