Preserving the Culture for the Next Generation
As I mentioned in my last entry (“Addressing the Shift from Boomers to Gen Y”), I have been working on a number of New Employee Orientations (NEOs) over the past year. Recently I realized that some of the NEOs included an unintended characteristic that may become increasingly important to many organizations as the exodus of Baby Boomers and the influx of Gen Y accelerates.
In some organizations, Boomers have spent an adult lifetime building a culture that they believe to be different and special. In fact, cultural values like mutual respect, honesty, transparency, freedom to fail, and freedom to be different may be an outgrowth of Age of Aquarius values.
As Boomers contemplate their retirement and observe the new values that Gen Y brings to an organization, the Boomers are starting to realize that the culture they spent a lifetime building is in imminent peril of disappearing. So communicating the strength and importance of cultural values has become a central element in all of the NEOs I am currently developing.
What is happening in your organization? Do you have a set of values that is worth preserving? Or is your culture in need of an overhaul? I’d enjoy hearing how you and your organization address this issue – from both the preservation aspect, and in terms of communications.
January 18th, 2008 at 7:01 am
I am actively working with a number of companies that are trying to meet and resi=olve this issue. The manufacturing and the electric power industry are both seeing the retirement of Boomers, and a jump not to the next generation, but to the one after that. This is causing real issues. Knowledge Management seems to be an answer, but how to construct, maintain and make that knowledge useful is a probelm. I don’t want to break any rules here, but I would enjoy a discussion (s) with anyone else working in the field. Tiem is of the essence and time is running out.. steve