Family business owners are introduced to GenME

“Why don’t you all f-fade away (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
And don’t try to dig what we all s-s-say (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
I’m not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)
I’m just talkin’ ’bout my g-g-g-generation (Talkin’ ’bout my generation)”
— lyrics from “My Generation, The Who (circa 1965)

Kids these days …

The above could have been the title of a Wednesday morning (Sept. 16) talk given by Gregg Roberts to about 50 members of the Family Enterprise Center at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith.

Roberts, a UAFS psychology instructor and licensed professional counselor in Arkansas and Oklahoma, spoke about the “Intergenerational Communication in the Family Business,” which covered how the “GenME” generation communicates and their attitudes toward work, authority and success.

The GenME group — sometimes referred to as the “Entitlement Generation” — are those born in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Roberts said members of this group typically have “terrible interpersonal communication skills. They mumble. They don’t look you in the eye. Just terrible.”

However, the upside of GenME members is “their ability to be comfortable with technology,” Roberts said.

The problem for employers and owners of family businesses is how to relate to the GenME crowd. He said it is common, if not likely, for a family business owner to have concerns about a son, daughter or other family member being interested in or possessing the ability to carry forward the family operation.

Most employers and family business owners understand the traditional concepts of work ethic, communication and other cultural norms espoused by the baby-boom generation. Unfortunately, Roberts noted, the baby-boomers and their children have raised a GenME group that was raised with “constant praise” to ensure they had strong self-esteem. Roberts believes the self-esteem push went too far, and now GenME members “have come to expect that someone is going to be there that makes sure their self-esteem is not shattered.”

But once GenME members hit the real world, they realize that employers and others around them don’t necessarily care about their self-esteem, and “they often don’t know how to handle” the stress of those real world expectations, Roberts said. Part of that stress comes from having high expectations about salary and benefits. They often expect to have the wages, perqs and other benefits of people who have been in the workforce for years. They want it all and they want it now, Roberts explained.

And expectations are important to this generation.

“You have to tell them what you need. You have to lay it out,” Roberts said, in explaining how employers must work with new employees who are GenME types. Roberts also said you have to issue frequent praise and appreciation for their efforts.

GenME people don’t think about “duty before self,” and don’t necessarily respect authority.

“They don’t respect authority just for authority’s sake,” Roberts said. “They have been taught that we (people in authority) have to earn their respect.”

Roberts outlined a few tips on how to deal with employers or family members who are GenME members.
• Explain that the real world doesn’t deliver overnight success. They’ll have to work for it.
• Berating them or complaining about their attitudes won’t help you communicate with GenME workers.
• Be diplomatically blunt. The GenME crowd appreciates directness rather than abstraction.
• Rethink gender roles. Female members of GenME will be just as confident and assertive as GenME males.
• Realize that they are more open and willing to share private information more freely than previous generations.

FAMILY ENTERPRISE CENTER
The Family Enterprise Center was developed to serve a need expressed by members of the area business community, according to the UAFS. The university notes that a family business often “exists when two or more family members exercise substantial control or ownership in a business.” The goal of the FEC, as noted by its literature, is to work with family business owners when there is a “true desire and recognition by the members of the need to think and plan beyond the current generation.”