Picture this scenario: the leader of your long-established team has retired, and his replacement is a young manager straight out of business school. She's anxious to get going in the organization – with fresh ideas and fresh enthusiasm – and you hope that she'll bring some new life and energy into the company.
As the weeks go by, however, you begin to see growing discomfort and conflict between the older staff and this new team member. Your older colleagues think "the new kid" is overconfident, pushy, and too anxious to leave right at 5:00 pm. The newcomer finds it hard to get support from her older colleagues. She's concerned that they can't (or won't) multitask, they're less confident with technology, and they're unwilling to share their hard-earned knowledge. As a result, cooperation is suffering.
How can you bridge this generation gap? And why is this important?
There's little doubt that the US workforce is at a unique point in history (we'll look at other countries shortly). As "Baby Boomers" (people born between 1946 and 1964) begin to retire, the new generation steps into their shoes.
Generation X, or Gen X (born between 1965 and 1976), and Generation Y, or Gen Y (also called "Millennials," born between 1977 and 1998), have values and work styles that are completely different from the baby boomers. Finding ways to bridge the gaps within this new multigenerational workforce takes great skill – and it all starts with understanding how the new generation of leaders thinks, and what's important to them.
In the US, the drop in birth rate in the post baby boom years means that, by 2010, the number of people in the 35-44 middle management age-group will drop by nearly 20%. Many other major economies worldwide are facing similar demographic changes. One practical consequence of these statistics is that organizations will have to work much harder to attract and retain good people.
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