[Alicia Davis] If you have a team that has multiple generations in it, we have a great conversation about this, don’t we, Stacie?
[Stacie Watson] Yes, you know, I think that it’s interesting; we’ve spent a lot of time, as always, around teams and leaders. And when this topic comes up, I feel like, maybe more than many other topics, it generates a lot of energy. You know, people have a lot of opinions and feelings about what it means to be a 20-something in the workforce versus what it means to be a 30-40-50-something in the workforce. And what’s interesting is that all of those people are in the workforce. And so I think this is why it’s so interesting to teams, is because when they look around, this kind of diversity is something that they see. And I think for some of us, we have a lot of really strong stories that we’ve made up about what does it mean to be a person in your 20s working, you know, on this team, versus what does it mean to be a person, like me, in my 50s working on a team… And so we kind of have an interesting suggestion as to how you can start to even have a conversation around that, right?
[Alicia Davis] Yeah, you know, it’s really simple. I think part of, part of this is really about how we have conversations with people who may interact differently. I mean, I think one of the reasons that many teams are coming to us now is because, like you said, there are five, in some cases, there are five generations in the workforce, and so sometimes, to be able to be curious, right, to not go into a conversation or an interaction, having that thought of, well, this is the way I do it, or this is the way we’ve always done it, because there can be lots of innovation when you bring different opinions and different perspectives and different styles together, and can really cultivate that conversation. What do you see as our similarities? What do you see as our strengths? What do you see as, you know, ways that we could improve? I think it really it starts opening up that dialog.
[Stacie Watson] Yeah, I think your comment about curiosity is just always so important because if we can be really curious about how, you know, the younger – I’ll be a little stereotypical – the younger person’s technical skills might be beneficial to the team, right? Then that’s a really different way to think about that person and technology. Just like if you can think about a person like me, again, being stereotypical, sort of being the person that’s very focused on sort of getting this thing done, and whatever it takes, I’m here to do it, right? And so how can we kind of really lean into that? And so it’s just this idea of, how can we notice some of the stories we make up about each other, and figure out, well, is that true or not in this particular situation, and then, even with these differences, how can we find ways to work more effectively and more productively because of our differences, as opposed to in spite of our differences? Right?
[Alicia Davis] That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. And we’ve got a session coming up in our Learning Academy on “Leading a Multigenerational Team.” It’s coming up on December 5th. So if that’s something that might interest you or your team Academy.TLStransforms.com. And I’m Alicia Davis…
[Stacie Watson] I’m Stacie Watson…
[Alicia Davis] And thanks so much.
[Stacie Watson] Thank you.
