Miriam P. Dicks: The Generational Divide
Across the generations, people think about work 
differently. They all have different needs. They all bring different skills. They work for different reasons. They communicate in different ways. But they have one thing in common: Every generation wants to be heard and respected. Miriam Dicks helps you manage across the generations. She’s CEO of 180 Management Group.
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Welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit Radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I am your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer with dys chromatopsia if I saw that you missed this week’s show. Our associate producer, Kate is still out sick and I’m left wondering for the second week. Do we need an associate producer this week? The generational divide. Finally, it is here. I swore it was coming across the generations. People think about work differently. They all have different needs. They all bring different skills, they work for different reasons. They communicate in different ways, but they have one thing in common. Every generation wants to be heard and respected. Miriam Dix helps you manage across the generations. She’s from 180 management group on Tony’s take two. Thank you, Nado. We’re sponsored by virtuous. Virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising volunteer and marketing tools you need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org. Here is the generational divide. I’m with Miriam P Dix. She is CEO and chief strategist at 180 Management group. She’s a management consultant with proven experience, transforming organizations to achieve optimal operational performance. She has over 20 years experience in operations management and management consulting and she has taught operations management on both graduate and undergraduate levels. Her company is at 180 Management group.com and Miriam is on Linkedin. Miriam. Welcome to nonprofit radio. Well, thank you so much for having me. Glad to be here. My pleasure. Let’s talk about intergenerational workplaces, different ways that the generations think about work communicate, perhaps work together ideally. Uh or some may maybe, well, they have to, they’re working together in, in one form or another. The, the, the, the togetherness might be uh in some cases, could be a stretch, but just give us an overview. What, what are you seeing around the intergenerational workplaces that, that we could be doing better? Well, I will say that what I’m seeing is this major pull and tug going on between generations and it really is more of the Z millennial. Um and the boomer generation, I am in the X generation. So I’m sort of in the middle, I tend to be a bridge. So I understand the generation, the millennials right under, you know, under me. And then I understand the, the boomers that are ahead of me. Um And I’m able to like translate and I feel like that’s where the vast majority of us who are in this generation born, I guess in the, you know, seventies and into the early and late seventies, we find ourselves having to translate because we remember a time when there wasn’t, you know, a cell phone and, you know, there wasn’t uh internet, but we were young enough to adapt. So we can, we can have those conversations and really understand where a boomer or silent generation person is coming from. But yet still have uh an understanding and empathy for um the other generations behind us. And so we find ourselves in that, that space of translating. So when I’m out there in the field, that’s what I feel like I’m doing because boomers want one thing on in the workplace and millennials and, and this new Z generation is coming up, want something totally different. And where do you meet in the middle? And that’s where our discussion is. All right. Sounds good. II I feel kind of bad for Gen X. You, you, you get, I think you get the least amount of media attention. Uh It seems like more of the attention goes to millennials and Gen Z and, and baby boomers, of course, because they’re dominating and they’re not willing to give up power and things like that. But I don’t know, Gen X seems kind of screwed in the middle there. Yeah, we do feel that way. Yeah, you do. All right. Speaking for the entire, speaking for the tens of millions, uh I just wanna, I just wanna, you know, say that for us. OK. Um No, but I have noticed you don’t, you don’t seem to get a lot of attention. So let’s talk about, let’s, let’s start with what you just kind of teed up. What, what, what, what are boomers expecting? And uh what is, what is Gen Z expecting? Boomers tend not to want to give up, as you said, their shine, which, you know, I am a fan of the boomer generation because, you know, so much has been done to forge a path for us, you know, coming up behind them. However, sometimes just the reluctance to move forward and do something different is, is, is stressful. Whereas, you know, the, this, you know, millennial generation or Aziz, they are really, you know, biting at the top, you know, at the bit, chomping at the bit. I said that’s so bad but chomping at the bit to really do something uh different and new and because it’s all they know. And so what that looks like in the workplace is, let’s say you have a new system that you want to implement and it reduces some manual work. It automates processes. Well, you might have someone on the Boomer generation who says, well, I do better with my notebook and my pen. I don’t need