Transcript Slide 1

Understanding
the generations
Some women choose to
follow men, and some
women choose to follow
their dreams. If you're
wondering which way to
go, remember that your
career will never wake
up and tell you that it
doesn't love you
anymore.
I’ll keep it short and sweet.
Family. Religion.
Friendship.
These are the demons you must
slay if you wish to succeed in
business.
C. Montgomery Burns
The Simpsons
Bill Gates: 11
things you
won’t learn in
school
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it.
Rule 2: The world won't care about your selfesteem. The world will expect you to accomplish
something BEFORE you feel good about
yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a
year right out of high school. You won't be a
vice-president with a car phone, until you earn
both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He
doesn't have tenure.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your
grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it
opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about
your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they
are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your
clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before
you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents'
generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers but
life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and
they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right
answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING
in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off
and very few employers are interested in helping you find
yourself. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to
leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11:
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Why ‘Mend the Gap.’
‘For the first time in history, four distinct
generations – matures, boomers, Xers and
millennials – are employed side by side in the
workplace. With differing values and seemingly
incompatible views on leadership, these
generations have stirred up unprecedented
conflict in the business world. Effective
management of this generational divide is vital
to longevity and success. In fact it’s the most
important demand your company can make of its
leaders.’
Cam Marston
Mend the Gap: in a nutshell
1. Youth Culture is unique to
20th/21st century west.
•We stopped kids working and put them
in education – more time spent
amongst peers.
•Psychological focus on teen years
creates ‘adolescence’
•Post war consumerism identifies new
target groups.
From uniform consumerism to pursuing
icons of independence – the sixties
shrugged off the fifties and with its
revolutions in sex, drugs and rock’n’roll,
gave youth a whole new language with
which to vent spleen against their elders.
‘You have to try and kill your
elders.. we had to develop a
whole new vocabulary, as indeed
is done generation after
generation. To take the recent
past and restructure it in a way
that we felt we had authorship
of.. that was our world, not the
hippie thing. It all made sense to
me it was a uniform for an army
that didn’t exist’
David Bowie on Ziggy
Were you a hellraiser?
‘In terms of girls? Not unlike any other
young guy at the time. The pill had just
come in. That was a very handy thing.
Suddenly women were prepared to
sleep with a fellah with no great risk of
pregnancy. Now we could all have
some fun..
everyone started looking sharper, had
a little bit of money in their pockets,
there were clubs to go to, good music
to listen to… it was like a paradise had
been created for young people – a
time when everything was switched on
at once. There were all these
possibilities opening up that our
parents could only have dreamed
about. Suddenly, our entire world was
bright colours.’
Paul McCartney
Advance of ICET creates an
‘incanabula’ from which we haven’t
yet emerged.
‘When it comes to understanding and using
the new media and technology, many
parents are falling woefully behind their
children. We’ve shifted from a generation
gap to a generation lap – kids outpacing and
overtaking adults on the technology track,
lapping them in many areas of daily life…’
Douglas Tapscott
2. The Church was too ‘inward’
focused to be able to meet the
challenge of rapid cultural change.
‘Youth is constitutionally hungry to envelop
with religious significance the yearnings
aroused by natural beauty, by artistic
experience, and by sexual love. Because
there is no living Christian mind to interpret
this hunger and to show how it may be fed,
the young are led astray.’
The Christian Mind Harry Blamires
3. The Churches solution to
managing generational differences
‘youth work’ has inadvertently
helped to perpetuate the gap
between young and old.
‘When one part of an organism is treated in isolation from
its interconnections with another, as though the problem
were solely its own, fundamental change is not likely. The
symptom is apt to recycle, in the same or different form, in
the same or different member. Trying to ‘cure’ a person in
isolation from his or her family…is as misdirected, and
ultimately ineffective, as transplanting a healthy organ into a
body whose imbalanced chemistry will destroy the new one
as it did the old. It is easy to forget that the same ‘family’ or
organs that rejects a transplant contributed to the originally
diseased part becoming ‘foreign.’
Edwin Friedman, generation to generation
Youth culture indicates the existence of a
generational ‘wound’ that does not exist in
many non-western cultures. It cannot be
healed in isolation but only through
treating the body as a whole.
4. Youth work will only ever be a
sticking plaster solution to the
problem until the core of church
culture changes.
To make disciples of the young we
need to make disciples of adults
first.
