Mentoring Bridges the Generation Gap
This is the fourth of six articles that will be written this year as a continuation of the “Mentoring Across Differences” column, which will highlight mentoring issues and spotlight how lawyers of different racial, gender, and cultural backgrounds can build successful mentoring relationships.
Ida O. Abbott, Esq. is the principal of Ida Abbott Consulting (www.IdaAbbott.com), which helps clients create systems and environments where professionals flourish, excel, and advance. She specializes in mentoring and lawyers’ professional development. Additional information about mentoring and diversity can be found in MCCA’s Mentoring Across Differences: A Guide to Cross-Gender and Cross-Race Mentoring.
The term "generation gap" is commonly used to describe a lack of understanding and communication between parents and children. But today's workplace—where four distinct generations are employed together—creates multiple generation gaps. As such, even as those committed to diversity rightly pay close attention to gender and ethnic groups, age diversity must be considered as well. While lawyers must be treated as individuals, not on the basis of group membership, there are very real differences between older and younger lawyers that impact the development and retention of associates and the operation and prosperity of law firms (see sidebar). Bridging the gaps among the generations is critically important, because if law firms expect to remain viable in the long term, they need lawyers of all ages to work together harmoniously. One proven method for bridging generation gaps is mentoring.
Generational Barriers
The major intergenerational problem today is that partners and associates have divergent values around institutional loyalty, definitions of career success, and the centrality of work versus family. When such core work values conflict, partners have little motivation to mentor associates, and associates reject partners as irrelevant advisors and role models. In the past, even when older and younger lawyers had different agendas, they shared common goals and values about work and defined career success as becoming a partner in the firm. When idealistic baby boomers entered the profession, they may have questioned authority, but they also aspired to partnership and the status it carried. When young lawyers enter firms now, their expectations are short-term and partnership is usually not their goal. Rather than a linear career path, they contemplate more fluid "career lattices" that involve multiple jobs, lateral as well as upward movement, and careers that start and stop for periods of time.
The crux of the problem is that law firms are becoming more demanding at a time when young lawyers are seeking less responsibility. Young lawyers work hard, but more and more are unwilling to make the trade-offs that come with partnership. While news reports focus on a so-called "opt-out revolution" in which women are dropping out of law, a recent study of generations in the workplace found that the real revolution is a downward trend in career ambitions of both men and women.1 Rather than dropping out, they seek jobs that allow them to have both productive careers and time for a personal life. This means eschewing partnership and positions that require too much responsibility. This trend has profound implications for law firms that require talented, driven lawyers to sustain the firm as a business entity.
Senior lawyers have an interest in ensuring the permanence of the successful institutions they have built. The established law firm business model has served them well, and as long as they continue to enjoy high profits, they have little inclination to change it. But young lawyers make a compelling case for changing what many agree is an unsustainable business model dependent on increased billable hours and higher hourly rates. Both views are valid and can be reconciled if the generations are willing to listen and learn from each other.
Getting everyone to listen is the first hurdle. Partners find it hard to accept that what they spent a lifetime creating is no longer valued by the associates they are expected to mentor. A partner who has spent decades building a career and a firm finds little motivation to mentor a young lawyer who says, "I don't want to be a partner here. I don't want a career like yours. I just want to do interesting work, get paid well, and still have time for a personal life." The partner sees this associate as having no drive or commitment. When expected to mentor this associate, the partner asks, "Why should I invest time and effort to help you when you show me no loyalty or respect? Where do you think your interesting work and hefty paycheck come from? They come from the incessant hard work and sacrifices that you decry!"
The associate perceives the situation differently. Where a Boomer may see an arrogant, ungrateful slacker, a GenXer sees a self-reliant pragmatist. He or she thinks, "I work very hard, but work isn't everything. I want a life. The sacrifices you made were too great. Just because you did it that way doesn't mean it's the right way or the only way. You're making plenty of money off my labor but you won't promise me job security. I need to make big money while I can and will depend only on myself."
This scenario cries out for clear thinking and creative solutions. Considering that young lawyers represent the future of their firms, senior lawyers must listen closely and support changes that will enable their firms to recruit and retain them. And young lawyers need to understand the business realities of today's legal marketplace and appreciate the compromises that are inherent in career success under any definition. Mentoring is an excellent mechanism for starting this dialogue.
Modern Mentoring Bridges Generation Gaps
Traditional mentoring is founded on generational differences. Historically, mentors were wise old men who shared the wisdom derived from age and experience to help a younger protégé learn and develop. In law firms, this mentor was a partner who sponsored and promoted an associate to become a successful lawyer and partner in the firm.
