52 Activities for Exploring Values Differences

17

Generational Values

Time Required

75–90 minutes (15 minutes for individual work; 30 minutes for small-group discussion; 30–45 minutes for large-group reports and debriefing)

Work L–M P, T, D

Objectives

1. To identify how age affects values, behaviors, and cross-age perceptions

2. To identify how perceptions and conflict in any work team may be affected by age-related values

Materials

• Important Events for Age Cohorts Handout

• Core Values of Each Age Cohort Handout

• How Each Cohort Sees the World Handout

Background Material for Instructors

• Motivating Each Age Cohort

Process

1. Provide each participant with the handouts “Important Events for Age Cohorts,” “Core Values of Each Age Cohort,” and “How Each Cohort Sees the World.” Give participants 10–15 minutes to read and digest the material.

Note: If you have an opportunity to do so, give people the handouts the day before the activity so the reflective learners will have time to fully process the information. Caution people that this information should not be used to stereotype others based on their age. There are always individuals within each age group who do not match the profile. Nonetheless, in large groups, these descriptors can be helpful.

2. Place participants in small groups of 4–6 people. Ask them to imagine that they have a work team that includes people from each of the four age cohorts (veterans, boomers, gen Xers, nexters). Then instruct them to answer the following questions as a group:

• What strength could each cohort bring to your team?

• What strategy or strategies could you use to maximize those strengths?

• What conflicts might occur across cohorts on the team?

• What strategy could you use to minimize potential conflicts?

Note: If you feel the group needs assistance, suggest that they consider a specific situation, such as budgets, replacement of old equipment, job security, voluntary overtime, or other work-related situations specific to the organization in which the participants are working.

3. Ask each small group to report one strength and one conflict to the larger group, including the strategies identified to maximize the strength and minimize the conflict.

Debriefing Questions

1. What happened during your small-group discussions? What (strength or conflict) was easiest to identify? What was hardest? Why?

2. How did you feel during the small-group discussion? Were there ideas or discussion items you were either more or less comfortable with? Why? Were there cohort values that emerged even during this small-group discussion?

3. How closely do your personal values match those of your cohort group?

4. What have you learned?

5. How can you apply what you have learned to teamwork in your workplace setting?

Debriefing Conclusions

1. As one ages, he or she accumulates life experiences; these in turn result in changing values. Those value differences can lead to different behaviors at work and can benefit work teams. They can also create misperceptions and conflict.

2. Individuals may blend the values of their own age cohort with those of their parents’. Individual experience will also determine the degree to which a person’s values match those of his or her cohort.

3. Identifying what someone values will enable us to work more effectively with that person and to understand how to motivate him or her more effectively.

Optional Debriefing Questions (for use in training managers):

1. How would you motivate people from each cohort group?

2. How would you treat age cohorts differently if you were recruiting for new employees?

3. How would you mentor someone from each age cohort?

4. Based on your age cohort and your core values, which age cohort may be most difficult for you to work with? Why? What strategies might you engage in to reduce your discomfort and improve your effectiveness?

Important Events for Age Cohorts Handout

Adapted from Generations at Work: Managing the Clash of Veterans, Boomers, Xers, and Nexters, copyright (C) 2000, Performance Research Associates, Inc., Ron Zemke, Claire Raines, Bob Filipczak. AMACOM, a division of American Managment Association, New York, NY. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

Core Values of Each Age Cohort Handout

How Each Cohort Sees the World Handout

Motivating Each Age Cohort

Veterans	• Acknowledge their experience. Demonstrate that you value it by asking them to contribute ideas or skills.
	• Ask them to tell you what has or has not worked in the past.
	• Acknowledge their perseverance and length of service.
	• Refer to the workplace as a family.
	• Appeal to loyalty.
	• Be consistent.
Boomers	• Tell them how you expect them to contribute to your success.
	• Publicly acknowledge their contributions and successes.
	• Notice—and acknowledge—any unique contributions they make.
	• Tell them you need them—and tell them why.
	• Give them approval as often as possible.
	• Create a participatory, fair, casual work environment.
	• Get to know them personally.
	• Let them be in charge of something and dabble in several things.
Gen Xers	• Give them the end goal desired and let them achieve it in their own way.
	• Provide them with the newest technology.
	• Keep rules to a minimum.
	• Create a workplace that is as informal as possible, with very little hierarchy.
	• Tell them why they are doing things—they want reasons.
	• Spend time with them—they appreciate relationships.
	• Mentor them early in their tenure so they can succeed.
	• Help them know what is expected. They want specific responsibilities, goals, standards, opportunities, and rewards.
	• Encourage them to find creative ways to have fun while getting the job done.
Nexters	• Tell them how bright and creative others in the workplace are.
	• Give them a boss who is in her or his sixties.
	• Tell them you expect them and their co-workers to turn the company around.
	• Tell them you expect them to be heroes.

17Generational Values