Executive Podcast #209: A New Kind of Diversity: Generational Diversity in Your Workforce with Tim Elmore

There are currently four to five generations in the workforce. While this may seem to be a leadership challenge, it’s actually an opportunity to gain competitive advantage if you know how to leverage the contribution that each generation brings to the workplace.

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Perry Holley:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell Leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:

And I’m Chris Goede, Executive Vice President with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome, and thank you for joining us. As we get started today, just as a reminder, if you want to download the Learner’s Guide for today’s lesson, if you have a question or a comment, which I think after today’s session, you are going to, we want you to visit maxwellleadership.com/podcast, and there you’ll have a form, fill that out and our team will follow up with you.

Well, we are super excited today, not only a long time friend and mentor of mine personally, but also for my wife and I, Sarah, Tim, and Pam have been a part of our life for, well, we’re not going to tell you how long because then it’s going to age me even though I’m the youngest one at the table. I told Tim as he walked in here, we’re going to have fun today.

Tim Elmore:

Yes, we are.

Chris Goede:

But we’re going to talk about something that I think is really going to add a lot of value to leaders around the world in organizations, no matter the size of your team. Today’s topic is extremely relevant. And what I’m excited about is as you’re listening to this podcast, and we’re going to give you at the end of our podcast how to find Tim’s book. And it’s out, and not only his book, but also we’ve partnered and we’re going to be doing some corporate training, and we’re going to be coming alongside and working with teams on this topic. And so today’s topic, today’s title is A New Kind of Diversity: A Look at Generational Diversity.

So Tim, welcome. Thank you for joining. We’re so glad that you’re here with us.

Tim Elmore:

Great to be with you. Both of you guys.

Chris Goede:

Yes, thank you.

Perry Holley:

Well I’m excited too because I’ve been teaching over the years, five generations in the workplace, and I thought I was doing such a great service, but I never thought about the way you’ve subtitled a book about competitive advantage. I love that. And I think I always presented five generations and generational diversity as something to be tolerated. That’s another thing I really took from your book is that this is something to be, there’s a lot of positive here, a lot of opportunity for competitive advantage. Can you kind of help us understand what’s going on in the workplace when it comes to generations?

Tim Elmore:

Well, Perry, I think there’s an elephant in the room right now that’s there. We all know it’s there, but not quite sure what the conflict is or the great resignation. What’s going on here? I think a lot of it, not all, but a lot of it is these different generations that bring a different language and vocabulary to the workplace. You were talking about your granddaughter, and so I think this book, I don’t think, I know, is designed to be an encyclopedia and a dictionary to really understand those four or five generations and leverage them.

So the latest data tells us diverse generate, excuse me, diverse workplaces help, meaning having various colors and ethnicities. Both genders help us, it’s just more work, but we get helped if we have them. Same is true of this, if you’ve got a 20 something, a 30 something, 40, 50, 60 something, 70 something, you’re going to be better if you do the work to capitalize on them, rather than tolerate them like you said. We’ve often just tolerated them. Oh, those millennials, what’s going on with them? And we got to do better.

Chris Goede:

So we talk about these five different generations. I was like, no, there’s not five different, and sure enough, some of our corporate partners that we work with and we worked with for a long time, you begin looking at it and you begin talking to their leaders and they go, “Oh no, that’s real. We have.” And I was like, “So is that great grandpa?” Are they all? Well, no, they’re not all necessarily related in the same family chain, but we have representation and different, and then how do you lead them to, as you talked about, right? They have a different language, they have different expectations. When it comes to everything inside the culture. And as we’ve talked about on this podcast, the organizational culture is how we think, act and interact inside a team. And if that’s the case, you’ve got to know this, as Tim talked about, this is so important.

Now we know, let’s start on maybe not necessarily a negative side, but we know they can clash. We know that these different generations can clash. Why is that the case and what’s the why behind some of the challenges that leaders are feeling right now while leading teams?

