| 16 February 2012
Bridging the communications gap between generations has always been a challenge in business and for business professionals. How do the 50+ year olds effectively communicate with their 25 year old co-workers?
Recently I participated in the cover story for Investment Advisor Magazine titled, Bridge Builder. It was a round table discussion held at the Museum of American Finance in lower Manhattan (located in the original building of the Bank of N.Y. founded by Alexander Hamilton). We discussed the communication challenges between younger and us older (excuse me, more experienced) financial advisors, but we could have been talking about any professional business, law firms, accountants, etc.
The communications between the generations is much more different than in the past. More senior practitioners are used to talking to each other and clients in person or on the phone. The current generation hates to talk on the phone and believes text messages and Facebook is much more efficient. The 50+ crowd is just getting comfortable with using email, and is falling behind in technology.
I’m not sure what the answer is but James J. Green did a good job capturing the spirit of our conversation in the complete article, Bridge Builder