Let Me Out of the Box (part 3 of 3)

I distinctly remember a 74 year old accountant who was working part time in an office with several 20-something's. When he took the audit his profile showed him clearly a Baby Boomer. It was hard to comprehend, so we had him take it again, and again. Each time his results showed strong Baby Boomer
tendencies and traits even though he was born a GI Generation.

So here is what the Generational Profile data reveals. Each person has their own history that is
influenced by their generation. Those in that generation share similar experiences. However, a potentially greater influencer is our local surroundings, how we were raised, family members, our geographical location, religion and a host of others.

I realize much is being said these days about generational differences in the workplace but we don't exist and have our being within the confines of these four boxes - GI Generation, Baby Boomer, Gen X or Millennials.

For more information on generational differences in the workplace go to GenerationalProfiles.com

Let Me Out of the Box (part 2 of 3)

Generational experts say that people in a given generation have the same traits and tendencies. However, when looked at closely we begin to see things being much different than what experts
have classified as “Your Generation”. Generations typically are described as a 20 year block of time, for example Generation X (or Gen X) was born in 1964 to about 1983. In history the shortest generation was 17 years and the longest was 24, so the actual dates become fuzzy depending on which expert you ask.

My colleagues and I had a thought. What if a person did not display the general traits and tendencies of their generation? We began attempting to understand how and where the lines were being drawn between generations and gathering the specifics of each generation to study the current generational mix in the workforce. We found that there are currently at least four generations in the US workforce.

Being web application and training developers, we built a database with a web interface to ask a few questions, collect the data, and emailed the URL to some of our friends. The result of our first generational audit was quite interesting and not what we had expected. We expected that everyone would generally follow their own generation. That is to say, a Gen X'er profile would reflect strong Gen X traits, Baby Boomers would score high on the Boomer scale, and so on.

What we actually saw was that people scored across generations. GI Gens scoring high Boomer or Boomers scoring as a high Gen Y. We concluded that many people actually associate themselves surprisingly well to other generations regardless of the generation in which they are born.

For more information on generational differences in the workplace go to GenerationalProfiles.com

Let Me Out of the Box (part 1 of 3)

Have you ever wondered after all the personality profiles, age or gender profiles and other psychology testing in the workplace, why there seems to be something missing? For years we have put our faith and trust in these personality tests, all of which tend to be the same and produce effectively the same results. Companies use them to determine if new hires fit into the group or the corporate mold. Individuals like them because they confirm what we think of ourselves. Psychology test do serve a purpose, however when one is attempting to find the right person for the job, they do very little to define generational issues.

After 20 years of business consulting, marketing development, training and developing web applications, I have found the one thing that has remained the same; everyone is different. The experts tend to want to put everyone in a single box. You're this color, you go in this box. You're from this part of the world, you go over here or we understand you think like this, so...and so on. As for me the only thing that is consistent is that the older guys always seem to be in control of the younger guys, even back in the soaring DOT.COM world of the '90's. The older guys were in their mid 30's, or older and the younger guys were in their late teens or early twenties. That consistency is called generations. Each generation moves through time at the same pace. Each generation has its opportunity to be the wannabes and graduate to the experts then when they get tired of the race, they retire. Your generation is determined by a multitude of events in your life and your birth date is the divider - another box to put you in so the experts can track you down and sell you stuff.

Methinks differently.

For more information on generational differences in the workplace go to GenerationalProfiles.com