Playing To Bridge The Gap

My sister sent me a game called Mind the Gap—a generational trivia game, filled with questions about events, music, TV, and slang from each generation. I tried it out at a family gathering with Gen Z, Y, X, and Boomers. It was really fun! I learned a lot from the younger gens, and they were impressed that I knew who gave the famous “Checkers” speech in 1952 (Nixon). And—bonus—I knew that Checkers was their family dog.

Last week, I traveled to Indianapolis to facilitate a panel discussion on Generational Diversity at the Strada Education Foundation. I was really honored to be part of this event because Strada walks the talk when it comes to collaborating with students, policymakers, educators, and employees to ensure education provides equitable pathways to prosperity. The night before the event, I had dinner with Strada’s DEI team and their summer interns to get to know them before the panel, and during appetizers, I whipped out Mind the Gap.

The game did not disappoint. Between appetizers and entrees, we learned things about each other we may never have otherwise learned. Like who follows what music trends, what TV shows we watched growing up, and some significant reflections on historical events.

The Takeaway

We were a multigenerational team with the shared purpose of answering questions. No one of us could answer all the questions, but collectively we answered almost all of them. The strength of intergenerational teams is that everyone’s generational identity gives us unique gifts and strengths for problem solving.

I loved facilitating this game, because once I demonstrated how it worked, I passed the box off to group members who shared leadership from then on. I became one of the group. I was delighted watching everyone have their moment in the spotlight when they knew an answer no one else did; group adulation for that person’s expertise was thrilling.

As I headed back to my hotel after dinner, one word came to mind: joy. Joy can be found in intergenerational collaboration because we surprise each other and ourselves when we realize we have unique and valuable gifts because of our life experiences and perspectives. Joy can be found when we discover that someone on our team that we dismissed as not having enough experience, or as no longer being relevant has exactly the expertise we need to solve this problem. Joy can be found when we are no longer limited by our assumptions. This is how we build trust which makes problem solving almost inevitable.

I look forward to sharing more about the Strada Education Foundation’s panel discussion in another newsletter. It was organized by their interns as a capstone project. Kudos to them and their mentors.

One idea to part with.

Gather your multigenerational team together for a rousing game of Mind the Gap or another fun way to affirm generational strengths. Finding Joy in teams is a worthwhile endeavor.

Thanks for reading.

More soon,

Mary