Every Monday morning, my 92 grandmother sits down at her computer and bangs out an email to all her children (2), grandchildren (7 + 6 in laws) and great-grandchildren (6 at last count), as well as a few nieces and nephews and their kids and grandkids. The whole family responds to her, as the matriarch, returning emails, sending digital pictures (which she prints and frames) and generally digitally interacting with her and each other. If she can do it, anyone can.
The use of technology is no longer an optional extra in the world. Everyone has to be able to use technology to a reasonable level. And being old (or “nearing retirement” is no excuse). Hey, if a seven year old can do it, how difficult is it anyway?
Jack Welch, the legendary CE of General Electric, had this problem a few years ago when the Internet, cellphones and email hit companies. He solved it by insisting on a programme of reverse mentoring. Simply put, he required all his older managers and executive team to meet regularly, one-on-one, with 20-something staff members, with the express goal of the younger person teaching the older person how to use the emerging technologies. They discovered that there was much more value than simply technology training in these relationships – but that’s a different story, for another time.
BBC News carried a story two weeks ago about Chris Wertheim, a dyslexic man, now in his late 60s. He had taught himself to read at age 25, and now had signed up for the Sixty Plus Intergenerational Computer Project in Kensington and Chelsea in London, which pairs teenagers with older people teaching them computer skills one-on-one in their own homes. It has been a brilliant success.
Just like in companies, the success is not just older folk who are computer literate, but younger folk who develop life skills and worldviews as they interact with the wisdom of the older generation. This should be done in more communities. And in more companies.
Read more about reverse mentoring:
Center for Coaching and Mentoring – Survey Results
Alan Webber, co-founder of Fast Company describes reverse mentoring: “It’s a situation where the ‘old fogies’ in an organization realize that by the time you’re in your forties and fifties, you’re not in touch with the future the same way the young twenty-something’s. They come with fresh eyes, open minds, and instant links to the technology of our future”.
AARP Magazine – This Isn’t Your Father’s Mentoring Relationship
These days, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Generation Xer helping a baby boomer learn a new technology or a 62-year-old manager passing on leadership tips to a 26-year-old colleague — mentoring is valuable at any age.
Masterful mentoring
Entrepreneur Magazine – Kids These days
One of the most valuable things Judy Kirpich has learned is that some of the best ideas come from people who were barely born when she started in marketing 23 years ago. “I routinely get technology information from younger employees who have grown up on computers,” says the 49-year-old CEO and co-founder of Grafik Marketing Communications.
Busting Out of Peer-to-Peer Networks
Executives Meet and Learn From Employees in Reverse Mentoring Programs, By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Reverse Mentoring
I have a hunch that the vast majority Gen X-ers would simply jump at the opportunity to teach or mentor a “senior” colleague. Reason one: we relish any chance to share knowledge and/or experience. Reason two: therein lies an invitation to be significant, to be noticed, to be valued, or needed.
I am sometimes picked out to facilitate “training” at the office, whether it is a new employee learning our management system or, as was the case recently, facilitating small group workshops focused around ‘frontline professionalism’. Part of the “course” involved offering our fellow employees tips and hints for speaking on the phone – a critical contact point for many of our customers. Picture it – a 24 year-old snot implying that a 63 year-old purchasing manager that he is abrupt on the phone. Character building stuff!
The point is, for myself and my HR manager (maidenmole – who is 25), the experience was enriching, informative, challenging and in retrospect, hugely beneficial to all parties.
I guess credit should go to the powers that be for making available the opportunity for us to facilitate in the first place. Companies that do not allow for this kind of interaction will must be developing impenetrable walls between their generationally-diverse employees.
THis is hugely significant in the changing work space – if leadership is really about significance and influence – which I think is a given now – then the level of leadership that can and should be displayed by the young turks is vast. We should really be pushing organizations to formally introduce reverse mentoring programs – after all it is smart and will add enormous value. Pity that the only think in the way is the ego of Boomers who can’t let go, or who think they know it all already.
I’ve done this once already and it’s been a huge value-add for the recipient (who shall remain nameless except his initials are Steve Griffiths). Steve has about 20 different email addresses and to check email was a nightmare – because he had to sign in to his website 20 times to read all of his email. As you can imagine, this took AGES – kinda like having 20 post boxes and having to drive to each one to check if you have mail.
So, chatting over Skype one day (Steve is in England and I’m in South Africa) he asked me if I could help him simplify his mail checking process. It took a while and I needed to send him screenshots to help him through the process of entering his mail server addresses correctly and all that, but now that it’s done all he has to do to check mail from his 20 addresses is hit “Get mail.” Quite the timesaver! So I’ve helped him increase him productivity, decrease his frustration level and in short, given him more time to write things about his chicken Didymus the Blind. In return, I’ve received his eternal gratefulness, free accomodation whenever I want to go to the UK (!) and the satisfaction of helping someone do something new. I’m sure many other Gen Xers would love the chance to help Boomers with their computer skills…