Inspired Manager

“A second marriage is the triumph of optimism over experience.”
-Samuel Johnson


For any of us who manage in today’s workplace, the home of do-more-with-less, this paradigm recurs again and again as we revisit systems, staffing and situations to find more efficiency. Many times with the same players or constraints. Optimistically looking for some little thing that will be the game-changer. In a sense it is like a second marriage. What is different that will create different results?

I have been an agent of change lately, and have found myself thrust into situations where a difference needs to be made in the context of groups or organizations that have a lot going for them but need to either get things done better or to get more things done. It is challenging to look at a situation and come up with something that can be that game-changer, that shift of context that makes things work better. There was an accounting manager in the Paris office of one of the firms I worked for that was famous for throwing her hands into the air and authoritatively stating “It cannot be done!”. I was the dumb guy on the other side of the pond trying to figure out how to get it done somehow. There has to be a difference. You can’t just have optimism, or experience. You do need both to innovate successfully.

In this past Sunday’s New York Times, I came across an article on Generation Y, on this very subject. Judith Warner’s piece in The Way We Live Now on The Why-Worry Generation. Say what you want about that generation, they are very much a part of our workforce, and are changing the face of it. Any capable manager needs to know what they need, how they show up, what motivates them and how to communicate with them. There are constraints. The general rule is to start with heart, by focusing on creating good relationships based in genuine interest. According to the author, you have to be careful, because people in that generation are confident, think they have it all nailed, think they have the perfect resume, don’t take criticism well and are convinced they have what it takes for future success.

Optimism.

“They’re extraordinarily optimistic that life will work out for them,” Jeffrey Jensen Arnett of Clark University is quoted in the article.

This is a fabulous affirmation for those of us who are their parents, that maybe we did something right.

“These emerging adults may be off-putting to a worried 40-something — their sense of entitlement and their lack of humility are somewhat hard to take — but they’re not necessarily maladapted. On the contrary, with their seemingly inexhaustible well of positive self-regard, their refusal to have their horizons be defined by the limitations of our era, they just may bear witness to the precise sort of resilience that all parents, educators and pop psychologists now say they view as proof of a successful upbringing.“

She goes on to say that the unease of some of the significant social issues that shaped that generation might have influenced that optimism. See? Optimism and experience.

There is a way to innovate, but it will take optimism and experience. We can’t for a minute hope that just wishing will make it so. We need to look the facts in the face and figure out how to proceed in the light of that glaring reality. Then add the optimism.

So, in one of my conversations today, I was discussing a new chain of command for someone. She was not buying what I was selling. I had the patter down, all the right business reasons. And then when I stopped talking, I could see her reacting and then being honest about her own experience (and why she was probably right and I probably not so much, but she would hold off on judgment for the moment).

I know from experience that if we show her some results in the short term that we can create a sense of possibility for her that things could be better.

And I’m optimistic.