To quote the article “The typical household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35.“

Before you jump to the explanation that people accumulate wealth and assets as they age and we Xer’s just need to put our time in, the article is also quoted as saying that “the gap is now more than DOUBLE what it was in 2005 and five times what it was 25 years ago, after adjusting for inflation.”   Yes folks, we are the first generation to do worse financially than our parents and our millennial friends behind us hold the same distinction.

This trend has vast consequences for our public and non profit organizations.  Consider our donor base, philanthropy and planned giving best practices the industry has been using for decades. Ask yourself it they take this trend into consideration?  In my experience, the answer is no.  All of these activities are still very boomer and traditionalist focused.  If you haven’t already come to this conclusion, let me be the first to lay it out, in black and white….the way we raise money to support our organizations today, is not what will be successful in a decade.  I encourage you to review the AP article (or the subsequent flurry of articles resulting from the AP article-click here for the Chicago Tribune version) and begin the conversations in your organizations about this trend.

Finally, millions of Americans are struggling financially, that is not news.  But the state of the economy from a GenX filter is news, at least it was today.

This is not a new concept, nor can I take credit for calling the concept out for the first time. But I will lay it out there, with a generation lens.

Just yesterday, while in a large strategic planning meeting, I was struck by the division of some seeing technology as a threat and others seeing it as an opportunity.  One particular comment, that started a flurry of fear based comments, was “technology is so unsafe, we have to protect ourselves and our children from it.” While another (also a boomer) chimed in to add “technology is not only unsafe but it is EXHAUSTING, all the constant emails and text messages, I can’t keep up!”  There was a collective sigh, and it was mostly from those well over the age of 55.

Meanwhile, I see the X’ers and Millennials in the group shifting uncomfortably in their chairs.  Some looking around with cagey eyes like they are trapped ready for the finger pointing and  ”those millennials keep texting during meetings” comments to begin. Others were ready to vehemently disagree, wanting to list off all opportunities that technology offers to make our work more effective, efficient and increase accessibility of information.

This division and dynamic is obvious in nearly all meetings, trainings, seminars I attend.

I don’t have a specific solution for either group’s conflict, but I can say that as a “bridge” generation between boomers and millennials…Generation X has a chance to make a significant impact in this argument.  Boomers, some better than others, have adapted to common workplace technology developments like email, texting, internet, google etc. But it has been an adaptation for boomers.  Millennials were born connected, they don’t know a life without it. Meanwhile, GenX, was in our prime developmental years, psychologically, emotionally and educationally during the rise in the use of technology for communications and work.  We were also just beginning our careers during the dot.com explosion-a pivotal turning point in the evolution of technology in the workforce.

As a generation, we can argue both sides of this technology argument.  The positives, the negatives.  The challenges and the opportunities.  What is even better however, is that we can act as the bridge between the boomers and millennials.  Technology is here to stay, and will continue to evolve, avoiding it is no longer an alternative.  Not using email or learning to text for work communications, not googling your next job applicant candidate, avoiding social networking or websites to promote your organization, is no longer cute.  Technology doesn’t have to be scary and bad.

To my fellow X’ers, stand up and offer to help your colleagues to adapt.  Bridge the gap between generations. Explain to millennials about where the fear of technology comes from so they are better able to validate boomers.  At the same time, be assertive with boomers to give time and space for Xer’s and millennials to teach about the advantages of being more connected. Technology has much to offer, so let us frame the conversation to be less about fear and more about an opportunity to learn from other generations.

Did you hear that sound?  It was the collective sigh of frustration of my GenX colleagues.  For nearly two decades, my generation has been overlooked far more than our predecessors were when they were our age, and with bigger economic impact.  The majority of GenX’ers in public/government jobs and NPO’s are still in middle management, with huge student loan debt, little to no retirement savings and working under a “grey ceiling.” To top it off, we are the generation with a disproportionate percentage of mortgage crisis victims, we are the first generation in the history of our country to NOT do as well financially as our parents and we have workaholic boomers and traditionalists who just won’t retire.  Add to that, the prevailing GenX belief that there are many ways we could and should do business differently than our predecessors…if we only had a chance.  So yes, we have some anxious X’ers wanting to step into those executive jobs that boomers are vacating, and we welcome the tsunami.

