Tripod Interview: Bruce Tulgan

<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" background="../../../work/interviews/img/www_subdomain/interviewbg.gif" link="#0000FF" vlink="#663399"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td valign="TOP" align="CENTER" width="178">  <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="170"> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/logo-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/logo.gif" alt="Tripod Map" border="0" height="58" width="170" ismap></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/universal-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/universal.gif" alt="Member Services Map" width="170" height="45" border="0" ismap></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/zones-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/zones.gif" alt="Zone Map" width="170" height="69" border="0" ismap></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/pods-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/pods.gif" alt="Pod Map" width="170" height="18" border="0" ismap></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="CENTER" valign="TOP" width="170" bgcolor="#999966"> <form name="pod_list"> <select name="pod_name" onchange="self.top.podRedirect(this.options[this.selectedIndex].value);"> <option value="">What's Your Interest?</option> <option value="Activism">Activism</option> <option value="Animation%20Central">Animation & Cartoons</option> <option value="Crafty">Arts & Crafts</option> <option value="Beer%20Lovers">Beer</option> <option value="BookTalk">Books/Reading</option> <option value="Carburetor%20Junction">Cars</option> <option value="TechBits">Computers</option> <option value="Mac%20Computing">Computers (Macintosh)</option> <option value="PC%20User">Computers (PC)</option> <option value="Cooking%20Capers">Cooking</option> <option value="Education">Education</option> <option value="Mod">Fashion & Style</option> <option value="Freebies">Freebies</option> <option value="Gamesta'">Games</option> <option value="Genealogy">Genealogy</option> <option value="Holiday">Holidays</option> <option value="Alternative%20Health">Holistic Medicine</option> <option value="Funny%20Bone">Humor</option> <option value="Film%20Buffs">Movies</option> <option value="Alt.Music">Music (Alternative)</option> <option value="Musicology">Music (General)</option> <option value="Critters">Pets</option> <option value="Photography">Photography</option> <option value="Christian%20Fellowship">Religion (Christianity)</option> <option value="Stone%20Circle">Religion (Earth)</option> <option value="Romantic">Romance</option> <option value="Natural%20Science">Science (Natural)</option> <option value="Science%20Fiction">Science Fiction</option> <option value="Smallbiz">Small Business</option> <option value="Spirituality">Spirituality</option> <option value="Extreme%20Sports">Sports (Extreme)</option> <option value="Sports%20Fans">Sports (General)</option> <option value="Sweet%20Tooth">Sweet Confections</option> <option value="TV%20Lounge">Television</option> <option value="Second-Hand">Thrift</option> <option value="Travel">Travel</option> <option value="PageSlave">Web Design</option> <option value="X-Squared">Women's Issues</option> <option value="Writers'%20Block">Writing</option> <option value="Zine">Zines</option> </select> </form> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> <td valign="TOP"><base target="_top"> <basefont size="3"> <form name="navbar"> <table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" align="RIGHT"> <tr> <td valign="MIDDLE" align="MIDDLE"> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/work_money.html" target="_top"></a></td> <td valign="MIDDLE" align="MIDDLE"> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/work_money/index-html/anchor_toc.html" target="_top"></a></td> <td valign="TOP" align="RIGHT"> <select name="pod_name" onchange="self.top.podRedirect(this.options[this.selectedIndex].value)"> <option value="">Related Pods</option> <option value="Freebies">Freebies</option> <option value="MacComputing">Mac Computing</option> <option value="PC%20User">PC User</option> <option value="Second-Hand">Second-Hand</option> <option value="Smallbiz">SmallBiz</option> <option value="Travel">Travel</option> </select></td> </tr> </table> </form> <br clear="ALL">  <p> <p> <ul> <blockquote> <p> <br> <center><img src="../../../work/interviews/img/www_subdomain/interview.gif" width="328" height="122"></center> <p> <font size="+2">Bruce Tulgan</font><br> <font size="-1">interviewed by Mike Agger on July 11, 1996</font><p> <hr> <img src="../../../work/interviews/img/www_subdomain/real_ico.gif" border="0" align="left" width="32" height="27"> Look for this icon and listen to James Howard in Real Audio! If you haven't downloaded the free Real Audio 2.0 player yet, hurry on over to Progressive Networks and hear what you've been missing. <br> <hr align="LEFT" size="4" width="300"> <br> <img align="RIGHT" src="../../../work/interviews/img/www_subdomain/j_howard.gif" width="98" height="131"> <font size="+2">B</font>ruce Tulgan is the author of "Managing Generation X" and the President of Rainmaker, a consulting firm that specializes in teaching organizations how to retain and motivate young talent. Tripod recently spoke with Bruce about the changing workplace bargain, and what young people can do help themselves be managed be more effectively. <p> <hr align="LEFT" size="4" width="300"> <p> <b>Tripod: Why did you write this book? How are smart, motivated young people of today different than smart, motivated young people of any other generation?