Listen. Learn. Lead.

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

“Lis­ten. Learn. Lead.”

That is the tagline of Craw­ford Con­ver­sa­tion, a pro­gram that will be held twice each year with a dif­fer­ent speaker and topic each time. It was ini­ti­ated last fall by the Craw­ford Unlim­ited Lead­er­ship Com­mit­tee (through Craw­ford: 20/20 Vision). The sec­ond ses­sion was held Feb. 22 at Lowe Volk Park, spon­sored by Hord Livestock.

Pat Hord, co-chair of the CU Lead Com­mit­tee, wel­comed the crowd that day, say­ing the pur­pose of Craw­ford Con­ver­sa­tion is to pro­mote lead­er­ship devel­op­ment. Hord also intro­duced the guest speaker for that install­ment, Dr. Larry Firkins, assis­tant dean for pub­lic engage­ment and swine exten­sion vet­eri­nar­ian at the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois, Col­lege of Vet­eri­nary Medicine.

Firkins’ pre­sen­ta­tion topic was man­ag­ing gen­er­a­tional expec­ta­tions. He explained that he became inter­ested in the sub­ject “out of neces­sity.” He has taught at the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois for 19 years, but about eight years ago, he said he noticed the response and inter­ac­tion with his stu­dents was begin­ning to change. He felt a lack of con­nec­tion with them and wanted to fig­ure out what was different.

[Matt Echelberry/media-credit] Dr. Larry Firkins from the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois speaks about the dif­fer­ences between gen­er­a­tions and how to alle­vi­ate frus­tra­tions caused by those dif­fer­ences. He was the guest speaker for Craw­ford Conversation.

After admit­ting he was biased due to being part of the Baby Boomer gen­er­a­tion, Firkins empha­sized that the “gen­er­a­tional gap” is noth­ing new. “Every gen­er­a­tion that enters the work­force causes stress, frus­tra­tion and crit­i­cism from the gen­er­a­tions already employed,” Firkins stated.

How­ever, he said there are spe­cific issues impact­ing busi­nesses and fam­i­lies that are dif­fer­ent than in the past, espe­cially with the rate that tech­nol­ogy evolves. It is impor­tant to under­stand the issues and how to address them in order to decrease frus­tra­tion in the work­place and at home, and to increase pro­duc­tiv­ity and collaboration.

For the pur­pose of the pre­sen­ta­tion, Firkins defined each gen­er­a­tion with cer­tain char­ac­ter­is­tics, which are “gen­er­al­iza­tions as guidelines”—NOT stereotypes.

Vet­er­ans (age 67 and older) — lived through eco­nomic sac­ri­fices; they are reli­able, dis­ci­plined and loyal; men­tal­ity of “make do or do without”

Boomers (age 50–67) — lived through the Viet­nam War, space explo­ration, civil rights move­ment; they live to work; men­tal­ity of “my kids will have it better.”

Gen­er­a­tion X (age 37–49) — lived through cor­po­rate lay­offs, divorce rate increase; self-reliant and independent

Gen­er­a­tion Y, or “Mil­len­ni­als” (age 18–36) — lived through Sep­tem­ber 11; they are opti­mistic, tech savvy and work to live.

Firkins filled his pre­sen­ta­tion with plenty of anec­dotes from his teach­ing expe­ri­ence and his inter­ac­tion with his two chil­dren, both of them Mil­len­ni­als. Accord­ing to him, under­stand­ing some of the dif­fer­ences that sep­a­rate them from other gen­er­a­tions is crit­i­cal: they are con­nected 24/7 (via cell phones and social media), used to being engaged and will give every­thing they’ve got within a set amount of time but their per­sonal life is important.

While older gen­er­a­tions often view them as self-entitled, lazy and rest­less, Firkins empha­sized Mil­len­ni­als do have great abil­i­ties, but there are inter­gen­er­a­tional road­blocks, includ­ing dif­fer­ent val­ues (one is not supe­rior than the other, just dif­fer­ent), a dis­con­nect and a lack of communication.

Because of this, Firkins explained older gen­er­a­tions in man­age­ment posi­tions expect Gen­er­a­tion Y to adapt to their val­ues. For exam­ple, if the work­day begins at 8 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m., Boomers expect work­ers to be there at 7 a.m. while Mil­len­ni­als arrive at 7:59. Boomers expect work­ers to stay until 6, while Mil­len­ni­als leave at 5:03.

He said older gen­er­a­tions need to be clear on expec­ta­tions of Mil­len­ni­als. “It’s not Gen­er­a­tion Y’s respon­si­bil­ity to under­stand the other gen­er­a­tions and adapt to them. It’s not the Vet­eran and Boomer and Gen­er­a­tion X’s respon­si­bil­ity to adapt strictly to Gen­er­a­tion Y,” he concluded.

There has been a par­a­digm shift with Mil­len­ni­als, because the world is set up to serve them (as a result of par­ent­ing trends) but not the work­place. Firkins said this cre­ates sit­u­a­tional blind­ness for Mil­len­ni­als because they do not see a dif­fer­ence in the two envi­ron­ments. How­ever, frus­tra­tion in the work­place is cre­ated by a mutual dis­missal of abilities.

Firkins went on to explain that peo­ple of dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions must under­stand each other and what makes them dif­fer­ent. “Think about what comes nat­ural to you and con­sider what comes nat­ural to them.”

Each gen­er­a­tion brings dif­fer­ent con­tri­bu­tions to the work­force and under­stand­ing the dif­fer­ent con­tri­bu­tions is help­ful in any work envi­ron­ment. Vet­er­ans gen­er­ally offer loy­alty, val­ues and dis­ci­pline, while Boomers have ambi­tion, go the extra mile and are focused. Gen­er­a­tion X has adapt­abil­ity, believes in infor­mal­ity and is focused on a bal­ance between life and work. Gen­er­a­tion Y is strong in col­lab­o­ra­tion, diver­sity and multi-tasking.

In terms of putting all of it into prac­tice, Firkins advised peo­ple need to be will­ing to adapt, even if the gen­er­a­tion ahead of you did not, because the dif­fer­ent skills of each gen­er­a­tion can be used for col­lab­o­ra­tion. Also, explore what comes nat­ural to oth­ers and cap­i­tal­ize on dif­fer­ences; invest in devel­op­ing rela­tion­ships which cause the level of trust to increase; and remem­ber that the cur­rent flows in two directions.

While he admit­ted that over­all it will be more dif­fi­cult for the Boomers to adapt, he said those with the most matu­rity should be the ones to make the first move because they have the most to lose. Also, he said Mil­len­ni­als gen­uinely trust older gen­er­a­tions, which opens the pos­si­bil­ity for mentoring.

“We need peo­ple from each gen­er­a­tion on the team,” Firkins said. “It might be frus­trat­ing, but I promise you the end result is going to be stronger.”

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Feb 26 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.