Tulgan, Bruce 1967- (Bruce L. Tulgan)

PERSONAL:

Born June 27, 1967; married; wife's name Debby (a writer). Education: Amherst College, B.A. (magna cum laude); New York University Law School, J.D. Hobbies and other interests: Okinawan Uechi Ryu Karate Do.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New Haven, CT. Office—RainmakerThinking, Inc., 125 Lawrence St., New Haven, CT 06511. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, lawyer, speaker, consultant. Admitted to the Bar of Massachusetts and the Bar of New York State. Previously practiced law at Carter, Ledyard & Milburn, New York, NY; RainmakerThinking, Inc., New Haven, CT, founder, 1993—.

WRITINGS:

Managing Generation X: How to Bring Out the Best in Young Talent, Merritt Publishing (Santa Monica, CA), 1995, revised and updated edition, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2000.

The Manager's Pocket Guide to Generation X, HRD Press (Amherst, MA), 1997.

(With Jeff Coombs) Strategic Employee Polls: The Step-by-Step Guide to Discovering What Your Employees Are Really Thinking, HRD Press (Amherst, MA), 1998.

Work This Way: How 1000 Young People Designed Their Own Careers in the New Workplace—and How You Can Too, Hyperion (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Carolyn A. Martin) Managing Generation Y: Global Citizens Born in the Late Seventies and Early Eighties, HRD Press (Amherst, MA), 2001.

Winning the Talent Wars: How to Manage and Compete in the High-Tech, High-Speed, Knowledge-Based Superfluid Economy, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Carolyn A. Martin) Managing the Generation Mix: From Collision to Collaboration, HRD Press (Amherst, MA), 2002, expanded 2nd edition published as Managing the Generation Mix: From Urgency to Opportunity, 2006.

(With Heidi Wenk Sormaz) Performance under Pressure: Managing Stress in the Workplace, HRD Press (Amherst, MA), 2003.

(With Carolyn A. Martin) The Customer Service Intervention: Bottom-Line Tactics for Front-line Managers, HRD Press (Amherst, MA), 2003.

It's Okay to Be the Boss: The Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming the Manager Your Employees Need, Collins (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including Harvard Business Review, BusinessWeek, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today.

SIDELIGHTS:

Bruce Tulgan is a writer, public speaker, consultant, and expert on the rise of young people in the work place. Tulgan graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts with high honors, then went on to earn his J.D. from New York University School of Law. After graduating, he began working for Carter, Ledyard, and Milburn, a major Wall Street law firm in New York. Then in 1993, he founded RainmakerThinking, Inc., a think tank and consulting company, and began to lecture on effective management in the work place. He is highly in demand all over the world, and has lectured executives and management at a wide range of companies and organizations, including JPMorgan, J.C. Penney, Deloitte and Touche, John Deere, Abbott Laboratories, Knoll Pharmaceutical, National Car Rental, Target Stores, and the United States Department of Defense. He runs management training programs, serves as a keynote speaker, and has written numerous books and articles, his work appearing in periodicals such as the Harvard Business Review, BusinessWeek, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. The Financial Times named him as one of the world's greatest management thinkers. He specializes in targeted management training and hiring practices that take into account the particular traits of a generation, so that employers can be more effective in finding and keeping employees with good work ethics.

Tulgan began his research on management by taking a close look at Generation X, Americans born approximately between 1963 and 1977, in part because he himself is a member of the generation, but primarily because at the time he became interested in focusing hiring and management techniques, the Generation X-ers were the most recent entrants into the work force. It was clear to Tulgan that certain aspects of their upbringing and work styles were clashing with the existing work force, causing major issues. He proposed that, by acknowledging the generational differences and working to achieve a sense of harmony, managers would be able to better understand the needs and ambitions of their new employees and would find them just as efficient as their older counterparts, if not more so. In his book Managing Generation X: How to Bring Out the Best in Young Talent, Tulgan addresses the stereotype that members of Generation X are apathetic and lazy, unwilling to work, and ultimately a drain on their places of employment. He suggests that it is actually the way that Generation X-ers have been raised that causes them to behave as they do, and that in reality it is only a question of applying new management techniques that tap into what would be considered familiar to the members of Generation X. Tulgan goes on to suggest a list of ways in which human resource staff and management can trigger the best efforts from their Generation X employees, such as encouraging them to widen their skill sets and eliminating some of the more traditional employment trappings, such as contracts. Much of Tulgan's information and theories was gleaned from a series of interviews he conducted with approximately one hundred different members of Generation X. Debra Phillips, in a review for Entrepreneur, called the book "Generation X 101," and, addressing anyone not a member of the generation, remarked that "you might want to put this tome at the top of your reading list."

Tulgan followed up Managing Generation with The Manager's Pocket Guide to Generation X, a handy reference volume that allows managers to glean instant advice on how to best handle various situations regard- ing Generation X employees. He also lists the most common misconceptions regarding members of the generation, and explains in part why some of these misconceptions might have come into existence.

