A New Kind of Diversity: Making the Different Generations on Your Team a Competitive Advantage

First, it includes the benefits of each generation in the workforce, including Generations Y and Z. Second, it offers ideas on how to leverage each generation’s benefits to a team, making the most of what each demographic has to offer. Third, it furnishes a plan to practice principles on social and emotional intelligence among all team members.

1. When we’re comfortable, we default to, “It’s not the way we did it before.”

On top of that, if you were born within five years of the beginning or end of a generation, you’ll likely adopt characteristics from both the previous and the upcoming one.

When I began my career, the mantra of most bosses was, “Leave your personal problems at the door. You are here to work.” Today the mantra seems to be, “Bring your whole selves to work.”

In any case, when the newest generation shows up at work having never had a full-time job nor worked alongside professionals, it can be frustrating.

Not every challenge is caused by a generation gap. There are differences in: personalities socioeconomics gender perspectives ethnic and cultural background geographical history family origin

This book is more about sociology than psychology. It is about how growing up in different time periods and experiencing different realities can affect a person’s mindset on a team.

By the late 1980s, Generation X had become the hot topic. This youth population represented everything alternative: they were unplugged, grunge, and commonly called the “MTV generation.”

Second, professionals have always assumed that kids are lazy or disrespectful (dating back to Socrates), but the generation gap is more distinct because new technology creates subcultures. Hence, generations often don’t have to connect to survive. We need insight in order to bridge these subcultures in workplaces and among families.