to have, you know, all of my information in a system and I have to log into it like I just want to write it down because I know where it is and that’s my system, that’s my process. And then you have, you know, someone in another generation that says, well, I don’t have access to your notebook every day and I can’t see what you have written down. And how does that help me get my work done if I have to call you and I have to come to your office when I need information. Right? And so you see that play out in, in the workplace and it is, it is very interesting. So what do we do to start to uh start to overcome these obstacles? Well, I think we have to recognize that each generation brings value to the table and it’s not about one being better than the other. It’s about understanding what the value is so that we can pull from that and, and have, you know, um synergy and make decisions and move forward in a way that works for everyone and working for everyone doesn’t mean everyone gets their way, right? It means that we understand what parts of our knowledge, what parts of our technical abilities we bring to the table to become one part of a whole. And to me that looks like understanding the difference between wisdom and technical skill, right? So I was listening to a webinar and it was a webinar on A I and the facilitator and I wish I could recall her name. Maybe I can give that to you later if you want to post that but the facilitator basically said that when it comes to A I and I’m going to paraphrase probably horribly here. But when it comes to A I, we can’t have a generation that’s reluctant, especially leaders, right? So if your boomer generation is leading in very high levels, we can’t have a generation that’s reluctant to embrace it because even though a younger generation has the technical skill to use it, they may not have the wisdom to know how. And so the boomer generation has wisdom, you’ve been on the earth, right? You’ve been here longer than the other generations, obviously, not as long as the silent generation, but you’ve been here long enough to see people to see behaviors, to see patterns, to see political cycles, to really have wisdom as to how we might use some of this technology in the way that is beneficial because technology is a tool and, and the tool in the wrong hands, it can create damage, but a tool in the right hands and with the right perspective can be very useful. So when we think about these different generations, we can think about what the, what wisdom we have from older generations and marry that with the technical expertise from younger generations. And that’s one way to, to sort of bridge that gap and sort of think about the perspectives that need to come to the table. It sounds like something that leadership is gonna be important to, you know, drawing the the best from all the generations. But as you identified, the problem is a lot of the leadership is in one of the generations, boomers. And so if they have this reluctance and it’s, it’s, yeah, I understand you were just using artificial intelligence as one example of lots of areas where we could see this, this conflict play out. But so if all the leadership or, you know, a lot of the leaders, the vast majority of leadership is in the, the baby boomer generation. How are we gonna draw the best of the other generations if the leadership is the, the the curmudgeonly reluctant group? Well, and I think that’s why diversity is important and not just diversity in age but diversity and thought, right? So a psychographic, you know, when we think about diversity, we always think about oh demographic diversity. But what about psychographic diversity? And so you could have leaders who are in another generation that have some um uh affinity toward change and they would be great change champions for others within the same generation. And so if we could think about, you know, and identify who those change champions could be, they could really pave the way for others to start thinking more broadly about what diversity and leadership should look like so that we can have more diversity of thought at the table and be able to have those conversations. All right, it sounds like a part of this is Uh OK. Boomer, you, you’ve had your shot, you had, you had your decades. Uh It’s time to uh it’s, it’s time to, if not step aside, at least begin sharing. Well, and I agree with you, but then a boomer probably would hear that better from other boomer than they would. Well, one just said it. I’m, I’m, I hasten to add that. I’m among the youngest of the, of the baby boomer generation, among the youngest in case, I didn’t mention that before. Um I, I may remind you again in five minutes. But uh all right. So Boomer just said it and we’ve, we actually did a show called OK, Boomer uh move over something like that. I think it was OK. Boomer move over say, all right. So you know, my uh my older colleagues in the in the generation, you know, it’s uh it’s time, it’s time to start sharing, recognizing the value that folks younger than us bring and start bringing that to the table, you know, and not, not just in appearance but in, in uh but in uh not just value, but uh the word that I’m looking for is this is why you know that I’m a member of the Baby Boomer generation substance. Substance is the word that I was looking for, not just in appearance but in substance, say a little more about psychographic diversity. I never heard that phrase. Wow. So and I heard it in passing. So I’m not the foremost expert in