The dichotomy between the anxious ready to change things up get out of my way X’ers and the fear of the unknown/there is nobody who will do it like me and with my experience attitude of the boomers is played out nearly every time I hear the word retirement.  Which is usually followed by a tense argument about the value of experience vs. the value of pragmatic results based leadership. Then it quickly degrades into dissent about who are we going to hire to fill this void?

The solution you ask?  Well for one, I’d suggest you approach the void by not looking at it as a void.  The tsunami of job title transitions is an opportunity for change and growth.   Both GenX and Millennials are already in the trenches and we surpass boomers and traditionalists in academic preparation, prior volunteer experience and innovative entrepreneurial ventures. Instead of looking for somebody to fill your shoes, look for somebody to provide a new direction and a breath of fresh air.  Approaching recruitment, even in this economic time, with an opportunity lens will likely get you the candidates you really want, not the warmed over mediocre version of what you already have.  Secondly, LISTEN.  The majority culture (boomers in this case) are classic for “knowing” what is right, but not always seeing alternatives that might also be reality.   Lastly, have a robust and diverse hiring committee, comprised of various generations, experience levels and expertise areas.  THIS will bring in your best candidates and your best match, regardless of generation.

As for retirement.  Welcome it, embrace it, it is not to be feared. Being a GenX ”slacker”, I look forward to the days that I get to retire and choose how I spend every moment of every day. Welcome it!

Although I still have a bit of resentment about boomers coining this label for my generation, I still find myself sentimentally attached to it.  I must also admit that I like the irony of it now….

As my generation enters middle age we look around and suddenly see ourselves in positions of power.  Board chairs, upper management, executives….quietly making important decisions, shaping our communities, and visioning where we want more change. Yet we still identify as being the other person, the person outside the group of power and we retain our fierce distrust of authority, our love of irony and our celebration of everything outside of convention.  Here we are, reading the NYT on our iPhones while we are at our kids’ soccer games, drinking our triple grande soy latte’s in a recycled cup, joking about the “man” and how he’s got us down….while uncomfortably giggling at the irony of it all.  Our generation loves and embraces irony more than any prior or since so we view our seemingly incongruity with humor and un-attachment.  Yes folks, we have begun to take charge but we remain steadfast in our slacker reality bites roots.   And let me remind you, that is perfectly ok.

We must retain our attachment to the word slacker.  We still look for easier & better ways of doing things, getting the same result with less effort.  We still mock all that is convention while recognizing that we are now part of it, we still scoff and roll our eyes when those steeped in tradition can’t see value in new, we still appreciate the irony of sitting in positions of power when we don’t identify as one of “them”.  If we lose these very characteristics of our generation, we assimilate.  This is our time, embrace our roots and keep making change, my fellow slackers.

So why do we do this in meetings?  Why do we spend hours of our lives in committee meetings (sitting in uncomfortable chairs in small stuffy rooms around tables) talking about how “busy” we’ve been?  Why are reports to board members (board packets) filled with lists of what we’ve been busy doing?   Sure it is important to know that we have done SOMETHING…but why not focus on the outcomes of our work, the results of being “busy” and the impact of our efforts.

I was just reading thru nearly a dozen board reports and I noticed that EVERY SINGLE report used the word “busy”.  Is it harsh to say that I don’t really want to know what you did last Tuesday or what meetings you’ve been to?  I trust that you are busy doing what you need to do to be successful at your job.  I would rather  know about what happened because you were at that meeting &  what you got out of it.  And if you can’t answer THAT question…maybe you should spend your time in a different way.  

If you want to engage X’ers in your work and meetings, focus on outcomes, results and impact and join me in putting a moratorium on the word “busy”.

If you are a stats geek like I am,  you’ll be interested to read what wordpress crunched for me.

