Generation X marks the spot for manages

DOUGLAS Coupland has a lot to answer for. He coined the phrase Generation X for those born after the baby boomers but without that generation's enthusiasm and opportunities Indeed, the current trends in retro fashions and pop music are just reinforcing that generation's already smug certainty that they had it as good as it gets.

In Coupland's eponymous Generation X the heroes feel hard done by: they're stuck in McJobs (low pay, low satisfaction) or have dropped out of the rat race to live simply or simply live by sponging off their parents. Some have made a conscious life decision but most just whine, living by some vaguely understood existentialist theory.

However, there is more to Generation X than losers, there are those who grace the pages of Mr Bruce Tulgan's Managing Generation X. This branch of Generation X, he calls them star Xers, is high achieving but it shares much of the philosophy of less competitive Xers.

They don't like hierarchy fluidity and job mobility doesn't scare them half as much as becoming a company man does. And having grown up in separated/divorced families they are emotionally self sufficient.

In short they can tell you where to put your job if you annoy them. The basis of Mr Tulgan's argument is that baby boomers (born between 1945 and 1962), because of their collective past - student protests, rock 'n' roll, marijuana and the pill - are put in charge of managing Generation X (born between 1963 and 1981) on the grounds that they will understand one another. They don't.

According to Xers, boomers bought into the system and enthusiastically embraced the orgy of excess that was the 1980s, and are still suffering the hangover. Xers believe that boomers, for all their protests still believe in the system, in corporate loyalty and political structures. Xers don't.

They believe in their work and if they vote, it will be on a single issue basis. Boomers still believe in climbing the promotions ladder, Xers just want challenges (and to be well paid) and boomers, despite what they might think, are now the older generation.

Mr Tulgan goes on to disprove the litany of complaints levelled against Xers. They are not disloyal, they just are not that keen on institutions; Xers do not have short attention spans, they just edit information quicker and Xers are not lazy, they just need the right working environment and are quite happy to put in 70 to 80 hour weeks.

And this is the core of the book how to be nice to Generation X and get them to work for you with as little grief as possible. Xers are individualists, it is pointless trying to ram the square peg into a round corporate hole, the hole will have to change as, like it or not, Generation X is the future.

Allow Generation X the freedom to develop its skills in tandem with company needs. Whatever the company puts in, it will get back 10 fold. Give Xers clearly defined goals and lines of communications as it enables them to get on with the job rather than getting bogged down in the minutiae of office politics.

Celebrate Xers success, they like nothing more than partying. Also, identify what they want and try to give it to them. In short, listen without prejudice.

The book is well structured, easy to read and dotted with case studies and interviews, but is Mr Tulgan's book a breakthrough in managerial philosophy? I think not. It's nicely packaged in day glo colours and MTV style graphics but basically it is just another management book. For all its dressing up, Generation X is not that much different from any that has gone before. Things are a little faster and more uncertain than during the post war years but go back to the 1920s and 1930s if you want to talk real job mobility and uncertainty.

Mr Tulgan has just repackaged the generational gap, or young bull versus old bull story. Be nice to your staff and they will work hard for you. And anyway, there is no need for Generation X to worry time is on its side, it is the future. It is just that the boomers have not quite grasped the concept of retirement.