Diversity on the job is always challenging to manage.  Now more than ever, since for the first time in history, we have four generations in the workplace at the same time.  For women in mid-life who want to have an edge on the job, it means being smart about how to skillfully manage these oft-perplexing generational differences--both up and down.

Jody Patterson is a learning and development professional responsible for helping her colleagues develop their diversity management skills.  You'll find her tips useful at work, and even at home for those rare times when you find your teenagers incomprehensible. 

You’re a successful, hard-working (maybe say too hard-working?) manager, somewhere in age between 44 and 62, and you’re interviewing three bright, qualified candidates for a job opening you have. As each interview comes to an end, you lean forward in your warmest, most inclusive manner, and say, “What questions do you have for me?”

Candidate A: “No questions. Tell me when you want me to start, and I’ll be here. But I’ll need some time to get up to speed on the computer applications I’ll be using.”
Candidate B: “Would you go over my job description again – and without all the bells and whistles this time? Just the facts.”
Candidate C: “How soon can I expect to be promoted?”

Congratulations. You’ve just been witness to, and taken part in, a generational intersection – some call it collision - of attitudes, behaviors, expectations, habits, and motivational factors. For the first time in history, in the US and many European countries, four very different generations are working side-by-side in the workplace, and the consequences of this intersection are spilling out into all aspects of our lives. By turns, the effect can be electrifying, enlightening, irritating, confusing, and very, very challenging.

What to make of the opening scenario?   

You, the Baby Boomer, have interviewed a representative of each of the other generations: Traditionalist (Applicant A), Generation X (Applicant B), and Generation Y (Applicant C). Through their responses, they’re giving you big hints about the best way to work with them and motivate them. Through your response to them, they’re getting hints about the best way to work with you and how to “manage up.” All from one or two sentences!

It’s true that every person is different from every other person (I am, after all, part of the “Me Generation”), but it also seems obvious that the era in which we’re born and raised, and the events which define that period, contribute a great deal toward shaping who we are and how we communicate with others.

For many Boomers chances are we can tell you exactly what we were doing when John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, or Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, or when Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon. These events stamped us indelibly as a generation. The other three generations have experienced events that have left just as indelible an impression and shaped their own interaction with the world.

What does that mean for working in an intergenerational workplace?  It translates to different communication and work styles, motivational strategies, and expectations.  It means that, as a manager or co-worker, one size does NOT fit all in this brave, new workplace!  Those who can adapt their styles to turn the differences into an advantage will be in great demand.