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Product Description:
We think we know the 40 million Gen X workers and the Boomer decision makers creating our team-based organizations. But with the first empirical data of their kind, the authors of this surprising and controversial look at today's reality separate fact from fiction about how to create high-performing teams that build on the values each generation brings to the workplace: authentic teams that celebrate the individual and strengthen collaboration and commitment without sacrificing the collective. BRIDGING THE BOOMER-XER GAP explodes the myth of Gen Xers as slackers, loners, and self-absorbed job-shifters and exposes the truth about how the Boomers leading today's organizations can build a team-based business landscape for the 21st century. Armed with fascinating evidence culled from nearly 400 surveys from such organizations as Boeing Aircraft, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Champion Mortgage, the authors offer an effective new model for managing the integration of Boomers and Xers for maximum productivity and job satisfaction. They identify the values that unite and divide the generations, and translate their research into management strategies accommodating these differences in the areas most critical to effective teamwork--empowering others vs. self-empowerment, conflict resolution vs. conflict management, autonomy vs. interdependence. BRIDGING THE BOOMER-XER GAP presents a step-by-step guide to work team development, detailing specific techniques to help both Gen Xers and Boomers navigate successfully through the process. | | | | |
Average Rating : 
Rating : - A Good Read!
The three authors - consultant Hank Karp, organizational development executive Connie Fuller and academic Danilo Sirias - admit they began their project with some hypotheses about the differences between Boomers and Xers. One of the most powerfully suggestive was the theory that Xers are much more individualistic than Boomers, which has the potential to create some worrisome issues for managers. Although their statistical analysis found some support for this notion, it also revealed, paradoxically, that Xers are real team players, perhaps even more so than Boomers. The authors do their best to write around that awkward fact, but the fact stubbornly remains: when it comes to working on teams, only seemingly subtle differences separate Boomers and Xers. The book offers a lot of reliable, proven tips about team management, so it is worthwhile. However, its credibility is somewhat damaged by the authors' repeated references to differences and gaps whose existence seems pretty minimal, even in the eyes of their own research. While that may make this seem like a curious book about a solution to an elusive problem, we recommend it to those who are also pursuing solid, general team management guidance.
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