397: Implications of Perceived Generational Differences in Your Business with Dr. Michael Urick
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Have you struggled hiring and managing employees for your business? One of the most common complaints is the issue of hiring someone from a different age bracket and how they work and communicate. Dr. Michael Urick (Dean of the Alex G. McKenna School of Business, Economics, and Government at Saint Vincent College) discusses the dangers of relying on stereotypes and perceptions, and emphasizes the importance of effective communication and understanding in the workplace. He also addresses the impact of generational differences on internal and external relationships, and offers suggestions for mitigating these risks. We explore the challenges and misconceptions surrounding intergenerational interactions, and encourages us to question our own biases and assumptions.
Main topics
Are difference real?
Common stereotypes
Conflict resolution
Workplace communication
Main takeaway: If you have beliefs about generational differences, ask yourself where they came from and understand the dangers those beliefs bring into your business.
About our guest:
Dr. Michael J. Urick is Dean of the Alex G. McKenna School of Business, Economics, and Government at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania (USA) as well as a Professor of Management and Operational Excellence.
He received his PhD in Management (Organizational Behavior focus) from the University of Cincinnati. His MBA (focused in Human Resources Management) and MS (in Leadership and Business Ethics) are both from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and his Bachelor’s degree in Accounting with Management and English minors is from Saint Vincent College. Dr. Urick has taught undergraduate and graduate courses related to organizational behavior, human resources, communication, conflict, organizational culture, operations, and research methods. His research has been widely cited in academic publications as well as in news media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal.
The Master of Science in Management: Operational Excellence program at Saint Vincent, which he directed for nearly ten years prior to his role as Dean, focuses on providing aspiring leaders with cutting edge management techniques to effectively problem solve, minimize waste, and continuously improve their organizations. Under his directorship, the program was consistently ranked as a “Top 50 Best Value Master’s in Management” program by Value Colleges and as a “Top Online Non-MBA Business Graduate Degree” by US News and World Report.
Dr. Urick is Six Sigma Green Belt Certified, Diversity Management Certified, a Certified Conflict Manager, Project Management Essentials Certified, and MBTI Certified and is also certified through the Society for Human Resource Management as well as the True Lean program at the University of Kentucky. He is the recipient of an “Excellence in Teaching” award from the Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati, the “Quentin Schaut Faculty Award” from Saint Vincent College, and a “Teaching Excellence” award from the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs among other pedagogical honors. Internationally, Urick was also recognized by the Institute for Supply Management as a “Person of the Year” in the learning and education category.
Urick is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Leadership and Management based in Poland, the North American Associate Editor of the Measuring Business Excellence journal, and on the editorial board of Management Teaching Review. He is also the Editor for the “Exploring Effective Leadership Practices through Popular Culture” book series from Emerald Publishing.
His research interests include leadership, conflict, and identity in the workplace. Much of his work focuses on issues related to intergenerational phenomena within organizations. He also often examines how popular culture can be used to advance organizational behavior theory. In addition to authoring or co-authoring over fifty publications including multiple books and peer-reviewed articles, he has regularly presented at academic and practitioner international meetings such as the Academy of Management, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and Institute for Supply Management conferences. Urick is a regular speaker on age-related issues in the workplace throughout the US and internationally (having presented on four continents including presentations at the University of Oxford in the UK) and served as a consultant on issues related to workplace interactions, organizational culture, and ethics for various organizations. Dr. Urick has served as a reviewer for a variety of academic publications including the Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Journal of Family Issues as well as the Organizational Behavior and Human Resources divisions of the Academy of Management Annual Meeting in addition to other conferences.
Professionally, Urick has served on the boards of ISM-Pittsburgh (in various roles including President) and the Westmoreland Arts and Heritage Festival (a top-rated community event). He has also served on the Westmoreland Human Resources Association (a regional SHRM chapter) board in various positions including Vice President. Prior to academia, Urick worked in a variety of roles related to auditing, utilities, environmental issues, and training and development. Through these experiences, Dr. Urick became fascinated with interactions in the workplace and how they might be improved which has influenced his academic career.
For fun, Urick enjoys music and, since 1998, has been a semi-professional jazz musician and toured through over a dozen US states while releasing multiple recordings with various ensembles.
