I was looking at the meta tag cloud on my blog site today when I was struck by this thought:
What if we could capture key words from our live conversations for a week and then view them in aggregate?
And what if we could create a tag cloud from those words — much the same way we do on web sites – where each word’s size is determined by the number of times used? What words would stand out? Would we see an abundance of positive, upbuilding leadership words or would we instead find that our live conversations are filled with words that we would rather reduce such as problem, don’t, can’t, policy, won’t, why… Conversely, which words would be conspicuously absent?
What a great exercise it would be to take note of these words for a week and then compare the results to our stated personal brand.
Will you explain how leadership will work for the very older generation to impact the younger generation facing the difficult job future? They will face a situation that we did not have to deal with when we made our decisions for our future.
What a great question! It’s true, the younger generation is facing a very different situation than loyalists or baby boomers – and they will handle things differently than previous generations as well. That’s what we all have to get used to. Gen X’ers and Y’s have seen their parents suffer through lay offs and plant closures and this makes them approach jobs with a get-what-you-can-quickly approach. Where their parents and grandparents put up with salary freezes and lay offs, these kids won’t. They’ll move elsewhere for 50 cents more per hour or for the promise of a flexible work schedule that allows them to exercise more control over work-life balance.
We older folks (can’t believe I just put myself in THAT category) can help by sharing our reasoning skills. Show them how to analyze their work situation without throwing our values at them.
Hope that helps!
–Susan.