There's a lot of talk about generational differences. Depending on which article you read,or which day of the week it is!, different generations are either saving the workplace or ruining it.
Gen Z wants flexibility. Boomers value structure. Millennials need purpose. Gen X just wants to get things done. Or do they?
Those labels and generalisations are just that – generalisations. We all know enough Gen Xs who like flexibility and Gen Zs who want structure to disprove the point.
And when teams just focus on these labels, they miss something fundamental. The challenges have nothing to do with age - it's about different ways of approaching work.
When we work with teams that are expanding and diversifying - bringing in people with different experiences, perspectives or ways of working - we often see a familiar pattern. The team is doing good work, but something feels not quite right. Meetings take longer than they should. Decisions get stuck. People are frustrated without quite knowing why.
The easy explanation? "It's a generational thing." The experienced people want structure. The younger ones want to move fast. Different values, different expectations, different ways of communicating.
But the reality is when you dig deeper, it's rarely that simple.
When teams properly look at each individual’s work preferences using tools like the Team Management Profile and Opportunity-Obstacles Quotient (QO2) Profile, a different picture emerges. Often, what looks like a generational clash is actually about how people naturally prefer to work - and those preferences don't neatly align with age groups.
The person who wants to explore three more options before committing? They might be 25 or 55. The one who's ready to decide and move on? Could be any generation. The colleague who thrives on building relationships versus the one who loves diving into the detail? Age tells you nothing about that.
What teams are often missing isn't generational understanding - it's a common language to talk about how different people approach work. How they solve problems. How they communicate. Where they naturally focus their energy.
The breakthrough happens when people stop saying "that's such a [insert generation] thing to do" and start saying "I know you prefer to have all the information before deciding, whereas I'm quite happy with a bit of ambiguity – so how do we bridge that?"