Is That Conflict with Your Colleague Really About Age Difference?

You’ve noticed a frustrating pattern. During meetings with an older colleague, they seem to tune out any time you offer an idea. You suspect they’re checking email when you’re speaking, and they rarely, if ever, acknowledge your suggestions. Given dismissive comments they’ve made about other employees around your age, you assume they’re not taking you seriously because you’re younger than they are. Or perhaps the situation is reversed: You’ve caught a younger colleague rolling their eyes on group Zoom calls — seemingly whenever you’re sharing experience with the topic at hand. The gesture could be aimed at someone else, but you can’t help feeling like the colleague sees you as stuck in your ways and is acting disrespectfully on purpose. But how can you be sure that what’s happening between you and your coworker is a generational conflict? And if it is, how should you address it? With as many as five generations working side by side in organizations, it’s easy to get caught up in generational conflicts and stereotypes: Boomers are out of touch and arrogant. Gen Xers are cynical and disengaged. Millennials are entitled. Gen Zers are narcissistic and don’t want to work hard. If these stereotypes were all true, little would get done in most companies. After all, who wants to work with people who have any of these attributes? But stereotypes don’t have to be true to create conflicts. Believing these things anyway — assuming that a colleague from a particular generation is a certain way — can cause rifts with our coworkers. There’s another layer that adds to the potential strain. If we assume that our older or younger colleagues believe these things about us, we may be setting ourselves up for unpleasant clashes. Researchers call these meta-stereotypes, or “what we think others believe about us based on our age group.” Ultimately, there is little evidence that people of different generations behave markedly differently from each other at work or want markedly different things from their careers. Research has found, for example, that 20-year-olds tend to behave like 20-year-olds, no matter what generation they’re in. And while it’s common for people to lament how things have changed as they get older and more senior in their careers, the belief that “kids these days” are worse than young people in the past is more of an illusion than a reality. Travis Rathbone/Trunk Archive What isn’t an illusion is the tension that beliefs about other generations — both yours and your colleagues’ — create in your interactions. You feel judged, they feel judged. So what do you do if you’re stuck in a conflict that has been created or exacerbated by a colleague’s unfair assumptions? There are a few tactics you can use to avoid knee-jerk responses and improve your working relationships. Be curious about your response — and theirs. When something goes wrong at work — say, a young colleague misses a deadline, causing an important project to be delayed — we tell ourselves a story about what’s occurring, why, and what will happen next. And these stories, laden with emotions and critiques, feel truthful to us even when they may not be, because they’re based on our brain’s sometimes-flawed sensemaking attempts rather than on facts. In an effort to conserve resources, our brains make snap judgments about what’s going on and how we should react. Scientists call it premature cognitive commitment. Maybe you assume that your colleague didn’t get their work done on time because they’re a 20-something who doesn’t take work as seriously as you do. Instead of sticking with that story, take a step back and ask yourself what else might be going on. Here are some questions you can start with: Is it possible that my interpretation is wrong? What assumptions have I made about my colleague or the situation? How have I possibly contributed to the problem between us? Other than this person’s age or generation, what else could explain their behavior? That last question is important because of a cognitive bias called fundamental attribution error — the inclination to observe another person’s behavior and assume it has more to do with their personality than with their circumstances. That’s why you might tell yourself the project delay was a result of your colleague’s lack of commitment when it was actually because, unbeknownst to you, they were dealing with a family crisis or simply had too much on their plate. Interestingly, we do the opposite when it comes to ourselves: If you’re running behind on a project, you probably focus on all the reasons for the delay, not on the idea that you’re from a generation of uncommitted workers. Be aware of common tensions. It can be easy to blame a conflict on generational differences, because some stereotypes have kernels of truth to them. Believing that Boomers are technologically savvy might be hard if your Boomer parents, for example, are not. But rather than seeing any differences as flaws in the other person, it can help to acknowledge that tensions regularly come up between people from different generations. Below are some common tensions that can lead to conflicts. On the left are attributes and values that are frequently (and stereotypically) assigned to younger generations, and on the right are ones often linked to older people: efficient communication vs. rich communication high technology vs. low technology progressive values vs. traditional values feeling entitled to advancement vs. earning advancement innovation vs. status quo life outside work vs. commitment to work egalitarian vs. hierarchical meaning vs. money Recognizing that these tensions exist can help to depersonalize a disagreement you and your colleague are having. And you can go a step further and embrace the fact that these are often positive, even productive, tensions to navigate. Rather than determining who’s “right” and who’s “wrong,” accept that people see the world differently — and that’s not only OK but likely helpful to the