Learning From an Intergenerational Blowup Over Social Justice

(Illustration by iStock/filo)

Disparate, strongly held views on how to attain social justice and overcome inequitable systems of power are ripping many nonprofit organizations apart. Instead of aligning our aims, assets, and values, we in the nonprofit sector are thwarted by internal indictments of hierarchy; sincere but superficial attempts to address diversity, equity, and inclusion; assaults on patriarchy; and an obsession with creating “safe spaces” that are anything but safe for a dissenter. Those of us who seek a just, equitable, healthy society and planet have become our own worst enemy. The common future we imagine is being undermined by… ourselves. Debilitating polarization is not solely the province of political parties.

Here we recount what transpired in one innovative and hopeful project that parallels the unfolding cultural schism playing out on the larger national stage.

In 2022, with a small intergenerational group, we undertook a project to seat young people on boards of nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies in our home state of Maine. Youth On Boards, Action on Climate (YOB) was launched to integrate longer-term perspective into organizations’ and businesses’ often shorter-term decision making. Diversifying boards along any dimension (race, gender, ethnicity, political persuasion, geography, or generation) can broaden an organization’s worldview and position it to do more relevant, meaningful work. More specifically, twenty-somethings have well over half a century to live with whatever decisions are made today about the earth’s climate. The expansive heat and fire in the summer of 2023 is a preview of what their lives will look like all the time, every year. Boards are typically made up of the older generations who won’t be here in 20 or 30 years to cope with a climate that will be very costly to the Gen Zers of today. Boards need the perspectives of these young people who will be here. Adding youth to boards would also help reduce the power differential between older and younger members of our society.

Less than two years later, YOB, an intergenerational collaboration, blew up. Though a small project, it ruptured for the same reasons many large organizations have in recent years—the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society, the Sunrise Movement, and many others. The debate about how prominent a role social justice should play in an organization’s mission ripped them, and us, apart.

We know our perspectives as two members of the Boomer generation are unavoidably biased by our life experiences and the times in which we grew up. But unlike many previous stories of organizations torn apart, we believe it’s important to document what we learned from our experience. By doing so, we hope to help others, especially those who want to pursue intergenerational work, avoid some of the not-so-obvious pitfalls we encountered. We encourage our young colleagues to add to this story with what they learned as well.

Parting Ways

One of the key ideas behind YOB’s founding at an established nonprofit was that it would have a shared leadership model, with one co-lead being a Gen Zer and the other co-lead being from an older generation. Our respective roles were as elder co-lead of YOB (Steve) and as president of the nonprofit organization where YOB was based (John). In July 2023, after a year and a half of significant early successes, we resigned from our participation in YOB over ideological differences. At the heart of the debate was a desire by the Gen Z co-lead and others on the project to expand the mission of YOB to address “harmful systems of power, systems of oppression, and ageist paternalistic power structures.”

We viewed expanding the mission of YOB to take on “harmful systems…” as overreach that could undermine a board’s willingness to add youth members. We agree there are harmful systems of power throughout our society, indeed the world, and they need to be addressed. Our view was that youth should take whatever individual values they hold dear into the boardroom, including social justice in its various forms, if they so choose. But we did not think these values needed to be inscribed into YOB’s DNA. We felt this expansion would dilute YOB’s original purpose and possibly even backfire with prospective boards. Coming onto a board with a stated intention of dismantling harmful systems of power, especially their power, could detract from YOB’s primary purpose—to get youth integrated into decision-making roles in our society.

As stated in our various funded proposals, YOB’s goal was to simply place youth on boards so the interests of young people, whatever they might be, could influence organizational decision making at the board level. We expected youth attracted to YOB to be concerned about their climate future and to represent their social concerns with boards.

The notion of working intergenerationally—Gen Zers and Baby Boomers combining respective assets to make the world a better place—was irresistible to many funders, and for good reason. It was easy to imagine what might be accomplished by combining the energy, passion, and the social networking skills of Gen Zers with the accumulated expertise and wisdom of Boomers, including their fundraising skills.

But this article is not about defending our position regarding YOB’s mission. We already know there are many people who disagree with us and many others who agree. That’s not the point. Caring, thoughtful, dedicated people who want to make the world a better place can and will have legitimately different points of view based on deeply held personal values that derive from their own life experiences. Instead, the question we are most concerned with is “how do we work together, despite our differences?” What are the requisites for effectively managing these differences and achieving a threshold of workability, if not harmony, for the sake of positive progress. Do we make the effort to come to know one another for who we are and how we navigate disagreement, or do we take the easy path and eliminate the “other” from our lives?

