By: Tim Elmore
When educators step onto the campus this fall, they’ll likely encounter a challenge. It can either be invigorating or frustrating, depending on how they see it. I have known Phil, the principal at a private school in the Midwest, for several years. He’s “preparing for impact” already, based on his experience this last school year. Here’s how he described it:
- He had new first-year faculty and staff who had very different priorities and approaches to work than their veteran colleagues. The teacher’s lounge became divided based on the life stages of his team members. He saw little unity in their values.
- Students from Generation Alpha and Generation Z spoke a different language that befuddled coaches and staff, leaving them irritated at their inability to interact with adults. It’s as though their interpersonal skills were two years behind.
- Phil watched tenured faculty and staff voicing beliefs that clashed with those of younger team members. Issues got politicized and people became divided over masks, vaccines, and teaching methods. People were talking about each other rather than to each other.
- Builder generation bus drivers and maintenance staff spoke to Phil, mourning that they just didn’t understand the kids today and felt they ought to retire. They were tired, they were questioning themselves, and they’d forgotten their “why.”
According to a report by Market Watch, “More than half of employees believe they aren’t likely to get along with a co-worker from another generation.” Companies from every industry, including Google, IKEA, IBM, Citibank, Marriott and WeWork, have all been sued for age discrimination in recent years, by both young and old. It’s a bit crazy.
Why is this a bigger deal today than in the past? First, we now have seven distinct sociological generations living at the same time, since people are living and working longer, and babies continue to be born. Each generation tends to look at the world in a different manner, and each now feels they deserve an equal voice in matters. Sociologist Adam Grant calls it the “democratization of the workplace.”
Second, different generations can live in a niche, based on the social media platforms they’re on. When team members interact with each other, it can feel like talking to foreigners who use a different language and possess different values.
The bottom line? Our staff and students may just live in different worlds.
Author Bill Bishop suggests, “It used to be that people were born as part of a community and had to find their place as individuals. Now people are born as individuals and must find their community.”
This is our job as leaders—to broaden the community.
Elders and Geniuses
In describing the older and younger generations that coexist today, Airbnb’s Chip Conley says we now have “modern elders” and “digital geniuses,” working side by side. We’ll benefit from both if we can get them to collaborate and help each other. Below are some ideas to connect your elders and geniuses so you can better engage students and reach your campus goals.
Six Ideas to Connect Multiple Generations on Your Team
- Clarify your decision-making process to everyone.
Perhaps the biggest challenge multiple generations on a staff endure is who has decision-making rights and how decisions are made. Leaders must decide how this will take place and articulate it to everyone so there’s no confusion.
- Host an exercise called: “Ask Me About…” to discover each one’s superpowers.
This is your school’s chance to hear from everyone and learn each person’s strength so you can apply it to the team. Each generation has expertise to offer—you just need to find and capitalize on it. Give ten minutes to allow each person to share their “value” by defining a few of the attributes or skills that they bring to the team. It is okay for most people’s answers to overlap.
- Determine communication norms.
Often, trouble brews between generations because of different communication preferences. It’s the leader’s job to clarify the “norms” you’ll utilize with all staff and faculty. We use Slack to help us stay in touch with four generations on our team.
- Pair up “modern elders” with “young geniuses” to invest in each other.
I’ve encouraged “reverse” mentoring for years. It involves matching up older teammates with younger ones, asking them to swap stories to find common ground, then assigning them to mentor each other in a strength area that the other doesn’t possess.
- Identify what are demands, preferences, and expectations.
Employees may not have differentiated their demands and preferences. This tension will always exist, but good leaders find a way to help people grasp what they prefer, expect, and demand in their job. When we do this, it clarifies who doesn’t fit the culture.
- Invite all generations to marketing and communications meetings.
As you consider communicating with your parents, sponsors, and community members, why not invite someone from each generation to the meeting to offer the best ways to convey messages to outsiders? Any idea you want to “sell” should be relayed in a way that everyone embraces.
Remember the words of Lucy Thorn: “You’re never too old to learn, and you’re never too young to teach.” Let’s leverage every generation to fulfill our mission this year.
Good news: We now have an event that covers this topic for school campuses, as well as a new book coming out October 25th, entitled: A New Kind of Diversity: Making the Different Generations on Your Team a Competitive Advantage. If you are a current partner of Growing Leaders and you are interested in hosting A New Kind of Diversity Event, please email [email protected]. If you are not, please complete this registration form (have the link directly to the intake form). To pre-order the book, visit: NewDiversityBook.com.