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In October, I had the opportunity to
present at a conference on the East coast with my friend and co-author of
Bridging the Generations Gap, Robin Throckmorton. We were invited to
speak on the topic of recruiting and retaining the four different
generations in today’s workplace, based on my interviews of over 500 people
in each of those generations over a 5-year time span. Conference
attendees spanned all four generations, but the average age was early 40’s.
We decided to do something a little different for our presentation.
Robin, in her 30’s, dressed as many of us in this country stereotypically
think of a woman in her late 50’s. She donned a white wig, half
glasses, tweed blazer and gray turtleneck, pearls and sensible shoes.
I decided to dress as the stereotypical 20-something (and I’m in my early
50’s): jeans, flip-flops, pink-streaked hair, cropped top, and denim jacket.
Although our presentation wasn’t until after lunch, we decided to arrive at
the conference location a couple of hours early. We began by going over our
presentation in a corner of the hotel lobby, near where conference attendees
were having lunch. People walking by glanced at Robin without taking
much notice. After all, she was dressed “properly” for a business
conference. When eyes rested on me, however, my appearance was clearly
not acceptable!
Part of the reason passers by did a double take was surely because of my
youthful attire as a (clearly) 40+ woman. The looks sent this message:
“why are you at a business conference dressed like we would dress to clean
our house or paint our garage?” This was a new – and uncomfortable -
feeling for me, a Baby Boomer who is always well coifed, perfectly groomed,
and in a matching outfit just to go to my mailbox!
We arrived in the room where we were to speak about 30 minutes early, as
participants were coming back and settling in from lunch. We elected
to sit in the back of the room for a few minutes to wait for our hostess to
finish a conversation so we could greet her and start setting up for our
presentation. As I went to retrieve an empty chair, I found that I was
the recipient of cold stares. One fellow, who looked to be in his
40’s, said incredulously, “are you here to observe our conference?” I
just nodded, smiled, and said that I was observing at the moment.
Robin, in the meantime, found an empty chair with no comments from anyone.
The person who invited us to speak had taken us to dinner the previous
evening, so she knew us (and what we planned to do for our presentation).
She finished her conversation, came back to Robin and me, and greeted each
of us warmly with a hug and a hello. I overheard one lady say, “is she
a speaker?!” I’m pretty sure the lady wasn’t referring to Robin.
Robin and I went to the front of the room and began our prep, setting up the
laptop, putting handouts on the tables, and preparing a couple of flip
charts. As we passed out handouts, I observed that Robin was met with
smiles and hellos. I was met with a few smiles, but more stares at the
pink streaks in my hair and my flip-flops.
It came time to be introduced. I was introduced first, beginning with
“Dr. Linda Gravett is a nationally-known speaker and author….” There
was an audible gasp from some people in the room – how could someone who
looked like me be a “nationally-known speaker”?!
The response to Robin and me continued to be different as we went through
our program. We did, of course, let participants know right away that
we were each dressed as the “stereotypical notion” of a Baby Boomer and a
Generation Y employee. As we presented the research and shared
excerpts from our book, people directed most of their questions to Robin.
That is, until we started metamorphosing into our real selves. As the
program started winding down, Robin took off the white wig and shook out her
shoulder length blond hair. She took off the bi-focals and the tweed
blazer and turtleneck, revealing a trendy knit top that is what you’d expect
to see a person in her 30’s wearing. I took the pink streaks out of my
hair (they were affixed with bobbi pins), exchanged the flip-flops for low
heels, and put on a wool blazer instead of the denim jacket. One lady
sang out, “She’s changing into one of us!” Towards the end of our
program, more people started directing questions my way.
Here’s one final interesting piece. At the end of a presentation,
people typically come up to speakers and ask questions or make comments.
The participants that came up to me were in their 20’s. The people
that came up to Robin were in their 40’s and 50’s. Typically when we
co-present, it’s the other way around. Yet we both wrote the book as equal
partners.
I learned on this day in October that one’s appearance in the world of
business can definitely make a difference. I learned how 20-somethings
with body piercings and streaked hair can be discounted simply because
they’re not wearing the “corporate suit”. The people who came up to me
after our presentation asked us to keep sending out the message that great
ideas, creativity, and know-how can come from employees in what appears to
some to be strange packaging. As for myself, I have to say that
flip-flops are truly comfortable.
If you have questions or comments about this article, please email me at
Linda@gravett.com.
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