Enlisting the baby boomers.

As is the generations of leaves, so too of men; At one time the wind shakes the leaves to the ground, but then the flourishing woods Gives birth, and the reason of spring comes into existence. So it is of the generations of men, which alternately come forth and pass away."

For as long as generations have succeed one another, their influence on the human experience has been noted by poets, politicians, and philosophers. The discussion of generational differences has achieved new prominence as baby boomers have entered the work force.

The impact of generational identity is of great interest to association leaders because all associations depend on the relationships between individuals to achieve mutual objectives. Achieving a better understanding of the needs, values, and viewpoints of members id essential to operating a successful association.

On the surface, an association is a collection of people from the same industry, business, or profession. But gender, cultural, and generational diversity cut across occupational interests. This diversity gives richness and depth to organizational life. It can also be a source of conflict and confusion.

How association leaders achieve consensus in the board room, communicate in committee meetings, or work with staff is influenced by generational personality.

Through the generations

Interest in generation diversity has spawned hundred of articles and dozens of books in the last decade. Most focus on the impact of baby boomers - the 75 million Americans born between roughly 1946 and 1964. This much researched, discussed, and maligned generation, however, is but one of three generational cultures active in associations. today.

A refreshing and unique perspective on generational influence is Generations: The History of America's Future, 1984 to 2069 (William Morrow & Company, 1991). Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe argue that four distinct types of generations have succeeded one another in a cycle that repeats itself every 80 - 100 years.

Generations takes into account not only values and culture, but a generation's place in time. Equally as important is perceived membership in a common generation. Taken together, these characteristics form a "peer personality."

Distinct personalities

The four distinct personalities described by Strauss and Howe offer insight into the generational diversity within associations. The idealist generation comprises indulged youths who emerge later in life as visionary elders. While self-indulgent as young adults, they re-emerge as moralistic mid-lifers.

American history has seen five generations of these aggressive, prophetic redefiners of values. The most recent example of an idealist generation is the baby boomers. Howe and Straus don't follow the traditional defining years for the boomers but place them in a cultural cohort of those born between 1943 and 1960.

A quieter, less aggressive, reactive generation follows the idealists throughout history. They grow up criticized and underprotected, become risk takers as young adults, and later develop into pragmatic mid-life leaders.

This savvy generation has seen five different incarnations, the most recent of which is the thirteeners, born between 1961 and 1982. Their name derives from the fact that they are the 13th generation born under the American flag. They are also expected to be an unlucky generation, as they find themselves competing with a stubborn boomer generation.

Following the reactives is the civic generation. Growing up more protected than their immediate predecessors, they unite into a heroic and achieving group of adults. Builders of institutions during mid-life, they remain respected and busy during their elder years.

Four such generations of heroic rebuilders of the public world have appeared throughout American history The GI generation, born between 1901 and 1924, are recently retired. Those currently being born (1982 - 2003) are known as millenials and have yet to enter the work force.

The adaptive generation follows and completes the cycle. Recessive compared to their predecessors, the adaptives are overprotected as children and grow up to avoid risk as adults. Conformist and fair but indecisive, they are sensitive but not highly respected as elders. These genteel champions of compromise have been seen in four generations, including the silents, born between 1925 and 1942.

The majority of North American associations have emerged since World War II. Most were built by the civic GI generation (heroic builders of the public world), prospered under the leadership of the adaptive silent generation (champions of compromise), and now face change as the idealist boomer generation (redefiners of values) emerges into positions of leadership.

Currently, the idealist boomers (1943 - 1960) and the adaptive silents (1925 - 1942) are the most involved and active generations within associations. A third, the reactive 13th (1961 - 1981), is just beginning to emerge.

Generational friction

The struggle for power and influence between the silents and the boomers is the friction that has fueled the interest in generational diversity within associations.

Often, volunteers have found themselves caught in the crossfire between generations. Suddenly, previously successful volunteer leaders feel exasperated, frustrated, and downright angry. They just can't figure out why fellow volunteers see things so differently.

Applying the analysis of Generations to associations, it is clear that the mix of an idealist boomer generation and an adaptive silent generations can result in conflict. They look at life in very different ways.

Boomers have exhibited a pick-and-choose idealism and a high level of both self-esteem and self-indulgence. The silent have adapted throughout life, not armed with ready-made answers and self-assurance, but rather willing to ask and listen. The silents have found success in structure and process; boomers have favored individual conscience, experimentation, and independence over duty and community.

Boomers have gained a reputation of placing more demands on their associations. As perfectionists and consummate consumers, they seek immediate, high-quality, personalized service.

Image, quality, and value are important to them. If they feel appreciated and percieve a value in what they do, they will work hard for an association. But they demand a strong voice in decision making. As strong individualists, they struggle to achieve consensus.

Forged by the Great Depression and Word War II, the silents have earned a generational personality all their own. Risk-averse, fiscally conservative, and patient, silents value organizational activities. They are more included to join and remain members of an association because it "is expected." Boomers are not inclined.

The most well-educated generation in history, boomers place a premium on credentials and continuing education. However, all association programs, products, and services must be delivered with convenience in mind.

Boomers have complicated and busy lifestyles, with most being part of two-career families. The blurring of gender roles and a different set of expectations has transformed domestic life and added to the boomers' reputation for being unlike their predecessors.

The vast size of the boomer generation - the largest in history - gives this generation substantial power and influence. The silents, on the other hand, have much higher net worth and hold key positions in many associations.

Recruitment strategies

Time is on the side of the baby boom generation, which will emerge as the primary pool of association staff, volunteers, and members in the 1990s. Just as this generation has redefined much of American culture, so too are they influencing association life.

