Introduction: Taking Issue with Generational Issues

Memorandum:
From: A woman in Human Resources at a small nonprofit organization

To: Jessica Kriegel

Subject: Dealing with millennials

I understood her problem; this is a common concern in my field. I see many human resource (HR) professionals who are casting about in the sea of popular and scholarly literature looking for guidance on how to deal effectively with perceived generational differences. A few weeks later, I was in her conference room preparing for our workshop. A woman was setting up granola bars and fruit in the corner, while I looked for the projector cable. I was nervous-not so much about speaking in public but more about the reaction I anticipated from my controversial opening demonstration. Either I was going to make everything perfectly clear to them, or I was going to be asked to leave the premises. The woman who had emailed me walked in with a big smile and welcomed me with a handshake and a business card.

After introductions, I began the exercise that I hoped would clarify my subject. I asked the participants to form groups of three or four and instructed them to discuss and then write down a few words to describe each generation. For example, are millennials tech-savvy and traditionalists tech-averse? I gave them ten minutes.

But let's pause here. Before we go any further, join us in our virtual conference room and participate by completing the form.

Generation Exercise

Instructions: Spend 3-4 minutes writing down a few words that describe your perception of each generation:

Silent Generation (born before 1945):

Baby Boomers (born between 1945 and 1963):

Generation X (born between 1964 and 1979):

Millennials (born between 1980 and 2000):

As I walked around the room, I heard bits of each group's conversations.

1. ".nowadays, you can't get by with just a high school diploma."
2. ".they have absolutely no common sense whatsoever."
3. ".my father never would have done that."
4. ".they're pretty family-oriented."
5. ".surprisingly antisocial, actually."
6. ".you know, my daughter doesn't even use email."
7. ".out-of-the-box thinkers."
8. ".they lived through the Great Depression, which means they are really frugal."
9. ".my three-year-old is already using an iPad. She knows how to open applications and play games. I didn't even show her how."

After 10 minutes, I brought their attention back to the front of the room and asked them to shout out their perceptions. As they did, I wrote their perceptions on a flipchart at the front of the room. The list ended up looking something like this:

Perception Is Reality

When the list was complete, I posed two questions.

1. 1. How many of you heard other people share a perception about a generation that you 100 percent agreed with?

Most of the participants raised their hand.

1. 2. How many of you heard other people share a perception about a generation that you 100 percent disagreed with?

Most of the participants raised their hand.

Whatever their opinions, they were 100 percent convinced.

Then came the make-or-break moment when I would either win them over or be asked to leave:

"Now how would you feel if I did this?" I grabbed the big red flipchart marker and crossed off the word millennial and replaced it with the words black people.

An instant silence came over the room. The air was thickly uncomfortable, and I let the silence speak. After what felt like five minutes, but was surely less than 10 seconds, I finally asked, "Now that I have changed the labels, is it not immediately obvious how inappropriate this exercise has been? When I write black people at the top of the page and the adjectives below include words like spoiled, lazy, or need praise, it becomes instantly painful to read and ridiculous to contemplate. Yet we are perfectly comfortable labeling people of different ages. Why is that? Is it because when we talk about race we understand that we should not and must not classify millions of people with character traits-desirable or undesirable-based on only one common denominator? And yet when we talk about millennials or baby boomers or generation Xers, we do it all the time. How have we come to accept that everyone in this generation is the same? The only thing these 80 million people have in common is an age bracket that is 20 years long."

The first raised hand went up, and I braced for the worst. A woman, who looked to be in the baby boomer generation, stood and said: "I am so glad you said that. The exercise was really uncomfortable for me, and I couldn't pinpoint why. Now I get it. I've been to a lot of these generational talks, and this is the first time I've heard this side of the story. Usually, they talk about what makes us different."

Another hand went up. A man this time, who also looked to be a baby boomer, stood up. I could tell he was not on board yet. "You know, that may be true for most of these generalizations, but there are things you simply can't deny. For example, millennials are way more tech-savvy than traditionalists. They're into social media, and that's a fact."

I asked the man if he was on Facebook. He said he was, explaining: "I joined so I can look at pictures of my grandchildren." Then I asked him if he would be surprised to learn that I, a millennial (who works at a high-tech company, no less), have never had a Facebook account. Then I asked him if he had heard of the CEO of Oracle, Larry Ellison, a member of the silent generation who probably has a thing or two to say about being tech-savvy. He laughed and sat down.

Another man raised his hand and introduced himself as Sam. "I see your point," he said, "but there are some things I see in my own experience working with my millennial colleagues. There's a kid in my office who always has earbuds in. He has those earbuds in even when he walks to the Xerox machine. That is totally antisocial."

A millennial in the audience spoke up before I could respond. "You know, I have earbuds in all day long at my job, but 90 percent of the time there's nothing playing. I use my earbuds as my phone headset. I don't want to go through the hassle of pairing Bluetooth on and off for a regular headset, so it's just an easier way to be hands-free when I answer the phone. I don't even notice them anymore. It never occurred to me that it might seem antisocial to some people."

A second millennial in the audience chimed in, "I have earbuds in all the time too, but I am listening to music. I need music. I grew up in the projects in a really chaotic home, and the only way for me to focus is if I can listen to music while I work. I'm just trying to do my best."

It was a powerful moment for me to watch Sam learn of two possible reasons why his millennial colleague might have earbuds in all day. It might have nothing to do with being antisocial.

Sam had heard somewhere in our pseudo-scientific, intergenerational pop culture that millennials are antisocial. Then he saw a millennial wearing earbuds and assumed it was because he did not want to socialize at work. It is possible that was the case, but there are also ten other possibilities Sam had not considered.

How Labels Divide

The labels that we assign to each generation create lines of separation almost arbitrarily drawn every 20 or so years. What makes 1980-2000 the defining millennial years, apart...