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July 17, 2009 I was having lunch with a former colleague who has drafted a great book which is intended to be used to form a legacy for yourself and potentially future generations. I very much value his opinion and was seeking his advice on a topic that I should market in order to obtain greater business success. I shared with him some research that I had done concerning team effectiveness. He seemed lukewarm on the topic. He shared with me that his feeling was issues related to working with the various generations is probaby the "hottest topic" in the human resources world today. His specific example was revolved around working with employees who are in their 20's. My initial reaction was mixed and I was not sure that this was a topic that I felt inspired to present. Being on the Programs Committee for the Human Resources Professionals Association, I had noticed there is much demand for topics related to generational issues and yet I was not sure that it was something that I wanted to do. I reflected on this for a while attempting to rationalize my mixed reaction. I think that it primarily had to do with when I was in my late teens or in my twenties that I would hate when so called experts would generalize about my generation. I would hear such terms as lazy, long-haired hippies, irresponsible and yet here I was working part-time in high school and through college paying for all my tuition, my books, my transportation and all my entertainment. Yes my my long curly hair covered my ears. I knew some young people that were less ambitious and I knew others that were more focussed on what they wanted to do then myself. Looking back, most of us had many of the same exposures - the start of computerization, the Vietnam War, man landing on the moon, open concept classrooms but the effects on us were very different. I shared some of these thoughts with another colleague and she mentioned that there seems to be a number of people talking about the differences between the 5 generations but nobody really talks about what to do with this information. My instinct is that no matter who you talk to, you need to first understand them and then you can communicate more effectively. I have always taken this granted. But the more, I thought about this and the more I became curious, the greater my interest became. Maybe my instincts are correct but maybe they are not. Regardless of whether my instincts about intergenerational communication are correct or not, there is still a great opportunity to explore the issue and share this journey through speaking and writing. It seems that my being judgemental regardless of whether my conclusions were correct may have prevented me from exploring this suggestion by a colleague. It seems that becoming curious and exploring what is presented is the way to go. Although, curiousity may have killed the cat; my not being curious could have killed a great opportunity.
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