Truth 39. All the generations want the same things

In recent years—especially before the current economic crisis kicked in—clear delineations seemed to exist among the various groups we like to define as generations. Baby Boomers, GenX, GenY, and Millennials were believed to want different things from work, to have different attitudes toward their work, and to have different expectations from their management. Consequently, a whole management consulting expertise emerged designed to make business leaders feel uncertain about their approach to managing employees from different age groups—and then to reap the financial rewards from serving that organizational uncertainty.

What if we were all wrong? Economic stresses and a shrinking job market are turning out to be extremely effective generational equalizers. The previously smug Millennials are discovering what Baby Boomers experienced when entering an equally hostile job market back in the 1970s. The lesson: The world doesn’t owe you a job, and there are no participation trophies.

There really isn’t much difference between Baby Boomers and Millennials. Baby Boomers are, in a sense, just Millennials with gray hair (or touched-up roots in the never-ending quest to succeed in our youth-oriented culture). Baby Boomers, after all, originated the youth culture. Baby Boomers entered adulthood with a certain set of entitlement expectations that sprang from growing up in a time of relative prosperity and a weird kind of peace around the world. (Sure, there was the Cold War and the dive-under-your-desk threat of nuclear warfare. But really, as a generation, childhood was mainly about consumerism and safe, backyard fun.) Jobs were perceived to be secure (“go to college and you’re set for life”), and it wasn’t until Boomers were in their late teens or early adulthood that their parents began to lose their jobs in mass numbers. All the while, as a broad generalization, Baby Boomers explored what it meant to question authority and experimented with various degrees of unconventionalism.

There really isn’t much difference between Baby Boomers and Millennials.

Rules were questioned and broken. Until hard cycles of dreary economic realities of the 70s and 80s fractured the implied promise of work-hard-get-good-grades-get-a-job-work-hard-keep-that-job formula. Oops. Life’s not fair after all.

It was at that point that Baby Boomers learned what their parents knew all along. And now younger generations are learning what the Baby Boomers have known all along. They entered the workforce full of so-called new economy positive expectations, expecting the economic trend line to be a steep vertical climb. Employers competed viciously with each other to attract and keep the most desirable employees (who are now called talent). There was title inflation, where it seemed that anyone who could fog a mirror could become a vice president or CEO before 30. And recruiters even tolerated the presence of Mom and Dad at job interviews. Whatever it takes to staff up and keep the company humming.

If you’re a manager, it’s still up to you to keep your company humming. It’s your mission to manage your employees in such a way that you draw their best, most committed, most excellent performance from them—both as individuals and as a team. But maybe it’s time to stop focusing on the differentiated expectations of generations and start looking at what everyone needs to give his or her best to their team and company: clarity of roles and expectations and to be treated with respect.

“We’re all a function of our environment,” says Robert Critchley, a human resources consultant in Sydney, Australia. “While it’s important to have a general idea of how the different generations work differently, please take a moment to understand that GenY’s are really no different than Baby Boomers when they were the same age.

“For the last 10 years we’ve been operating under the general assumption that GenY workers were more relaxed, more entitled about their work expectations. But now that they’ve experienced the realities of widescale unemployment, the struggles of finding a job and taking care of their families’ basic needs, they’re acting just the same as Boomers. Old, assumed expectations are largely obsolete.”

Critchley emphasizes the importance of helping employees see beyond the immediately obvious category of what generations their coworkers happen to belong to and to learn to see each other as individuals instead.

“Establish a team culture of respect, and out of that they’ll respect you” he says. “Be direct. Be flexible. Be thoughtful. Seek to understand them as individuals.”

And don’t typecast according to age.

“Be generation savvy, but don’t be surprised when you meet a 60-year-old who behaves like a 30-year-old, and a 25-year-old who behaves like a 50-year-old,” he says.