Do Generational Differences Matter in Government Workplaces?

During the last three hours of a three-day pre-retirement seminar, I felt like banging my head against my desk. Even though retirement planning can be tedious, I enjoyed the two-and-a-half days of information. Well-researched information I could put to immediate use in helping have a successful retirement.

Then, the last speaker talked about preparing psychologically for retirement. As retirement was still years off for me, I only half-listened. Fifteen minutes into the presentation, the usual generational stereotypes popped up. I won't repeat them here other than to say that the Boomers were slightly smug about their retirement prospects while they lamented Generation X and Millennials' retirement plans.

Since I started in the federal government as a Presidential Management Fellow in 1997, I have attended many training events about the generations in the workplace. I remember when I, a Generation Xer, was the new kid on the block. Then, returning to government in December 2008, the new generational star was the Millennials. Now, fifteen years later, it's Generation Z.

According to a recent article in Route Fifty, Millennial managers are having problems managing Generation Z workers. As I read the article, I saw the same complaints about "the kids today" as when Boomers complained about Generation X workers.

Do Generations Exist?

"Categorizing workers with generational labels like 'baby boomer' or 'millennial' to define their needs and behaviors is not supported by research, and cannot adequately inform workforce management decisions…" (NASEM, 2020a; see also NASEM, 2020b).

In their article, Generations and Generational Differences: Debunking Myths in Organizational Science and Practice and Paving New Paths Forward (2021), Rudolph, Rauvola, Costanza, and Zacher give ten generational differences myths. The most relevant myths for this discussion are:

Number 6 – "Generations need to be managed at work."

Number 7 – "Members of younger generations are disrupting work."

Number 10 – "Talking about generations is largely benign."

Successful Intelligence Is Better at Explaining Differences at Work

I was at lunch with a colleague bemoaning a recent training on generational differences when she asked what I thought differentiated people. "Successful intelligence," I immediately said.

I hadn't thought about successful intelligence for years. In 1998, I discovered Dr. Sternberg's book, The Triarchic Mind, and his concept of successful intelligence.

According to Dr. Sternberg, successful intelligence is:

"[D]efined as one's ability to set and accomplish personally meaningful goals in one's life, given one's cultural context. A successfully intelligent person accomplishes these goals by figuring out his or her strengths and weaknesses, and then by capitalizing on the strengths and correcting or compensating for the weaknesses. Strengths and weaknesses are in terms of four kinds of skills: creative, analytical, practical, and wisdom-based. In particular, the individual needs to be creative in order to generate novel and useful ideas; analytical to ascertain that the ideas he/she has (and that others have) are good ones; practical in order to apply those ideas and convince others of their value; and wise in order to ensure that implementation of the ideas will help ensure a common good through the mediation of positive ethical principles." [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKgU-x2Iqzc]

His concepts spurred me to work on increasing my creative and practical intelligence. My analytical intelligence was well-developed, but I was persuaded that I needed to balance my analytical intelligence by building up my creative and practical intelligence. In 1997, Sternberg released his follow-book, Successful Intelligence. I bought his book just as I started my Presidential Management Fellowship and decided that gaining my project management certification would significantly increase my practical intelligence. In recent years, design thinking has helped me improve my creative intelligence.

I have noticed that the more successful people at work seem to have a good balance of analytical, creative, practical, and wisdom intelligence. In my admittedly informal observations, the workers with an optimal balance of the four intelligences are better colleagues, more productive, and accomplish much. It doesn't matter the colleague's race, gender, generational cohort, or other observable differences.

The best thing about successful intelligence is that it can be developed. As a training and development professional, I can help people determine which intelligence they want to build. For example, I wanted to be more effective in implementing my ideas, so I studied project management. Design thinking has helped me become better at generating creative ideas. With the proper coaching, mentoring, and training, any worker can reach a good balance between the four intelligences.

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You Can't Change When People Were Born, But You Can Change Their Success Intelligence

I disregard generational stereotypes. Dismissing a person based on their generational cohort is as wrong as rejecting someone because of their gender, sexual identification, race, or similar difference. What I look for is how successfully intelligent the person is. But, before you judge other people's successful intelligence, take the measure of your successful intelligence.

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References

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2020a). "Categorizing workers' needs by generation such as Baby Boomers or Millennials is not supported by research or useful for workforce management." National Academies. Retrieved from: https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2020/07/categorizing-workers-needs-by-generation-such-as-baby-boomers-or-millennials-is-not-supported-by-research-or-useful-for-workforce-management

?National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Are generational categories meaningful distinctions for workforce management? Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2020b.

?Rudolph CW, Rauvola RS, Costanza DP, Zacher H. "Generations and Generational Differences: Debunking Myths in Organizational Science and Practice and Paving New Paths Forward." J Bus Psychol. 2021;36(6):945-967. doi: 10.1007/s10869-020-09715-2. Epub 2020 Sep 4. PMID: 32901173; PMCID: PMC7471586.

?Sternberg, R. (1997). Successful Intelligence: How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determine Success in Life. Plume.