Links:
https://www.stvincent.edu/directory/faculty-staff/faculty/michael-urick.html
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
generations, generational differences, biases, person, workplace, talking, hiring, stereotypes, individual, people, pet, communication, millennial, interactions, team, clients, effective communication, conflict, generational, personality tests
SPEAKERS
Dr. Michael Urick, Collin
Collin 00:01
Welcome to pet sitter confessional. Today, we're brought to you by time to pet and the peaceful pet music youtube channel. Are you struggling with generational differences in your company? Whether you've hired or are working with a client that isn't in the same age bracket, we sometimes feel like we struggle to connect and understand them, our generational differences even real, and how do we overcome them in our business? Today, we're interviewing Dr. Michael Urick, Dean of the Alex G. McKenna school of business, economics and government at St. Vincent College in Pennsylvania, as well as a professor of management and operational excellence. His research interests include leadership, conflict resolution and identity in the workplace. Much of his work actually focuses on issues related to intergenerational phenomena within organizations businesses, he also often examines how popular culture can be used to advanced organizational behavior theory. For fun, he enjoys music, and since 1998, has been a semi professional jazz musician, and based on the title of some of his books and articles. He's a huge fan of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Dr. Urick, first became interested in generational differences when he made a very key observation.
Dr. Michael Urick 01:06
So as I'm thinking about my colleagues, and my friends, you know, I'm thinking and I'm realizing none of them actually fit the stereotype that I'm hearing about. And I started wondering, well, are these stereotypes really accurate? And you know, because all these trainings, all these blogs, all these all these new news articles that you hear about generational differences, really, they're just talking about some stereotypes that are out there. And so I started investigating this, and I started thinking, Okay, where are these? Where's the content of this coming from? And, you know, further on my career, I got into training and development, I started getting more on the academic side of things, trying to understand where the research was at on these generational issues and generational differences. And realizing that actually, at the time, you know, we're talking, I guess, close to 20 years ago, or so at the time, there wasn't really a whole lot out there, in terms of academic research, about generational issues and generational differences in workplaces. So whenever I decided to, to make academia my, my full time career, I left my job when for my doctorate. And I was trying to figure out what you know, what am I passionate about research researching? What do I really want to learn more about? And so I thought, well, you know, this generational stuff that I've been encountering in the workplace in businesses, I would like to learn more about because it doesn't seem like there's a lot there. At the time, I was told when I first started thinking about it. Yeah, that's of interest to practitioners, that's of interest to people in a variety of industries, including petsitting. But academics aren't really as interested in that right now. So yeah, that's not going to get published in the top journals. Until it did. And that was sort of like the, you know, the snowball at the top of the hill that eventually kept rolling and rolling and rolling and turned into a bigger snowball at the bottom. So then I started getting more into this and people started publishing things on intergenerational interactions, intergenerational conflict and a generational differences in the workplace. I'm of the mind that. I don't know, if there are clear generational differences. I don't really think it matters. I think, I don't think I care about that. Because people report to me all the time, they have a hard time talking with people from different generations. So whether or not those differences are just perceptions, or whether or not those differences are, are true differences that can be tested and supported academically, doesn't really matter. I know that people are reporting challenges. And so my research and my background is kind of skipping that part of where the actual generational differences, if any, but what are the challenges and how can we improve those challenges? How can we improve communication? How can we resolve conflict?
Collin 04:02
Perception often shapes reality, particularly in the context of the workplace. This is especially relevant when considering generational differences in intergenerational interactions. Things like perceived differences can become barriers. When individuals believe there are substantial differences between their own generation and other it creates a barrier to effective communication and collaboration. For instance, if a millennial worker believes that a baby boomer colleague is technologically inept, because of their age, they might avoid collaborating on projects entirely if they use newer technologies or avoid talking to them or going to them for help. Even if the baby boomer is perfectly capable of handling the tech, the perception of differences creates this unnecessary hurdle. Then there are the self fulfilling prophecies where our beliefs about how a person will behave, how can unconsciously influence our interactions with them, prompting the behavior we initially assumed in the first place. If a Gen Z worker assumes that a Gen X or manager is distant missive of their ideas. Because of their youth, they might not express their thoughts as competently as they would have leading the manager to indeed dismiss their input. Then there's overcoming perceived differences, this task of overcoming these differences often falls upon everyone in the workplace. This requires awareness and effort to challenge personal assumptions and stereotypes about other generations. It's about encouraging open communication, fostering an understanding environment and focusing on individuals capabilities, rather than generalizing them based on their generation. It can also involve structured initiatives such as intergenerational mentoring programs, which provides opportunities for different generations to learn from one another and debunk those misconceptions. And then it'll always leadership role is so important managers and leaders of your company, meaning you play a key role in mitigating the impacts of these perceived differences. By promoting a culture that values diversity and inclusivity. They can help shift perceptions, you can help shift perceptions and build a more cohesive, and a productive team that works better together, perceived generational differences can have a tangible impact on the dynamics and the workplace as a whole. But what are some of the common misconceptions out there?
