Executives, managers, and team leaders are navigating a tumultuous time for businesses. Even as fundamental metrics remain strong, the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), shifting consumer and operational trends, and novel employee expectations have coalesced to make this a season of significant change for many.
They are doing this while traversing a first for the modern workforce: five generations in the workplace at once.
Across all industries, a multi-generational workforce comes with unique challenges. Innovative leadership in HR is key to unlocking innovation in this unique time to help reconcile differences and maximize collaborative opportunities.
A multi-generational workforce introduces unique complexity that can undermine communication, collaboration, culture, and productivity.
In general, a multi-generational workforce often focuses too much on the differences between generations, which can lead to divisiveness and lack of cohesion within teams.
For starters, people from different generations can become entrenched in their own perspectives or frameworks, emphasizing the differences between generations rather than their distinctiveness or commonalities.
When left unchecked, this mindset can create a lack of understanding and appreciation of other viewpoints, which is toxic and unproductive in any workplace.
Additionally, multi-generational workforces tend to project one’s own generational biases onto others, framing these differences in a way that highlights division rather than unity.
This dynamic has many ramifications, but it can make giving and receiving feedback exceptionally difficult.
Specifically, multi-generational workforces often struggle to extend feedback mechanisms beyond one’s own generation to include insights and perspectives from all generations present in the workplace.
This requires a conscious effort to seek out and value feedback from a broad spectrum of ages and experiences.
When combined with challenges in collaboration and adaptation, including bridging communication gaps, aligning on work habits, and leveraging the diverse strengths of each generation, it’s clear that leaders have a significant responsibility to cultivate a culture where each generation doesn’t just thrive autonomously but where all generations come together to capitalize on one another’s strengths to manifest the best version of their collective selves.
These challenges often mask the immense opportunity for companies employing a multi-generational workforce. Notably, a multi-generational workforce brings distinct intelligence to the table. Older generations bring crystallized intelligence, which grows with age and reflects wisdom gained through experience, allowing individuals to handle paradoxes and tensions. In contrast, younger generations bring fluid intelligence, the ability to think abstractly and solve problems without much experience.
In many ways, maximizing a multi-generational workforce is a leadership issue, requiring an intentional, strategic framework for maximizing the potential of multi-generational teams.
HR leaders should leverage two main frameworks to reconcile differences and create connections within a multi-generational workforce.
First, executive leadership across the organization must understand and reflect on personal filters. Self-reflection can help leaders understand their own “filters,” the lenses through which they interpret information and make meaning of the world. These filters are shaped by several factors, including personal experiences and cultural background.
Recognizing these filters allows leaders to understand their perceptions and assumptions and how they might impact their interactions with their teams.
This approach fosters an environment where different viewpoints are acknowledged and valued, facilitating better understanding and collaboration among team members of various generations.
Additionally, leaders need to move from positions to interests. Positions are the specific outcomes or demands individuals or groups declare they want.
For example, in a workplace scenario, one generation might demand flexible work hours, while another insists on traditional 9-to-5 schedules.
As long as we remain positional, almost no understanding or common understanding is possible. For example, one positional, limited perspective may be a thought that begins with “Because I am happy with my position, and I am happy on my mountain, looking at you on your mountain and waving my (metaphorical) flag.”
Interests are the needs, desires, concerns, and motivations that underlie these positions. Continuing the example, the interest behind demanding flexible work hours might be a desire for work-life balance, while the interest behind wanting fixed hours could be the need for regular, predictable collaboration times.
The first step is to explore and understand the underlying interests by asking questions, listening actively, and showing empathy to grasp the real motivations behind people’s demands or preferences.
Focusing on interests makes it possible to discover common ground that wasn’t apparent when only positions were considered.
Even when specific preferences differ, the fundamental needs or goals might be similar or compatible, such as the mutual interest in ensuring productivity and job satisfaction.
When implemented effectively, win-win solutions become apparent because it’s easier to brainstorm solutions that accommodate the needs of all parties.
These solutions are more sustainable and satisfying because they address the actual concerns of the individuals involved rather than merely compromising between positions.
At the same time, we should see conflict as a good thing. However, if we can be curious enough from our different positions to inquire what is driving my position on any subject – whether it is how to improve outsourcing, how to improve the supply chain, or how to navigate the latest and best technology to attract the brightest and best to work with a company – we can better understand people’s interest or interests.
The theory has been used to solve the conflict in the Middle East between Egypt and Israel, negotiated by Jimmy Carter in 1975 at Camp David and later by George Mitchell in the Northern Ireland peace process – Good Friday Agreement in Belfast April 1998.
In both cases, the facilitators of the peace brokered the reconciliation of the differences by seeking to have each side or sides articulate their positions and their interests.
A multi-generational workforce presents unique challenges to leaders looking to press technological adoption, product innovation, and organizational maturation.
It also comes with clear benefits that leaders can tap to propel their companies forward. With a functional framework for navigating these differences, leaders can help every person reach their full potential, cultivating teams that operate at their highest levels possible.
HR leaders are the key to unlocking this success. It’s a real responsibility with the potential for a significant payoff when a multi-generational workforce comes together to propel organizational objectives together.
Michael J. Reidy, a senior consultant at Interaction Associates, has more than 25 years of experience in consulting and responding to the learning needs of adults in the financial services, biotech, power, and service industries. Michael holds a master’s degree in Public Administration from the HKS, Harvard University. Interaction Associates is best known for introducing the concept and practice of group facilitation to the business world in the early 1970’s. Learn more by visiting https://www.interactionassociates.com/ and connect with Michael on LinkedIn.
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