The topic of managing intergenerational teams has been raised with me by clients quite regularly since the pandemic, and yet I don’t recall it being raised before.
As my clients are generally middle or senior management this conversation is typically about how they find it challenging to understand how to best manage and communicate with people much younger than themselves. They often talk about such people having a different work ethic or being demanding or communicating differently.
The pandemic shifted the dial on how people feel about work and how they want to engage with it. For some, working during the pandemic was also possibly the first experience they had of working and it might also have all been done remotely.
So, how a middle or senior manager’s work experience and expectations differ from a young person’s will be influenced by many factors, including the work environments and cultures they have worked in.
In the article How to manage a multigenerational team Emma Waldman shares how for the first time in modern history, there are five generations in the workforce:
We see many articles using the five generations model to explain how a particular group is seen or expected to behave. It should be noted, however, that whilst this may serve a purpose to a group, individuals who may have common experiences (such as working through a financial crisis or boom years) are still also stereotypes and, as such, it can be unhelpful when using labels for individuals identified largely by their age. I am Generation X, for example, but I certainly would not be happy being labelled independent but bleak.
In her article, Waldman shares the view that these stereotypes can be unhelpful because they create age-related bias and the focus should instead be on better understanding each other.
As coaching is about encouraging the client to reflect on how they show up and what they want to do about that, the focus in my work leans much more into exploring how clients can get the best from everyone they collaborate with, rather than blaming a label for any particular lack of engagement.
As leaders, we should be asking ourselves whether the issue is with the people we lead or the way that I am leading. Does the style and approach that I have used for my career to date need to be adjusted in light of how I feel or hear about how it now lands?
Encouraging the client to think about the key relationships they have at work, who they are closest to, as well as who they feel furthest away from, and then analysing key characteristics, (age, gender, etc.), can shine a light on any unconscious bias the client may have.
For example, if many of the people the client feels furthest from are under 25, is the issue with the under 25s themselves or in the client’s perception of and related behaviour towards them?
Similarly, working with the client to think about relationships between individuals in their team may also help identify bias within the team that the client may then need to act upon.
Once the client has developed their awareness of what is happening with them and their team, they can then explore how they might go about creating a greater degree of mutual respect.
Exploring how to encourage the team to recognise the value of diversity and uniqueness, whilst at the same time finding common ground where it exists, can help encourage team members to welcome different perspectives rather than judging others based on stereotypes.
Finally, if you can then encourage mutual learning, mentoring opportunities etc., where previously one colleague might not have seen any value in learning from another, then it is possible to reap the benefit of diversity of thought within the team and the benefits that come with that.
Through the safe space of coaching the client can refocus their lens on themselves as well as on their team, and ask what is going on in it as well as what can we do about it, rather than identify a particularly troublesome group of youngsters who don’t know what’s good for them. The former stands a much better chance of then developing as a high-performing team rather than the latter approach, which can create division, retention challenges and missing opportunity from the power of diverse thinking.
As always, if you have any questions concerning this topic or any other coaching questions please get in touch.
From the author:
As coaching is not an advice-giving service, these blogs are not written with the intention of proposing solutions to common leadership challenges. Instead, they are thought pieces with the aim of prompting the reader to think more deeply about the topic and reflect on whether it warrants further exploration, with or without a coach.
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