(Originally posted July 7, 2010)
There’s a lot of attention on multiple generations in the workforce – traditionals, boomers, GenXers, and the Millennials. When I listen to or read about the topic, I relate to them all. I long for the community, civility, and village-like social constructs of my parent’s generation. The social activist in me is all boomer. But I don’t readily accept the economic structures and strategies that have spread consumerism as the global model for capitalism. I can relate to the GenXers who believe they don’ work to live or live to work. And like the millennials, I’m a sponge – I want to learn, see, and do it all, and if you’re older than I am, I can learn something from you.
So why are putting each others in categories? Yes, we are ll a product of the times in which we were nurtured. But even that premise is US-centric, something we must get away from in these times. A 30-something from California cannot be compared to a 30-something from Indonesia that are now co-leaders of a multinational project in Perth, Australia.
Let’s keep our perspectives of people, teams, and leadership open. It’s convenient to be able to predict behavior, motivation, and outcomes based on generations. If your probability of success is better than .500, why not? But how good is that? Really. To me that’s what prescribing strategies for leading multigenerational teams feels like – a big “proabably”. I prefer to develop relationships, with no assumption based on age, and go from there.
And, yes, the title of the post shows that I’m more familiar with the Who’s “My Generation” than the song of the same title by NAS. But the boomer and GenXer/Millennial versions still share a common theme – making a difference – and they were popular with 20-somethings. So how different are we? Really.