Volunteer leaders will have to demonstrate awareness of the special needs and preferences of this powerful generation to attract boomers to their ranks of committed volunteers. Strategies to recruit and involve this generation include * Promote and enhance value. Volunteers appreciate the value of volunteering. Focus on this benefit when recruiting new volunteers. Don't assume that a potential volunteer shares your understanding of that value. Describe how both the association and the volunteer will benefit. Outline the special talents, skills, and insights that volunteers bring to the association. Discuss how you have gained from the volunteer experience. * Provide efficient meetings. Endless rounds of discussion and little action repel baby boomers. Be a role model of how to run an efficient meeting and share your expertise with other volunteers so that they can follow in your footsteps. Use resources that can refine your meeting-management skills, and, again, share them with your volunteer peers. These steps will allow volunteers to make the most of the time they spend contributing to the association, baby boomers value the efficient use of time. * Accelerate success and provide continuing positive feedback. The boomer who volunteers will not wait patiently for an opportunity to act. Provide opportunities to get involved quickly in meaningful projects. Make a special effort to involved the newest members of your committees or boards in projects with well-defined objectives that can be achieved in the near future. * Communicate frequently but briefly. Baby boomers know the importance of good information. That information, however, must be provided in bite-sized, ready-to-use pieces. Make sure association committee memorandums, meetings agendas, and the like follow this form. * Break up volunteer tasks. Boomers are less likely to want to handle complex, comprehensive tasks than their volunteer predecessors. They are more likely to accept a small part of a big task, one which they can complete efficiently and rapidly. When delegating volunteer tasks or assigning projects to committee members, segments jobs into the smallest units possible. The role of the chair will increasingly be focused on the coordination and integration of many small parts of a larger activity. * Adapt to lifestyle needs. These days, most of you fellow volunteers are likely to be married to a working person, have children, and/or help take care of an aging parent. Has your committee or board acknowledge these needs and tried to find ways to offer support? It may have to, to attract the involvement of busy boomers. * Create niches and respond to specialization. As a leader of your association, raise the issue of how to find ways to meet the specialized needs of baby boomers at all levels - committees, board, and task forces. It might be easier to attract the commitment of the boomer generation by offering volunteer opportunities with special interest groups or niches within a profession or industry rather than a general task or assignment. * Be technologically advanced. Baby boomers are used to working in a productive, high-tech environment. A volunteer work environmental that fails to meet such standards will likely result in rapid turnover. Work with your association to communicate that volunteers can't be expected to contribute their best efforts if forced to work with glue sticks. Baby boomer volunteers also take pride in knowing that their association is one the cutting edge of technology. As a volunteer leader, let the association's staff know if you or other volunteers believe the association is lagging behind on the technological front. * Provide leadership training and development. Boomers love to learn. They also want to know that they are being taken seriously. Experienced volunteer leaders can play an important role in teaching essential skills to new volunteers and in advocating that the association invest in the development of volunteer leadership. * Enhance lives, not just livelihoods. Association volunteers have traditionally worked to protect, enhance, and advance a profession, business, or industry. While that traditional role will continue, it also has to expand to attract and retain baby boomers. The heads of committees and other volunteer bodies should spend time identifying how the volunteer experience adds value to or otherwise enhances a person's life. A good volunteer experience has to touch the baby boomer not only economically, but also mentally, socially, and emotionally.

Same but different

Not all boomers are cut from the same cloth, within every generational cohort are various psychographic elements, each with particular needs and values. To generalize is to leave much out. To segment is to see too much in too little. Generalization attitudes are moving targets. Many recent articles, for example, have chartered the changing course of boomers. Among the trends emerging within this generation are the following: * a mellowing and redefining of success as boomers who once revered money and professional advancement change their priorities; * a financial struggle as boomers find discretionary income shrinking as they start families and sluggish economic growth continues; and * an increase in stress and chronic fatigue as career competition heats up and boomers tire of fast-track life-styles.

Boomers are not monolithic but complex and diverse. The yuppie stereotype is perhaps the most misleading of all the images: According to the May 1991 issues of American Demographics (Ithaca, New York), of 75 million baby boomers, only 3.6 million, or 5.1 percent, have incomes greater than $35,000, and 32 million, or 45.7 percent, have incomes of less than $10,000.

Association leaders must continually update their mental model of this generation, especially as it matures. What seemed important to 20-year-olds will be quite different to 40-year-olds.

Keeping it in perspective

There is a great deal of natural order in this issue of generational diversity. Volunteer leaders should acknowledge generational diversity and make the necessary adjustments. But keep all this in perspective. Gender or cultural diversity may be more important in the long run than generational diversity.

As social scientists learn more about what motivates people, association leaders can expect to be overwhelmed by the complexity and amount of new information. One association, for example, recently identified 136 separate niches within its membership of 3,000. The apparent complexity of strategic planning and marketing to such a diverse audience was so overwhelming that the board deferred any action for another year.

Carefully designed membership research, ongoing feedback systems, and active leadership development programs can help associations meet changing member needs. Generational diversity is seen as yet another manifestation of organizational dynamics and change.

The opportunity to be a part of this change process will be excellent training for association leaders. After all, the oldest vanguard of the reactive generation known as the thirteeners - born between 1961 and 1981 - are just starting to serve as members of committees. They have their eyes on the board positions of the next decade.

Gary A. LaBranche, CAE, vice president and director of association consulting for Lawrence-Leiter and Company, Kansas City, Missouri, is a baby boomer.