While that kind of mentoring still exists for a few young lawyers, most mentoring today follows a different paradigm. Age differences can create barriers to mentoring, but mentoring can also provide a medium for bridging generation gaps. The heart of mentoring has always been—and remains—open communication in trusting relationships. But mentoring practices have adapted to the modern law firm, moving away from the top-down archetype that made mentors patrons and mentees beneficiaries of the mentor's aid and support (see Table 1).
| Table 1. Traditional and Modern Mentoring Models | |
| Traditional | Modern |
|---|---|
| Mentor-driven | Mentee-directed |
| Hierarchical | Egalitarian |
| Mentee-focused | Mutual learning |
| Similarity-based | Differences valued |
| One mentor | Multiple mentors |
| One-on-one | Groups, teams |
| Open-ended | Short – or long-term goals |
| Same office | Anywhere via technology |
In the new model of mentoring, mentors and mentees engage in bilateral communication, mutual learning, and shared responsibility. To make this kind of mentoring work, mentors and mentees need to appreciate the different ways they view work and career, accept the validity of diverse points of view, and apply the perspectives of each for the benefit of all. The new approach to mentoring recognizes that young lawyers have an interest in controlling their own careers. It expects them to take a more active role in directing mentoring relationships that are oriented to their specific career and development goals. It emphasizes mentoring as a learning partnership. It permits a younger lawyer with particular expertise or knowledge (of technology or diversity, for example) to be the mentor and an older lawyer to be the mentee ("reverse" or "upward" mentoring). And it accepts the use of technology to facilitate ongoing communication between the mentor and mentee, especially when they are in different locations.
Under this new form of mentoring, partner–mentors are expected to learn—and use what they learn—to adapt themselves and the firm to the changing world. As they better understand the perspectives, stresses, and work experience of younger lawyers—which are substantially different in many respects from previous generations—they can craft progressive policies and practices that are meaningful to young lawyers and make business sense for the firm.
How Mentors Can Overcome Generational Barriers
This new mentoring paradigm presupposes that mentors are willing to listen to young lawyers' viewpoints and not write them off. If mentors can withhold judgment and be receptive to new ways of thinking, they can use mentoring relationships to build trust, commitment, and even loyalty in their associates. Below are some strategies to promote this process.
- Maintain a dialogue. Partners often tend to lecture, instruct, or reminisce about what life was like "when I was your age…" Young lawyers are interested in the present, not the past. They expect more collaborative discourse. Tap into their knowledge and energy. Ask them for their views and suggestions. If they hold misconceptions, correct them, but acknowledge that your perceptions may not always be correct.
- Search for new solutions.s Law firms have to adapt management practices to the needs, priorities, and expectations of a new generation of lawyers. Make an effort to understand their reasons and ideas for change; see the world through their eyes. Take their concerns and suggestions seriously, and invite them to help you create solutions. Work together to find and adopt new approaches that will improve the current system.
- Set clear, specific expectations. Even young lawyers with ambitions other than partnership want to become great lawyers, and they want mentors to tell them how to succeed in the firm. Young lawyers are uncomfortable with ambiguity. They want to know exactly what the firm expects of them—and why. Be very specific about those expectations. Cover every area from economics to ethics to etiquette.
- Present positive role models. Young lawyers need to see attorneys who love what they do and live lives that they can emulate. Try to be that role model. But recognize that not every associate will want a career or personal life like yours. If a young lawyer does not favor your practice, career path, or lifestyle, introduce him or her to other possible role models who might be more appealing. Not being the perfect role model does not mean you must end your mentoring relationship with an associate. You can continue to be a worthwhile mentor, assisting in other valuable ways. It is important for young lawyers to see that there are few perfect role models and that they can learn something useful even from those who are less than ideal.
- Nurture ambitions. There are still many associates who want or might want to pursue partnership and leadership in the firm. Look for those associates and encourage them. Explain what it takes to become a partner and what they can do to increase their chances.
Intergenerational differences can be a rich source of vigorous new thinking and innovative changes. Because mentoring naturally spans generations, sympathetic, receptive mentors can set the firm on a positive course for current and future generations of lawyers.
| Table 2. Four Generations in the Workplace | |||
| Generation | Birth Period | Current Age | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traditionalists | Before 1945 | Over 60 | 75 million |
| Baby Boomers | 1946–1964 | Early 40's to 60 | 80 million |
| Generation X | 1965–1980 | Late 20's to early 40's | 46 million |
| Millennials (GenY) | 1981–2000 | Mid-20's | 76 million |
Table 2 illustrates the approximate birth periods, current ages, and sizes of the four demographic groups now in the workforce. Each generational group is associated with certain characteristics derived from the formative historical and cultural events they experienced growing up (see Table 3). These generational characterizations help explain each group's different behaviors, attitudes, and ambitions. However, individuals do not necessarily share the attributes of the generation they are born into.
| Table 3. Generational Attitudes toward Authority and Career Goals | ||
| Generation | Authority | Career Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Traditionalists | Respect authority | Build a legacy |
| Baby Boomers | Accept authority | High status, leadership |
| Generation X | Unimpressed by authority | Free agent |
| Millennials | Defer to authority | Work-life balance |
Their experience, upbringing, and personal beliefs may vary greatly from their peers. Moreover, distinctions among these groups—even the dates bracketing each generation—are somewhat fuzzy. For instance, different sources place the birth periods for Generation X at 1960–1981, 1965–1977, 1965–1980, or 1963–1981. Generational attributes like those shown in Table 3 are interesting and fun to ponder, but as with any group generalization, they promote stereotypes and should be considered with caution.
NOTES
- See "Generation & Gender in the Workplace: An Issue Brief," Families and Work Institute for the American Business Collaboration, Oct. 2004.
From the July/August 2006 issue of Diversity & The Bar®