607: Generational Awareness In The Workplace

Greedy Boomers are feeling frustrated and overrun by entitled Millennials, while skeptical Gen Xers are interviewing unaware Gen Zers who are scrolling TikTok in a job interview; and for the first time we are all working together in the same businesses. College sports is awash in generational misunderstanding. The newly minted Name, Image, and Likeness rules are in place and for the first time in our lifetime you are seeing college athletes representing the hometown HVAC company, or in some cases, an international brand like Alabama’s Quarterback Bryce Young who is already being featured in Nissan commercials. En masse the younger generations are all for this loosening of regulations, the older generations are on the spectrum between skeptical and opposed. In his new book A New Kind Of Diversity, Author Dr. Tim Elmore highlights these generational challenges saying, “the generation gap is more distinct because new technology creates subcultures. Hence, generations often don’t have to connect to survive.” When you look around your business you are beginning to see a Boomer (55 and older) working side by side with a Gen Xer, a Millennial, and a Gen Zer, all staring cross-eyed at the other trying to figure out why they are so peculiar and strange…and wrong. Generational diversity in the workplace is an unavoidable reality and a massive opportunity. Our response to this reality makes waves; waves of optimism and hope, or waves of pessimism and doubt. First, to provide the greatest amount of optimism for working within the healthy diversity of the generations we must be aware that rightness and wrongness is being replaced with angle and perspective. The commonly agreed upon straight edges of society are becoming less and less agreed upon and in their place are the self-published perceptions of the generations. We used to believe that only a few key players had their fingers on the submit buttons of our societal publishing houses, and now everyone can and does publish something. The voices of angle and perspective are rising and it is leaving little space for a declaration of rightness or wrongness. You have a couple of different responses to this reality; we can either dig in our heels and fight for limited options, or we can open your ears and our minds to listen. Listening is not agreeing. Listening is not acquiescing. Listening is not giving permission. Listening is simply listening. To be generationally aware is to make time to listen to the different angles, and then to make further time to digest and process what you have sincerely heard. We will do well to inform our own current angles and perspectives with the angles and perspectives of others as we make time to listen. The second action we can take to bring hope to the generations is to believe that each person and each generation brings a value layer that was otherwise missing. Recently we did some renovation work at our home. The project was 99% complete barring a few pieces of artwork. The rooms looked fantastic! The new floors, paint, trim, and tile were all a pop of design that we had been missing. There was 1% missing though…the artwork. Most of us went through school moaning about art class. The addition of that 1% that was missing completely brought wholeness to the room. In a Wikipedia entry, resolve is what the music world refers to as “the move of a note or chord from dissonance (an unstable sound) to a consonance (a more final or stable sounding one)”. In our renovation, something was missing. The 1% of artwork brought resolve; brought a more final visual to the renovations we had completed. Multiple generations working in concert help to bring resolve to a workplace; a more final or stable sounding environment by which all roles can contribute to the overall mission of the organization. By collectively and repetitively pressing towards that agreed-upon mission, culture is built, and the flavor of that culture is enhanced by the diversity of its generational ingredients. Generational awareness is to learn the intentionality of great listening, and to set the stage for each generational player to bring the ingredients and notes that provide a full resolve and satisfaction for the culture that is headed towards its mission.