Retiring the Generation Gap

RETIRING THE GENERATION GAP

How Employees Young & Old Can Find Common Ground

Allan Margeson

Is there a generation gap at your place of employment? The use of generalizations can create an intimidating work environment as can be individuals that fall outside of these generalizations. An individual's perspective can be one of the most important factors affecting behavior and interaction between generations in the workplace. Stereotyping is a key contributor in the creation of the generation gap. Stereotypes of younger people are: Disloyal, non-dedicated, require constant praise, non-conforming, lack proper office politics and embrace mentality entitlement. Stereotypes of older people are: Retired in current positions, demand/expect respect, not open to learning new things, and embrace seniority entitlement. Retiring the Generation Gap by Jennifer Deal, a research scientist at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) in San Diego, California, presents an empirically based research study aimed at determining the root causes of disparity between generations in the workplace.

The study analyzed the workplace perspectives of over 3,200 employees ranging from 19 to 80 years of age during 2000 to 2005. Deal, Jennifer (2007). Participants completed a survey addressing topics related to challenges and conflict that occur in the workplace. The results provide a positive viewpoint to the commonality of outlook(s) between each of the researched generations. The author divides and defines the generations as: Silents: (1925-1945) / Early Boomers: (1946-1954) /Late Boomers: (1955-1963) Early Xers: (1964-1976) /Late Xers: (1977-1986). Deal, Jennifer (2007). The study presents ten principles stemming from one fundamental theme: who has the power and who wants it. The ten principles are: 1. All generations have similar values; they just express them differently. 2. Everyone wants respect; they just don't define it the same way. 3. Trust matters. 4. People want leaders who are credible and trustworthy.

5. Organizational politics is a problem--no matter how old (or young) you are. 6. No one really likes change. 7. Loyalty depends on the context, not on the generation. 8. It is as easy to retain a young person as an older one--if you do the right things. 9. Everyone wants to learn more than just about anything else. 10. Almost everyone wants a coach. Deal, Jennifer (2007).

There are at least 10 key concepts within the content of this study based on the principles noted. Most of them draw attention to the remarkable similarities between generations based on the research results. There

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