Authors Note: This is the first of a two-part blog article. The second part will be published next week on Thursday, October 30th.
The last blog article entitled “To Text or to Talk … That is the Question” generated a good deal of reader comments. It dealt with the issue of whether or not the latest technology used in the business environment was always better than the ‘old’ way of doing business. What I found interesting was that not all of the comments were related to the specifics of the blog itself. Rather, and as one commenter stated, “technology has brought with it a divide between the younger vs. older members of the organization. Because use of the latest and greatest is second nature to the 
younger members of the team and not seen as so easy to adopt among the more senior members, they tend to view each other with distain and resentment for what the other doesn’t know”.
Not good and not surprising. The good news is that it made us curious enough to explore the impact of this on the success of the business.
As coaches dealing with many types of organizations, we are witnessing this often. It is not uncommon for us to be in an organization wherein this issue has become ‘big’ enough to disrupt the business and threaten the very results that all are working to achieve.
Some recent examples we have encountered include:
- Simply refusing to learn to use the basics of new tools and technology. Think using outlook or equivalent to calendar your appointments instead of yesterday’s ‘Day-Timer’ binder that you tote with you. Think creating and tracking future tasks in an automated calendar rather than writing out your ‘to-do’ lists. The rationale? This is just as fast and more reliable. Really?
- Scoffing at the idea of looking for opportunities to have phone or face contact as a beneficial way to do business … especially within the organization. The rationale? “It is just a waste of valuable time when I can email or text whatever I want to say and be done with it”. This is seen as more
efficient because you don’t have to wait for call backs or spend time doing the chit-chat that often goes with a phone call or in-person meeting … you know … like “how are you?” or “how was your weekend?” Really!
These are but two examples of what has infiltrated the business environment. It gets more prevalent as the next great bit of technology rolls off the conveyor belt. So what’s the problem you ask? The problem is that the resulting standoff is dividing rather than uniting for maximum effectiveness. It definitely can be fixed and I’ll tell you how next week.
Please stay tuned.
Mike Dorman
