When Generations Collide

BICKERING. BACK BITING. CLASHING. COLLIDING.
JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE...

If your workplace sometimes feels like a battlefield and your colleagues sometimes seem like aliens, you are not alone. Today there are four distinct generations of employees glaring at one another from across the conference table, and the potential for conflict and confusion has never been greater.

In this insightful, captivating book, generational experts Lynne C. Lancaster and David Stillman shed much-needed light on how to bridge generational gaps at work by understanding the differences that drive generations apart.

Traditionalist employees with their "heads down, onward and upward" attitude live out a work ethic that was shaped during the dark days of the Great Depression. Meanwhile, the eighty million Baby Boomers are at a crossroads, trying to balance their overwhelming need to succeed with their desire to slow down and enjoy the fruits of their labor. They alternate between admiration and abhorrence for the chutzpah demonstrated by Generation Xers, who, in addition to feeling as if they have to prove themselves constantly, are chafing under the image of being overly ambitious, disrespectful, and irreverent. Nipping at everyone's heels are the new kids on the block, the Millennials -- with their unique mix of savvy and social conscience, they promise to change yet again the landscape of the workplace.

Whether you're a manager, an employee, an entrepreneur, or a skilled professional, you'll derive hands-on, take-home business benefits from understanding this vital form of diversity affecting today's high-performance workplace.

Using a wry and practical approach to bottom-line business issues and drawing upon interviews, experiences, and the findings from their national survey, Lancaster and Stillman give you in-depth insights into each generation. With their help, you'll have the tools you need to recruit, retain, motivate, and manage each generation more effectively. And you'll recognize that while -collisions are inevitable, ultimately it's how we manage them that counts.

Lynne C. Lancaster and David Stillman are nationally recognized public speakers, generational experts, and cultural translators as well as coauthors of When Generations Collide. They are cofounders of BridgeWorks, a highly successful twelve-year-old research, speaking, and training company focused exclusively on the generations at work. Their clients include high-profile companies such as 3M, American Express, Best Buy, Coca-Cola, Deloitte, Disney, Ford Motor Company, General Mills, and Procter & Gamble, as well as stellar organizations such as AARP, the American Bankers Association, the Conference Board, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Security Agency, and the United Way. Lancaster lives in Sonoma, California, and Stillman lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

David Stillman is the co-author of best-selling books When Generations Collide and The M-Factor: How the Millennials are Rocking the Workplace. He has contributed to Time, The Washington Post, the New York Times, and USA Today and has been featured as a generational expert on CNN, CNBC, and the “Today Show”. Stillman has been named one of the “Forty Under 40” movers and shakers and one of 200 to Watch by The Business Journal.