Ryan Jenkins, author of Connectable, delivered an address focused on helping attorneys navigate an increasingly multi-generational profession at the Opening Business Session of the NJSBA Annual Meeting and Convention.
“What if there’s a single factor determining whether your multi-generational team survives or thrives?” he asked. That factor, he explained, is connection.
The program explored how connection has evolved from a “nice-to-have” soft skill into a strategic imperative for law firms that are confronting shifting expectations around communication, engagement and workplace culture with so many different generations in the workplace. That generational diversity comes at a time when many report feeling disconnected, which can hinder collaboration, performance and retention.
“Human connection is the most significant need (we have),” he said. “The future of work belongs to the connectable…Teams without connection are like a brick wall without mortar.”
He noted that being negative toward an emerging generation is nothing new – it dates to at least the time of Socrates. What is new, he said, is available research.
He urged attendees to be open to learning more about people from generations they don’t understand. “We have way more similarities than we have differences,” Jenkins said.
In an interactive presentation drawing on input via virtual polling from the audience, Jenkins used more than a decade of research and practical experience, to outline strategies for law firm leaders – including managing partners, judges and senior attorneys –to bridge generational divides without compromising professional standards. He urged attendees to look for ways to strengthen workplaces by ensuring there is mortar between generations and not to mistake communication for connection.
“Team building is not bad, it’s just incomplete… We need to adopt team binding where it isn’t about assembling but strengthening,” Jenkins said.