on generational differences. . .

Every day, like most of us, I find that I am parenting a different generation. I am a Xennial, -meaning by being born in 1980, I have lots of characteristics of Gen X, but since my college years involved cell phones and technology and the internet, I also carry lots of Milennial characteristics.  Madeline and Annabelle are squarely Gen Z.

As I have moved into the Education realm in the hospital, my entire life is spent communicating and learning to understand Millennials and Gen Z, as they make up a majority of our learners.  My Graduate Medical Education core team (pictured above) spans 4 generations, so does the Research Team.

Last week, in an effort to do my job better, I took a deep dive into generational differences, and then proceeded to wander around the building and poll everyone on if the description resonated. This is something that crosses continents and cultures, so it was fascinating to get feedback, hear the nervous laughter when things resonated, and then make slight adjustments based on the feedback (for example, feedback  from my Kenyan team elevated family and decreased the feeling of being a digital natives. . .)

I learned that if I punctuate my texts, my younger team members think I am angry or frustrated, and that so many of our miscommunications with the intern class come from different priorities and expectations. . .

Here is the table we came up with and some of the slides I made as I combined sources with NotebookLM. . .would love your feedback and thoughts as we work to do our job better everyday.

	1946-1964	1965-1980	1981-1996	1997-2012
CATEGORY	Baby Boomer	Generation X	Millennial	Gen Z
COMMUNICATION	Face-to-face	Email	Just text me	DM / video
ATTITUDE TO WORK	Loyal to my job	Work to live	Purpose-driven, integrate work & life	Entrepreneurial, ethical
INFORMATION	Print me a copy	Send me a copy	I’ll Google it            (AI loading)	I’ll watch / search / AI it
WHAT THEY WANT AT WORK	Respect my title	Respect my ideas	Respect my skills and time	Respect my individuality & well-being
AREAS OF FOCUS	Focus on progress	Focus on results	Focus on involvement	Focus on impact and contribution
PRIORITIES	Work comes first	Family comes first	Friends & family come first	Self comes first
FEEDBACK PREFERENCE	Formal, scheduled	Direct, periodic	Frequent, coaching-oriented	Real-time, continuous, interactive
VIEW OF AUTHORITY	Respect hierarchy	Question authority	Collaborate with authority	Expect transparency & inclusion
TECHNOLOGY COMFORT	Adopted later	Adapted over time	Digital fluent	Digital fluent/native
MOTIVATION DRIVERS	Stability, recognition	Autonomy, efficiency	Purpose, growth	Meaning, flexibility, security
LEARNING STYLE	Structured, instructor-led	Independent, practical	Interactive, collaborative	Interactive, personalized, micro-learning
CHANGE RESPONSE	Cautious, deliberate	Pragmatic	Open, adaptive	Fluid, Expect and embrace rapid change