it, but we often think about psychographics when we think about marketing because we’re thinking about a specific person and how they would either buy something or be able to um relate to a particular campaign. And so that’s more of a psychographic, right? So I am as a female, I might be more likely to shop, you know, and at certain times of the day, um that’s more psychographic right than demographic, demographic is more about, you know, what, what area you live in. Of course, race is demographic, uh income is demographic, but behaviors are more psychographic. So what are the behaviors that we’re looking at versus, you know, um having demographic diversity, which is very much, do we have all the colors of the rainbow represented? Do we have all the genders represented? Do we have all of the area codes and zip codes and income levels are presented? Well, psychographic diversity might be, do we have people who have certain political persuasions because that’s a behavior attachment too, right? Or it might be that you have uh certain outlooks on, you know, education or whatever the case may be. So they are just different psychographics and behaviors that we could be thinking about when we, when it comes to diversity. So thinking about folks who are very prone to, you know, change and wanting technology, folks who are prone to, uh you might actually be thinking about personality typing, right? So I know we aren’t supposed to hire based on personality profiles but to have diverse personality profiles is psychographic too. Right. So if you were to take a Myers Briggs assessment or if you were to take an enneagram or a disc assessment, there’s a certain personality type associated with that. And do you have sort of diversity in those personality types? Those are things that we also should be thinking about when we think about diversity. And, and so I’m thinking that’s a good bit of psychographics. But again, I was hearing it in passing and it resonated with me, didn’t do my full research, but that’s what I gained from it. No, no, no, it’s fuller understanding than I had a couple of minutes ago. Thank you. It’s time for a break. Virtuous is a software company committed to helping nonprofits grow generosity. Virtuous believes that generosity has the power to create profound change in the world. And in the heart of the giver, it’s their mission to move the needle on global generosity by helping nonprofits better connect with and inspire their givers. Responsive. Fundraising puts the donor at the center of fundraising and grows giving through personalized donor journeys that respond to the needs of the individual. Virtuous is the only responsive nonprofit CRM designed to help you build deeper relationships with every donor at scale. Virtuous, gives you the nonprofit CRM, fundraising, volunteer marketing and automation tools. You need to create responsive experiences that build trust and grow impact virtuous.org. Now back to the generational divide. This is getting a little exhausting the the disc assessment. Well, I had a guest who said that her company uh requires folks to do a disc assessment after they’re hired, not, not as part of hiring, but after and then I is, is that the one that gives you your, your, your areas of strength and your and your areas where you can use help. And so the company uh tries to leverage the strengths and get folks uh and get and get folks to not have great responsibility in the areas where they’re weakest or maybe try to build those areas up. Do you, do you use these assessment tools in your, in your consulting? We do one of our consultants on staff is certified dis a disk trainer, um and consultant and we do because what we like about dis and, and again, there are lots of different, you know, assessment tools that you can use but dis in the workplace gives you tools as to how it is that you can provide feedback and plans really to help develop your staff. Uh And so we really like that one because it’s not just, oh, let’s talk about who you, you know what you like to do and what you don’t like to do and how you communicate and how you don’t communicate. But what does this mean in the workplace? And how can we you know, build some sort of leadership development from that. Um And so we do use disc for that reason, but it, I think it’s very helpful uh to understand your communication styles at work. And uh because that’s, I think that’s half the battle. We just don’t communicate well, especially between uh generations. So, uh knowing that it really is helpful, let’s identify the values that the, the different generations bring since we uh since we uh kind of bashed or I bashed the uh the baby boomer generation, let’s, let’s, let’s start with them. So maybe try to rehabilitate their reputation. Uh What, what’s the, we’ll get to the others. We do the others too. I try to, you know, um what, what should we recognize as the value that the, the older folks, the baby boomer generation bring? You know, I, I could, there’s nothing I can’t identify anything. I can’t identify a single thing. OK. OK. OK. OK. So I would say when I think about the boomer generation, I think about consistency, hard work. I think about practicality. I think about a resolve, right? Those that comes to mind for me and, and in direct contrast really to other generations. OK. Uh And I value those things and then also, of course, the experience you mentioned earlier, you know that if you’ve got, if you’ve got 20 years with the organization, that’s enormous value. Not, not