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Archive for the ‘Generation demographics’ Category

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Generational differences….real or just a marketing & advertising strategy?

In Defining Events, Generation demographics, Uncategorized, Work Values on May 27, 2010 at 5:44 pm

Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millenials, Traditionalists….all terms derived originally for the purpose of marketing and advertising to different demographic groups.  Labels used to define similar values, life experiences and defining events that will guide consumer buying patterns.

I ask you…are differences between generations enough to move beyond mere consumer habits and ultimately define a cultural group?  Will discussion of difference produce more than buying patterns?  Is there enough difference that studying or discussing such difference will lend insight into improved leadership,  management and outcomes of the organizations we pour our life’s work into?

Yes.

It is obvious that the world around us is changing and it is happening fast.  The challenges that non-profits face are increasing while the demographic group that has traditionally provided staff and board leadership in such organizations is in flux. The non-profit and public sectors are undergoing an evolution themselves, negotiating new funding demands, changing needs of the populations they are serving and a public that is increasingly savvy about where their dollar is spent.  Providing for and supporting leadership transition has never been more important.

What are these substantial differences you ask?  Check out this chart. It is one of the most complete looks at differences in values, communication strategies, influences, preferred work environment, attributes and skills that I’ve seen.  It focuses on significant differences while suggesting similarities.

Back to the title of this post…recognizing real difference is just as imperative to understanding one another as recognizing our similarities. Such understanding and recognition will allow for deeper interpersonal connection while helping to negotiate the demographic shift that is upon us in our organizations and communities.

Now go study that chart, I will be quizing you on it later.

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Baby boomer values

In Generation demographics, Work Values on March 5, 2010 at 10:06 am

I am not a baby boomer…I don’t even play one on tv.  I do claim to know quite a few, some are even my closest friends.  In case this was lost on you with the title of this blog…I’ll state it again, I am a dyed-in-the-wool GenX’er.  However, in typical Generation X fashion, I enjoy going to school on subjects that fascinate me.  In this instance….baby boomers and their collective values.

There have been reams, and I do mean REAMS written about boomer ideals and values.  There are conferences, spiritual guidance weekends, personal effectiveness seminars, leadership and management workshops, books, newsletters, blogs…all about baby boomers.  I bet you could throw a rock in the sociology, business or self-help section of Borders and be sure to hit a book on baby boomers.  So…there is obviously NO need to rehash it all here.

However….in the spirit of the previous blog post about X’ers and key events that shaped our value system, and in an effort to set context to further discuss differences between generations,  I thought it best to add a post on boomers as well. So here it goes…

Academics propose the following key events for boomers:  assassination of JFK, Martin Luther King and Malcom X, children in the spotlight, television, suburbia, assassinations, Vietnam, civil rights, the Cold War, women’s liberation, and the space race.  Their formative teen years were filled with causes, revolution and efforts to change the world.

This generation has been described as the rat going thru the stomach of a snake…a strange visual but one that describes the sheer size of their generation compared to those that came before and after. Some propose that their sheer size and a struggle for limited society resources created a competitive spirit, a desire that has shaped their prevalent philosophy of win or lose. They value personal achievement, which according to some, is the reason this generation abandoned many of their idealistic values as teens to fall into the corporate structure, being sucked into the never ending desire to attain more money.   Because of the long time focus on this generation and its size, they are accustomed to being the center of attention-in fact, they bask in it.   One of the several reason’s they are dubbed as the “me generation”.

In addition to competition, recognition and being focused on their careers, boomers are often optimistic about change, value endless youth, carry a sense of entitlement (I didn’t make that up folks…several academics cite this value of boomers).  Boomers value structure, hierarchy, process and experience.

Only a summary…but some good meat to chew on while you consider how this differs from the X’ers.  More to come in a future post about the boomers children…the millenials.  For my boomer friends…do any of these ring true?  And those X’ers out there…any sound familiar, any notable differences?

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Generation X values…a bit more context

In Defining Events, Generation demographics, Work Values on March 2, 2010 at 2:16 pm

There is much written about key events that have shaped the values of different generations.  Before I start a big rant about how being a latchkey kid changed my perception of who I am and how I work, I thought it would be good to give a little context and list a few important events that have shaped Generation X.

As for the rant…I will deliver, just not yet.

A  few events that have influenced  my generation include:  challenger explosion, AIDS, Reaganomics, rising divorce rates, Berlin Wall,  Watergate, the end of the cold war and of course, the creation of MTV.

Dates defining the Gen X’ers vary, but tend to start somewhere in the early 1960′s and run until the late 70′s.  We generally value independence, self-reliance, informality, information, fun and non-conformity. We are the original latchkey kids which made us value balance between family and work, not letting ourselves be defined only by the work we do but the authentic relationships we develop and the change we create in our communities. We saw the old adage  “if you work hard enough you will be successful” get turned upside down.  We witnessed our parents work day and night, choosing their work over family in the hope it would pay off and then still have “the man” push them down.  We saw rules change, rugs pulled out from under you and the lemmings fall off the cliff.

It is no wonder we are cynical and pragmatic by nature, always preparing for the next rule change, longing for stability while still investing in ourselves and always seeking information that will help us negotiate the next big rule change.  GenX is the generation with the highest education levels and the generation that uses online technology the most for obtaining information…a likely response to the constant changing of rules that has defined our development.

