Close up, nobody is normal: Generation Clash or Ageism?
If you’ve seen any presentations in the last 5 years talking about the multiple generations composing today’s workforce, chances are that you’ve already seen the following table, or one of its multiple variations, all somehow influenced by the book "When Generations Collide: Who They Are. Why They Clash. How to Solve the Generational Puzzle at Work", by Lancaster and Stillman:
|
|
Traditionalist |
Boomer |
Gen X |
NetGen |
|
Training |
The hard way |
Too much |
Required |
Continuous and expected |
|
Learning style |
Classroom |
Facilitated |
Independent |
Collaborative and networked |
|
Communication |
Top down |
Guarded |
Hub and spoke |
Collaborative |
|
Problem-solving |
Hierarchical |
Horizontal |
Independent |
Collaborative |
|
Decision-making |
Seeks approval |
Team informed |
Team includes |
Team decides |
|
Leadership style |
Command |
Get out of the way |
Coach |
Partner |
|
Feedback |
No news is |
Once per year |
Weekly / daily |
On demand |
|
Technology use |
Uncomfortable |
Unsure |
Unable to work |
Unfathomable |
|
Job changing |
Unwise |
Sets me back |
Necessary |
Part of |
If you are wondering where you fall in this division, here are the boundaries:
- Traditionalists, born between 1900 and 1945;
- Baby Boomers, born 1946 to 1964;
- Gen-Xers, 1965-1980;
- Millennials, or NetGens, born after 1980
I liked the way the table above summarized the generational differences the first time I saw it, to the point I asked a colleague to re-use it in my current engagement. But when I proposed to add this table to the material I’m developing - part of a collaboration strategy for a very large government agency - I had an enlightening conversation with the folks I’m working with, both of them boomers and brilliant.
I don’t buy this. When I was 18, I was very much like the NetGen described in this table. The behaviours described here have a lot to do with personal traits and lifecycle. Today’s NetGens, once they get married, start a family and get a mortgage, may become more settled and act pretty much like a boomer. Besides, there are young folks today that are uncomfortable with change, thrive under hierarchical structures and prefer things to be run the "conventional" way.
Disclaimer: The above is my recollection of what 2 people said, which can be very different from what they actually said, so take it with a grain of salt.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I’m inclined now to think that the table above is VERY ageist, and it’s not helping us to actually understand the differences between people.
Our brain likes generalizations. It helps us to create a simple model of how life works and simplifies our decision making. But generalizations are typically based on perceived averages. And there is no such a thing as the average person, the average Asian, or the average woman. You probably have seen one of the multiple incarnations of "if the world were a village of 100 people" (see here & here for more details). The hypothetical average human being would be Asian, adult, heterosexual, Christian, always hungry and with no TV at home. I would bet that the vast majority of the human population does not fit that full profile, even though those are the dominant attributes in each category. Those attributes are independent variables, they don’t come in bundles.
There’s a Brazilian song that says something along the lines of "looking from a close range, nobody is normal" ("de perto ninguém é normal", Vaca Profana, Caetano Veloso, if you need to know). That’s so much true! Just imagine the table above trying to do the same with gender, race, or sexual preferences. You would probably think that to be very inappropriate or stereotypical. One of the things that make humanity fascinating is exactly how complex and different we are. Nobody is "one in a million". There was never a person like you, and there will never be. We are all truly unique, each one of us a long tail of our own. So please don’t tell me that you are too old to blog or that you "get" technology just because you are supposed to be a NetGen. There’s nothing like living in exponential times: the only thing you are supposed to be is yourself.
I’ve been thinking a lot about generational differences because of my upcoming presentation on I.B.Millennials. I had a hard time figuring out how to speak about my generation without dealing with too many generalizations, and what to say to people who think that oh, it’s just about age. Today, I finally came to understand why I want to talk about this topic. It’s not about drawing lines, it’s about connecting people.
No one will argue that society today is very different from society in the 1950s or in the 1900s, and that there have been massive technological and social changes. One way to see this is to look at ads and newspaper articles from fifty years ago, many of which would be unacceptable today.
Why is a discussion about generational differences important? You have lived through these changes and adapted your ways of thinking to them, but for people of my generation, this is all we know. We will have all sorts of assumptions. We will take all sorts of things for granted. We will understand some things intuitively, and be stumped by others. (”What was life like before the Net? before mobile phones? What’s job security? Why would you want to work for just one company? Wouldn’t that be boring? If I can do my job in half the time it takes other people to do it, why shouldn’t I get the rest of the day off?”) Perhaps some of these differences come with being young. Perhaps some of these differences come with growing up in societies that are radically different from the ones you grew up in. Perhaps we face our own questions and challenges that we are only now learning how to articulate.
Most of us will have neither the experience nor the perspective to recognize these differences or work around them. That’s why it’s important for leaders to be aware of trends, to spot opportunities and weaknesses, to bring people together. And that’s why this conversation about generational differences is important: not to draw lines, not to praise one generation over the other, but to recognize potential conflicts and work around them, and to build on each other’s strengths.
I don’t want to make excuses for my generation. I want people to be able to challenge us to be all we can be instead of shrugging things off with “Oh, they’re kids, they’ll change as they grow up.” But the world can’t wait until we grow up. We can’t wait until people of my generation are thirty or forty, settled, ‘normal’. We are here and there are more of us coming; how can we all work together more effectively?
People of my generation are coming into a workplace that’s very different from the workplace you started in. The long time between generations can make companies forget the lessons learned the last time around. Every generation brings unique strengths and weaknesses. That does not make a discussion of those challenges irrelevant. Indeed, it shows that if organizations can learn to manage this transition well, they will reap the benefits with succeeding generations.
And why is making the most of this generation important? Many organizations recognize a need for massive cultural change when it comes to adopting new collaborative and social technologies that can require not only changes in behavior, but even changes in corporate culture and values. It reminds me of the very things that bewilder many parents - my generation’s reliance on electronic communication and virtual social networks, collaboration despite previous norms in education and other areas, and an inescapably globalized world. If organizations can make the most of our energy and our skills, then they can ride that wave into organization-wide cultural change. If not, then they will miss opportunities that their competitors will take.
Generational differences is a political topic, an emotional topic. No one likes being reminded that they grow older each year. It is easy to dismiss it with the same words used to dismiss the voice of youth: “They’ll grow up eventually.” But if we can harness those differences to bring us to where we want to go as an organization and as a society, if we can anticipate and deal with the potential conflicts that many might encounter, then wouldn’t that be a valuable conversation?
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