that we should be doing, not that we should be doing things the same way we did 20 years ago. But yeah, that institutional knowledge, there’s value there. OK. How about the millennials? What, what, what, what are they contributing? Well, I, I think the one is flexibility when I looked at, if I were to go and look for, let’s say I’m gonna hire someone and I’m looking at resumes if I look at a, a boomer resume, which we probably won’t see very many because that, you know, they’re, they’re pretty much staying with one job for a long time. A millennial resume may look like every 2 to 3 years, they’ve changed companies and that is not a bad thing. It used, it used, it used to be upon. But if you have one, if you want to grow in an organization, sometimes there isn’t a space for you to grow, you have to move. And so the growth of millennials I think has increased because of that movement. So you can go one place, learn something, you go somewhere else and learn something new. And that flexibility I think is great too. So they’re not so structured that when, you know, we live in a very volatile time, you know, this, we don’t know what’s going to happen from week to week these days when it comes to our political climate, when it comes to even our environmental climate. And so having a versatile nature and valuing that versatility and flexibility, I think is absolutely necessary just because of how, how business works these days. It’s not the same business atmosphere and climate that it was 3040 years ago. And so having that flexibility I think is wonderful and anything we can talk about any of these values being used to the excess and it makes it bad. Right. So, so we had to kind of think through that um so flexible that you’re changing jobs every six months, every two years or that no one can hold, you can’t commit to anything, right? No one can hold you accountable for the work that needs to be done because you’re already on something different. Right? So that’s, but that’s, I think an outlier and I think we don’t want to harp on that being an issue as much as, as much as the flexibility and the adaptability and versatility of that generation. Um I will say that I don’t think they knew if I’m, if I’m thinking correctly, millennials don’t know of a time without the internet. Yeah, they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t remember, remember it. They were born but they wouldn’t remember it. I think it’s so, it’s so immersed and ingrained into their life. The technology is that it’s like second nature. Whereas in other generations we have to actually think about it like, oh, how do I integrate this? Oh, how do I do this? And, and what’s, you know, how do I automate something? Well, that, that’s not something that they even think about my Children are in the Z generation. And uh I know that for a fact they look at me and like, why don’t you know how to do this and why is it so hard for you? Now, let’s not skip over Gen X. Just skip over your Z. Even. You’re doing it. You went right. You did it to yourself. You went through, we were talking about millennials. You went to your Children in Gen Z. You’re cheating your own generation. I am well, but I’m talking about my generation where we still have challenges even though we are, you know, I’d say we tech technologically proficient, doesn’t mean we don’t have challenges with the newer technology coming out. So I think it’s a, it’s an uh an issue of degrees, right? But, but uh but definitely, I do see the millennials as you know, having more of a uh a plan for what they believe their lives should look like. The millennial generations were getting married later, having Children later because they were more, I believe, more driven about having career paths and goals. And so that’s part of their value system. I will say this one of the values I believe that the millennial generation has that even Gen Xers struggle with is making sure that we’re being paid for our worth. They have a totally different value system about that, which I think is part of leaving jobs going two years, three years here saying no, I think I’m worth this and I need to get paid this um and standing their ground on that. And I really do um uh uh appreciate them for that because I, I do think that that’s necessary. You see that more among millennials you’re saying than, than gen X because II, I remember, you know, as a Gen Xer, my parents saying you go to school, you get a job, that’s what we grew up with. Go to school, get a job and when you get a job, just get a good stable job. And if it’s stable, stay there, right? Um Millennials like, yeah, I don’t want just any job. I want the right job and I want a job that’s gonna, that’s gonna pay me for it. I went to school and I did this thing. I did this thing I studied this, I’m certified this, I want the job that’s gonna pay me for that. Um And we’re in, we’re in that bridge again like, yeah, mom and dad, I know you stayed somewhere 30 years. I don’t think I’m gonna do that. Maybe I’ll stay seven or eight years at a time. And, you know, and I, I want to be stable and I want to have, you know, a decent income, but I’d rather have a job than not. And I know that, you know, millennials they will hold out if they don’t have the right job. Like I’ve seen that in the past. Um, and it’s even more so with Z, they’re not even, you know, looking for one job. They want to find, um, a way to express all of their gifts, whether that’s four part time jobs versus having one part time job that