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❯❯ Age location in history
It sounds fancy, but all it means is that a group of people have experienced big historical events, conditions, and trends during the same life stage.
Okay. That was nice and academic, but what does it look like in real life? While coming of age, Baby Boomers can remember how it felt when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon or where they were when JFK was shot. Xers can wistfully list off the first handful of music videos that MTV cycled through and vividly recall the white Bronco car chase. For Millennials, the time the second plane hit the Twin Towers is forever burned into their memories. For each of these events, each generation faced its respective event in the same phase of life, solidifying their age location in history.
❯❯ Common beliefs and behaviors
In large part because of these collective experiences, each cohort shares many similar beliefs, behaviors, traits, values, and motivations.
To breathe life into this academic description, here’s an example: Baby Boomers, especially older Boomers, grew up in a time of massive growth and amazing social change. They tend to be an optimistic and positive bunch. Xers, on the other hand, saw institutions around them crumble and tend to be a skeptical lot. Millennials were encouraged to share their voices at home and work on group projects in school, making them a highly collaborative bunch.
❯❯ Perceived membership
In simplest terms, this is the feeling that you belong to a specific group. Because you belong to a group of your generational peers, you have a common bond. You’re in the members-only club.
Whether in a church congregation, a sorority, or a chess club, everyone has belonged to a group and bonded over their similarities (or their differences from those outside of their group). Generationally, Boomers may feel a sense of belonging when they recognize that their preference for professionalism in the workplace extends to others in their generation. Xers can reminisce about being latchkey kids growing up. Millennials remember AOL chat rooms and laugh about some of their embarrassing screen-name choices. The nostalgia factor in the generational game further strengthens this tenet of belonging.
Now that you know that generational bands span about 15 to 20 years, here is the official breakdown of generations by birth years.
When you’re looking at these birth years, you may be wondering to yourself, “Wait a second. Does this mean that if someone is born on December 31, 1979, and someone else is born on January 1, 1980, that they have two completely different generational perspectives?” Naturally, that would be ludicrous. These birth years are simply a way to frame the generations and serve as a point of reference. It’s the events and conditions that occur during a generation’s formative years that are most important in defining how that cohort behaves. Because of this, you may see other books or articles that cite slightly different birth years. They aren’t set in stone, nor is any aspect of generational theory. It’s what you do with these facts and figures that makes the rubber meet the road.
Events and conditions are the heart and soul of generational theory. It is here that we can identify the key influencers that go into forming generational identities. Before diving deeper into this concept, consider using the exercise in Table 2-1 to get your mind in the right place.
TABLE 2-1 Nostalgia Exercise
Exercise instructions: Find your generation and circle two or three events, conditions, or icons from the corresponding list that you feel had an impact on you. The next part is the hard part: Think about how those things influence who you are today. It’s not just about how it made you feel at the time, which is entertaining and fun, but how it still impacts you. If you are up for an extra challenge, ask yourself: How does this event/condition/icon impact who I am at work?
Below this chart you’ll find examples of what we’ve heard members from each generation say in response to this exercise, but don’t read those until you’ve done the exercise yourself. No cheating. You’ll be disqualified.
To help move the conversation along, or if you’re just curious to know what people typically say, read on:
Traditionalist condition: Radio
“Unlike kids today who get all their news and entertainment from their phones, we all gathered around the radio growing up. Everything from listening to shows like Superman to a presidential address was all audio, so you had to imagine what you couldn’t see. I think that it still makes me better at visualizing things when no picture exists. We may not have had as much information as we do today, but we were still able to make decisions with what we had. At work, I am able to imagine the unseen and make decisions with the information in front of me.”
Baby Boomer event: OPEC oil embargo
“I’ll never forget the gas shortage. I was 14, and my dad made me wake up two hours before the gas station even opened – on our assigned day, no less – to get in line just to fill up our tank. Growing up as a Baby Boomer, it felt like there was never enough for us. We were just such a huge generation that it felt like we were too big for the world that was built for us – we had to fight to get not just what we wanted, but what we needed, whether that was gas, a good grade in school, or a job. Today, it has definitely made me a more competitive person. Just like I got to that gas station two hours before it opened, I’m always the first one in the office. I know that if I don’t do the job right, there are plenty of others who will.”
Generation Xer event: Challenger explosion
“I’ll never forget. I was in eighth grade. The teacher rolled in a TV cart so the whole class could watch the shuttle launch with a teacher on board. Within minutes, the entire classroom was filled with stunned silence as we watched the Challenger explode. I remember being so scared and sad. And then, it didn’t end on the day of the explosion. Cable news replayed the footage over and over and over, and as the months went on, it was discovered that the cause of the explosion could have been prevented, but someone was trying to save a buck. I think that event still impacts who I am today because I just don’t feel like I can trust anyone or any organization. I mean, if NASA is willing to cut corners and put people at risk, who am I to think that my organization wouldn’t do the same?”
Millennial condition: Napster/streaming music
“When I started high school, Napster was all the rage. Until that point, if you wanted to hear a song you had to wait until it came on the radio or buy the entire album. Thanks to Napster, you could listen to any song you wanted with the click of a button, whenever you wanted to. And not only that … it was totally free! I think this has affected me at work in a few ways: My generation expects immediacy, we want to be able to customize our experience at work and not just do things the way as generations past, and at times it’s like we expect to get something for nothing.”
Generation Edge condition: YouTube
“I use YouTube so much in my life right now, it’s hard to think of a time without it. It’s just the greatest tool because I use it to learn how to do anything. I guess my entire generation is self-taught in a way, because if we want to know how to do something, we can YouTube it. And then if we’re especially good at it, we can create our own tutorials!”
Of course the events, conditions, and icons a person experiences