When former attorney and Generation Xer Bruce Tulgan wrote Managing Generation X: How to Bring Out the Best in Young Talent, he dispelled a common myth about his peers. The stereotype says that Gen Xers are nothing but slackers who don't put any effort into their careers, and who expect much of everything for little, if any, effort. Tulgan found that wasn't the case.

In the wake of Tulgan's first book, his became a strong voice of support for Gen Xers everywhere. He followed up with other successful books, such as Work This Way: How 1,000 Young People Designed Their Careers in the New Workplace -- And How You Can, Too.

Tulgan shares some insights into the changes we can all expect in the next generation -- and beyond.

Q: How did you come to write Managing Generation X?

A: After law school and the bar exam, I went to work at a Wall Street law firm in the fall of 1992. I was struck by the fact that, with few exceptions, the more senior lawyers in the firm didn't have a clue about how to manage people my age.

And I was hearing similar stories from many of my peers outside the law firm, as well. Whether they were in law, medicine, banking, advertising, engineering, insurance, politics, government, marketing, sales, in corporate America or the nonprofit sector, most of the young people with whom I was speaking were unhappy in their jobs.

Q: And that lead you to write the book, then?

A: I began to wonder about the relationship between all of this discontent and the widespread claims being made about my generation in the media. Is it true what they say about Generation X? Are Xers in too much of a hurry for success? Not willing to pay our dues? Are we really the slackers we are made out to be in popular culture?

Q: And what did you discover by asking those questions?

A: Somehow, these questions didn't fit what I knew about the needs and expectations of people my age. Those expressing such displeasure with their jobs were not slackers at all. I knew them to be intelligent, creative, hard-working individuals -- people who had always thrived on challenge and opportunities to succeed.

I bought a laptop computer and I began scheduling interviews with "star Xers" experiencing management relationships in a wide range of fields.

Many of my interviewees hold advanced degrees. All of them are college graduates. Most of them have had more than one job. I promised anonymity to the interviewees and all of the employers they discussed, in order to invite the most frank and open responses possible.

Q: Once the book was published, what was the overall reaction to its subject matter?

A: After the publication of my first book, we started getting some attention from the news media, which led to speaking engagements, and we have been in the "workforce of the future" business ever since.

Q: What was the reaction of the people who attended your speeches?

A: As I was giving speeches intended for people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, I could usually see a handful of people closer to my own age in the audience. That made me a little nervous because I was making a living as a spokesperson for our generation. I was afraid some of these Xers were going to raise their hands and say, "Hey, I'm 25 and you're [wrong]." But they didn't.

Instead, they started coming up to me after I was done speaking and saying stuff like, "Hey, I'm 25 and you just described my life," or, "That's exactly where I am coming from," or, "I've had a lot of those experiences too."

They also would come up to me and ask for my advice about how they should manage their careers. At first, the best I could do was commiserate with them about how tough it is to be starting a career in today's economy.

We talked about the disappearance of the old-fashioned workplace bargain -- where you would pay your dues and climb the ladder and have job security and then retire with a pension. We talked about how so many people our age are stuck in temp jobs or retail jobs or otherwise underemployed, and how we all have friends who have had to move back with their parents for a while after college.

We talked about all the people our age who do have jobs and how they have to prove themselves every single day just to stay afloat. We had a lot to talk about.

Q: What was the result of having these conversations with all of these Xers?

A: These conversations inspired me to refocus my research. I started asking my interviewees less about how they are being managed and more about how they are managing themselves. What strategies are working for people our age out there in the real world?

Q: What do you believe are the forces that are currently impacting Generation Xers?

A: Our careers are not anchored to any one job or any one company or any one industry. We are moving around a lot, from one new experience to the other, building ourselves with each new experience, creating a new kind of security and success from within ourselves.

While practically all of us are discovering that the old career paths are washed out, many are finding new career paths that are leading us on exciting new journeys. I hope that reading about those journeys will inspire you and give you some great ideas about how to design your own.

Q: You've totally blown apart the stigma of Gen Xers being the slacker generation. When you first began busting up those long-held myths, was there a lot of unexpected challenge from older managers or corporate types? How hard was it to convince them that their view was skewed and incorrect, according to your findings?