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Tim Elmore:

I think there’s a few big reasons, and I try to outline them in the book. But one is whether we’re aware of it or not, we began to really find a niche, generationally speaking, when our screens, the screens in our life went from public to private. So I grew up with one screen in our home, a TV, and in our case, you might remember, a black and white TV.

Chris Goede:

For those that are listening and not watching, he looked at Perry and said, “You remember those?” He did not look at me. So I am clearly not the [inaudible 00:05:02] generation.

Perry Holley:

We had a remote control. It was me. Change the channel.

Tim Elmore:

That’s right. Exactly.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, that’s a good point.

Tim Elmore:

But think about it, over the years we start getting our own screens. We get our own phones. Now we’ve got a portable device where a teenager can have a wholly different life than mom and dad. So mom knows her daughter has a Instagram account. She didn’t realize she got five Finsta accounts, fake Instagram accounts where she’s developed personas.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, that’s interesting.

Tim Elmore:

So I don’t know if you guys aware of this, there’s actually seven generations alive and well today. So there’s the senior generation, that be my Uncle Jean and Aunt Wanda. They’re in their nineties. And there’s the builder generation. That’s my parents’ generation. Baby boomers, that would be you and I, Perry, my wife and I are baby boomers. And then there’s Gen Xers, I think you’re an Xer, Chris.

Chris Goede:

Yes, I am.

Tim Elmore:

Then there’s the millennials. We’ve been throwing them under the bus for 15 years now. And then Gen Z, the new kids on the block in the workplace that bring a hacker mindset and an entrepreneurial spirit. And then the alpha generation, which would be your grandkids. They’re the youngest generation we’re measuring. They’re not in the workforce yet, but boy.

Chris Goede:

But they’re coming.

Tim Elmore:

Whole new batch of kids. So I just think it’s important to know them so we can say, “Let’s help you become the very, very best version of yourself because we created an environment where you can flourish.”

Chris Goede:

That’s good.

Perry Holley:

Wow. Yeah. Well, you know something you mentioned in the book that I think most people would even, you talk about understanding the generation close to you. I found that interesting. I think about on either side of me. So what do you call the-

Tim Elmore:

The builders.

Perry Holley:

The builders, my parents and that group. And then understanding Chris was the whole part in itself. But tell me why, and then how do you do this? How would you coach us to do that?

Tim Elmore:

I would say first step in my mind would be to understand how our brain works in different stages of our life. I’m not a neuroscientist, but just studying for this for this book, there was a psychologist in 1971 named Raymond Cattell that first began to expose us to his research. In the first 40 years of our life, we experienced mostly what he calls fluid intelligence. In the next 40 years, it’s mostly crystallized intelligence. Now, it’s not that we don’t have both, but fluid is creative, it’s innovative. I got energy, I got new ideas. Crystallize is more, I can summarize those ideas. I can share those ideas. Don’t we get better at teaching as we get older? Let me cut through the fat and say, here’s the deal. So if I welcome that fluid intelligence on my team from that 27 year old and say, “I welcome your contribution.”

I love to tell the story of Tony Palisino, the 20 year old at Ohio University who worked at Sherwin Williams. He got 1.4 million, this is in the book, 1.4 million TikTok followers, because he’s mixing paint on TikTok. He takes it to management, says, “You guys should use this.” They fire him. They fire him, not only because they swear he must be doing this on company time or he’s stealing the paint or distracting customers, but they have no idea that maybe TikTok could be used to market to a million and a half more people. So Tony, get this, Tony moves to Florida, starts his own paint company. He’s got 2 million followers. I’m just saying that was a missed. That was a miss. So that happens to us as we age, and I’m just thinking if we can just let them be who they are, but guide them.

So one more thing before I stop talking.

Chris Goede:

No, do it.

Tim Elmore:

I feel like we need to play the role we have. So I think we got to ditch the niche. That’s my phrase.