doesn’t suit them. Uh, and what they believe they have to offer the world. All right. All right. Interesting. That’s very interesting. LE let’s, let’s be explicit about, uh, gen X you, the value, the value that uh your generation brings. Um Well, one, I think I’ve already said, which is that we are translators. Um You know, we can, we can understand those before us and those after us. So we’re just that bridge generation. Um As you said, we, we sometimes don’t get the shine, but that doesn’t mean we won’t do the work. Yeah. If the work needs to be done, we’re gonna do the work regardless of the shine. Um And so we’re, we’re very compatible with different generations, but we’re also very supportive and I think we’re very um uh uh there’s, now, look at me, see, I’m trying to figure out the word uh reliable. There’s one word that I can say off the top of my head. But, but we’re there, we’re gonna do the work, we’re not gonna let things fall through the cracks. We’re just kind of get in where we fit in. And I think, and I do think that that’s, that’s valuable. Right. So if you’re in an organization and you find that, you know, your, your um uh baby boomer generation, um maybe retiring, but they’re not necessarily ready to, but they’re ready to like, you know, not do as much work. That work is gonna go somewhere and it probably isn’t gonna go to Millennial because they want the title and the work. So, um that’s, that’s my perspective. I know I have a very specific perspective. Uh But that is, that is mine. All right. Fair. And uh and Gen Z OK. So Jz um I, I am just amazed by them because they are so uh determined to understand and expose those are the two things that I, I think that they really value, which is transparency. They want to know like why are we doing this with this money? Why are we doing this with this in this way? I don’t understand why this is so important. Help me understand. Um They are very big on transparency and they’re very big on um wanting to feel as though what they say and what they think matters. They will not be a generation that’s just going to sit back and just, you know, like this next generation say, well, someone else got the shine. So we’ll just kind of do what we gotta do, they won’t have it. Um And when you bring that to the workplace, it looks like making sure, you know, we didn’t really talk about this. But I think about this generational divide, think about how if you’re in the workplace and you needed to have some practicality to this conversation. What does this look like to be able to do work together? It looks like um understanding tasks versus outcomes, right. So A I is doing a lot of that transitioning of jobs because now we need to be focused on the task and not the role because A I is taking some of the task out which may change the roles and some of the roles may go away. And so if you’re thinking about how is it that we’re going to bridge the gap? Well, the boomer generation might be, might be best suited for thinking about outcomes, right? Because wisdom help us with understanding outcomes versus, you know, a younger generation may be better at the task because they have that technical skill set, not that they can’t, you know, obviously um do any kind of like projections or anything like that, but they have that technical skill set to be able to help make sure those outcomes come to pass with some very technical tools. And so when we think about this, this uh Z generation or yeah, Z generation, they’re more likely to work in roles that they can actually use their skills and bring their own talents to the table that may not be traditional roles, right? So for example, and, and I will use my Children um I’m sure they won’t mind. But um I have a son who is um an econ major. Uh He’ll, he’ll more than likely, you know, go into some sort of business graduate program. Um But he also loves production, producing um video content, uh videography. Uh He’s a creative but it’s like he does that on the side and it’s almost, and it’s almost like I have my foot in the business world, finance traditional, you know, management. But I also have a skill to produce video content and, and do creation um and video crea content creation. And it’s weird to me, but he would rather have an internship. He might have an accounting internship. But then he also has a small side business where he’s, you know, creating logos for other people. Right. So it, it’s not, it’s not a mix that I would put together what job is gonna let you do both of those things. Right. Well, that’s what you said. They may take four jobs so that all their, all their talents uh get, get used. They’re not, they’re not, he’s not gonna be happy just doing video on, on nights and weekends or something like as a ho that’s not gonna be sufficient. But he also knows that he needs a job that’s going to give him some stability to be able to do those things he likes to do. So for him, it is, you know, and I believe many in that generation it’s, I know I can do this and I can do that and I can do this. How do I make all of them work for me? Um And that might not look like a traditional full time role at any organization. So, organizationally, if you’re a leader of an organization, you might be thinking, do I have, do I need to have full time roles for every task or every group of tasks? Maybe there are some roles that I can outsource. Um Just certain groups of tasks, maybe there are some roles that need to be changed so that, you know, it makes more sense and I have more of a