Improving Collaboration in global teams is on most managers’ hot issues list. It has just occurred to me that for once, time may be on our side in solving this issue…

The rise of the new multi-generational workplace  has brought much attention to the behaviors, expectations and perceptions of Gen Y employees, and HR people who have the bandwidth to look farther out are busy deciphering Gen Z, which will hit the workplace in a few years. Now, we all know that these young people communicate with their peers through social media and mobile devices, a fact that puts them apart them from the older Gen X and Boomer cohorts. Just how far apart becomes evident now and then from a variety of amusing anecdotes; I’m sure you have some of your own (and if so, do share in the Comments!). The question is, how does all this impact our Collaboration capabilities?

Insight from a high school kid

So, here is one such story that I heard from a friend. This guy has a 17 year old daughter who asked that he buy her a cellular plan that has 3G Internet access. Actually, she was adamant: she really, absolutely needed this capability! When her Dad inquired how come, she explained it thus: When she is at home, she said, she is connected to her social circle on her computer. When she is in some other building, she is often connected via WiFi. But when in between – whenever she leaves home to roam the outdoors world, without cellular Internet access – she is totally disconnected, isolated, alone!

Which struck me as hilarious but also sobering: not that long ago, a kid could be alone at home, or they could be together with their friends by going outdoors where they could play or just hang out together. In our brave new world of constant connectivity, you are connected when you are alone at home and you are isolated outside – a complete reversal. The ramifications could have a serious impact on the kind of world these kids will live in (note another change here: in past generations, adults would talk of the world they’ll bequeath to their children; today’s children will be building their own world).

What we can do about this

As for all of us in the corporate arena – what are we to make of this reversal of togetherness modes? Given the global distributed nature of our project teams, it may play out very well that the new Gen Z employees we’ll soon be recruiting (and to some degree, the Gen Y we already have on board) feel so much together when they’re physically apart. This may mean they’ll have distributed team collaboration wired right into them, so they’ll be able to collaborate much more naturally and seamlessly than their elders. On the other hand, to do that, they will need their corporate “Dad” to buy them the right communication channels, notably leading edge social media tools. Not that they’ll be stopped if we don’t – they’ll simply use their personal channels, and especially Facebook, to achieve the communications they crave. But unless these channels are integrated into the workplace and its other information systems, this will not be as effective, and collaboration will suffer.

One more reason why I strongly advocate to my clients a well thought out Social Media adoption process!