Creating a Diverse Generational Culture
Examining different generations, how they perceive each other, and thus how they interact together, the question that imposes itself is: What is it that employers should do to create healthy cultures where there are harmoniously productive interactions? How do managers and concerned professionals manage to create a diverse culture that takes in all of those generational differences, blends them and, comes out with its flavor in the light of acceptance?
Well, the answer boils down to FIRO: Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation. A scientifically validated theory that helps us understand how individuals and teams function. FIRO helps managers build collaborative skills and resolve conflicts. Let’s jump into the How-to!
Creating a Culture of Openness, Inclusion, and Control
1. Openness
It is much easier said than done to ask managers, HR professionals and, employees to avoid Stereotyping. While it is an important step, yet it hardly works without a system in place.
- Monitor the language spoken around the organization and use those moments to educate fellow employees on the importance of diversity and open communication. Make sure you create a safe environment for that.
- Encourage focus on similarities instead of dwelling on differences.
- Enhance awareness regarding deep thoughts and feelings of different age groups towards others. Raising awareness brings behaviors that result from these thoughts into the light, then the person can examine the impact of such behaviors and decide accordingly whether to change them or not.
- Encourage individuals to share their deep feelings and thoughts. This starts by sharing some personal stuff such as their favorite holiday, how many siblings, favorite food, and colors.
- Each team member can prepare a slide with a photo and the answer to those 3 questions proposed by Patrick Lencioni in his book “The 5 dysfunctions of a team”1: where did you grow up? how many siblings do you have, and where do you fall in that order? Describe a unique or interesting challenge that shaped who you are. This will bring people together and they will start to realize their similarities. It will also build openness and closeness teaching them to share on a deeper level.
2. Inclusion
It is sometimes easy at work for colleagues who are similar to form cliques. They just feel comfortable dealing with those within their small circle and exclude everybody else. The more similarities with one another the easier it is to bond together and distance oneself from those who are different. It is thus the management’s role to encourage team bonding with some activities such as:
- Create meetings and interactions that bring people together.
- Practice better listening skills and try to understand each employee individually.
- Encourage people to listen better so that they can better recognize and understand each other.
- Allow generational interactions whether at work or design events outside the workplace set up to help build relationships. This will lead to a more collaborative workforce built on better understanding.
3. Control
Overseeing your team and making important decisions requires that you study your employees well. You need to make sure you understand their differences whether on an individual level or a generational one. There is a difference between them, so acknowledge this difference.
- Accept and respect the strengths and weaknesses each one of them brings into the team and the workplace. The more acceptance you have for each the better you are at communicating and utilizing them., thus creating a well-structured workplace with clearly defined responsibilities.
- Help them embrace flexibility. Encourage everyone in your team to accommodate the existing differences.
- Maximize the use of the strengths and make use of everyone’s strengths in different situations based on needs. This maximizes strengths and minimizes weaknesses and differences.
- Discuss and build consensus around a set of rules to resort to once conflict arises.
As we end our words with the control aspect, it is important to understand that management creates a culture of diversity. That diversity should be built on acceptance and rely on the amount of effort and patience you are willing to put in the process. Yet, the fruit is worth it.
1Patrcik Lencioni (2007, Five Dysfunctions of a Team: Facilitator’s Guide. Pfeiffer
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