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,600 times in 2010. That’s about 6 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 20 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 9 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 2mb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was February 3rd with 74 views. The most popular post that day was …don’t you want to be “developed”?.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, digg.com, slashingtongue.com, WordPress Dashboard, and google.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for generation x values, values of generation x, gen x values, generation demographics+technology, and events that shaped generation x.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

…don’t you want to be “developed”? February 2010
10 comments

Generation X values…a bit more context March 2010
4 comments

all about me…. January 2010

Technology…game or workhorse? February 2010
6 comments

It’s our time….Goonies Anthem or GenX Manifesto? February 2010
4 comments

Here is to another year of blonde’s navigating the sea of grey!!  -V

I’ve gotten a lot of  feedback about my critique of meetings, largely from friends in the corporate or for-profit fields.  Often their comments sound  like this  “seriously?  I would walk out of a meeting that was that pointless, time is money” or “if somebody is multi-tasking in a meeting, either the meeting doesn’t have enough focus, or the people in your meeting are the wrong ones”.   Interesting points….which makes me ask if meetings in the non-profit and public sector are different from those in the for profit world.  The ultimate goal of the for profit industry is to make more money-so naturally meetings would be a strategy to make this happen.  The goal of organizations in the non-profit sector is varied and sometimes foggy. This reality can create a meeting monster that results in confusion of the meeting purpose and varying levels of disengagement from those in the meeting.  Engaging people in a meeting with a foggy goal or purpose is difficult at best.  Add generational differences in how we define the goals and purpose of organizations and it gets uglier.

One strategy for success in negotiating this mess is good meeting management & understanding how to engage people of all generations in meetings. I’ve discussed the purpose of meetings  in other posts but how we build our agendas, what we do in meetings and how we deal with the need to engage our volunteers and staff  is worth more discussion.

How to engage gen X you ask?  Well….here is an example of how not to engage younger generations….

I recently sat through a two-hour meeting where all we did was share information about what we were busy doing, tasks people planned to do and information on things we could do.  I think eating a dirt sandwich would be more enjoyable and worthwhile.  I would rather hear about what you accomplished and how it has resulted in change or allow me to chime in with my thoughts about a decision that needs to be made. Spending valuable face to face time just chatting about information I could spend 5 minutes reading in a written report is not a good use of my time.  I would prefer to come to a meeting to make a decision, share information you are not able to get elsewhere and capitalize on the group dynamic to get discussion and movement toward a common goal.

But that is just me.

I’ve observed that some people find great value in spending entire meetings sharing information and talking about activities, namely boomers and traditionalists.  The process of sharing information is a strategy left over from days where instant electronic messages, online information sharing and anytime/anyplace communication strategies were not so prevalent.  You had to wait until you saw a person face to face to get their report-or wait for snail mail to send it to you after somebody typed it out on a typewriter.  Meeting agenda’s are still built around “old business” and “new business”, committee reports etc. . It is an unusual meeting agenda that is built around what outcomes have resulted from activities or what decisions do we need to make today in this meeting.

The solution?….. having a meeting with a good healthy mix of strategy and creative management for the group you are leading.  First, be clear about why you are meeting.  Meeting for the sake of meeting is not quite at the level of Dante’s seven deadly sins…but seriously, be clear with your purpose of bringing people together.  Second, allow for sharing time for those that prefer that process.  Third, add in decisions that need to be made and outcomes that can be reported on from activity of the group.  If possible, ask the group what amount of each process they prefer.  If you have an entire group of GenX’ers I would guess you’d want to have written reports on progress/activity and spend more time on dialogue leading to decision-making.   Big group of boomers?….more time on sharing.

At the very least…consider your meeting management in the context of  generational difference.  Discuss what processes your group prefers and how to build your agenda around it.  I would bet the result would be more engagement and better  progress toward your goal.

The purpose of a non-profit’s existence is not the bottom line and it is varied from one organization to another. It may be to advocate the change of a social ill, sometimes it exists to give individuals skills,  other times it is just to provide a service that is needed because nobody else  is addressing that need or it is not cost-effective to provide it from a for-profit point of view.

