Photo by Joseph Gilbert.orgOver the weekend, I had the pleasure of brainstorming with many Baby Boomer age women leaders in the business and nonprofit sectors. I asked them how young professionals can be more effective in getting our ideas across to older generations. How, exactly, should we communicate when we’re not speaking to the choir of our friends, peers, and colleagues our age?
I got a lot of feedback on this one…the most important being that we have to listen before we speak. This goes back to the advice of Dr. Audrey Alvarado, now retired Executive Director of the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, to give to the next generation:
The one skill that I have found that works in almost every situation is to LISTEN before you speak and withhold judgment until you get the full story or try to understand where a person is coming from. If we dismiss people because they don’t understand how to hyperlink to a webpage (this may be way too self-revealing!) you may lose the opportunity to learn something from them because you discount them altogether. Look for ways to learn from them and appreciate what they may teach you (because I sure appreciated learning how to hyperlink).
So the first thing is that younger generations have to listen, even if we think we know the answer, and can predict exactly what’s going to come out of our older colleagues’ mouth. I also learned from the older women I spoke to a few other key things that Generation Y needs to remember whenever we’re communicating across generations:
- Many older professionals with 20 years of experience in a field resent young mavericks that are doing it all at such a young age, while they had to wait years for the credibility and respect in their profession
- Older people want to be respected at work and don’t want hear their Gen Y employees whining and reminding them of their immature kids that are the same age
- Baby Boomer leaders feel than Gen Y brings a sense of too much entitlement and righteousness to our work
- Baby Boomers want to be asked for help in reaching our goals, want to know their experience is respected enough for us to learn from
- Gen Y should not seek to tell older leaders what they should do, but instead ask for their help in creating shared solutions to the issues we are all facing in the workplace and in our professions
- Gen Y should not announce their age unless asked directly – no matter how much we’ve accomplished, older people are often put off by young people who claim to be experts in anything (this is regardless of education and the fact that we may hold significant leadership or organizational responsibility)
These one-on-one conversations were very helpful to me. Sometimes, the entire outcome of a conversation can be transformed simply by saying the same thing a little differently, taking these concepts into account. While most of the research on generational shift may bear many of these concepts out, there’s nothing like hearing firsthand what the older generation thinks when Gen Y opens their mouths. I hope to incorporate all these juicy insider notes as I move forward in my work to promote the next generation as viable change agents in this country.
Is there anything that you’ve learned about communicating across generations that you could share with the Perspectives community?
