Question

Do you agree with the characterization of Generation X and Generation Y?

If sustainability is one of the future trends in OD, what do you think might be ways that a practitioner could help an organization become more sustainable? Which interventions described in the text would be most helpful or relevant?

Answer 1

I agree with the characterization of Generation X ( born between 1965 – 1979) aged 40 to 54 years and Generation Y ( born between 1980 – 1994) aged 25 to 39 years from an organization perspective of managing employees. This categorization is essential for an OD practitioner to develop the training programs based on age and experience of the employees in the workplace. In a general organization setup, the manager is from Generation X and the team members are from the Generation Y in most of the cases with some exceptions.

An OD practitioner adopts three interventions pertaining to an individual, group and organization development. In all three interventions, characterization of generation X and generation Y plays a critical role in developing a sustainable OD intervention. Considering individual interventions, the OD practitioner must first determine the generation category of the employee and plan the OD intervention accordingly. In an intervention addressing a group, knowledge of members belonging to various generations is kept as a priority in developing OD interventions. In OD interventions addressing an organization strategy and policy, a categorization of various generations helps in developing OD interventions catering to the respective generation.

Considering sustainability as the trend, an OD practitioner could adopt team building programs and sensitivity training methods to help the organization become more sustainable with good knowledge on the characterization of the above two-generation types. Team building is the popular OD intervention of the current generation to enhance the satisfaction and effectiveness of individuals working in teams or groups in an organization. The main aim of team building OD interventions is to finds solutions to the group’s problems as fast as possible before the problem causes serious damage to the team. The common problems addressed in Team building OD intervention include task-related problems, personality conflict, group conflict, group think etc. These problems can be streamlined by redirecting the resources, changing the way of doing things and restructuring the work process through team-building interventions. Sensitivity training is aimed at changing the behavior of the group members by allowing the members to express their ideas, perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and opinions in an open and transparent manner in the training session. Sensitivity training enhances the interpersonal relationships among the group, develops tolerance among the group members understanding their differences, developing empathy over each other, improve listening and communication skills and creates trust among the members in the group or team.