Dr. Michael Urick 06:12
Yeah, you know, you hear things like, younger generations are lazy or entitled, older generations are too conservative don't want to change, you hear things like that all the time. You hear about different communication styles between generations, you see, you hear about how a younger generation might overuse technology, while older generation might not want to adopt technology. You know, things like that in, in typical workplaces are things that I've heard quite regularly. But the interesting thing is, as are these true generational differences, or is this just a process of you know, we're, we're individuals who are now of an older generation, when they were younger, also wanting to push the envelope also act in the same way, perhaps as some individuals who are younger now. And so are these generational differences. This is the life stage difference, or are these really no differences at all? And, as you said, just perception. So that's kind of what I'm trying to untangle. But in terms of the stereotypes in terms of the descriptors that are out there, I would say those are some of the biggest ones.
Collin 07:20
Even the term generation has the potential to complicate discussions about workplace dynamics, because it can inadvertently promote stereotyping and overgeneralization. When we categorize people into specific generations, such as Baby Boomers, Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, we might assume that everyone within that group shares the same characteristics, behaviors and attitudes. However, this is a simplification that doesn't account for individualistic differences and the wide range of experiences within a single generation. And this just gets into a bigger discussion on the importance of words. I mean, one, there's the promoting understanding and respect, where language that we use is powerful and can shape our understanding of the world and how we treat others. By using terms that promote understanding and respect, we can better facilitate intergenerational communication and cooperation. For instance, instead of labeling someone as a boomer or a millennial, which carries certain assumptions refer to them by their role, their name or other relevant neutral descriptors, we need to also avoid stereotypes, stereotypes can hinder effective communication and teamwork. When we use generation labels, it's easy to fall into the trap of assuming that these stereotypes are accurate. Actually, using more precise language can help us avoid these misconceptions entirely. We need to also emphasize individuality. Every person is unique with their own set of skills, experiences, perspectives. By focusing on individual traits rather than generational labels. We recognize the diversity and help to foster more inclusive workplace. This could mean replacing statements like Millennials need constant feedback with some team members thrive on regular feedback. Being careful with our language also helps facilitate effective communication. Clear, respectful language helps facilitate more effective communication by reducing a misunderstanding and promoting an open dialogue. This is essential in a diverse workplace where individuals of different generations need to work together towards a common goal. And Dr. Urick believes that the tournament generation just has a lot of problems with it.
Dr. Michael Urick 09:23
Yeah, we're absolutely because, you know, I've done over 100 interviews and throughout my research and talked with a lot of people collected a lot of data. And sometimes when you ask somebody, well, what's your generation? They actually don't know. They think they might, but but they don't know I was talking to somebody who is clearly Oh, he was I think, at the time, this is probably five or 10 years ago, but at the time, I think he was in his 70s and label himself as someone who was a millennial. You've heard that term. I don't think it applies to you. And so I don't know if that he just heard the term on passing, or was confused about what the term meant. But I'm thinking, you know, some of the discourse that surrounds generations is very confusing it and it gets confusing in terms of the labels themselves. It gets confusing in terms of the cut off years, because depending on, you know, what you read, the cut off years can be different. And it gets confusing, especially when, you know, now there's talk of these customers and things along those lines. But you know, before that it was talking about these micro generations or whatever they're calling them now. It was very difficult to say, Okay, well, I'm I was born this year, I was born a year earlier, I would have been a Gen X. But because I was born this year, I'm a millennial. So is it really that different? That the that one year difference? Is there really, that big of a change in someone's in someone that would put them into a different stereotype? Stereotypical category,
Collin 10:55
because there's also experiences and life history that happens in there as well. I see these all the time of where they go. Only Gen Xers will get this. And it's like, well, no, I listened to that music too. Or I remember that news thing. So there's a lot of there's a lot of just experiential, things that go along with it well, as well, not just the date you were born.
Dr. Michael Urick 11:15
Right? Yeah, it's experience. It's what you were exposed to, it's what you are comfortable with during your formative years. You know, for example, you know, with my generation, I should be great with technology, but I hate technology. But in a lot of the jobs that I've had early on, at least I've been assigned to sort of technology oriented roles, okay, this person is younger in our organization that this is a long time ago, not younger. That doesn't quite fit me anymore. But you know, in earlier my career, whenever I go into a new job, this person is younger, let's give him some tech stuff. I'm bad at it, and I don't really enjoy it. So you know, by using that stereotype, this is just a personal anecdote, but using that stereotype on me is something where it's like, yeah, you can probably find someone who's way better at this stuff and enjoys this way more than I do. It'd be better suited for this. And so if we're relying on stereotypes too much as we're making job related decisions, that's going to be a detriment to our businesses.
