I have found it valuable to learn how to separate out feelings from judgments from needs (this is the NVC model).

Behavior: Gen Y people want to text and use their laptops during meetings.

Reactions: Boomers or people from “respectful cultures” may feel disrespected.

What the behavior really means: Gen-Y people are multitaskers and can handle listening at a meeting and other tasks. No disrespect intended. (Some corporate cultures require them to do multasking. For example, Accenture has meeting rooms with network and internet connections for everyone’s laptop.)

Behavior Changes: Stop feeling disrespected. Introduce interactive elements to meetings where participants have to respond or work as teams toward solutions.

2. You might have an initial list of behaviors with analysis, then add behaviors to a laundry list and analyze before the training is over.

3. Teach the following response pattern when someone is bugged by behavior:

Ask: When you work on your laptop while I’m talking at a meeting,, I feel disrespected. What does your behavior really mean?

Response: I’m taking notes. Or, about 80% of what happens in a meeting I don’t need to know in my job, so I listen for things I do need to know or respond to and get other things done in the meantime.

It is important to distinguish between the post-WWII demographic boom in births vs. the cultural generations born during that era. Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its members, not the fertility rates of its parents. And most analysts now see generations as getting shorter (usually 10-15 years now), partly because of the acceleration of culture. Many experts now believe it breaks down more or less this way:

DEMOGRAPHIC boom in babies: 1946-1964
Baby Boom GENERATION: 1942-1953
Generation Jones: 1954-1965
Generation X: 1966-1978
Generation Y: 1979-1993