GenXmanager: Leadership for the Generation X Manager

You can find business lessons in the most unlikely places.

This past week, two twenty-somethings armed with a video camera caused a stir. James O’Keefe III and Hanna Giles (with the help of Biggovernment.com and Fox News) released a series of videos of Acorn employees giving unseemly tax advice . These videos promptly motivated Congress to defund the community action organization. I’m not going to get into the politics but what I will do is share what I believe is an important lesson for business.

What if customers came into your organization armed with hidden cameras to capture their experience? What if they then posted it on YouTube, blogged about it, shared it on Facebook with their 400 friends, tweeted about it, and posted still photos of the interaction on Flickr?

Are you confident that the results would be positive? Make certain that your employees (and you) act with the utmost integrity and are helpful and friendly to all customers. The days of an angry customer simply telling his or her friends about a bad customer service experience are over. Now that same customer can shout from the rooftops so to speak and alert thousands (if not millions). The megaphone is firmly in the hands of your customers.

Here are a few examples of customers broadcasting issues and complaints via social media:

Dell Hell
Popular blogger has an issue with Dell…so he blogs about it

Kryptonite bike locks
A blogger picks a Kryptonite bike lock with a simple Bic pen.

United Airlines breaks guitar
Musician David Carol writes a song when United Airlines broke one of his guitars. He posted on YouTube and the video now has over 5 million views.

If by chance you are ‘Acorned’ what should you do? Here is a great step-by-step guide from brandseye.com titled 10 Rules to Recover from and Online Brand Attack.

In August the Desi Family went to Washington, D.C. to visit the museums, the zoo, and to enjoy our nation’s capital. On the Metro I saw the following advertisement from Intel:

 Perhaps it is the Gen X’er in me but I’m a huge fan of telecommuting. I think I can get more “heads down” work done at Panera Bread than anywhere else. My personal philosophy is, if the work gets done on-time, on-budget, and in good quality, then where the work gets done is inconsequential.

I remember in the mid-1990s when telecommuting was just getting started I predicted that one-third to one-half of the American workforce would be telecommuting in ten years time. I was wrong. I guess I’m not as good a futurist as Ray Kurzweil.

I know that some companies have telecommuting policies but if telecommuting were really taking hold, traffic on our nation’s highways would be on the decline and I’d personally know many more people who typically “work from home”. I consulted for 10+ years and a few of my clients had telecommuting policies but individual managers would not let their employees telecommute.

I love the quote from IT security guru Kevin Beaver commenting on telecommuting while traveling into Atlanta,

“…all the traffic and filth in the air reminded me of telecommuting. Where the heck are all the telecommuters? It seems like everyone who has a job is driving into work. Why!!?? It’s 2009 for crying out loud.”

I found an interesting blog post on The Oil Drum that does an excellent job of detailing the pros and cons of telework. I won’t go through benefits and challenges here because they are too vast to list but urge you to take a look. The benefits are compelling and I believe significantly outweigh the challenges.

Finally, a 2005 government report regarding telework concluded that:

“Numerous research studies tout the benefits of telework, and support the notion that telework serves to satisfy individual, organizational, and global objectives. The positive impact telework can have on an employee’s reduced commuting time, effort, and costs; increased productivity; and increased control over the delicate act of balancing work and personal responsibilities is tremendous. Benefits to the organization, including the increased ability to recruit and retain valuable employees, gain higher productivity, and experience boosted morale, are clearly documented. Reduced commuting serves to benefit the environment by fewer pollutants being dispersed into the air, and less wear and tear to roads and vehicles.”

“In summary, the prevalence of telework continues to grow and progress in the Federal Government with over 140,000 eligible Federal employees (19% of the total workforce) taking advantage of the opportunity to work from alternative worksites. Telework is an important human capital tool, presenting agencies with significant opportunities for increased organizational effectiveness. For those Federal agencies maximizing its application, telework can reap substantial benefits when integrated into the routine business practices of the organization.”

I’m 100% behind telecommuting but I wonder if it will truly become a universally acceptable way to work?