In most workplaces, there are three generations of workers.

The first of these are the Traditionalists, those who were born prior to 1965. This group is likely, by this time, to be extremely senior and influential in their organization.

The name Traditionalists, though, is applied because this is a group which embodies the sets of values one most often sees amongst the “old school. They will, most likely, prefer to communicate through structured and rigid hierarchies, and will certainly prefer command-and-control mechanisms in the way they distribute tasks between themselves.

As innovators, the Traditionalists group will usually come up with solutions which are consistent with an organization’s current direction of travel, and they’ll prefer to examine problems which have been laid out for them by individuals more senior in the hierarchy. This is an advantage, of course, because it makes them ideal innovators to work in teams who have adopted a Play-Not-2-Lose innovation strategy, where the main focus is likely to be incremental innovation.

The second generation in most workforces is known as “X” and includes individuals who were born roughly between 1965 and 1983.

X-ers are quite comfortable in command-and-control environments, but would much rather work in more flexible styles. They believe that individuals should be given a degree of liberty in the kinds of problems and challenges they’ll solve.

When faced with innovation challenges, X-ers will typically look at other industries who have faced similar situations. Their goal will be to find solutions which have worked elsewhere and which can be applied in their own contexts.

The defining factor of an X-er is what they know and where they learned it. This drives their status in organizations, and is in contrast to the Traditionalists, for whom status is a consequence of tenure.

The last generation to consider are the “Y-ers”, which is comprised of individuals born any time after 1984. This group has a very different approach to work than either of the two generations that preceded it.

This is a generation which has grown up with digital tools and online collaboration, and they are indispensable to any task undertaken by this group. There is very little about hierarchy or command-and-control in the ideal Y-er organization.

Gen-Y has the very great gift of teaming naturally. Leadership roles switch amongst members of a group depending on the skills available and the task at hand. Moreover their digital connections provide them with superior insight into the way the world works outside their organizations, and they will often have much deeper insight into these exterior factors than either of the previous generations.

This broad grasp of the world makes Y-ers very powerful when a particular innovation problem needs a radical solution. Their broadness of thinking lends itself to out-of-the-box ideas, and their lack of constraint by command-and-control processes means they will often recognize opportunities that X-ers will write off as “too risky” and traditionalists “impossible”.

On the other hand, Y-ers will usually not be particularly interested in incremental innovation, and when they are forced to do it, will often dream up radical approaches when the tried and true way is better. They can work in either Play-2-Win or Play-Not-2-Lose environments, but, obviously prefer the former to the latter.

Managing different generations of workers is an important aspect of Innovation Management. Much more advice on the topic is available in James Gardner’s freely available online Innovation Book.

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