Management Messes: Increasing Stupidity
by Miki Saxon
Last month I wrote a post at Leadership Turn on the incredible stupidity executives have exhibited by focusing on the Boomers and Gen Y, while ignoring the depth of talent available to them in Gen X.
Based on the comments I really hit a nerve.
A few days ago I received an invitation to review a new book. I’m not accepting it, so I want to make it clear that I have no idea whether it has value or not—this is not a book review.
But the fact that it was written, whether it’s good or not, proves to me that the stupidity I referred to previously is worse than I thought.
The book is “Millennials Into Leadership: The Ultimate Guide for GenYs Aspiring to Be Effective, Respected Young Leaders at Work.”
I don’t disagree that companies are prone to throwing people into management roles and expecting them to swim, but I also don’t believe that reading a couple of books takes the place of a decade or more of experience even when that experience isn’t coupled with the kind of development that companies should do.
I’ve worked with thousands of managers at all stages of their careers and the majority all say the same thing.
Few talk about having a mentor or working for extraordinary managers; most say they learned what not to do working for poor managers and did the opposite when they were promoted—they learned by doing.
Leadership/managing isn’t at it’s best as a DIY function. Books can discuss the tools and even describe how to use them, but that is a far cry from doing it.
I don’t like waste and that is exactly what is happening.
Current management wasted the Gen X resource and rather than admit the error and reclaim the resource they look to a new, larger generation to come to the rescue, while books such as this make that generation believe they are ready to do it.
Now is the time to change that pattern. As the economy turns around business can turn around their attitude and recognize the need to utilize their Gen X resources and develop Gen Y beyond what they will find in popular books.
Image credit: HikingArtist.com on flickr
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