</b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> What makes this generation's career challenge different is that we are starting our careers in the wake of downsizing, reengineering, and restructuring. The post World War II workplace bargain is evaporating. It used to be that most Americans expected that they would go to a company, pay their dues, move up the ladder, and eventually retire. That's where the gold watch clich� comes from and this was a fairly reasonable expectation for Americans for a long period of time. <p> <hr align="LEFT" size="4" width="300"> <img align="RIGHT" src="../../../work/interviews/img/www_subdomain/flipmic.gif" width="77" height="92"> <font size="+2">"The post World War II workplace bargain is evaporating."<br clear="ALL"></font> <hr align="LEFT" size="4" width="300"> <p> <b>Tripod: As a young person I hear that argument a lot. How does it translate into real world workplace concerns?</b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> A common attitude among older generation managers who were in their twenties just twenty years ago is one of: "Hey, I was a disgruntled twenty-something not too long ago myself and I wised up in the eighties." There is a total lack of recognition that things are fundamentally different. Businesses no longer offer the promises they use to offer. Older managers can't expect the same manner of dues paying and loyalty. That isn't to say that there isn't room for a new kind of workplace bargain. It's just not fair to withdraw the consideration of a bargain and then expect the other side to keep up their end of the bargain. <p> <b>Tripod: How is loyalty promoted without that dues paying structure?</b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> If employees can't count on the long term rewards that dues paying implies, then they need to expect a daily reward. That doesn't mean a daily paycheck or a daily increase in pay, but it might mean day-to-day support of their effort to build a new kind of career security within themselves, to meet new people, and to face new creative challenges. <p> <b>Tripod: How can young employees recognize that they are being mismanaged?</b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> Young people are extremely precise in identifying what's wrong with their management. For example, the age-old employee complaint is of an abusive manager, someone who yells at you or treats you without respect. This generation has been raised on a victim and wellness discourse in the media. We know about abuse, so we are less likely to respond to a manager's abuse by feeling like we must have done something wrong. We are much more likely to psychoanalyze the manager and think that this person has problems or suffers from some sort of a syndrome, like being the school yard bully. <p> Another difference for this generation is that there is no reason to take the abuse. It used to be that you had to grin and bear it because you were climbing the ladder. That's one reason Generation X-er's, if you'll excuse the label, respond differently to abuse because the stakes are not as high. If you refuse to accept that kind of abuse, you are no longer risking a long term job, you're just risking this particular job that you have today. <p> <hr align="RIGHT" size="4"> <img src="../../../work/interviews/img/www_subdomain/real_ico.gif" border="0" width="32" height="27">Ever wonder where the term "Magic Cookies" came from? Listen to James Howard's <a href="../../../www_subdomain/work/interviews/howard1-ram.html">surprising answer</a> in RealAudio! <hr align="RIGHT" size="4"> <p> <b>Tripod: You discuss in your book that one of the biggest issues between management and young employees is the control of their own time. Could you talk more about this?</b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> I think today's emerging work force is less tolerant of being micromanaged. Why? Most of us grew up spending a fair amount of time alone and learned to be pretty independent problem solvers. So we don't want to be micromanaged. In fact, we can't bear it. At the same time, young employees do need to have clear guidance on what needs to be done. In fact, the key to effective delegation of responsibility from a manager to any worker is clear parameters, concrete goals and deadlines. When it comes to mismanagement of time, managers often display a total insensitivity to the fact that most young people really can't see a good reason why they shouldn't set their own schedules as long as they accomplish goals in the deadlines that are set. <p> <b>Tripod: Why are older managers resistant to the idea of letting employees manage their own time?</b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> Many of them, but not all of them are still functioning in the workplace of the past and they are thinking of the rules that govern the workforce of the past. Just like it used to be that you came to a company, paid your dues, and climbed the ladder, it used to be that you came to work during certain hours of the day and that was that. Flex-time and telecommuting and these other recent phenomena that are made possible partly by modes of production changing, partly by technology and partly by the changing disposition of the workplace. More forward thinking managers are realizing these are beneficial to productivity of a company, but many managers resist it just like many people resist change. <p> <b>Tripod: What do you say to young people who are looking for jobs when they want to find a management structure that will foster them?