I just read Dr. Lynda Gratton's column posted in Harvard Business Review, 'The End of the Middle Manager'. In her column, she encourages middle managers to take action to adapt the trend's changes. Based on my work experience, her points look realistic. Before I took current work, Architect, I've been working as IT development manager. During my work, I felt the similar impression from my team as well as across organizations. Even though not all of my team members are generation Y, they showed the same tendency. They wanted to get practical value from my guidance and comments that can be used in real world situation. They were looking for mentor and master as Dr. Gratton mentioned in her column. In IT division, the corporate has pushed employees for better performance. They need efficient and effective ways to produce output in faster, quicker, and better ways but it's really hard to find right level of training opportunity in current workplace.

Meantime, diversified sourcing models, outsourcing, insourcing, and in between, added them another burden for their job security. This is another reason that non generation Y employees showed similar tendency as younger generation. They want to sharpen and dust off their legacy skill set but bells and rings of current technology looks steep hill in their first sight. Without having map and direction, it'll surely be maze to them. Since they know the fact, they're looking for mentorship from me.

In my personal experience, Dr. Gratton's points are clear and there are lots of demands from current workforce. Middle Mangers are good position to help their team with enormous experiences as well as insights for the corporate. The managers can split their time and spend more on mentoring their team. However, is it possible for managers to split their time on mentoring in today's corporate environment? It's not practical until corporate gives break to managers. I hope Dr. Gratton's point doesn't add more work to current managers.