Collin 12:16
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Collin 12:37
If you're looking for new petsitting software, give time to pet a try, listeners of our show can save 50% off your first three months by visiting typepad.com/confessional. It turns out the way you talk with other people in the workplace can have far reaching impacts extending beyond the internal structure of your business and actually going on to impact client relationships and your business's external reputation as well. It's vital to recognize the inherent dangers present when internal communication breaks down or is improperly handled. misunderstandings, conflicts or miscommunications among team members can lead to decreased productivity, low morale and in worst case scenarios contribute to employee turnover. This has ripple effects throughout your business, hampering growth and development. Beyond these internal effects, the importance of effective communication and positive interpersonal dynamics becomes even more critical when we consider external relationships, particularly with our clients with our customers. For instance, if internal discord or poor communication habits are prevalent within your team, it's likely that these issues will extend to interactions with clients. This can result in a range of problems from delays in service provision to reduce quality of services or even loss of clients. The overall image of your business may suffer which in turn effects it's your position in your market. To mitigate to reduce these risks, you should place a high priority on fostering effective communication, mutual respect and understanding within the workplace. This could involve regular trainings on interpersonal skills, clear communication of job roles and expectations, conflict resolution strategies and cultivating an open and inclusive culture. There's that word again, it cultivating open and inclusive culture of everybody on your team. Also, it's important for when you hire a manager to consider communication skills and a cultural fit when selecting new staff members. When the internal workplace environment is positive and cohesive, this often reflects positively on external interactions, contributing to a stronger, more resilient and more successful company. Dr. Eurich talks about the dangers that come from these kinds of thoughts and actions in the workplace.
Dr. Michael Urick 14:46
I think you know, and I've heard this through my interviews where people might interact with somebody they perceive to be of a different age, and they immediately shut down and they say, Oh, we have nothing in common. There's no way I can interact with this person. I think one not to have that reaction. Okay? If you're interacting with somebody who is older or younger, to be open, first of all, just to say I want to, even though I might be inclined to shut down, or I might think this is going to be a challenging interaction. I want to not do that and enter into this was an open mind and to be proactive in doing that, I think is a good thing. The second thing is, if we're using generational stereotypes to guide those interactions, first, I would question ourselves, you know, anybody to see? Am I really using a stereotype to guide this interaction? Or am I getting to know this person is an individual, one on one, so I can have a more meaningful interaction more meaningful relationship with this person at work? So that's the second thing along those lines, then the third thing is if I'm being guided by stereotypes or biases related to age or related to generation, to ask myself, where did I get that information? If I believe that generation, whatever is always is, for example, poor at communicating? Where did I find that out? Did I read that somewhere? Is that personal experience? If his personal experience is that generalizable to everybody from that generation? If I read it somewhere, I heard it somewhere, did they actually look at data that supports that. And so it's questioning where you got that information about your expectations for another generation,
Collin 16:31
doing some of that identity work, right to address our own bias in ourselves as we're as we're interacting with them, because we have to be collaborative in the workplace, we have to be reaching out being talking, you know, working solving problems, all of that. And if we are bringing this bias, as you've mentioned a couple times, Mike of going, well, they're not going to be good at this because I can tell because they have gray hair. So that obviously means that they don't like this, or maybe that person is really young. So I'm just going to assume they are only going to want to text me or they're going to do this. So then we start putting them in these positions, and we look up and we wonder why people aren't sticking around with us for very long and or enjoying coming into the workplace. Yep.
Dr. Michael Urick 17:12
And, you know, I've, I'm of the mindset that people are generally good people, you know, I don't think that anyone goes into well, I should say, anyone, I like that most people go into interactions by saying, I'm gonna be a jerk to this person, or I don't want to deal with this. You know, I think that sometimes people have particularly age based biases, and they might not even realize it, you know? And that's why I say question, question how you approach those interactions? Question where you're getting your information, because even if people don't think they have a bias, there might be a bias, there might be a bias. I've caught myself, you know, as much as I talked about not relying on generational descriptors, and generational labels, I've caught myself talking about them. And I've caught myself saying, You were thinking, Oh, this person's of this generation. So here's my expectation, I researched and stuff. And I understand that I still potentially have biases related to age and that's not a good thing. And so we need to think about where those biases might become might be coming from, and keep them in check as we enter into interactions.
