A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to host and speak at an event titled “4 Views Drive: Organisation. Leader. Sustain.” The aim was to share beneficial knowledge and practical solutions with those seeking to apply organisational sustainable development. It is safe to say that in the world we’re currently living in, mere success is no longer the ultimate goal to which we aspire; instead, sustainable success is the preferred route.
When speaking of sustainable development, however, people tend to focus solely on social, environmental and economic aspects. I’m not saying that these are not fundamental pillars, but in order to make these three (or more) elements strong, we should dig deeper than that. We should emphasise internal factors which include the organisation’s value system, mission and objectives, financial factors and internal relationships, the leaders who have to oversee the organisation and push forward the strategy, as well as the human aspect as people are the main driving force to make sustainable development happen.
At the event I attended, the speakers identified four core (leadership) capabilities needed to overcome evolving challenges and build sustainable development. These are the capability to communicate across generations, to build resilience through uncertainty and ambiguity, flexibility to improvise and innovate, and the desire and ability to learn continuously.
Before going into detail on each capability, it should be noted that in the process of building sustainable success, we cannot simply sit around and wait for tomorrow to come, not knowing what to expect; instead, we need to anticipate what will happen and consider how to handle it.
To illustrate this, let’s imagine your organisation as a building. If you want your building to last for a long time, maintenance is required. You need to fix your roof while the sun is still shining, not when you realise it’s going to rain because when a storm happens, whether it is cyclical or structural, it will take place at a rapid pace.
Here, the first required capability is the ability to make conversation and communicate across generations to acquire alignment on understanding and truly function in today’s workplace.
There are at least three generations in today’s organisation: Baby Boomers who are about to retire, Generation X who are climbing up the managerial ladder, and Generation Y who are becoming the largest proportion in the workforce.
According to the Kelly Global Workforce Index, which examines the impact of generational differences in the workforce, although there is a high level of understanding about generational differences, almost 50% of employees in Asia Pacific acknowledged that intergenerational differences can lead to serious conflicts. In other words, poor communication across generations is a threat to your business sustainability.
Actually, communication issues between generations are nothing new, so why is it so important now? The answer is that while there have been generational communication issues in the past, never before has there been such a wide gulf in understanding between generations.
Traditionally, only time separated generations. Teenagers often had their own lingo, and adults would wonder where those words came from, but everyone used the same medium to communicate. Hearing teenagers use lingo helped adults to understand the meaning. Teenagers heard adults communicating all the time, and so had little difficulty understanding their elders. The communication skills their elders had were directly applicable to the younger generation, who stood to benefit by paying attention.
However, now we have several media for communicating, ranging from direct meetings to social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Generations no longer share common media, and the methods and meanings of communication between generations have less and less in common. The internet and social media have changed not only the format, but the context of communication.
As well, the vocabularies the generations use are diverging, and because they do not always share the same media, there is little or no learning going on between generations. Besides, the amount and type of information is different: new media generates and uses a lot more information, but it is more generalised.
Now that you can see where the problem lies, the next question is what can we do differently to build sustainability through communication?
Basically, we should remember that despite all the differences mentioned earlier, all generations have similar values — they all want respect and to be respected, they want to learn and they like feedback. Therefore, leaders need to start with themselves by changing their mindset to focus more on flexibility, show respect to each and every one of them, be mindful and attentive to their differences, avoid generational jargon and, last but not least, put yourself in other people’s shoes. With these simple techniques, you should be able to communicate with all generations and have them understand your message.
Simply put, business sustainability will only exist when your messages are aligned and understood by people from all generations — be they the organisational mission and vision, or day-to-day details such as tasks assigned.
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Arinya Talerngsri is Group Managing Director at APMGroup, Thailand's leading Organisation and People Development Consultancy. She can be reached by e-mail at arinya_t@apm.co.th or https://www.linkedin.com/pub/arinya-talerngsri/a/81a/53b
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