If you are leading a team today, chances are you are dealing with one of the fascinating experiences of our time: how to manage teams increasingly comprised of aging Boomers and newly graduated Millennials.  Your first thought might be that you couldn’t find two groups farther apart in terms of values, priorities, interests and capabilities. Well, your first thought is wrong.

On the surface, the evidence seems to support your case that Boomers and Millennials are polar opposites.  Consider:

  • Millennials were practically born with a cell phone in one hand and a computer mouse in the other.  They are the most technologically sophisticated generation ever.  While some aging Boomers have embraced technology, for  a large number, many of the latest advancements are truly foreign.  Ask a Boomer to contact someone and they pick up a phone.  While the Boomer is dialing, the Millennial has texted and received an answer, scheduled a social engagement and made small talk about last night’s game, all with their thumbs.
  • Boomers have the benefits that accrue from age and experience.  They’ve forgotten more than the Millennials know about the big bad world, with much of this experience developed during some tumultuous times.
  • Boomers have one eye on retirement and Millennials have both eyes on a bright future.
  • Millennials are used to getting trophies just for participating and Boomers are used to working hard at thankless tasks.  Boomers have put in hard time in organizations that showed them the door without hesitation.  Millennials expect to start a job and be promoted within the first few months.
  • Millennials want to work where and when they want and they are adamant that the conditions are right, the work interesting and that it not interfere with their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness.  Boomers want….

It’s at exactly this last point that the differences between these two generations begin to melt away with a unique and perhaps surprising alignment developing. Millennials and Boomers share many of the same life and career priorities. Your understanding of this emerging alliance may prove critical as you increasingly deal with managing the generations in the years ahead.

For all of the reasons described above: long years in thankless jobs, falling victim to the lack of corporate loyalty and gaining experience through tough times and hard work, the Boomers can now afford to begin looking at life and career through different lenses.  As the tidal wave of demographic change starts to hit the workforce over the next few years, Boomers will increasingly require:

  • Opportunities that allow them to work when and where they want
  • Interesting assignment that leverage their vast experience
  • Engagements that provide psychic and social rewards
  • Flexibility driven by a high priority on social time.
  • Varying experiences and short-term engagements where they can learn and grow while contributing.

Boomers and Millennials are almost in complete agreement on the above priorities, and while the cynics among us might be quick with “that’s nice, but it’s not reality,” comment, it is most definitely going to be the new reality.  The demographic numbers don’t lie and the world is not growing less complex.

Over the next decade, organizations will increasingly struggle to bring the right talent to bear on executing complex and ever-changing strategies in this global world, and both the Boomers and Millennials are the source of that talent. Enlightened organizations get this situation and are already creating systems and approaches to meet the needs of these critical groups.  Less enlightened organizations will be clubbed over the head by this issue in the not too distant future.

In the interim (between now and the exodus of the boomers), what’s a manager to do?

Some Suggestions for Leveraging the Strange Boomer/Millennial Alliance:

  • Create opportunities to leverage the experience of age and the energy of youth by blending project teams where the respective skills and energies spell success.
  • Use judo on the age differences by openly encouraging Boomers to provide mentoring and guidance on career development and any of the broad areas in business that Boomers are experienced at.
  • Encourage Millennials to educate Boomers on technology, current trends and social issues, and all of those issues that have changed so radically over the past few years.
  • Create and celebrate victories regularly.  The Millennials expect the celebrations and the Boomers are overdue for a few trophies.
  • Embrace this new project-driven world, and provide Boomers with the flexibility to work when they want on projects that truly interest them.  Boomers as contract knowledge workers may be your secret weapon to success in the years ahead.
  • Get rid of the last vestiges of “I have to see someone to know that they are working.”  There’s still some of  this running around and it is silly.
  • Challenge the HR functions in organizations to enable this new alliance and to provide the systems and support necessary for virtual teams and projects and contract knowledge workers. Most of this doesn’t fit the old HR model…and the model has to change.
  • Quit giving lip service to “people are our most important asset” and start living it.  (This is one of the most abused phrases in all of business…stop the abuse.)

The Bottom-Line for Now:

The great news is that for forward thinking managers and organizations, the availability of experienced talent has and will never be better.  The trick of course will be how to capture and benefit from all of that talent.  In my book, recognizing and leveraging the strengths of Boomers and Millennials is essential for success.  The Millennials will moderate over time (as happens with every generation) and the Boomers will ultimately fade into history.  However, for the here and now and for the next decade, managing the generations is one key to success.