pool to hire from, for certain uh responsibilities that need to be uh uh accounted for. So, so the changing landscape of even how roles and jobs are designed is really based on the, the coming generations and we need to be thinking about that so that we can have the ability to have a pool of applicants that makes sense for our organization’s work. It’s time for Tony’s take two. My thanks to NATO, the North American Y MC A Development Officers conference and I made a mistake last week. I called it National Y MC A. No, it’s the North American Y MC A development officers, NATO and I was at their conference in Denver, Colorado and I wanna thank them, thank them for inviting me to come. I’m already looking forward to 2025. I hope they will have me, I, I wanna present again because why, because it’s, as I said, last week, such a supportive community, all the w just wanna help each other. They don’t see themselves in competition at all. They, they see themselves as collegial and supportive. So I, I, you know, they’re supportive of each other. I want to support them. You know, I see them helping each other. I want to help them. So I hope that NATO will have me back to the 2025 conference. I’ve already got an idea about what to present, looking forward to it already. My thanks to NATO, that is Tony’s take two ordinarily. Now, I would say Kate and she would tell us uh what’s coming up the rest of the show, but she’s uh she’s still not with us. I mean, she didn’t die, she just still sick. We’ve got just about a butt load more time. So let’s return to the generational divide with Miriam Dick. That’s outstanding. Uh The, the, the, the, the, the, the idea of reimagining uh work that, you know, everybody doesn’t need to be a full time employee for all of our work to get done. I gotta say as a baby, uh the youngest among the youngest uh baby boomers. The first thing is the first thing that strikes me. All right. Did I mention that? Uh I did, did I mention OK. OK. Um The, the first thing I think of when I think of somebody with three or four jobs is how are they going to pay for their medical insurance? So, uh, you know, there’s the practicality of, you know, somebody who’s 62. Um, but it’s, it’s, it’s an issue, you know, but, but they will figure it out because they are the, they are the practicality of folks. So, you know, um, now I don’t, I don’t want to distill what you just said down into, you know, for each of the generation into one word. But so, but if you look at some of the features of them, because it, because any generation obviously is more than a single word. But if you look at some of these features like like practicality, transparency, reliability, flexibility, consistency, I mean, these are all very, very valuable attributes that, that uh we can, we can, we can use to our advantage across the generations. I mean, these are great things. These are, these are terrific skills, they’re values that they’re, they’re more than just skills, they’re, they’re uh their, their attributes, their contributions that all the generations can make. So maybe we can spend a little more time thinking about talking about how because if we just think about it, it’s gonna be a kind of a quiet podcast. We should, we should actually probably should actually let’s actually discuss it um ways of drawing out the talents and, and recognizing the talents of, of folks regardless of what generation or just some, some other generation than your own. You know, how do we, how do we get, get the most out of folks? I think a lot of that comes with one intentionality. Right. So we need to be intentional about having conversations and, and creating a context where that’s possible. Um I was, uh recently I took a course, it was a leadership course and I’m trying to remember the exercise. I think the exercise was based on personality types and they put us into separate groups and these groups were sort of the opposite personality type from yourself. I think there were like four groups. And so two groups had very similar, um maybe uh social skills but very different work work flows or something like that. So it was just different opposite type groups. And we were asked to talk about, you know, what we think of the other group. Uh so that we can kind of get an idea of how people perceive us who are not like us, right? And so in this one group, I’m in the group and I am an extrovert, like I’m 99.99% extrovert. And I know this about myself. I’m outgoing, I’m, you know, if someone wants to have a conversation, I’m like, let’s do it. I’m not going to shy away from, you know, from a conversation. I’ve never met a stranger that’s me in the workplace, you know, that means I’m probably talking at every meeting. I am maybe having conversations throughout the office on my way to my desk. Right. That’s just me. Well, someone in the other group said I am the opposite, which is I wait until there’s space for me to talk. Like you’ve got to give me some runaway here if you want me to talk. Because if you’re always talking, I’m just gonna let you, I’m not gonna, I’m not going to interject. And so knowing that was like, oh, I need to give space and, and, and she said this in meetings as well, like I’m not going to speak up in a meeting. If I don’t feel that I have been given a path or given an opportunity or an extended, an opportunity to speak. I’m not just gonna jump in there because that’s just not my personality type. And so that got me to thinking about, oh, so when I run a meeting, I probably need to just