Dealilng with Generational Differences
Generational differences receive a lot of attention these days, particularly in the association community, but too often in comments about these differences fall into the “sky is falling” category:
“¢ All the baby boomers are retiring!
“¢ Generation X are not “joiners!”Â
“¢ Millennials only want to play video games!
As researchers begin to identify trends in attitudes and behavior that vary from generation to generation, association executives struggle with how to apply that information to the actual running of their business. I actually heard an association executive suggest that the best strategy to deal with generation X is to simply wait them out. Millennials, he suggested, are joiners, so we just need to wait for them to take over the leadership positions in the association!
Get a hold of yourself, Chicken Little. The first step in dealing with generational shifts is to look beyond the stereotypes that have been generated over the last few years. Some of them are quite accurate, but some of them do not tell the whole story. For example, you may have noticed that there are fewer Generation X members entering your volunteer “pipeline.” While they may have different attitudes about “joining” and volunteering than their predecessors, the Baby Boomers, the fact is this drop in numbers is to be expected. Generation X was the baby “bust” after the boom. The Department of Labor predicts a net decline in the middle management workforce in this country by 10% between 2000 and 2010.
Sometimes, of course, the stereotypes are accurate: yes, generations are different. Knowledge of those differences, however, can only help you manage your association more effectively if it is paired with a critical organizational discipline that is too often neglected: the discipline of conversation. How do you manage the ongoing conversation with your members to uncover the relevance of generational differences? You know that there are generational differences, but it is only through a careful and respectful conversation with your membership that you will uncover the relevance. If younger members aren’t volunteering as much, don’t rely on an article to tell you why”â€ask them yourself. All that background information you got on Generation X will help guide the conversation, but the conclusions about what to do differently will only emerge from the conversation itself.
Have you actually examined your own organization’s capacity for conversations? How do you engage your staff in conversations about strategy and implementation? What is the quality of conversation during performance reviews? To what standard do you hold your Board in their conversations? And at the most basic level, how do you conduct meetings? Are people focused on the topic and listening to one another?
Take the answers to these questions and apply them to generational differences. Try intentionally starting some new conversations across different generations, and see where it leads. Remember, the goal is not to find the static answers; the goal is to find dynamic strategies for ongoing renewal.
On the one hand, there are generational differences. On the other, they’re overrated. What you have here is not a generational problem but a structural problem.
If an organization finds that fewer people (Xers or whatever) are “volunteering,” the problem is not with the people, it’s with the organization and its volunteer structure.
Smaller groups, short-term tasks, use of technology to minimize commitment, accepting that many of the most talented Xers will want to get involved and lend expertise but have little interest in traditional chain-of-command lineups — these are possibly some tactics that can arise from these conversations.
But they won’t unless the organization enters into the process accepting from the outset that it needs to change, not its members. (And we all need to learn to read between the lines and understand that most members are not truly honest when talking about what they want — not because they are being duplicitous, but because they do not necessarily know, or at least are unable to divorce their concept of what an organization is from what they, as individuals, need.)