Retiring the Generation Gap: How Employees Young and Old Can Find Common Ground

In all matters of opinion and science . . . the difference

between men is . . . oftener found to lie in generals than in

particulars, and to be less in reality than in appearance.

An explanation of the terms commonly ends the controversy,

and the disputants are surprised to find that they had been

quarreling, while at the bottom they agreed in their judgement.

—DAVID HUME (1711–1766), Essays Moral,

Political, and Literary, 1875

So this book explains (when possible) what you can do to retire

the generation gap and why you should. In each chapter, you’ll find

• A description of the issue

• A description of our research on the issue

• The principal conclusion of the research expressed as a

principle

• Our best take on how to apply the principle to make cross-

generational work life easier for you

By the end you should know what your employees and col-

leagues at work are really saying when they cry “Generation gap!”

and what you can do to “retire the gap” so you can address the real

issues.

We don’t promise that you’re going to like everything we say—

in fact we’re sure that just about everyone is going to object to

something in this book. But when we say things that offend you,

please understand that it is not our intention to offend; we are sim-

ply trying to understand how one part of the world works, and

good science sometimes leads to unexpected—and sometimes un-

comfortable—conclusions.

About the Research

When you’re reading about the conclusions of any research pro-

ject, it is often difficult to know what you should believe and what

you shouldn’t.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

—ATTRIBUTED BY MARK TWAIN TO DISRAELI

Sometimes it is nearly impossible to tell when people are ma-

nipulating data to sell their theory (or their product or their po-

litical agenda). Therefore, we promise the following:

DO NOT PASS GO WITHOUT READING THIS CHAPTER! 3

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• Our results are as accurate as we can possibly make them; we

aren’t playing games with the statistics to support a particular

position. If the data had shown that older people are fossilized

and younger people are slackers, we would have reported that

result.

• Our conclusions are drawn from our best understanding of

the results as a whole. We aren’t taking one result in isolation

and building a whole theory around it.

• Our recommendations are based on our best understanding

of the results and include knowledge gleaned from many

other researchers, consultants, and organizational scientists.

• The quotations we use are entirely accurate and are drawn

from our database. We have not altered the quotations for ef-

fect, though we have corrected spelling when the original was

difficult to read.

• The stories we use are all true. We couldn’t believe that people

would actually do some of these things, but they did.

We also need to take some time to tell you about the people

who participated in this survey, because they are not representa-

tive of everyone everywhere in the United States. Understanding

who filled out the survey will help you understand how far you can

generalize the results, so please bear with us for the next few pages.

As of the publication of this book, more than 5,800 people

have participated in this research. Of that number, 3,200 who were

both born in and are currently living in the United States were in-

cluded in the research for this book. Those who either were born

outside or are currently living outside the United States (the other

2,600) were not included because explaining every similarity and

difference of generations for the rest of the world in addition to

the United States would have made the book far too long. We may

be using their data for another book in the future.

Although the database comprises 3,200 respondents, not every

one of those individuals filled out every part of the survey. The re-

sults we report are based on the total number of people who re-

sponded to an item (not necessarily the total 3,200). For example,

only 2,732 people responded to the question about retention, so

those results are based on 2,732 respondents. Also, we didn’t ask

specific questions about change or respect in the workplace, so the

4 RETIRING THE GENERATION GAP

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