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The Staff Mosaic—Working Together 25
mentioned concept took fewer than the 140-character limit in shar-
ing an idea through common instant-message vehicles, learning
how to succeed as a manager in your new environment requires
a bit more clarification and explanation. The anecdotes, theories,
and Discovery Lessons ahead provide a framework for helping you
manage and measure your departmental community successfully.
Who Are the Workers in
Today’s Workforce?
Workers today come in four varieties (sounds like advertising,
doesn’t it?):
•Traditionalists
• Baby Boomers
• Generation X
• Generation Y
These aren’t just labels; they defi ne individuals with different
work habits, expectations, and attitudes. Individuals from each
group bring valuable contributions. Whether the value is a unique
factor to the equation, a new piece to the puzzle, their two cents,
an essential cog in the wheel of progress, or a distinct tweet to the
discussion, it is up to you as the manager to encourage all of them
to share their skills constructively and cooperatively. By learn-
ing the motivations and generational infl uences of each segment,
managers can leverage the individuals’ talents and capitalize on
the diversity of the teams. But it is not easy.
How do you navigate a conversation among different people
where some see technology as a simple convenience, others call it