Crossing generations at work

Disclaimer: I'm about to discuss some thoughts on a sensitive subject in sweeping and extremely generalized terms. I will talk about trends and overarching themes observed in the workplace. That means that, regardless of the group to which you theoretically belong, I am not talking about you. I'm talking about ideas. So, here we go....

I have come to understand that we Gen-Xers have, as a whole, been a challenge to the corporate world. As a general rule, we are far too casual and obviously unconcerned with hierarchies to mesh well with existing corporate structures. Considering how business ran before we came along, I can see how these attitudes might have been disruptive to Business As Usual. And I suspect that the recent focuses Employee Engagement and Diversity have been largely due to the variety of inputs from those Gen Xers that have crept into management. However, since I AM a Gen-Xer, I wasn't aware of all of the work that had to happen to prepare for our disruptive presence in the corporate world.

In my current line of work, however, I am very aware of the preparations for the current clash of generations. A number of people have been thinking about how to manage four generations of workers in the same corporation. Since this issue has been on the horizon for several years, you can google some version of "cross generation" and "work" to get classes, papers and blog posts on the subject. The focus of these discussions is on helping workers to deal with the sterotypically different work styles of each generation. And it has been extremely important and helpful (at least for me) information.

I am intensely interested, however, in the preparations for millenials/Gen-Ys in the work force not from the corporate perspective, but from the view of the millenials themselves. There is a fair amount of writing on the subject online. In particular, I've been looking at blogs (this one includes a list of "millenial friendly companies") written by some Gen Y folk which have led me to research some unexpected ideas (such as moving back home after college). It seems pretty clear that there are some cultural incompatibilites that will need to be addressed. None of this is fully developed in my mind, but I have a few areas that I'm mulling over. If you have any ideas on the notes below, let me know.

• This article talks about "helicopter managing". Apparently, some managers are trying to use the "helicopter parenting" techniques as a management model. That made me wonder about the relationship between corporate style and socially acceptable parenting norms. Are changes to corporate models really just ways to address adjusted expectations out in the world?
• Entitlement. This word comes up a lot with Gen-Ys, but it is increasingly impacting the work world from all generational directions. To resort (once again) to sweeping generalizations, Gen-Ys "expect" challenging and interesting work that pays well while being supported (possibly even financially!) by their parents. Gen-Xers "deserve" those upper level management jobs despite the fact that the jobs are already filled. And many Baby Boomers intend to retire on time, regardless of the hits taken by their retirement accounts over the years. How did we all come to believe that everything will work the way that we want it just because we want it to work that way? (This question is of particular personal interest, but we'll talk about that later.)
• Optimism. Tom Friedman's daughter graduated from college in May. He referes to her class as The Quiet Americans - "quietly determined not to let this age of terrorism curtail their lives, take away their hopes or steal the America they are about to inherit." It is an incredibly optimistic view and will contrast strongly with the cynicism of the Gen-X bosses. How will this play out?

A number of people comment that the Millenials are not "prepared" for work life. They are, however, the new work force. So the question is this: if we, as parents, did not prepare them for the work place, will we, as managers, prepare the workplace for them?