Post GFC, generational gaps continue to CLOSE.
Regardless of when we were born, we’re all looking for the same things from our leaders. Nothing has changed. Skills, behaviours, and values are breaking down traditional ‘generational’ lines and making generations similar in many ways. No longer can we make assumptions about Gen Y, Gen X and the Baby Boomers.
An example of this change lives in the use of social networking tools:
* The average age of a Linked-In user is 41 years old;
* 33% of Twitter users are more than 40 years old;
* 40% of MySpace users are 35 to 55 years old;
* The fastest growing demographic of Facebook users is women over 55 years old.
Where once the social networking world was dominated by the very young, that is no longer so.
What other assumptions no longer hold true? If traditional ‘generational’ lines are fading, do we assume we need to lead people from different generations, differently?
The truth is that regardless of generation, what is required from us as leaders is the same.
Behavioural flexibility is crucial for leaders to adapt to the individual diversity of skills, behaviours, influences and values in today’s teams. As leaders, we’re being challenged to reframe the assumptions we make about Gen Y, Gen X and the Baby Boomers in our teams.
What does this mean for how you lead, coach and communicate with your team members?
Explore 9 leadership capabilities here:
Josh Mackenzie
Director, Speaker and Author
Development Beyond Learning
Interesting blog you've got here, Josh. But you're missing an important part of this picture: Generation Jones (between the Boomers and Generation X). Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten lots of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press' annual Trend Report chose the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009. Here's a page with a good overview of recent media interest in GenJones: http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
ReplyDeleteIt is important to distinguish between the post-WWII demographic boom in births vs. the cultural generations born during that era. Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its members, not the fertility rates of its parents. And most analysts now see generations as getting shorter (usually 10-15 years now), partly because of the acceleration of culture. Many experts now believe it breaks down more or less this way:
DEMOGRAPHIC boom in babies: 1946-1964
Baby Boom GENERATION: 1942-1953
Generation Jones: 1954-1965
Generation X: 1966-1978
Generation Y/Millennials: 1979-1993