If you are a boomer and reading this you may say “but we saw lots of rules change, Vietnam, civil rights, women’s lib…” The difference between the X’ers and the boomers when it comes to changing rules is that boomers were involved and instrumental in changing rules-they were the rebels who made it happen.   Reganomics, watergate, space shuttle challenger, AIDS, safe sex etc.  were all changes that happened to us, creating a generation of people who must react and choose to adapt to survive. The idealism of the generation before us is not lost on us, we just chalk it up to romantic notions and senior moments not rooted in today’s reality.

In an effort not to write a book here (that has already been done and I’m really not into recreating the wheel)…I will write an additional post about key events for boomers and millenials, the two other generations predominately in the workforce today.   Stay tuned….

In the meantime…please share world or national events that helped shape you.  And hold on for that rant, I’m working up to it.

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The impending non-profit leadership shortage crisis…

In Generation demographics on February 8, 2010 at 9:22 am

There are half as many Generation X’ers as there are baby boomers.  Yes, half.

Study after study (2005-2006) states that 75% of Executive Directors/CEO’s of non profits plan to leave their jobs in the next five years.  Although this has changed some since the economic turn down in 2008,  the trend remains and the shift in leadership is still looming over the NFP sector.

So is it merely a shortage of numbers that the NFP sector is facing or are there more complicated factors at play?  If we had more GenX’ers, would we still be looking at a crisis?

The answer is  an unequivocal yes.  Which brings me to the main purpose of this blog…it is not only the people who work in the NFP sector who are changing, the entire nonprofit industry is changing.  And in this GenXer’s point of view…none too soon.

In my tenure in the sector, I have done all jobs from volunteer grunt worker to Executive Director, board chair to Executive Coach and hired consultant.  I’ve seen my fair share of the internal workings of hundreds of non profits.  In typical GenX fashion….I usually come in to these non profits, regardless of my role, and ask why.  This is not always received well.  People often look at me as if I have sprouted a second head and the common response is “because we’ve always done it this way”.  I can assure you I only have one head (at least on good days) so why the response?

Well..one explanation is that the NFP sector has been set up to address a social mandate, instead of a making profit.  We are designed to allocate a higher percentage of our resources to provide services vs. building infrastructure, supporting management/leadership change or evaluating our effectiveness for change trends. Although we have adjusted to many new demands from funders and communities, by and large, business is still being done the same way it was 30 years ago.

This is not a popular sentiment but I believe it IS an accurate assessment.  Our way of doing business has worked pretty well thus far, but with new political, economic, cultural  and demographic shifts, change is here.  How we collaborate, how we measure success, the role of leadership and how we negotiate this change is still up for grabs.

The good news is that private foundations and non profit consultants are beginning to recognize this and are allocating resources to find ways to negotiate successfully.  The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s  “Next Shift: Beyond the Nonprofit Leadership Crisis” is an excellent publication, worthy of the download.

Other good news?….this GenX’er LOVES change, planning for it, negotiating it, evaluating it…you name it, GenX’ers like to ask why and propose solutions.   That part of the crisis is exciting…waking up one day to find out I am the lone person standing because everyone has retired or my generation has decided this industry is too stuck in a rut-not so exciting.  It is time we look at the issue of leadership change as more than mere numbers, and more as a cultural shift, a change in the entire industry.

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setting the stage….

In Generation demographics on February 1, 2010 at 9:08 am

Upon testing the idea of this blog out with friends of multiple generations, common responses were “can’t we all just get along?”  and “well we are all here {in the non-profit world} for the same reason, social change.  So I don’t see a problem working with many generations” and my personal favorite “oh yeah, you Gen X’ers think you are so different, if you’d just commit to your work there would be no issues.”

I ask myself…..do values really differ across generations? Is there truly a crisis in numbers looming in the future of non-profit leadership? Is the business of non-profits changing?

In typical Generation X fashion….I consult the web for the answers of such questions.  Then I order a few books on Amazon…and read a few blogs.

Low and behold…the answer to all the above questions is a resounding YES. The impending crisis has to do with numbers, values AND a changing work place.

The numbers break down as follows (disclaimer: slight variance on year spread by generation, depending upon source):

  • Traditionalists (1925-1945) and Boomers (1946-1964) account for 160 Million people
  • Generation X (1965-1979) numbers are a fraction of the previous generations-typically approximated at 45 million
  • Generation Y/Millennials rival the boomers in size, about 80 million
  • A national study in 2006 predicted that there would be over 640,000 vacation non-profit senior management positions over the next decade, more than double existing in 2006.

Values….a big discussion worthy of more blog posts which will surely follow this one.  To summarize, there are big differences between management style & hierarchy; motivation to choose non-profit career; emphasis on process vs. results in the work place; conflict resolution and work styles.

All research related to generations and the workplace point to the general conclusion that not only are the people in the non-profit work place changing, but the workplaces themselves are changing.

I come back to the question “can’t we all just get along?.”  My answer is this….it is far more complex and begins with setting the stage, understanding the actors, recognizing the difference in how we act and how all these factors influence the evolving non-profit workplace.

 

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