A Help In Beginning To Understand Generational Differences

In today’s on-line educational seminar with The Network of Family Businesses, Dr. Terry Cahill, (Associate Professor for the PhD Health Sciences program at Seton Hall) began to help the membership recognize the differences between the generations in the family business.

Defining who is currently in the workplace as the Traditionalists, the Boomers, Gen X, and the Millenials, Terry explained the issues that have influenced the personality and values unique to each generation. The influences of events for each generation began to clarify the why and how each generation may act or respond or think. In a clearly defined grid we were able to gain wonderful insight for business families as they consider the differences of the generations when planning succession and transition for the business.

Below is a sample of the grid Terry developed to differentiate potential clash points.

	Traditionalist	Baby Boomers	Generation X	Millenials
Career Goals	Building a legacy	Building a stellar career	Building a portable career	Building parallel careers
Reward System	Satisfaction of a job well done	Money, title, recognition, corner office	Freedom is the ultimate reward	Work that has meaning for me
Defining Balance	Support me in shifting form a life of work to retirement	Help me balance everyone else and find meaning myself	Give me balance now, not when I am sixty-five	Work isn’t everything, I need flexibility so I can balance all my activities
Feedback	No news is good news	Once a year, with lots of documentation	So, how am I doing?	…at the push of a button
Training	I learned it the hard way; you can too	Train’em too much and they’ll leave	The more they learn, the more they stay	Continuous learning is a way of life

I was excited with this insightful perspective presented by Terry and developed a few key take-aways:

1. Continue to work at understanding these generational differences and recognize into which group (s) your family members are – BUT don’t become frustrated with them - capitalize and celebrate the different viewpoints – the strength, depth, and expertise of each group – (our businesses may also be able to use the different generations of our families to help market the business).

2. As families in business implement processes for succession planning – recognize what could potentially be clash points but turn that information into opportunities to strengthen the family.

3. As business grows and families need to recruit (both family and non-family) recognize who and for what we are recruiting – be flexible in meeting the needs and expectations of each individual.

This seminar can be viewed in the archives of The Network of Family Businesses at www.netfamilybusiness.com