A: The irony is that today's young workers who are in such great demand are the very same Xers whom older managers have decried in survey after survey as disloyal "slackers" with short attention spans who don't want to be told what to do and demand immediate gratification.

Q: In Work This Way, you tell readers, among other things, to create their own opportunities to learn -- including taking control of their college experience. Briefly explain to our readers what you mean by this -- how can they maximize this college experience to their benefit?

A: If you are a student, you need to figure out what you love to learn and then take more responsibility for getting the education you want and need out of college. Know the score up front about the real world that awaits you. Use college to build the knowledge, relationships, experiences and behaviors which will help you survive and succeed.

Take control of your own college experience.

Q: What do you mean by "take control"?

A: Try to design your own major or shape your own unique curriculum within an established major. Redesign your classes so that you can emphasize the aspects that interest you the most -- study your favorite parts disproportionately and choose your papers, projects, and presentations to focus on what you want to learn.

Treat the hard parts of any class like push-ups or sit-ups -- use them to exercise your brain and make it stronger. Design your own self-study course. Come up with books to read, papers to write, a research assignment and go sell a professor on taking responsibility for supervising you and ensuring you get proper course credit.

Use homework to practice time management. Use tests to practice performing under pressure. Use research assignments to explore subjects that interest you. Use papers to practice your written communication skills. Use class discussion to listen carefully and practice making brief, precise comments. Use class presentations to practice speaking in front of a group.

Q: What other things do you recommend for students?

A: Turn college life into a learning lab. Use the student loan process to learn about credit and financial management. Use organizations, clubs, sports and other activities to practice interpersonal skills, teamwork, and leadership. Use dorm life to learn how to live in close quarters with other people. Use partying to learn how to work a crowd or, maybe, to get a little crazy.

Seek part-time jobs during school, summer jobs, and internships which will expose you to real world situations and give you an up-close preview of some of the fields you may be interested in. While there, learn new skills, meet people who can help you in the future, and complete tangible products which you can point to later as proof of your ability to add value.

Q: What can high scalers and career counsellors do to prepare for the students' plunge into this strange sea of opportunity?

A: In a nutshell, the key to success in the new economy is to be a sole proprietor of your skills and abilities -- no matter where you work or what you do, you are in business for yourself. There are five key strategies we've identified that will help you do that.

First, be a voracious learner by turning every experience into an opportunity to build skills, knowledge, and wisdom that you can sell. You have to keep building skills, knowledge and wisdom faster than they become obsolete. But you also have to be strategic about what you learn.

Second, focus on relationships with individuals and always approach relationships with people in terms of what you have to offer, not what you may need or want.

Third, be an entrepreneur wherever you go, no matter what you do. That means identify opportunities to add value wherever you can find them and sell your way into those challenges. Identify and solve problems. Invent or improve products and services. Deliver products faster, smarter, better, or cheaper.

Fourth, set clear priorities in your working life and your personal life -- health, exercise, family, fun -- and live by them no matter what anyone says.

Fifth, establish clear long-term goals, but not because they will have anything to do with where you end up in the long term. Long-term goals are only valuable if they help you make good decisions right now and make the best use of your time every day. But it's just as important to monitor every day the feedback you are getting from the world around you and always be ready to stop, revise your plans, adjust your position, and start moving in a new direction.

Q: If you were standing in a room full of high schoolers, their teachers and counsellors right now, and if you had five short minutes to make your most important point to the audience, what would you tell them? What would you want them to remember most once they left your presentation?

A: Don't be afraid to fail. Fail, fail, fail. That is the best thing you can learn how to do. If you are not afraid to fail, you have a chance to succeed. You have to learn to fail and get up and get right back to the task at hand.

Odds are in your favor. If you have one per cent chance of success, then you should hurry up and fail as much and as fast as you can. When you get to the 97th failure, you can think, "Wow. This is great. I'm almost done failing. I just have to fail a 98th time and a 99th time and then I'm bound to succeed." If failure doesn't frighten you or discourage you, you will succeed.

Net Sites

RainmakerThinking

Bruce Tulgan's consulting company

http://www.rainmakerthinking.com

Search Career Pro News.com          Search WWW