CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD Working Across Generations Powerpoint
The Berkeley Alumni House room was set up like a luxurious boardroom for last Saturday’s workshop at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health Take Charge of Your Career Conference for New Managers.
Comfortable chairs were arranged neatly around an imposing long table. Immediately Nader moved all the chairs away from the table into a circle and suggested to participants that they did not need to take notes. Richard set the stage and invited everyone to introduce herself (interesting, it was all female attendees).
Then we got down to business – what were we doing here – trying to relate to older employees, of course – a major issue for younger employees, and especially for younger managers.
One learning that came out of the session was that it’s helpful to be aware of how you are feeling when you communicate with someone else. For example, if you are a younger manager feeling frustrated about an older employee working too slowly, tell her that (at an appropriate time and place).
The morning workshop sped by quickly. Nader was his usual eloquent, down-to-earth, existential self, bringing out such concepts as we’re all aging, starting at birth, so we might as well embrace the of getting older. Richard, the behaviorist, summarized each concept articulately and gave examples from his own experience of being a younger manager of older workers. I kept us on target. Nader’s mother, who was visiting from Germany, told me that she could move her chair herself, thank you anyway, when I offered to move her chair into the circle. The four of us – Nader and I from AgeSong; Richard, an outpatient therapist and intake supervisor at Fremont Psychiatric Adult and Adolescent Partial Hospitalization Outpatient Program; and Nader’s mother, spanned four decades. As Nader said, we are all just people, maybe different ages or stages or colors or sizes…just people – that we can relate to each other most effectively without workplace facades.
I was very impressed by participants’ range of skills and high motivation, so I took advantage of the opportunity to invite them to volunteer at AgeSong, Bayside Park. “Volunteering is a great way to contribute your skills and experience,” I said, “That’s how I started out.” What better way to take charge of your career than volunteering in a situation where you can make the world a better place by using your motivated skills and values?
Dr. Sally Gelardin, sallyg @agesong.com
RESOURCES
- www.agesong.com
- www.agesongtoday.com
- www.careerwell.org
- www.poeticsofaging.org
- www.deepdemocracyinstitute.org
- www.careernetwork.org/career_assessment_instr.html
***************************************************************************
AgeSong Assisted Living and Elder Communities: Locations throughout the Bay Area, including San Francisco and the East Bay: San Francisco-Hayes Valley • San Francisco-Laguna Grove • Oakland-Lake Merritt • Oakland-Lakeside Park • Emeryville-Bayside Park • Castro Valley-OakCreek
Tweet This Post
