Managing Different Generations

The key to managing different generations is actually quite easy. Treat them all with dignity and worth. Crazy – I know. 

There aren’t really any differences in our emotional make up. All generations are basically the same emotionally.  We all need the same things to feel psychologically safe and respected. Managers can give that to employees of any generation by treating everyone with dignity.  

This also means – recognizing that each of your employees – are individuals with individual life experiences.  Those life experiences make some people more anxious. Some people more eager. Some people more suspicious and some people more open to the point it annoys everyone. 

Everyone is different and treating each person as the individual they are – helps a manager give each employee what they need.  This also allows the manager to model professional and compassionate interpersonal relationships.  It sets the tone for how employees are expected to treat each other. 

Imagine if an office – everyone treated everyone else with dignity and appreciated what each individual brought to the team.  That’s doable.

The big difference between generations isn’t in personality. It’s in life experiences. The defining geopolitical events and economy at the time they grew up and entered the work force. This sets their expectations for how relationships are supposed to work – including relationships in the workplace. 

What cuts across all of that – is that everyone. EVERYONE wants to be recognized as a person with dignity and worth.  If you can do that – you can create an amazing team of individuals with different life experiences all contributing fully to the work and the team.

Humanism matters in business – because humans matter.

FYI – I have an online course on this https://humanistlearning.com/generationaldivide/ if you want to learn more or want to provide this sort of training for your team. 

Communicating across generations in the workplace

With Gen Z entering the workforce, communicating across generations is getting harder! What is the best way to accomplish this? Boomers like one way, Millennials another.

I offer a training on how to do this using humanistic principles and science.

https://humanistlearning.com/generationaldivide/

First – the science. The generations aren’t all that different actually. Personality wise – humans are humans are humans. About the same number of boomers and Gen Z are narcissistic for instance.

What does differ is our life experiences and fears. Basically – did you grow up in a time of social investment? Or a period of social disinvestment.

Boomers experienced scarcity – but also – social investment.

Gen Z – is growing up in a time where there is very little social investment and actually quite a bit of social disinvestment.  This leads to differences in the levels of social trust each group has.  Boomers have a lot of social trust.  Gen Z have a lot less.

The good new is that what we value is basically the same so we can use our values to connect to one another.  And this is true across any diversity dimension.

The problem in communication tends to be something called – dignity violations. Basically – how people feel their dignity is being violated or has been violated in the past – makes them sensitive to future dignity violations and they often won’t even consider another viewpoint until their past dignity violations have been recognized and validated by the other person.

The way to get past this defensiveness is to validate the dignity of the other person.  Don’t demand they validate your dignity before you recognize their humanity. Validate their dignity.  After that – the rest gets easier because communication and problem solving – among equals – is collaborative and respectful.

Most of the tricks to doing this involve personal practice. Recognizing your own responses to dignity violations. Recognizing how your own biases are impacting how you are feeling about the other person, and choosing to override your instinctual response and view the other person as fully human too.

Hope this helps and please let me know if I can be of any assistance to your work group. I offer training to groups to help them use science to remove unwanted behaviors - whatever they are. 

How to deal effectively with age differences in the workplace

Most workplaces have employees that vary in age. One of the most common questions I get - has to do with helping employees and leaders - create cohesive work groups out of teams with large age differences. 

- What requirements do different generations need? 

The big shocker is that there isn’t really much of a difference between generations. They have the same levels of narcissism and emotional problems. They also have similar levels of conscientiousness and stick to itiveness. The big difference actually has to do with social trust. Older people grew up in a time of social investment and as a result – have a lot of social trust. Younger people have been experiencing social disinvestment – so they have low levels of social trust.  This difference in trust may make it seem to an older person that a younger person is less invested. And they may very well be because in their experience, you can’t trust others to follow through on their promises – because society hasn’t.

What younger people need – most companies can’t supply – which is the concept that if they give themselves to the company – the company will reward them for their hard work.  The social trust for that equation – just isn’t quite there for younger people and for good reason.

- How do you avoid workplace conflict and keep everyone happy 

Humanistic communication strategies and a lot of compassion. Everyone has issues. Everyone. The tendency is for people to think they are right and the other person is wrong when a conflict arises. The way around that is to create team cohesiveness. So that everyone sees themselves as part of the same team – working towards a common goal or problem to be solved.  This way – conflicts are seen as disagreement over best course of action as oppose to being seen as life and death struggles for the righteousness of our tribal cause, whatever that is. Disagreements are ok – conflicts are not. Everyone is on the same team getting the same thing done. This means treating everyone with dignity and compassion. If there is a disagreement  - don’t turn it into a conflict. Ask questions so the problem can be solved collaborative. This is true for all groups, not just for groups with age differences.

- How to motivate teams with a mix of generations

Dignity and compassion – for everyone. Foster a culture of social trust and create psychological safety so that people can air disagreements without them blowing up into conflicts. The best solutions are created collaboratively – and that means everyone has input. If you can create a culture where people can pose contrary positions and ideas without being attacked for having different ideas and instead – having those ideas seriously considered, you will create a culture of trust, which will help ensure that disagreements – don’t escalate and that everyone is motivated to contribute because they know their contributions will be welcomed and considered as valid.


And this trust – brings us back to the top. What do people need?  Trust.

To learn more - I have a course on bridging the generation divide – millennials and boomers at Humanist Learning Systems. https://humanistlearning.com/generationaldivide/