Chris Goede:

I like it.

Tim Elmore:

Notice the right words here. Ditch the niche. Okay. What I mean by that is we find ourselves going to people who are like us. They think like us. They vote like us. I’m telling you, when I can find that 20 something and say, “I am sure I’ve got something I can learn from you. And maybe we can both learn from each other.” We got a win there.

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Chris Goede:

Yeah. We talk a lot about being curious and we’re curious in things that, well, we want to be curious in, we want to know more about. But man, if we took the approach, to your point, of being curious about other generations, what could we learn? What could the culture become inside your organization as a leader if you modeled that?

And I want to hit on something that Tim said where Tim said as he’s kind of studied for this book, I would tell you that Tim studies every generation. Tim is one of our thought leaders. I call him kind of the generational expert. Every generation that’s coming up, he has studied and he’s done groups together where they’ve all gotten together and he understands it. So as he put this together, he is very aware of every one of those generations.

Now with that and back in the day, we’ve heard a lot about this generational gap. And it wasn’t always talked about in a positive way when you talk about that. So talk a little bit about the generation gap, that is relevant or that leaders are dealing with that’s actually out there that maybe has a stigma to it.

Tim Elmore:

Yeah. Well, a guy by the name of John Poppy first coined this term generation gap way back in the 1960s when the baby boomers were the young whippersnappers and the older generation, “I can’t understand these kids today, they’re burning buildings, burning bras.” I mean, wasn’t that true? I mean, my God, we thought the world was going to end in 1968.

But what’s funny is what goes around comes around. Now the boomers are the older gen. Well kids today.

Chris Goede:

Same thing, right?

Tim Elmore:

Well, we’ve been saying kids today since Socrates. Literally, if you read what he wrote, kids are disrespectful. And I’m going, oh my gosh, this never changes.

So here’s something I want to point out. The age of authority is dropping today. Here’s what I mean by that. If you worked in the 1940s, the whatever job or task you were doing probably didn’t change in 10 years. It’s pretty much the same, if you worked on conveyor belt, whatever, you didn’t change the way you did it. Well today because the rapid pace of change and technology, the shelf life of a task, every two years, you might go, oh, we’re doing it differently now. Did you not know that? I’m telling you, the young people get it quicker than we do. Let me just speak for me.

Chris Goede:

That’s a good point.

Tim Elmore:

Yeah. So my kids are explaining technology to me. I bet your kids are too, Chris.

Chris Goede:

They are, yeah.

Tim Elmore:

So that’s why famously in 2007, Mark Zuckerberg says, “Young people are just smarter.” Well, we all chuckled when he said that. We know what he meant. He meant he was on Facebook now creating this incredible world and his 20 somethings seemed to get it faster than the 50 somethings. But he later hires Cheryl Sandberg, who a lot older than him, he realized there’s something for both to gain. she brings experience and wisdom and hiring and managing. He brought the tech, put them together. We got a great platform here.

Chris Goede:

I love it.

Tim Elmore:

We got to look at it positively, rather negatively. Yeah.

Perry Holley:

Another thing we teach a lot recently is about, we call it the inclusive leader, and it centered around diversity, equity, and inclusion. But really the eye on that. But you mentioned in the book, I found it very interesting about that there’s a different view at the generational level around DE&I, diversity, equity, inclusion. What can you tell us about that?

Tim Elmore:

Well, I was stunned, and I’m choosing that word very carefully here, when 2020 happened and we began to see protest, and I was glad to see it wasn’t just minorities, but mostly young adults of all over the world protesting. What stunned me was there was this division oftentimes in families between the parents and the young adult children that were angry with mom and dad because they didn’t post a black square on Instagram or whatever. And mom and dad said, “I’m for racial equality. I’m just not on Instagram or whatever.” So it was an unnecessary divide when a lot of times, not all, but a lot of times we did agree that black lives matter and so forth and so on. But we just had this, just like another country, different language-

Chris Goede:

Yeah, how we communicate.

