Active boomers want a balance between work and personal life. However, in their leisure time, boomers are lazily active. In one recent survey, three in five boomers (62%) consider it important to have “a successful balance between work and personal life.” More than half of boomers (54%) value “being able to take a day off when you want to,” yet nearly 70% of workers who have not yet retired plan to work into their retirement years or never retire, but only 25% will work because they need the money.

Almost half (47%) of all boomers in one survey said they like to walk as a leisure activity, but only 15% said they run when they exercise. Forty-two percent reported taking a cruise in the past five years, but only 11% said they swim when they exercise. Almost 40% like to go for a drive in their spare time, but only 11% go hiking. Thus, boomers are “lazily active.”  Such “actively relaxing” boomers favor leisure activities that are outdoors or away from home and engaging, rather than those that are indoor and passive. They are going away to high-end hotels to gamble and hunt for antiques, rather than staying home to watch a movie or play a video game.

Boomers are not couch potatoes who want to stay home and take a nap, watch a video or surf online. They prefer leisure activities that are outdoors and engaging to those that are indoors and passive.

As a manager, you can’t expect your employees to raise their level of performance until you’ve made them aware of the gap between how they currently do things and what you expect of them. They need specific and constructive feedback to give them a clear picture of what they need to do differently. The Situation-Behavior-Impact framework is an easy tool to use when preparing and delivering feedback to an employee. It disciplines you to:

• focus on the specific situation you want to bring to the employee’s attention;
• describe what you heard the employee say or see him or her do in this situation;
• explain the actual or potential impact his or her behavior had, or could have, on co-workers, managers, or customers.

You should also use this framework to provide your employees with positive feedback. This positive reinforcement will increase the likelihood of the employee repeating the desirable behavior under similar circumstances in the future.

What is often missing when managers give feedback, whether positive or constructive, is the impact his or her behavior had on others. This can be the most valuable piece of the feedback because we all have blind spots. Add to this the tendency for people to think “that was not my intention” excuses their behavior and it’s easy to see why all of us need this type of feedback to raise our level of performance. A true professional knows how to approach a particular situation so that his or her intent matches their impact. As a manager, you play a critical role in helping each of your employees gain this ability by helping them “connect the dots” between their behavior and their impact on others. Once they see this connection, they’ll be more likely to be open to exploring different approaches to achieve better results.

By: Brian Tolle