work you’re trying to accomplish together. For instance, if you’re always pushing to try new things and an older colleague tends to argue that what has worked previously should be preserved, your team is more likely to land on a good balance between innovating and sticking with the tried-and-true. Address the specific problem. Instead of seeing a colleague and yourself as two opposing factions from drastically different generations, imagine that there are three entities in the situation: you, the other person, and the problem between you. If your colleague dismisses your input, that is the problem to address; don’t try to take on their entire worldview based on their age. Or if they are consistently failing to meet targets in a way that negatively affects you, that is the problem — figure out how to tackle it. Ask yourself: What’s my goal? What do I need to get the work done? If you’re under pressure to complete a presentation by a certain date, and a younger colleague in sales is complaining about how much data you need from them, don’t waste your time lamenting how lazy their generation is. Focus on how to get the numbers so that you can hit your deadline. Perhaps later you can explain to your coworker how their griping impacted you and ask how to make future requests easier for them. Name the bias and commit to challenging it. Putting a label on the dynamic between you and a coworker can be tempting. “This might be an age thing…” or “We’re from different generations, so…” But statements like those can backfire, even if you intend them to be helpful or clarifying. People immediately feel defensive when you attribute their behaviors, especially one you’re annoyed with, to their entire generation. Travis Rathbone/Trunk Archive This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk about generational differences. Naming the tensions can be useful, but be careful not to pigeonhole your colleague. Instead, you might call out stereotypes. For example, you could say something along the lines of, “According to the media, my generation is lazy and yours is stuck in their ways. I think we can agree that neither of those things is true.” Or “I know there are a lot of misconceptions about both of our generations — that people my age are out of touch and people your age are entitled. That’s not how I see myself or you.” You might even follow up with a promise: “If I have a problem or potential conflict, I won’t attribute it to your age or generation. I’ll address the issue directly, and I hope you’ll do the same for me.” Emphasize similarities, not differences. We are more likely to empathize with people if we identify with them in some way. Rather than emphasizing (even in your own mind) all the ways you’re dissimilar from your colleague, find ways to show them you’re alike. Ask a younger colleague what it’s like to be starting out in your industry, or what challenges they’re excited about taking on. Ask an older colleague what it was like coming up in the industry, or what kinds of obstacles they’ve had to overcome in their career. Then, listen and relate where you can, sharing your own experience. Expressing interest can disarm tension. Seeing advice is another way to bridge a perceived gap. What does the other person have to teach you? What could you use their counsel on? You can say something like, “I know we often see things a bit differently, so I’d love to get your perspective on this.” Focus on a shared goal. Along the same lines, it can help to align yourself with your colleague. Is there a task or a project that you can tackle together, channeling your collective talents and energy in positive ways? Or a problem you can help them solve? Of course, teaming up with a coworker who you feel is judging you may be unappealing. But having a shared goal could help ease the tension and get you pulling in the same direction. Here are some ways you could suggest this: “I know we both care about getting this project done on time. Can we talk about how we can work together to accomplish that?” “We can both make our team/department look good here.” “I think we’d knock it out of the park if we took this on together.” Agree on how you’ll work together. It goes without saying, but so many conflicts are the result of misalignment on how best to get things done. One way to address a current conflict, and prevent future ones, is to make clear how you and your colleague will work together. Just because you’re on the same team and care about the same goal doesn’t mean you’ll have the same preferences. So, take the time to have conversations about the processes you’ll use to collaborate, and be willing to accommodate what your colleague wants. Flexibility is key. Maybe you believe text messages are the most efficient way to handle in-the-moment issues; your colleague may disagree. Or perhaps you prefer to send summary notes after your meetings, even though your coworker doesn’t think they’re necessary. I’ve worked with people who write down their work preferences in a “user guide” to help jump-start those conversations. The document explains everything from why they’re a vegan (and how that might impact team meals) to their typical work hours to the value they place on efficiency. It wasn’t a list of demands about how we would work together, but a way for us to align on exactly how we’d communicate, give feedback, and interact. One thing I find helpful when working with people of various ages is reminding myself that age is just a point in time. It’s cliché, I know, but we are all getting older. To cut through my instinct to stereotype or judge coworkers of other generations, I have a mantra: “That was me. That will be me.” Whether I’m frustrated with a younger coworker who keeps coming up with new ways of doing things or annoyed with an older colleague who starts sentences with “When I was your age…,” I try to remind myself that I was once there, and I will likely be there. We all will.

Is That Conflict with Your Colleague Really About Age Difference?

Summary.

Partner Center