Brief Guide to the Generations.
‘Silent’ or ‘Builder’
1920’s – 40’s
‘Silent’ or ‘Builder’
A relatively conservative generation
who both protected and built on
their parent’s achievements –
‘building’ a ‘future’ after WW2
‘I work hard because it’s my duty to do so.’
Brief Guide to the Generations.
‘Boomer’
1940’s -60’s
‘Boomer’
Children of the 60’s they espoused
largely liberal progressive ideals,
throwing off the constraints of
previous generations.
‘Work is self – fulfilling; it makes me feel
important.’
Brief Guide to the Generations.
‘Generation X’
1960’s -80’s
‘Generation X’
They challenged the progressive
optimism of previous generations.
Saw huge rise in divorce rates,
unemployment, the spread of Aids.
-Disenchanted with ‘progress’.’
‘I work to fund my lifestyle.’
Brief Guide to the Generations.
‘Generation Y
1980’s -2000’s
‘Generation Y’
A generation adept at multi –
tasking, focussed on pleasure
seeking but also entrepreneurial
with a ‘can do’ attitude.
‘My work will help to change the world.’
‘Generation Y’
Focus on Gen Y
New Philanthropy?
‘…students from the Millennial Generation
are increasingly interested in jobs where
they feel they can make a positive
difference—whether that's building solar
panels, running a food bank, or making
microfinance loans in Africa.’
Businessweek.com
‘Millenials want to end the culture wars; move
America’s foreign policy toward a more
cooperative and multilateral approach; rebuild a
strong, positive role for government; achieve
universal healthcare; reform and expand
America’s educational system; start the transition
to a clean energy economy; and much more.’
Demos ‘An Anatomy of Youth’ Report 2010
New ‘can do’ attitude?
‘They combine the teamwork ethic of the
Boomers with the can-do attitude of the
Veterans and the technological savvy of the
Xers. At first glance, and even at second glance,
Generation Next may be the ideal workforce –
and ideal citizens.’
Demos ‘An Anatomy of Youth’ Report 2010
Digital Natives?
We shape our culture and in turn our culture shapes us…
In need of purpose?
‘Purpose is an intention to
accomplish something that is at the
same time meaningful to the self
and consequential for the world
beyond the self.’
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‘The postponements of many young
people today have taken on a troubling
set of characteristics, and chief among
them is that so many youth do not
seem to be moving toward any
resolution.
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Their delay is characterized more by
indecision than by motivated reflection,
more by confusion than by the pursuit
of clear goals, more by ambivalence
than by determination.’
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‘what does matter for happiness is engaging
in something that the person finds
absorbing, challenging, and compelling,
especially when it makes a valued
contribution to the world beyond the self.
Scientists dedicated to discovering natural
truths, artists dedicated to creating new
forms of beauty, are often happiest when
they are in the midst of solving a
wrenchingly difficult problem.’
William Damon ‘Path to Purpose’
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Ricardo Semler
‘The Seven
Day
Weekend.’
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RELINQUISHING CONTROL
• It's our lack of formal structure, our willingness to
let workers follow their interests and their
instincts when choosing jobs or projects.
• It's our insistence that workers seek personal
challenges and satisfaction before trying to meet
the company's goals.
• It's our commitment to encouraging employees
to ramble through their day or week so that they
will meander into new ideas and new business
opportunities.
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‘Generation Y’
Challenges of
working with Gen Y
Challenges of working with Gen Y.
Aspiration Deficit: What happens when
you’re not Bill Gates, David Beckham or
Beyonce by the time you’re 25?
Challenges of working with Gen Y.
Issue of Generational Distrust:
Gen Y: ‘They can’t adapt.’
Boomer: ‘They’re not resilient or
committed.’
Challenges of working with Gen Y.
Creating an atmosphere of
peer generated and passed
down wisdom.
Has church acknowledge the shift from
teacher centred to student centred learning?
Challenges of working with Gen Y.
Providing accountability and
ownership:
Youthwork ‘empowers’ and gives ownership – does the
rest of our church culture support this?
Challenges of working with Gen Y.
Positional v Personal
Authority:
Gaining authority through
relationship & modelling.
Model the way
‘leading means you have
to be a good example
and live what you say.’
Kouzes and Posner
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Kouzes and Posner first law of
leadership.
‘If you don’t believe in
the messenger, you
won’t believe the
message.’
The Leadership Challenge
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