The motivation behind why somebody works in or volunteers for a non-profit are also not as clear-cut as in the for-profit world.  Some will say that they work in non-profits because they want to “help” as they are altruistic in nature.  Some want to “give back”, some want to do it because it makes them feel better.

Assuming that all volunteers, board members or staff are motivated to work there for the same reason and believe in the same purpose of the organization is a dangerous assumption.   I have seen many varied responses when asked why do you do this work or what is the purpose of your organization and of course….there are generational trends to the answers I have heard.

It is well established that baby boomers are “doers.”  Their overachieving, competitive, performance based attitude has served them well in life.  This value has shaped the non-profit industry for 30 years.   This is where the “I am here to do xyz” or “our organization does xyz” statements come from.   Examples would be:  I am here to provide shelter, I train people,  I advocate for environmental health, I help victims.  The basis being “I find value in what I do” .

Generation X  has as decidedly different approach.  I won’t comment if it comes from the slacker days of our teens and 20′s, where we gained the reputation for not doing (up to boomer or traditionalist expectations that is).  But I will say that our response to the why am I here question is most often surrounded around the idea of outcome or change. If there isn’t a clear link to what will change, the slacker in most of us Gen X’ers are not going to engage.  Call us lazy but we’re not into doing something just for the sake of doing it.  The value for us and for our agencies is to change an outcome, hopefully for the better. I find value in the result of what I do.

A common place that I see this divide in the non-profit sector is in the creation of mission statements & strategic plans.  Boomers like to talk about what they are doing, X’ers most often focus on why are we doing it, what is going to change because I am here.   Millenials sit back and watch the tennis match back and forth.

This divide is virtually non-existent in the for-profit world.  There are no gray areas of purpose or motivation, you are there to make money…end of story.  No sitting in small rooms in uncomfortable chairs for hours upon hours, negotiating what will change because we exist or what need do we fill or mapping out the details of how we do it.

So why do you go to work?  And what is the point or purpose of your organization?  How do you communicate or verbalize the answers to these questions?  Is it different from your fellow staff, volunteers or board members?

Just yesterday, while in a board meeting, I was deep in my typical multi-task meeting mode (otherwise known as MTMM) and looked up to see the three other GenX’ers in the meeting doing the very same thing.  One was texting the other who was sitting down the table, another looking at his calendar on his iPhone, another googling a topic we were discussing in the meeting. Before you lambast us for using our smart phones while in a meeting take note of this…of the 25+ people in this meeting, 70% of those participating in the meeting were the very same GenX’ers.  We were engaged, we were participating, we were focused, we were all in MTMM.

GenerationX is the first generation to have grown up adapting to rapid changes in technology and connectivity.  Unlike the millenials who were born into a world where electronic multi-tasking (such as emails, texting, SMS, IM) is the norm, or the boomers who have had to make an extra effort as adults to adapt to using technology…generation X was the first to put connectivity to work, professionally and personally.

Paving the electronic connectivity road for younger generations while acting as a model for older generations may have a cost.  As discussed in a recent New York Times article titled “Your Brain on Computers: Hooked on Gadgets and Paying the Mental Price“, the curse of electronic multi-tasking can be high.

However, the skeptical and analytical X’er in me points out that all multi-taskers, electronic or otherwise, must always weigh costs and benefits.  Electronic connectivity has not changed the necessity for balance.  The appeal of the anytime anywhere multi-tasking that connectivity allows only amplifies what we’ve known for ages-we must weigh the benefit of being connected with the cost to authentic human connection. A topic worthy of its own blog post.

So my answer to the title of this post is…connectivity is a gift with strings. I’m proud to be a part of a generation and time that has made technological connectivity work.  If you don’t share my love for MTMM, I challenge you to consider the benefit  next time you see an X’er or Millenial electronic multi-tasking.  Ask them how they balance the benefits with the costs.  You might just learn something.

For those of you who do enjoy a little electronic multi-tasking, test your ability to focus with this distractibility test created at Stanford.  I bet you can’t beat my score.

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.