Tim Elmore:

Different customs, different values, and it’s like, I just flew to India. I need to learn what’s going on here. And we didn’t listen. We yelled. And unfortunately, and we screamed on Twitter and Instagram. And so I don’t know if that answers the question, but I feel like there was an unnecessary gap that we could have solved had we done it differently. So here’s the rule I’m following as a 60 something now, and when I’m meeting with a young person, I want to speak as if I believe I’m right, but I want to listen as if I believe I’m wrong.

Chris Goede:

So good.

Perry Holley:

Say that again.

Tim Elmore:

That’s a game changer.

Perry Holley:

Say that again.

Tim Elmore:

I want to speak as if I believe I’m right, I think I am, but I want to listen to that 20 something or my own kids as if I believe I’m wrong. That was a game changer for Jonathan and Bethany when they thought, Dad’s listening to me? This author? But I’m learning from them all the time.

Chris Goede:

Yes, all the time. Yeah. Yeah. What I love about that is we talk about really two principles, the intent versus perception gap. And that ties into that. Our perception of different generations, which goes for the younger generations saying, “Hey, mom and dad aren’t jumping on board.” Well, they are. They’re just not out in social media doing it.

Tim Elmore:

That’s right.

Chris Goede:

There’s a gap there from a leadership perspective. This is happening in your office, in your work, in your place right now. And so you need to be aware of it.

The other thing is we talk about that we need to lead people the way they need to be led.

Tim Elmore:

Yeah, that’s right.

Chris Goede:

And we never on here have said that leadership is easy. Matter of fact it, well, I’m not going to tell you, but sometimes it is, right? But it’s hard. And so the only way that you can really do that is begin to understand, man, how are they wired? What are their learned behaviors? What is their generation? And that’s what Tim’s bringing to us today.

And so, man, I can’t wait. We’d love to have you back for another episode if you don’t mind.

Tim Elmore:

Sure.

Chris Goede:

We’re going to dig into a little bit more, some practical application and things about the book. But here is, as I wrap up and then I’ll throw to you to close, here is your call to action. You have to get this book. And what I love about it is, is that Tim and our team not only obviously wrote an incredible book, but now we have an assessment.

Tim Elmore:

Yes. I’m very, very excited about this.

Chris Goede:

To go along with this. And I know that in organizational health and development, people love assessments. And so our team did that. So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to visit newdiversitybook.com. And there you can take the free assessment, which we work on the GQ Assessment, right?

Tim Elmore:

You can see how fluent you are.

Chris Goede:

You like this right? Here we go. And it’s not because of what we wore today.

Tim Elmore:

That’s right. It has nothing to do with a wardrobe.

Chris Goede:

The generational quotient is what we’re going to be measuring in there.

Tim Elmore:

I’m good at GQ.

Chris Goede:

And it’ll be fascinating. See how I blew right back that.

Tim Elmore:

That’s right.

Chris Goede:

It will be fascinating for you to take that assessment. More importantly, I want you to get this book and not only for yourself, but for your leadership team. You have multiple generations in your workforce. And in order for us to achieve what we’re trying to do as an organization, you’ve got to know your people. And this can be a big divide, as Tim mentioned earlier, it we don’t get our arms around this. So Perry, wrap us up and then we will look forward to seeing Tim next week in our next podcast.

Perry Holley:

I look forward to that. Thank you very much and thank you for joining. Just a reminder, if you want to know more about the offerings that we have, if you want to leave us a question or a comment, especially if you want to talk about the generational diversity, things you’ve heard today, we’d love to hear from you on that. You can do all that at maxwellleadership.com/podcast. I will put the link to the book and to the assessment that Chris just mentioned in the learner guide. So be sure to download that. We’re grateful that you would spend this time with us. Thank you again. This all today from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.