Harnessing Age Diversity Training: Introducing Gentelligence Academy

We’re taking major strides towards making age diversity training the norm in 2022! I am so honored to share that Harvard Business Review recently selected Gentelligence as the Big Idea for the first quarter of 2022, featuring our piece “Harnessing the Power of Age Diversity“. The article came out in early March 2022 with 10,000 views on its first day and over 1000 shares.

Now it’s time to take that next big step and help people everywhere learn how to leverage age diversity training in their own teams and organizations through our brand new online learning platform, Gentelligence® Academy.

What is Gentelligence® Academy

Gentelligence® Academy was designed to give people leaders, DEI experts, executives, and proactive employees of all ages the opportunity to explore and apply what it takes to harness age diversity training to effect organizational change.

• For the first time, I’ve recorded all of my Gentelligence® trainings into short, digestible chapters that can be listened to anywhere, at any time.
• You’ll also find a Gentelligence® Toolkit full of practical digital exercises and thought-provoking discussions to bring to your team.
• Certification is available as a powerful indicator of your commitment to culture change and next generation people leading.
• You’ll also enjoy regular access to myself and others in a vibrant, multi-generational community of like-minded – and differently minded – folks along the Gentelligence® Certification journey.
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Why Gentelligence® Academy is Needed

In the HBR article mentioned at the top, we share a clear business case for paying attention to your generational diversity at work: if a multi-age team is left to its own devices, the results can lead to discord at best – disaster, at worst.

Poorly managed age-diverse teams experience all those things we think of when someone says “generational differences”:

• Conflict. Stress. Miscommunication.
• 40% of employees report believing that their company values one generation over others.
• And when people of any age or generation don’t feel valuable, they leave.

Here’s where it gets interesting: none of these negative outcomes are inevitable.

They are reversible.

Research shows that when you lead and manage your age-diverse team well, you don’t just get rid of the conflict and stress, you can end up with a team that makes better decisions. How?

• Age diversity training develops teams with access to broader information networks
• higher engagement and retention
• stronger innovation and performance vs. teams that are non age-diverse and lacking in generational training.

So, it’s not the generational differences that are causing us problems: it’s how we are managing them. That’s why we need a strategy. We need Gentelligence, and that is why we built the Gentelligence® Academy.

The Age Diversity Difference

Leveraging age diversity happens through best practices in DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) and cross-cultural management. These best practices are imparted through years of research distilled into training, discourse, and action.

If this raises your eyebrows, that’s a good first step towards progress.

Generations are, at their core, a type of culture. Culture is learnable. The experience and expertise that comes with growing up in a particular generation is a type of valuable cultural difference. Acknowledging these differences can help to ensure that nothing is left on the table when it comes to organizational success.

We can and should apply the kinds of leadership strategies that help us to learn and leverage age differences. But for some reason…we haven’t. Until now.

Join the Gentelligence® Movement

The Gentelligence® Academy not only allows you to learn and apply what it takes to harness age diversity in your organization, it also gives you the opportunity to become certified in Gentelligence®.

• For leaders, certification in age diversity training signals to your teams and employees that you value the perspectives of all of your people and are dedicated to creating an organization that engages them, regardless of age and other differences.
• For DEI and HR professionals, Gentelligence® opens up an entirely new avenue of diversity thought that is rarely explored or leveraged via formalized training modes.
• For the rest of us, becoming Gentelligence® Certified signals to employers and managers that we are ready to work effectively across generations to drive organization-wide success.

At every level, from leadership, to DEI and HR professional, to team member or prospective employee, when we come to understand that all generations have something to learn – we also come to understand that we all have something powerful we can teach to others.

I’m so excited about this next chapter in the Gentelligence® Movement. Send me questions about the Academy, Certification, or anything you’re curious about .

I can’t wait to have you join us!