take time and say, hey, do you have anything to contribute instead of waiting for someone to jump in? Because that’s what I would do. And I think about it the same way when we’re talking about, you know, should we um how do we sort of bridge that gap or bring out the best in everyone is being intentional about making sure there’s a space and a room for everyone to contribute and it doesn’t look like them always volunteering to contribute. It looks like you’re pulling it out sometimes and when you have those types of opportunities and spaces, I think that’s when you start to see the changes being made. Yeah. Yeah, I’m thinking about, I’m, I’m trying to beyond meetings, you know, just, uh you know, opportunities for people to, to express um yeah, just open, open opportunities and just keep opening the opportunity until, until no one else talks, right? Rather than calling on people, you know, it’s your turn or something like that, you know, but uh just opening, opening space, interesting having that space and I loved how she said it providing a runway like, you know, I need to, I need time to gear up to be able to speak even. And I also don’t like to be caught off guard. So having time to even think about what it is we could be discussing. So not just bringing things on people so that they, if you are wanting to be intentional about having discussions about bringing things out, how is it that you provide the necessary prep time for people to think through that and come to the table thoughtfully? Um And, and having a space to do that. So there are ways to do that. I’m sure we can think of some very practical ways whether it’s in the workplace, whether it’s in your community to do those things, but at least start thinking in that direction. How is it that we make space for others to be able to come to the table with meaningful information and bring them their full selves to the table. A little bit of a caution there too embedded in what you said that, you know, that we not spring things on people. So, you know, now I’m going back to a meeting, you know, oh, let, let’s, let’s talk about this because everybody’s here that, that, uh, th this came from a conversation, uh, that I had last week with somebody at the nonprofit technology conference. Uh, all the people that are involved in this other topic that we didn’t put on the agenda, it turns out everybody’s here. All right, let’s talk about that. We can, and then we can avoid having another meeting. Well, now that’s springing. You know, that, that’s not fair. I haven’t had a chance to think through it. I, my role, my questions about it. Do I understand the topic fully? You know, I haven’t had time to prepare the way I did for the items that were, that were on the agenda. That’s not fair to everybody but it’s especially harsh on the introverts. Exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, thinking about that, you know, even from a generational perspective, uh, let’s say if you are more seasoned, you are in leadership roles, you’re gonna feel more comfortable having certain, um, uh, speaking up in meetings, having, uh, you know, expressing your thoughts because you’ve been in those positions long enough to know how things go and how to, you know, even negotiate some of those conversations where someone who in another generation is younger, um may still need time to kind of work through. How do I present myself in this situation? How do I best speak up? How do I, and, and it’s just, it’s not um second nature to them yet. Uh And so those things happen too. Uh And so being very cognizant of, of those different dynamics, I think is very, very helpful when trying to bridge that divide. What have I not asked you about yet? That, that we should talk about. Oh, wow. Um I feel like we really talked about a lot. I can’t think of anything um that we did not talk about. One thing I will reiterate is that we all need to have some introspection uh about, you know, recognizing that our value system is tied to generational culture, you know, generational culture. And what does it look for me to extend the olive branch outside of my value system to another generation that values something different because we all have a responsibility to bring um to help others come to the table. All right. And to be able to express themselves and understand their values. Knowing that the end goal is not for any of us to have everything we want. The end goal is for us to do work well together, Miriam P dix CEO and chief strategist at 180 Management Group. You’ll find her company at 180 Management group.com. You’ll find Miriam on linkedin. Miriam. Thanks so much for sharing. Enjoyed it. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Great time. My pleasure, my pleasure. Next week, we’ll return to our coverage of the 2024 nonprofit technology conference. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I do beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by Virtuous. Virtuous. Gives you the nonprofit CRM fundraising, volunteer and marketing tools. You need to create more responsive donor experiences and grow, giving, virtuous.org. Do we need that associate producer? Really? I would save money without her without one that uh we’ll see. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff still for this week. Our associate producer is Kate Martin. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. You’re with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.
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