Collin 18:14
As you progress through different stages of your life, your perspectives, attitudes, and communication styles can add, let's be honest, will undergo significant changes. And this is due to a myriad of factors including personal growth, life experiences, and changes in responsibilities or roles. Therefore, it's imperative to continually assess and recalibrate how we interact with the world around us. This involves introspection and awareness of our evolving selves and the impact we have on others. We're never static. In the context of running our business. Yes, you become a more seasoned professional, you'll communicate and handle situations differently than you did when you first started. Such changes should be recognized and accounted for in order to maintain effective communication and collaboration and encourage that growth and development in your own team members. life stage transitions also extends to our broader interactions outside of our business, relationships with friends, family, and community members can all be influenced by our personal growth and changes throughout our life. As we grow and mature, our understandings, deepen our values might shift and the way we relate to others could transform, we need to become more empathetic, more patient and perhaps more assertive. Ultimately, the need for regular self checks and adjustments and how we interact with the world becomes even more crucial as we progress year after year. It is a continuous process of learning and adapting, aimed were aimed at fostering healthier and more productive relationships and a better understanding of ourselves in relation to those around us. Unfortunately, miscommunication and over generalizations can lead to conflict in the workplace that we as the managers and owners have to try and solve.
Dr. Michael Urick 19:57
Yeah, and that's a challenging thing too, because my Understanding of the petsitting industry, as a lot of the communication is done via text or via email. Correct? Right. Yeah. And so that's, that's, that adds a whole nother layer to it. I mean, if you were in many of the people that I interviewed are more in what I would call like a traditional office space, you know, where there's a conflict, you can either talk to that person resolve that person by going to the next cube over, or what have you. Even those organizations, though, COVID, kind of threw a whole wrench into those when everything went online. So in that regard, they're no longer as I think, or your your industry is no longer as unique as some of the other industries, because now a lot of communication is just online is just via text is via, you know, something like zoom or teams or along those lines, that makes it even more challenging, especially if we're talking about text based communication, it's very difficult to engage in conflict over text based communication. And, you know, the other thing is ghosting, you know, if you're having chat, I don't know if you've experienced this a lot in your industry column, but like, you know, is is my employer going to ghost me, my employee going to ghost me? I'm reaching out to that person, there's an issue or I need to schedule this person for something, are they going to even get back to me. And so that's a challenge that has occurred a lot more regularly with some people who have suggested could be generationally based. Now, again, I don't know that for sure. But that's what I've heard is suggested. So, you know, as much as you can, I would say, talk with that person, one on one, if you can schedule a face to face that would be better than trying to do something via text or via email. If you can't do that, then I think phone would be an improvement, I think that you know, zoom, Skype teams will be an improvement, that way, you can see that person, but you can also see that person's tone of voice, etc. One of the things that I've learned from my research, though, is not to assume a preferred method of communication, you know, there are some individuals that say, okay, this person is a millennial, so they must prefer a text message, you know, again, get to know that person, want to want to get to understand what that person really likes, in terms of how to communicate, and try and adjust for that channel as well. You know, if that person is great with text messaging, that's great. But if that person would prefer a phone call, try that out, it has to fit between both parties. So it has to fit between the the business owner and the employee, or the manager, the employee, but find that thing you can agree on it is is a happy spot for both parties in terms of even just a channel for communication.
22:47
I like also how you relating it back to what you're talking about. So in those really intense, serious situations where maybe you do need to have a little bit of conflict, or you need to be a little bit more blunt about something, scheduling that phone call, having that one on one with Him is really going to just again, it's going to bring a lot of context to that, while also understanding that you may love being in that face to face interaction, the person you're talking to, at an individual level, might not be enjoying that face to face interaction and would rather have preferred to do it some other method. Yeah.
Dr. Michael Urick 23:21
So you have to think about all those things. And then in terms of the conflict itself, you know, you have to think about what's really causing that conflict, you know, get to the root cause. Is this person, you know, if you're having a conflict, this person is not showing up, talk to that person about schedule talking to that person, try to find as much information as you can, without making assumptions. Try and get to that root cause. If you go in and, you know, again, with assumptions with biases right off the bat, that's really not going to get you any places. But if you scheduled a meeting in terms of information seeking and say, Look, I want to get some information on what's going on here, so that we can have a dialogue that helps out a lot and that will help out a lot.