Reflecting on our experience, there are a number of practical steps, tools, and ideas that might have sustained the project and would be useful to others who pursue intergenerational work.

1. Early Identification of Differing Value Sets

The thorniest issue for intergenerational work may be values centered on social justice. Young people in general see social justice as a more dominant concern than elders. This difference needs to be acknowledged and navigated if it appears. While social justice may be integral to the values of all generations, for a young person it may be all encompassing, while for an older person it may not be. This difference became poignantly clear when Steve, as elder co-lead of YOB, found himself at loggerheads with the younger co-lead over the choice of a candidate for a board position we had worked hard to fill. The vehemence with which both stuck to their respective positions was a surprise, because both had been operating as if they were on the same page regarding the imperative of social justice.

Project participants should clarify at the outset of their work together deeply held values likely to affect the project. Best to examine project values first, then move on to individual values. Being explicit about differences and similarities in values could forestall conflict later. In addition, older and younger participants would benefit from an early and exhaustive interchange of the most consequential experiences they each bring to the table, along with areas of expertise that could complement, or conflict, with each other. They then could be better positioned to identify decision-making areas where they might defer to the other’s judgment.

2. Clarity on Mission and Strategy

A major stumbling block the project faced was lack of clarity, in sufficient depth, about mission and strategy. Tacit and somewhat superficial agreement among the main players seemed to be enough at the outset of the project—let’s simply get youth on boards to promote more climate-smart decision making. Alas, we should have dug deeper, earlier. For us, the aim, as stated above, was clear enough to guide the work of the project. Eventually, we discovered that wasn’t the case for everyone involved in the project.

Largely unsaid, until disputes arose over specific decisions, was the view held by younger members of the team that the climate agenda involved eliminating harmful systems of power, i.e., a strong social justice agenda. This expanded sense of the mission became an exhausting obstacle to day-to-day functioning and stalled the project’s forward progress.

The project was also beset with a fundamental difference—perhaps a classic intergenerational one—about how to effect organizational change. For the two of us the path to change involved gaining access to the levers of power through persuasion and relationship building—slow, steady, cumulative pressure to encourage internal systems change. For others, particularly younger members, the path to change involved less gradualism and a preference for more radical restructuring.

3. Working Through the Power Differential

Older and younger people working together on a project might not be sensitive to the way their personal and professional power is perceived by the other party. Older people may have the view that they are graciously affording young people a share of the power in allocating resources and making key decisions. And younger people may keep to themselves a sense that older people inevitably wield greater power by dint of their greater experience and access to resources.

In the board nomination dispute described above, Steve advocated for a youth board candidate whose experience was aligned closely with the partner organization’s mission, whereas the younger co-lead advocated for a candidate who would bring greater diversity to the board. Looking back on this disagreement we should have anticipated it—that the older co-lead favored the fit between candidate and board while the younger favored shaking up the status quo.

Amid a disagreement, older people may tap into the well of their experience and seek to reclaim some of the power they have yielded. Younger people may engage in maneuvers aimed at moderating the greater power they perceive older people to hold. The leveraging that both parties employ can make compromise and positive movement toward project goals quite difficult. This dynamic can harden the positions between the generations, as it did for us.

4. Disputes: Harmful or Helpful?

Gen Zers (born after 1997) can have a different view of the role of debate and disagreement than older people do. Young people may interpret an opposing viewpoint as “harmful.” In contrast, we view disagreement as an important first step in problem solving. The dynamics here are worth examination.

Our opposition to expanding YOB’s purpose to take on harmful systems of power was regarded by other members of the team as causing harm. This notion of harm, resulting from what we considered a legitimate disagreement, was new to us. It may be new to other readers of this article, especially older people like us.

We would never intentionally harm anyone, especially colleagues with whom we had worked well and respected. But in today’s world there is a nebulous line between “debating ideas” and “causing harm.” As our internal disagreement over ideology proliferated we unwittingly found ourselves on the wrong side of the line.

Linda Feldman Barrett, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, writes, “There is a difference between permitting a culture of casual brutality and entertaining an opinion you strongly oppose. The former is a danger to a civil society (and to our health); the latter is the lifeblood of democracy.”

In pursuing intergenerational work, it would be wise to recognize that not everyone will draw the line between harm and a legitimately different viewpoint in the same place.

Once again, the point here is not to debate whether harmful systems of power and oppression should be an all-encompassing litmus test for organizations’ work. Rather it is to acknowledge that if you find yourself in heated disagreement you may be causing harm in someone else’s eyes. Once this notion of harm is encountered, you may choose to remove yourself from the situation to avoid causing further harm, as we did. Or you may want to explore more deeply why your position is so painful to the other person. In our situation, relationships had degenerated rapidly to a point of no return. The project itself was in jeopardy with our continued involvement. Readers are welcome to criticize us for our expeditious retreat, but we determined that the damage was irreparable. Our hope is that we can help others avoid the same blind spots.

