Further thoughts on Social Change Through Multi-Generational Dialogue
The below is a section on my paper that I believe provides the foundation of why we need to change how we are talking in our organizations. Again if you would like to full paper, just let me know.
According to Bontekonig (2011) in organization and social structures based on hierarchical leadership models, newer generations are only able to contribute as much as the older generation allows. The older generations can choose to support the tendencies of the emerging generations which will update the surrounding culture or they can block these tendencies and effectively stymie social change. In a time of rapid change and complexity as we are now experiencing, slowing down or blocking the input of newer generations of leaders can be devastating to the social changes that are needed to address the complexity and challenges faced by our organizations and societies. Bontekonig says,
Each generation needs the support of the other ones to complete their destiny in improving the culture, be it in a company or in society….when a generation is not supported in a company, the leaders of this generation – about 15% of the generation – often leaves this company soon. The followers stay and adapt to the ongoing culture. Which means that the culture of this company will not be updated and slowly loses its vitality and inevitably will ‘die’ (p. 5).
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