Your Personal Brand: Labeling and Living on the Generational Cusp
The Generational Debate has been a popular topic lately. As Boomers begin looking to retirement, working, recruiting, retaining, and understanding the current and future workforce is and should be an important focus–for managers, human resource professionals, and companies, regardless of their size or volume.
We know (or we should) that Millenials are the largest new and upcoming workforce demographic next to the aging Boomer population. Gen X on the other hand, is much smaller mainly due to the popularity and widespread use of birth control, specifically “the pill” in the 1960’s, but what about those that fall squarely in the middle? You know the cusp?
Cuspers are a term to define those that fall between generations. Cuspers regardless of where they fall are most commonly between Boomer and Gen X or Gen X and Millenials, are those that exhibit traits of both the generations in which they fall in between.
- Boomer to Gen X Cusper. Those that are born between born roughly 1954-1965. Noteable cuspers include Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Sarah Palin. They are commonly referred to as Generation Jones.
- Gen X to Millenial Cusper. Born between 1978-1988. They are commonly referred to as the MTV Generation, Gen XY, or Generation Doom (because of the video game not XY’s pessimistic outlook). Noteable celebrities that fall into this cusper category include Brittany Spears and Lindsay Lohan.
The idea and use of creating labels like generational labels and categorizing those around us has been a characteristic of human beings since the beginning of time. Fields of study like Anthropology, Sociology, and Psychology were created based on our human desire and need to understand others as well as ourselves. I understand and enjoy this process especially since my educational background is Anthropology and Business. Learning about your market demographic as well as your competitors is advertising and business 101. It’s also an important part of being a successful and effective Human Resource leader.
But at what point is there too much of a good thing?
Instead of labeling one another, I encourage a different and unorthodox approach: one of human interaction, engagement, and good old fashioned conversations with your employees, friends, customers, peers, or whomever. Of course, my impressions could be due to the fact that I’m a Gen XY and Cusper myself. At 32 years old, I’m essentially an inbetween who is often mis-labeled and mis-understood. Too old to be a Millenial but too young to be an Xer, I barely remember iconic events like the Challenger Disaster. Cuspers like myself feel extremely comfortable being uncomfortable. Being inbetween and feeling as an outsider to your own generational label among other things is normal.
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What are you thoughts on labeling and generations? Is it a necessary evil or a way to make us feel special, different, or just plain uncomfortable?
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I feel like it is necessary to label generations in the sense of categorizing them. In order to better understand and manage a generation, those people must be labeled in order to be managed more effectively. Generations are obviously very diverse and it is important to handle each generation in its own way. Mellinials handle the work week very different than Baby Boomers because of personal experiences, upbringing, or any other factor. I will be very interested to see how the transition of management level or higher executives will move from an older generation to the next.
Gen X-GenY cusp is off here!
It should end much earlier: 1983 or 84 would be a good cut off year for the cusp.
Gen Y proper is 1985 to 2001. In fact, given the discrepancy between Gen Y definitions and those that put Gen Z as beginning in the mid-late 90’s, I think a cusp generation should be established between Gen Y and Z for the years of 1997-2003. This should define that set of kids that were too young for 9/11 but clearly remember the decade most affected by it, the 2000’s and early 2010’s.