Collin 24:11
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Dr. Michael Urick 27:10
Yeah, that's a great point. You know, I think, again, it goes back to those assumptions, too. It goes back to understanding what the individual wants, and not what the stereotype once, you know, so I guess there are two things on the side of hiring somebody, it's, it's not to, you know, there is that stereotype, I think that I've heard that, well, younger generations want more flex time than older generations. Don't all generations kind of want that I think that's a commonality thing for for like, a variety of different age groups. Whereas an individual though, regardless of age, might want a more steady schedule. So I think if you're talking about a schedule, if you're talking about things along those lines, and that's part of the hiring discussion, that you're having, to not make an assumption, there would be a preference for one over the other, for example, based on someone's age, and that's, again, I mentioned scheduling, just as one example. But that could be anything that could be compensation that could be, you know, level of support with regard to development, and, you know, education and training and, and all sorts of things. So again, it's not to make those assumptions. But on the other side, it's to make sure that your business, your organization, is also open to age diversity as well. So, you know, as as people are recruiting, and you look around you thinking, who are all the employees here? Are they all have a similar age? And maybe ask yourself, why might that be is there's something going on in our business that is either biasing our hiring practices, or making people of a certain age group not want to work here want to work for us? So I think it's questioning those practices, which is important as well. That's huge,
Collin 28:51
because many of us don't have well outlined hiring practices, or or we do, we put together our hiring practice one time, and then it never evolves, it never changes. And we look up like you said, going, Well, I wonder why this is why do I have all of this? Or why am I getting these kinds of applicants? And so that blows through both with the quality of applicants that age of applicants and the diversity of applicants that we get through our door?
Dr. Michael Urick 29:18
Yeah, absolutely. So I think, you know, always having that questioning mindset, that improvement mindset. You know, one of my sides is I do a lot of work, obviously, on generations in the workplace. But I also do a lot of work on operational excellence, which is like continuous improvement, problem solving, waste reduction. So putting on that hat. Yeah, it's always about questioning your processes and thinking about how can I do this better tomorrow than I've done it today. One possible
Collin 29:43
solution that you're probably thinking about right now, because we said to avoid overgeneralization between generations, so we have to look at our biases and make sure that we understand some of our preconceived notion and we need to focus on the person focus on the end. dividual in front of us, and assess whether they are a good fit for the job that we need done. One possible solution that you're thinking of I know, is a personality test. What if I have every potential hire, take a personality test to make sure and see what kind of person they actually are. There are actually some things and some dangers and some little caveats that we need to have, when thinking about this. I'm empty
Dr. Michael Urick 30:25
MBTI certified, I'm trained in that the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. And I did that because I went through that during COVID. I've been familiar with that test for a long time. But you know, I've heard a lot of negative and positive things about it, you know, I believe, and it's my personal personal opinion that things like a personality test should not be used in hiring practices. personality doesn't. So when we're hiring somebody, we don't want to buy us our stuff in any way, right? We want to hire somebody who can do the job the best, or has the potential to do the job that best and those are the things that we should really be thinking about, can this person do the job? Can this person be trained to do the job? Does this person have potential to do the job? And that's really it. When we start then thinking about personality, then we're getting a little, you know, a personality isn't a behavior necessarily. So let me let me give an example. You might think, or a business owner might think, okay, I want somebody who's going to be extroverted, because someone needs to be extroverted to be able to communicate with a client Well, well, you know, extraversion is as a personality trait. But you don't need extraversion, to provide good customer service. Right. And so we're, I think, by leveraging that we're inherently putting bias into a hiring decision. People who rate highly on introversion, they can still provide good customer service, right, they can still interact well, with a customer, they just might do so in a different way. doesn't mean they're not going to be good in that role. So we have to separate personality from behavior. And so personality test, I'm really reluctant to say should be used in hiring at all. Where they should be used for is for information. And so I once was on a team. And I think this is sort of a best practice and, and use a personality test, where we the team took a personality test, we all sat down, someone went through the results with us. And we talked about how we can interact together, given our personality preferences. Okay, that was good, and actually had some good discussion there. Because that also gives people the opportunity to say, Well, my test results say this, but I don't really think that's actually me. You know, I think the testers all might have been off on this. And actually, the MBTI current version has that as a requirement to, to say, yeah, here's what the test says. But then you're supposed to have a dialogue in a conversation with the person that took the assessment, to say, Does this really fit you or what's your read on this? So I think they have a use in terms of starting a discussion. Beyond that. I would use personality tests with caution.
Collin 33:13
If you have a close working team, if you have a group of managers writing that are going to be highly collaborative and working really closely, that may be beneficial, or if you as the manager are going, I want to be able to talk with you better, I want to be able to interact with you better understand where we're coming from. But essentially, Mike, when you said that you need to have that opportunity or give them the opportunity to give feedback on those results. I mean, we do that with background checks, right? Everybody has the right to dispute the results of a background check when they come in to hire they have however many days but I forget what that is. But it's giving people that opportunity to explain dispute talk about discuss interact with that data, as opposed to just looking at going oh, yeah, here's what you are. That's how I will label you and I will move on from you. Because I I personally don't like that or think we need that.
