Now that, thanks to the past post, we saw why salaries in Barcelona are higher, let's take a look at another topic that is very present nowadays: how is the generational coexistence in the same organizations.
Over the past few years you must have heard, a lot, about the problems different generations sharing the same space seem to be causing in businesses, especially in the tech sector: millennials don’t respect authority, older workers only respect hierarchy, and so on.
All these “generational clashes” in companies, in my opinion, are intimately linked to people’s different ways of thinking and viewing work. That’s why I think the expert best-suited to telling me about ways of thinking should be a psychologist and I have a magnificent psychologist, who I trust, and who I have persuaded to talk to us about this issue while we have our breakfast here.
Elena Cedillo Salinero
Elena is a clinical psychologist, she sees patients at her practice, as well as working with me on the project we co-founded to provide companies with greater resources on people management from a humanities perspective.
For that reason, and because of her prior experience, she is well versed in people’s most intrinsic motivations, in both their personal and professional lives.
Elena clearly and systematically talks to me about things I already knew and reveals many others which explain a whole range of comments and complaints that I’ve been hearing for years.
Baby Boomers
Elena details that this generation was born between the mid 40s and 1960. They would be older workers, in the 55-65 age range.
As a psychologist Elena highlights the role of our prior experiences in shaping our way of thinking. Therefore, the cultural and political setting we grew up in, and out of, usually give these people the following traits.
Education-work:
- They aren’t university educated: they have learned from experience and apprenticeships, so their values usually contain a high level of work-related learning and perseverance.
- They have only ever worked for 1 company: they usually have lifelong working development where their employment value has been based on commitment.
Socio-political:
- In the political, they have lived through a dictatorship which forced them to grow in obedience to rules and the later change to a democratic system in which they have developed a high appreciation of hierarchy, rules, and guidelines.
Most common areas of conflict:
- As a result of all of the above, complaints from people from this generation usually relate to: uncertainty stemming from not having a more set hierarchy, rules, and guidelines and the level of work-related commitment, learning, and perseverance of other people.
Generation X
Elena describes this generation as those born between the mid 60s and 1980. In other words, workers aged between 40 and 55.
Education-work:
- They are university educated: they have had opportunities, mostly for academic training
- They have lived through the dawn of the tech age; the start of the Internet...
Socio-political:
- They have lived under democracy, where the group voice is listened to and taken into consideration,
Most common areas of conflict:
- This a divided generation, in which one group (normally the older ones) is closer to the previous generation (Baby boomers) and may be more committed to the values of the earlier group.
- The other group is more open to change and more democratic working systems.
Millennials
This generation was born between the mid 80s and 1995 and would currently be aged between 25 and 40.
Education-work:
- This is a highly prepared generation that has had opportunities for higher education.
- They were born and have lived surrounded by technology; they value immediacy as they have grown up with technology that has quickened their ability to access products and services. This also leads to them tending to have a multi-tasking approach to work.
- They are very tech-savvy, which enables them to be connected to very distant places and means they believe in the high impact (scale) of their actions.
- This high use of technology also shapes they way they interact with others where “face-to face” meetings are less common and technological means of communication are favoured.
Socio-political:
- They have lived through democratic peace and stability; they are not afraid to take risks and this makes them more entrepreneurial and self-sufficient.
Generation Z
This generation was born after 1995 and would be aged around 18 and the youngest can now legally work:
- They are less integrated into the labour market but they are usually defined by a high level of social and ethical commitment.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Elena has outlined a framework to me, which makes sense and is logical, and it seems that these values which I have often heard described as the defining qualities of a specific generation have reasons and explanations to them.
But why do we see generational clashes and why are people so worried about it when it seems logical and something we can all get by with on a day to day basis? Why is it a problem in companies then?
As a psychologist, she relates this feeling of “business unease” to the concept of the “Self-fulfilling prophecy”:
>>Listen audio<<
And she also tells us that our own thinking is critical:
“We can’t change how other people think but we can change our own way of thinking”.
Our own thinking is critical
But how can we adopt another way of thinking that moves us away from thinking that we have a generational conflict? How can we change this thinking?
Elena gives us a new point of view based on opportunity. But why don’t you give it a listen yourself and ask yourself if it might be worth changing to this point of view and seeing what happens?
>>Listen audio<<
