Recently I spent some time in Las Vegas, NV attending the AM&AA Summit. (Alliance of Mergers & Acquisitions Advisors) Having a strong focus in recruiting for accounting and finance professionals, I became intrigued with mergers and acquisitions a year and a half ago. The professional connections and knowledge I take away from each of these conferences is priceless. One of the most memorable experiences I had during the seven days I was in Las Vegas was actually at this summit. This experience and an interesting blog post I read yesterday inspired the following…
A former CFO sits down with me to talk about his business and previous experience. Being from a different generation, he felt compelled to offer me some advice as a fellow entrepreneur and share some of his wisdom. Sitting down with him and really listening to what he had to say was quite the “eye opener” for me. In fact, I believe that I took away more from this conversation than he was aware of. One of the pieces of advice he gave to me was actually something that was shared with him over twenty years ago by a mentor. The advice was, when partnering with someone in business, always make sure that the person is either seven years older or seven years younger than you are. The importance of this is so that you and your partner can relate to one another through your generational experiences. I didn’t rebuttal, even though I wanted to. I appreciated and respected the fact that he took his time to sit with me and share some very useful wisdom through his experiences. The fact that I completely disagreed with his advice on partnering didn’t need to be addressed at that point in time. But I did take some time to think about exactly why I disagreed so strongly.
We’ve all heard the expressions, “for generations…”, “in my generation…”, “generation gap”. Segregating ourselves into generations has been around for…well, generations! The fact that this kind of segregation exists is such a benefit in the business world. Different generations of people share different life experiences. By sharing your life experiences with others and by being open to learn valuable lessons through others is something that not only brings a new level of understanding into business, but allows us the ability to reach out to a larger and more diverse group of people. This is the very platform that diversity initiatives were founded on. And why would anyone want to rule out the qualities someone possesses because of their life experiences? It seems as though you’d be limiting the growth potential for yourself, your company, and your future business.
Everyone is unique and we’ve all had different life experiences. It’s our right as Americans to embrace and celebrate ourselves as individuals and not be discriminated against. This is why there are employment laws that have been established to protect against this kind of treatment. Our age, sex, religion and race should not have any impact on our professional abilities or our chances of being hired. As HR professionals, it is our responsibility to make sure this is implemented in all hiring decisions. It is our responsibility to look at a candidate’s experience and education to determine if they are the right fit for the position. No matter how you want to spin the use of the word generation, it is what it is: A group of people who were born in the same date range and share similar cultural experience. Therefore, to limit a business partnership to someone who shares the same or similar experiences is limiting the growth potential of your business. By sharing experiences and wisdom it helps to create an understanding that is lacking in our society. Understanding that through our life experiences, every generation has their own wisdom to share.
All of this talk about generational differences and similarities seemed to create some controversy yesterday after a blog post by Kelly Mitton, a ‘Gen Y’ HR professional in San Antonio, TX. It seems that certain up and coming professionals do not feel comfortable being placed in a generational category, or as some would call it, stereotype. My advice for those professionals; welcome to the real world where we are all categorized by someone, somewhere. Is it always fair? Of course not. It is up to us as individuals to gain the respect of the professional communities we are a part of. It is up to YOU to decide your future, your path, your success.
As a woman, working in a male dominated field, I am immediately placed into multiple categories and stereotypes. My conversation with the former CFO is a perfect example. He sat down with me to share information because he immediately assumed I did not have the experience or understanding I needed to grasp what being a true entrepreneur was all about. At the end of our conversation, we both walked away learning something new. No matter where you live, what business you are in, or who you are doing business with, there will always be some kind of stereotype. Whether it’s positive or negative, it’s the real world.
“We must become the change we want to see.” -Mahatma Gandhi