Instead of clinging to old-fashioned demographic stereotypes, innovative employers see each person as an individual. They don’t make the catastrophic mistake of putting their employees into crude generational boxes labeled “Baby Boomers,” “Millennials,” or “Gen Xers.” Oh, and don’t forget the newest stereotype: “Generation Z,” the people born after 1995, who presumably are human mutants because they never experienced a world without Facebook.
Why do innovative employers reject these silly stereotypes, when they’re so easy and everyone else embraces them?
Because at the end of the day, generational demographics mean very little. I have four “Millennial” children, and they literally could not be more different from each other. Yes, they are all digital natives, but guess what? We are all digital adopters, so we speak the same language. A smart phone is just a tool, like a hammer or a steam engine. Humans have been inventing cool new tools for thousands of years. Do you think the Internet is revolutionary? Maybe it is, but it’s no more earth shattering than Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, which introduced an amazing new era of mass communication and permanently altered the structure of human society. Or the development of refrigeration in the early twentieth century. It’s not very sexy, but the ability to keep food cold for prolonged periods revolutionized the food production industry and the eating habits of billions of people around the world. Do we therefore divide humans into those who were born pre-refrigeration and those born after?
Don’t let anyone talk you into trying to designate your team as being composed of Millennials, because it’s silly, disrespectful, and it won’t work. Innovative employers know that their teams are comprised of a wide tapestry of personality types motivated by very different things. We need to understand the personas of our teams so that we can build out innovations that incentivize them and serve them in a way that respects their unique and special differences.
Of course, you can make some very general career assumptions about people based on age. The new college graduate in her first full-time job is probably thinking about her future career path, not about retirement. In contrast, the veteran worker who’s almost sixty years old will be keenly aware of his impending retirement. But this is just common sense! Their differing viewpoints have nothing to do with the phones in their pockets, and you don’t need an expensive business consultant to tell you this.
No matter the generation, innovative employers know basic human values are enduring.
Honesty is still honesty.
Showing up on time still knows no age barrier.
Hard work will still get you ahead in life.
The abilities to connect, adapt, inspire, and earn respect haven’t changed.
Remember, as a leader you are in the business of human experience design. The best leaders in the world are experts at serving those both above and below them in terms of the human experience.
The key to delivering amazing experiences that drive enterprise strategic results is understanding what your individual stakeholders love and what they’d rather avoid.
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