Page 175 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

162B RE-ENGAGE

: Emphasize the importance of age-diverse teams working
with other such teams and promoting virtual communi-
cation regionally, nationally, and internationally.
: Conduct multigenerational training in a fun and comfort-
able environment where employees discuss intergene-
rational misunderstandings and contemplate how they
would respond to various intergenerational scenarios. Em-
phasize the leveraging of both differences and strengths
to maximize team effectiveness and productivity.
: Coach younger workers not to drop more senior workers
from critical informal communication networks. Some
mature workers complain they are often shut out from
watercooler banter and e-mail exchanges and are other-
wise shunted to the sidelines.
: Make it clear that the most successful people in the or-
ganization will be the “Gen Mixers”—those who develop
the most relationships with members of other genera-
tions so they can become more effective team players
and team builders.

: OUR FINDINGS COMPARED WITH RECENT RESEARCH
ON TEAMS

The November 2007 Harvard Business Review reported the results of
a major research initiative cosponsored by the London School of Busi-
ness and the Concours Institute, based on surveys of 1,543 employees
representing 15 multinational companies and 55 teams in those com-
panies ranging in size from 4 to 183. Although the teams in this study
were geographically dispersed and many were virtual by necessity, we
were interested in comparing their findings with ours. We noticed
some remarkably similar findings.
Early on in their article, the authors, Lynda Gratton and Tamara J.
Erickson, make this sobering observation: “Although teams that are