Dr. Michael Urick 33:58
Yeah, I mean, you know, we want to make hiring decisions, employment related decision on the basis of can this person do the job, be trained to do the job alone, at anything that's not helping get us that information, like even personality, could be potentially biasing those discussions. But again, I think that they can be useful as a team building exercise. But there are a lot of team building exercises that can be useful too. So I think it's one of many ways to grow and build a team and get team dialogue going. But other than that, I wouldn't rely on them too much. A personality test is not a whole person, you know, to really understand that person. You got to talk with those individuals. You got to you got to get to know that person one on one.
Collin 34:38
It turns out in our attempt to not over generalize through looking at generations, we can overgeneralize by looking at personality tests. So there really are five pitfalls that you need to be aware of when it comes to using personality tests and hiring. The first one is the danger of over generalization. Here we are yet again when we rely heavily on personality test. We run the risk of overdone analyzing people based on their results. These tests while sometimes insightful, often categorize people into defined personality types, sound anything like generations here, but people are complex. Obviously, their behaviors, motivations and attitudes can always be, can't always be neatly sorted into categories. Relying on tests could lead to oversimplification and a lack of appreciation for individual nuances, then there's the potential for misuse, personality tests can be a helpful tool, but they shouldn't be used as the sole determinant for hiring decisions or understanding someone's capabilities. Using them, as a definitive guide can create biases and potential results in unfair decision making processes. The key is to use them as a part just one part of a holistic assessment, then there's respecting individual complexity. When personality tests can offer some valuable insights, it's crucial to remember that individuals are much more complex. As we've said, over and over again, everyone has a unique blend of experiences and skills, attitudes, and behaviors that will not be fully captured by any personality test on the market, then we have to be careful about the interpretation. The results of a personality test can be interpreted in many ways. And like Dr. York said, it's important to talk with those person about those assessments, I think it's more important, here's this, I don't care what your personality type is, I just care about whether I can interact with it, and whether you know, how it impacts you in the workplace, and how we can get along and overcome that.
36:35
We have to understand the nuances of personality traits, and how that can manifest differently in different people. And that is key to using these tests effectively. Then lastly, we have to ensure that we're using them ethically.
Collin 36:50
This means respecting privacy, explaining to candidates how the information will and will not be used and ensuring the tests themselves are scientifically valid and reliable. putting this all together when it comes to being the owner, the manager of the business, and you're having a team to work with. Thankfully, there are a lot of things that we can do to be better at tackling these biases, and actually guiding the communication and forming the structure of a cohesive, inclusive business that we want to run.
Dr. Michael Urick 37:19
As I mentioned before, just being able to question one's own potential biases, thinking about where you're getting information on generations. Making sure you're not having a knee jerk reaction to shutting down or to, you know, treating an individual a certain way because they're of a certain generation, getting to know them as an individual. Now, those are kind of general things. More specifically, though, I think, early on, as you're talking about hiring, setting the example in terms of how to communicate, setting some guidelines, if not even an example maybe having a written policy, or maybe talking over somebody a policy with what your expectations are, okay, look. If I text you, I'm going to text you within these hours. And I'm going to leave these hours free for you. And I would like you to text me back or respond back within this amount of time, and here's how I think would be an appropriate way to respond back to me, phone call, email, text, etc. You know, having those, whatever it is having those guidelines in place, that are upfront that are understood by whoever you're bringing in, that are not generally generationally specific, that should be for all employees, so they're all treated the same. Because sometimes we go down down that rabbit hole by saying, oh, this person is millennials, we want to have a policy for this person that fits this, but this person's a baby boomer or Gen X. So we want to have a different policy for that person, it should fit this and it should be the same for everybody out of fairness that everybody can agree on. And so making sure that they're communicated upfront, though, as well as expectations. And then, you know, a lot of leadership research talks about the manager that the business owner modeling the way you know, showing the types of communication or the way that conflict is handled, you know, that idea of being a role model of, of employees and team members, learning from others, is really important here to set the way and set the tone of what communication what conflict and conflict resolution could and should look like. It's being consistent. It's being consistent. And regardless of where you're at, in the organization, where you're at in the business, you know, it's if you're expecting someone to follow rule you're making you also need to follow that rule.
