Customer Reviews

Retiring the Generation Gap: How Employees Young and Old Can Find Common Ground (J-B CCL (Center for Creative Leadership))

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Reviewed by Barbara L. Fielder

Subtitled: How employees young and old can find common ground

Every person who reads this book will discover something important about their own generation and other generations with whom they come in contact. You can count on this book to offer you two important areas on which to focus:

1. To discover what you can do to retire the generation gap, and

2. Why you should.

Students studying the generation gap or for managers who want to explore options that support improvements in cross generational relationships, this book offers practical information and solutions.

Each chapter contains the following:

--A description of the generational issues
--A description of the author's research on the issue (over 5,800 participants were surveyed from 2000 to 2005).
--The research expressed as a principle.
--The author's best take on how to apply the principle to make cross generational work life easier for the reader.

The author slices the generational demographics into smaller segments, differentiating the empirical data from other researchers that cover similar information and makes the data more relevant and specific.

The generations described in specific detail are:

--Silents born between 1925 -1945
--Early Boomers born between 1946-1954
--Late Boomers born between 1955-1963
--Early Xers born between 1964-1976
--Late Xers born between 1977-1986

You might conclude that the author is going to bore you with statistics. Not so. However, for those who prefer empirical data, there is ample research data to excite you. In addition, the book includes bibliographical references and index. No mistaking, this book is not a riveting page turner, yet the author writes in a conversational tone that makes the book readable.

This is an excellent subject matter book for readers who are focused on conducting their own research or for those satisfying their own curiosity about retiring the generation gap.

Retiring the Generation Gap: How Employees Young and Old Can Find Common Ground (J-B CCL (Center for Creative Leadership))

Unless you are looking for statistics, this book does not add much to the working knowledge of the manager seeking advice regarding ways to effectively manage a multi-generational team. Because it came from CCL, I was doubly disappointed.

Unlike many other books written on generational differences in the workplace. Retiring the Generation Gap is an empirically based research study. Jennifer Deal (Center for Creative Leadership) analyzed the workplace perspectives of over 3,200 employees of varying ages. Research-based books are not always enjoyable to read but Jennifer Deal does a good job of making the quantitative analysis bearable and meaningful with practical advice for how employees of all ages can find common ground. Each chapter contains a description of the issue, a description of the research conducted, the principal conclusion of the research expressed as a principle, and the author's take on how to apply the principle to make cross-generational work life easier.

On the first page of the book the author states:

1. Fundamentally people want the same things, no matter what generation they are from.
2. You can work with (or manage) people from all generations effectively without becoming a contortionist, selling your soul on eBay, or pulling your hair out on a daily basis.

Finally, an empirical book with a positive focus that discusses the things that the generations have in common. The introduction also includes an important discussion on the dangers of making generalizations because as the author notes, there will always be individuals who do not fit a particular generalization.

The author divides and defines the generations as:

Silents (1925-1945)
Early Boomers (1946-1954)
Late Boomers (1955-1963)
Early Xers (1964-1976)
Late Xers (1977-1986)

The book presents ten principles but the author also discovered an underlying theme that informs each principle. The theme is that "most intergenerational conflict shares a common point of origin: the issue of clout--who has it, who wants it". The author concludes that fundamentally, generational conflict often stems from a particular group's notion that it gets to make the rules and that the other group has to follow those rules.

The ten principles are:

1. All generations have similar values; they just express them differently
2. Everyone wants respect; they just don't define it the same way
3. Trust matters
4. People want leaders who are credible and trustworthy
5. Organizational politics is a problem--no matter how old (or young) you are
6. No one really likes change
7. Loyalty depends on the context, not on the generation
8. It's as easy to retain a young person as an older one--if you do the right things.
9. Everyone wants to learn more than just about anything else
10. Almost everyone wants a coach

One of the important take aways from Retiring the Generation Gap is "you don't have to tie yourself into knots trying to accommodate each generation's individual whims, and you don't have to worry about learning a new set of whims when you next generation comes along. People from different generations are largely alike in what they think, believe, and want from their work life."

This ambitious book, based on a seven-year survey of more than 3,200 employees, examines how different generations view the workplace. Author Jennifer Deal handles the difficult task of presenting, distilling and interpreting the data according to age group and worker status. Her use of applicable real-life scenarios is effective in helping managers implement these findings, but the presentation of research data makes for weighty reading. We recommend this book to managers who have problems with intergenerational tensions at work, though Deal concludes that the generation gap is overrated and employees of all ages desire many of the same things.

Very easy to read, helps to "bust" some of the currently accepted myths around generations. Useful for those of us in the corporate world.