</b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> The book that I am writing right now is called Yourself, Inc. and it tells you how to survive in the post job security era. I think there are two things to say about this, one is "Look there are going to be all kinds of concrete strategies to manage the process once you're in a company, but overall you need to take a giant step back and realize that no one is going to be responsible for your success and security." That may be true in one degree or another, but these days you can no longer hitch your wagon to someone else's star. So getting that first big job is barely a step in the right direction. Getting that second big job or that third big job, you start to say "Hey, where is the continuity in my career?" The answer is: it's right inside you. <p> Wherever you are and whatever you do, you need to build a career within yourself, so that changing jobs doesn't mean your career is being derailed, it means it's moving forward. If you go home at night and you're creating a side business that's not necessarily separate from your job in a company, that's just part of "Yourself, Inc." Take personal responsibility for your learning process, for the relationships you're building, for the creative challenges you are trying to get into your corner and for the effort to balance your life. You need to make a concrete plan and you need to follow it. <p> <hr align="RIGHT" size="4" width="300"> <img align="LEFT" src="../../../work/interviews/img/www_subdomain/flipmic.gif" width="77" height="92"> <p> <font size="+2">"So getting that first big job is barely a step in the right direction."<br clear="ALL"></font> <hr align="RIGHT" size="4" width="300"> <p> <b>Tripod: How would one go about making a concrete plan?</b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> You need to set goals and you need to realize that getting a job doesn't mean that you're done, in fact all that means is that your employer is just one client of your added value, probably your principal client. <p> <b>Tripod: What are the main skills you need to be adding to "Yourself, Inc."?</b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> That depends on what you want to do. Of course, having technological sophistication is very important. Being computer literate and being comfortable online is important. The wonderful thing about our generation is that our generation is being shaped by the technology that will someday rule the workplace. One of the most important things to survive in the 21st century is going to be to think and learn and communicate in this tidal wave of information. That's hard for many people, but for most people of our generation, a facility with information comes naturally. <p> <b>Tripod: How do young people's facility with information transform their working style?</b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> Older people feel that people our age have short attention spans, they can't focus. They don't understand how we communicate. We do not digest information in the same way they do. This generation learned to think and communicate and increasing flow of information from an increasing number of sources. Where as the older generation came of age in an information environment that supplied you with a fairly slow stream of messages from a fairly narrow group of sources. <p> Obviously, you process information differently when there is information everywhere. People of our generation have developed a style of information consumption that is appropriate to the incredible amount that is out there. If you think about it, there is more information produced on almost any subject in a given week than any human could digest in a lifetime. In an information environment like that, you have to be a very efficacious learner, you must have coping mechanisms. <p> <b>Tripod: Can you give me an example?</b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> Someone who is 50 years old might open Wired magazine and say "Are there words on this page? What is that?" Or, the television might just seem like noise. You might walk into the apartment of a 25 year old and find that person juggling two calls with call waiting, flipping around on the TV with a remote control, and reading a magazine. <p> <hr align="LEFT" size="4" width="300"> <img align="RIGHT" src="../../../work/interviews/img/www_subdomain/flipmic.gif" width="77" height="92"> <p> <font size="+2">"We don't want our information on an "as-needed" basis." <br clear="ALL"></font> <hr align="LEFT" size="4" width="300"> <p> <b>Tripod: And what does it mean for the workplace? </b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> We don't want our information on an "as-needed" basis. We like to have all the information, a complete set of references from which we can pick and choose, because that is how we learn. <p> <b>Tripod: You discuss the Top Ten List as a paradigm for how young people like to receive information. I was wondering if you could supply a Top Ten List for how young people can succeed in their careers.</b> <p> <b>Tulgan:</b> Well, I'll try.<p> <ol> <li> Look well past that first job and realize there is a continuous career and it resides in yourself.</li> <li>Take responsibility for your own success and security. </li> <li>Remember that you have as much value to offer managers as they have to offer you. </li> <li>Do not tolerate poor managers. </li> <li>Make sure that you receive credit and feedback for your work. </li> <li>Do not abdicate responsibility for your learning agenda. </li> <li>Seek out relationships that will endure beyond your tenure in a company. </li> <li>Make sure you have a balanced and healthy life. </li> <li>Become the master of your own time. </li> <li>Have a plan. 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