Collin 39:37
When you see problems in your business. When you look at where you are struggling. Always have the operational excellence the hat of operational excellence on and ask, Where can we improve? And specifically, where can I improve? That's where we start going. Nobody seems to be communicating well, am I am I communicating? Well, do I have written code deadlines. Do I follow them? Do? Do I make them part of my habit? Because I know what's going on and going, Okay, I wrote down the office hours, I wrote down how you're going to communicate well, but I'll go ahead and text to 11 o'clock at night. And I'm going to text you outside of this, and I'm going to use Slack. I'm going to use phone calls. But you know, no, no, you don't do that you follow the rules? Because that's confusing, right? That doesn't set good expectations. So in leadership, the first aspect is having self reflection, often problems within a team organization, such as poor communication, or these kinds of biases stem from the top, you as a leader should be willing to be introspective and question your own actions own behaviors. Then there's consistency and guidelines and expectations. When you set guidelines and expectations for the team for your business. It is absolutely 100% mission critical that you adhere and follow those rules. Because this kind of inconsistency between what it said and what it's done leads to confusion, decreased morale and reduced respect for you, from your team, and your clients. This all has a massive impact on the role modeling that you want to have, you often underestimate the impact that your own behavior has on others, if you as a leader are setting rules, but not following them, like sending texts outside of those office hours, despite having those written guidelines, they are sending that sending mixed signals to the team, you are modeling that it's okay to disregard the rules which can lead to a breakdown in discipline and respect. Then there's the illusion of exceptionalism. As leader, as a business owner, it's easy for us to fall into the trap of thinking that we're the exception to the rule, because it's our business. It's what we do we that we built this right. This could be due to an in sense of entitlement or a belief that you have special privileges. It happens to everybody. However, this undermines the team's cohesion and respect for you see how we keep circling back to this respect issue, respect issue. And when people aren't respected orders, and directions and guidelines aren't followed, which leads to poor performance, which leads to employee turnover. Ultimately, we are trying to promote a culture of mutual respect. Because by adhering to the same rules that you set for your team, you are promoting a culture and allowing your teams to treat everyone equitably. And showing through actions everyone including you are expected to follow the rules, looking for more resources and how to get connected with Dr. uric? Well,
Dr. Michael Urick 42:33
I have a personal website that talks about my research and my you know, my studies on generational differences and beyond. And that's Michael Urich. All one word, Michael urich.com. You're expelled you are IC k. So you can you can find there connect with me on social media. Just Google Michael Urich. And my LinkedIn should pop up. So connect with me there or on Twitter or on Facebook. You know, I'm Dean at St. Vincent, St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. So you can find more about about me there and about the programs that are in our school, St vincent.edu. But I'm always happy to connect. So please give me an email, please reach out to me through social media, I get my email is available from all those channels, you can find ways to get in touch with me via the websites via social media, or send me a message through LinkedIn or whatever. I'm always happy to connect and talk more and to share some, some some resources. If you're just a little plug, if you're interested in checking out some of those books. They are available on most major retailers. You can go to Amazon just plug in Michael uric and the books should come up. So yeah, I appreciate you having me. Thank you.
Collin 43:48
Where does this leave us as the business owners? Let's start Are you looking to hire employees, tear through your hiring practices look to see where generational biases are surfacing? And the kinds of questions the kinds of standardization that you're looking for. And other things that you believe personally about the kind of person you want to be working for you. Take those personality tests with a grain of salt and use them carefully throughout that process. If you currently have staff and are struggling to connect with your team members, get to know them at the individual level, understand what makes them tick. And then importantly, know how you want to communicate or what your expectations for communications are and see if those match up and then instead of just broadly generalizing that all people of X generation or XYZ, understand, okay, this is how this person is. How do I manage that person? How do I lead that person? Well, is this a lot of work? Yeah, it can be it absolutely requires work getting to know people on an individual basis. But it's Is it worth it? Also? Yes. I hope that you see them. That the entire point of all of this, of understanding how people work and function and how they communicate and expect their their bosses and managers to work with them and how they relate to the workplace. All of that is that we can have the best possible team of people working for us serving our clients. Well. Start with the mission, the vision, connect with the person, and then help them understand how they are connected to the bigger picture at their level and their tasks, their job duties. How does that? How does their role impact the outcome of the service and the business? We want to thank today's sponsor is time to pet and the peaceful pet music youtube channel. And thank you so much for listening. We'd love to get your feedback on this your experience in hiring and managing a diverse workplace and how you cohesively make that work. Let us know at feedback at petsitter confessional.com. We hope you have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your weekend. We'll be back again soon.
