I have recently been focusing most of my attention on launching a second consulting business which will focus on helping organizations to identify and navigate issues in collaboration and communication that arise in multi-generational workforces. The Baby Boomers are retiring in mass, taking with them the bulk of the experience and expertise that companies have built their business on. They are being replaced by the younger Generations X and Y that  have different communication and learning styles as well as different work ethics, goals and motivations. Additionally, a generation that used technology as a tool to make their jobs easier is being replaced by generations who use technology as a part of life and, in many ways, let technology define a great deal of their personalities. 

I am launching GenerationalDNA over the next couple of weeks and will be providing articles, tools and services specifically designed to address these issues. However, I wanted to go ahead and start talking about some of these issues and point out some of the coverage that is starting to surface in one form or another. This first article deals with one of the primary issues created in multi-generational workforces: management challenges. With differing communication styles, how do managers effectively lead multi-generational departments? Build strong, cohesive teams? Establish hierarchy without stifling creativity or talent? The rules are changing for Bs, Xs and Ys.

The article “Three Forces Disrupting Management“ from the Wall Street Journal column “Gary Hamel’s Management 2.0″ does a fantastic job outlining the traditional management models, largely developed in industrial and manufacturing situations, although foundationally strong, do not have the flexibility to address today’s management issues or cater to changing working environments and styles. Just as the Industrial Revolution spurred the need for new management and efficiency models, the current generational shift is sending us in a similar direction:

“But now, for the first time since the early 20th century, we may be on the verge of another management revolution, and it may turn out to be just as unsettling as the one that spawned the industrial age. There are three forces at work that make such a metamorphosis likely; three discontinuities that may end management as we know it.

“The first of these is a bundle of dramatic changes that have made the business environment substantially less forgiving. Companies around the world are struggling to cope with a wildly accelerating pace of change, an onslaught of new, ultra-low-cost competitors, the commoditization of knowledge, rapidly increasing customer power, and an ever-lengthening menu of social demands. Traditional management models that emphasize optimization over innovation and continuity over change simply can’t cope with these unprecedented challenges.

“The second driver is the invention of new, Web-based collaboration tools. For the first time in centuries, human beings have a new way of organizing themselves, via online, distributed networks. Markets and hierarchies, heretofore the two principle technologies for coordinating human effort, finally have a robust new competitor. In the coming decades, we can expect the Web to transform organizational life every bit as dramatically as it has already transformed life outside the workplace.

“The third driver is the mash-up of new expectations that Generation Facebook will bring to work in the years ahead. If you’re part of the first generation in history to have grown up on the Web, you don’t think of the Internet as something “out there”—a tool you employ to reserve a hotel room, buy a book, or send a note to grandma. Rather, the Web is something you’re perpetually in—as ubiquitous and transparent as water is to fish. As a child of the digital age, the Web is the operating system for your life, the indispensable and unremarkable means by which you learn, play, share, flirt, and connect.” 

These issues are intrinsically tied to generational shifts. The generational makeup (Generational DNA) of the global workforce has changed significantly in the last 10 years. Today, more generations work together in single workplaces, and they have greater disparities than ever before, and the workforce generational DNA will continue to have dramatic shifts in age over the next 5-10 years. 

Generation Y is entering the workforce and joining Generation X, while the experienced Baby Boomer Generation is leaving to pursue retirement and other employment that suits their lifestyles.  This transition is rapidly producing knowledge gaps within organizations, many of which are losing experience faster than they can replace it, and simultaneously forcing organizations to deal with the different working, learning and communication styles of multiple generations within their workforce. 

More to come!

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