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New things – younger and older together

The special about new things is the fact that they did not exist before. This includes new products, like phones, with and without cables, as well as new work styles. Some changes take place over a longer period of time. Others happen really fast. The phone, for example, took more than seventy years until five percent of the Germans were connected – the mobile phone needed nine years and Facebook only three. Do you create these innovations better with younger or older people?

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Since this topic is a tightrope walk of stereotypes, I want to make clear that the descriptive traits are not valid for all younger or older. Nevertheless, due to the differences in the life stages, there are resulting advantages for the department or the company, as soon as you know how to use them together. Thus the answer is already given: New things you create the best with younger AND older ones. What defines the two groups?

  • Older (Postwar generation, Baby Boomers)
    These are essentially people born before 1966. They are in the second half of their career. The postwar generation is approaching retirement. They are sharpened by the economic recovery and learned that personal employment pays off. They live in order to work and are driven by a positive, future-oriented perspective. Due to their experiences they know that the collection of the relevant information, the development of new things and their implementation need time. It enables them to keep on going during a longer period. Their skepticism towards hierarchies results in the fact that they want to address and solve critical topics actively. They are burdened with experiences that lead quickly to killer phrases, like ‘it never worked’. At the same time these memories provide solutions for basic problems of alignment, realization and implementation. They are thus basic stakes for the application of new things.
  • Younger (generation X Y Z)
    The group of the youths consists of those, who are born after 1966. The GenX is in the center of its career, the GenY at the beginning and the GenZ will start their careers within the next years. They have in common that they are technic-minded and that they care for work life balance. They are used to receive in short intervals much information and alternation. That makes them curious, impatient, short-term-oriented and quickly critical and resistant. However, they are unencumbered and free of self-limitation that enables them to present new ideas. Their education provided them with the most current concepts and solutions. Therefore, they are the crucial driver for new things beyond the established ones.

Based on the descriptions it becomes clear that each style has important, complementary elements. The curiosity and the impatience of the youths offer the substantial momentum that helps older people out of their routine. At the same time the stamina of the older ones creates sufficient time that can be invested into the projects, in order to raise it above the Tipping Point. For a working interaction, time should be invested in workshops, so that the employees can exchange their approaches and better understand and appreciate the approaches of the others. But it needs rules that satisfy all, as well as an agenda that do disconnect anybody by too slow or to fast action.

Bottom line: New things will lead to results in cooperation between younger and older, which benefits all. The correct mix adds effectiveness mutually. On the one hand the older people receive the momentum, in order to be able to think new things. On the other hand the youths profit from the wealth of experience of those, who already brought things on the way several times. For this reason it is important to avoid imbalance in the age structure of their departments and to ensure the advantages of mixed teams through respective training and cooperation models.

The external and internal watchfulness

The meditative term of mindfulness emerged in the wake of  Work Life Balance. This special form of attention is a good approach for minimizing distress at work. In German the obvious consideration of other people and also of the own mental state are hidden behind this term. Together they comprise the external and internal watchfulness.

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Executives are more and more required to show sensitively an interest in the needs and desires of their employees, in order to create a supportive work atmosphere. The mindfulness extends this challenge with the look at yourself. Only if you can lead yourself, you can lead others. The two kinds of watchfulness cover your personal scope for action.

  • Attention
    Attention is the conscious observation of the environment. Empathy, sensitivity and sympathy enable executives to better recognize the inner state of each individual employee. The most important tool is the feedback talk. In this conversation the aspects are located in the center that employees care at most – their tasks, successes, difficulties, annoyances, resentments or desires. Paying attention means to concentrate and examine certain areas, as with a telephoto or a microscope. You put yourself actively into the position of the employees and you find solutions for them. Interests of the enterprise or the bosses or other logical perspectives should be left aside. They would disturb the rare opportunity to show an interest in the employee. Cooperation only functions, if all involved people give themselves mutual attention – then solutions can be found that make everybody happy.
  • Mindfulness
    Mindfulness is the intentional focus on the here and now without any valuations. The most important tool is meditation. This activity needs no special place, no specific time and no defined posture, in order to observe the own perception or to dig into the conditions of your consciousness. It can take place in the office, in a meeting, during a train trip, in an elevator or however. You observe by asking yourself: How does my breathing feels like? How do I feel? What do I think about? What am I doing? What desire do I have right now? By this contemplation you put yourself into the center of the current happening. You discover yourself, as if you perceive the environment with a wide-angle lens. If other people appear in your thoughts, the core questions should be: What do these people release within me? And why? In these extroverted times you lose too often the look at your inner state. In order to take yourself seriously, it is necessary to take care of your mental states – otherwise nobody else does.

In German mindful is a synonym of attentive. This leads to the fact that these two terms are mixed up. At the same time neither the mental states of the others nor the own ones are considered. The results are unconscious conflicts, if everyone does not feel sufficiently considered.

Bottom line: It requires two forms of watchfulness, in order to avoid apparent and unnecessary conflicts. For this purpose it is helpful to pay attention to your environment and to understand, what worries everybody. At the same time you should do a similar approach for yourself by developing sufficient mindfulness and thus to understand your mental states. The interaction of the external and internal watchfulness opens the path for solutions that satisfy others and yourself.