In Winning the Talent Wars: How to Manage and Compete in the High-Tech, High-Speed, Knowledge-Based Superfluid Economy, Tulgan states that the days of long-term employee loyalty are dead, and that an economy where the best workers are difficult to attract and even more difficult to keep is here to stay. He suggests that employers and other individuals responsible for recruiting and/or hiring should keep an open mind regarding their work model, and be willing to embrace new ways of attracting talent so that they learn to handle this newly evolving way of doing business. If employees are flexible and willing to move on, then employers must be willing to find a way to alter their environment and convince employees to stay. Bob Stambaugh, reviewing for HR Magazine, found some of Tulgan's proposals worthwhile, but remarked: "I wish that Tulgan offered a roadmap for stimulating organizational conversation and development of communities of practice. Lacking such a plan, we're left with a rather grim picture of a frenetic, hard-charging workplace, where managers let go of old approaches to attract and develop employees, introducing instead a wide-open, take-no-prisoners culture." Tulgan himself, in an interview with Alison Stein Wellner for BusinessWeek Online, addressed some of the issues of how a business should transition into the new economy: "Have more than one way of employing people. Companies that get good at being fluid, flexible, and maintaining ongoing relationships with their employees are going to get work done. Instead of thinking about filling positions on an organizational chart, think about how to get the work done. What actually needs to happen? We recommend a reserve-army approach. When someone leaves, you say: ‘Great! Now you're part of our fluid talent pool.’"

Following his books on how to manage the members of Generation X, Tulgan went on to write several books on the Generation Y work force, addressing the ways in which they differ from the generation before them, and how employers must once again adjust their thinking regarding hiring practices and business structures. Tulgan's books on Generation Y include Managing Generation Y: Global Citizens Born in the Late Seventies and Early Eighties, Managing the Generation Mix: From Collision to Collaboration, retitled Managing the Generation Mix: From Urgency to Opportunity, all of which he wrote with Carolyn A. Martin. The latter also revisits Generation X and discusses the issues that arise from having several generations straddling the work place when each has its own, distinctive work style.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Australasian Business Intelligence, November 11, 2001, review of Winning the Talent Wars: How to Manage and Compete in the High-Tech, High-Speed, Knowledge-Based Superfluid Economy, p. 1008315.

Booklist, August 2000, David Rouse, review of Managing Generation X: How to Bring Out the Best in Young Talent, p. 2088.

Canadian Manager, summer, 2001, review of Winning the Talent Wars.

Christian Science Monitor, September 26, 1995, Shelley Donald Coolidge, review of Managing Generation X, p. 8.

CMA Management, July, 2001, Bruce Tulgan, review of Winning the Talent Wars, p. 6.

CNW Group, March 7, 2007, "It's Okay to Be the Boss."

Dallas Business Journal, May 25, 2001, review of Winning the Talent Wars, p. 72.

Entrepreneur, January, 1996, Debra Phillips, review of Managing Generation X, p. 326.

Food Management, January, 2001, review of Winning the Talent Wars, p. 13.

Futurist, January, 1999, Jeff Minerd, "Bringing Out the Best in Generation X," p. 6.

Harvard Business Review, March, 2001, review of Winning the Talent Wars, p. 151.

Houston Business Journal, May 25, 2001, review of Winning the Talent Wars, p. 23.

HR Focus, November 1995, review of Managing Generation X, p. 22.

HR Magazine, May, 2001, Bob Stambaugh, review of Winning the Talent Wars, p. 155.

Journal of Career Planning & Employment, January, 1996, review of Managing Generation X, p. 20; fall, 2001, Troy Behrens, review of Winning the Talent Wars.

Journal of Organizational Excellence, winter, 2001, LaRoi Lawton, review of Winning the Talent Wars.

Leadership & Organization Development Journal, August, 1997, Bruce Lloyd, review of Managing Generation X, p. 363.

Manage, July, 1996, Bruce Tulgan, "Correcting the ‘Slacker Myth’—Managing Generation X in the Workplace," p. 14.

Nursing Management, September, 2007, Bruce Tulgan, "It's Okay to Be the Boss—Be a Great One! Embrace Leadership by Saying No to ‘Undermanagement,’" p. 18.

Personnel Review, July, 2004, review of Winning the Talent Wars, p. 487.

Philadelphia Business Journal, June 8, 2001, review of Winning the Talent Wars, p. 25.

Publishers Weekly, December 11, 2000, review of Winning the Talent Wars, p. 71.

T & D, June, 2007, Michael Laff, review of It's Okay to Be the Boss: The Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming the Manager Your Employees Need, p. 83.

Times Higher Education Supplement, April 4, 1997, Rudi Bogni, review of Managing Generation X, p. 27.

Training, February, 2001, Janice Love, review of Winning the Talent Wars, p. 90.

ONLINE

American Program Bureau Web site,http://www.apbspeakers.com/ (December 6, 2007), speaker profile.

Barber and Associates Web site,http://www.barberusa.com/ (December 6, 2007), author profile.

BusinessWeek Online,http://www.businessweek.com/ (October 12, 2001), review of Managing Generation Y: Global Citizens Born in the Late Seventies and Early Eighties; (December 6, 2007), Alison Stein Wellner, author Q&A.

Canada Camps,http://www.canadacampsmag.com/ (December 6, 2007), author interview.

Convention Connection Web site,http://bureau.espeakers.com/conv/ (December 6, 2007), speaker profile.

Executive Speakers Web site,http://executivespeakers.com/ (December 6, 2007), speaker profile.

Nationwide Speakers Bureau Web site,http://www.nationwidespeakers.com/ (December 6, 2007), speaker profile.

N.E. Fried and Associates Web site,http://www.nefried.com/ (December 6, 2007), author profile.

New York Times Online,http://www.nytimes.com/ (April 18, 1993), wedding announcement.

Premiere Speakers Bureau Web site,http://premierespeakers.com/ (December 6, 2007), speaker profile.

RainmakerThinking Web site,http://www.rainmakerthinking.com (December 6, 2007).

Speakers Platform Web site,http://www.speaking.com/ (December 6, 2007), speaker profile.

Speakers Spotlight Web site,http://www.speakers.ca/ (December 6, 2007), speaker profile.

USA Today Online,http://www.usatoday.com/ (November 8, 2005), Stephanie Armour, review of Managing Generation Y.