5. Rules for Governance and Dispute Resolution

All organizations benefit from a solid governance framework. For organizations with intergenerational leadership models, elder experience can often help shape well-considered governance and decision-making processes. Elders have seen how failure to nail down these processes can hamper effectiveness. Central are questions such as how much decision-making latitude should project managers have and what decisions are the domain of the organization head, project leads, advisory committee, or governing body.

Intergenerational leadership models also need a reconciliation mechanism for inevitable disputes, especially those arising on mission, values, and strategy. The mechanism has to be one that is not so cumbersome and time consuming as to detract from project momentum. Prior to the project getting underway, the main participants should seek agreement on acceptable methodology for addressing disputes. For example, will all participants subscribe to direct, open, and above-board interaction between the disputing parties themselves? What will be the role, if any, for project participants other than those directly involved in the dispute? If intermediaries or mediators are proposed to facilitate reconciliation, who chooses them, how are they chosen, and how is their role defined? Different people can have quite different views on how best to resolve a dispute once it arises, and these differences can inhibit effective functioning as much, if not more, than differences over substance. It is clear in retrospect that we should have agreed on ground rules for handling disputes ahead of time.

6. Elders’ Experience: Oracle or Albatross?

A greater wealth of life experiences may point to prudent and effective action, or it may just represent longstanding ego attachments. Regardless, elders tend to apply those experiences to problem solving and decision making. In contrast, younger people who lack extensive experience may have a stronger attachment to a set of values. An older person might be more inclined to compromise on personal values to achieve certain ends, something a younger person might find unacceptable. In making real world decisions, the impact of being guided by values versus being guided by experience is considerable.

Clearly, experience should not automatically carry more weight in decision making. At times deeply held values should prevail. Deciding which takes precedence in any given situation is where conflict can arise. This is exactly what developed when Steve argued that organizational management experience should dictate a particular outcome; the younger co-lead argued that the dictates of social justice should prevail.

Elders also need to understand they may be employing “inside-the-box” solutions to problems, when new ways of looking at things may be more helpful. Youth, in turn, need to weigh elders’ experience more than they might be inclined to do. Elders have learned to avoid common traps and pitfalls that might bog down a project, a capacity youth should see as a benefit. The challenge to working intergenerationally is that both can be true at the same time. Talking about this candidly with one another is essential.

7. Building Trust Before Stereotyping Takes Hold

Intergenerational leadership configurations bring together younger and older people, but also people with different gender identifications and different degrees of privilege and advantage. When disagreements arise, knee-jerk reactions based on stereotypes are bound to follow.

Here are a couple examples: “Older men see leadership by women as a threat to their fragile egos and their quest to be in the power seat.” “Youth today expect to be the boss on an assignment from the start, without paying their dues first.”

Uncritical attribution of “isms”—ageism, sexism, paternalism, etc., only adds to this dysfunction. Rather than shedding light on sensitive, complex interactions, they are often another form of stereotyping that provokes defensiveness and inhibits curiosity about alternative viewpoints.

In lieu of judgments and actions based on stereotypes, a stance more likely to engender mutual trust involves inquiry—asking questions and testing assumptions through direct and open interchange with those on the other side of a dispute. When trust of a colleague is foregone in favor of interaction based on stereotyping, it is difficult to reclaim it.

Conclusion

The younger generation should be at the table where important decisions are made that will impact their well-being for the rest of their lives. They have a disproportionate stake in the future. The solution is not to hand over power to youth, but to co-create the future with them. Older generations can effectively help implement and raise money for co-created, intergenerational ideas.

What we saw as a worthy and necessary endeavor—Youth On Boards, Action on Climate—became encumbered by an expansion of mission we deemed counterproductive to placing youth on boards. In our view, an attempt to repair the interpersonal damage done would only have caused further delay in fulfilling the project’s goal. Too much emotional debris had accumulated to get the project on track with us as a part of it. Poor judgment, undoubtedly driven by egos, emotion, ideology, and stereotyping, had conspired against a group that had formed to seek positive change.

Fortunately, YOB now has a new home at a nonprofit with a mission to empower youth voices for climate action. Grant funding has been transferred. To date, the mission of YOB remains the same—“to elevate youth voices on Maine boards of directors where climate decisions are being made.” Whether justice becomes central to that mission remains to be seen.

Thinking and working together across worldviews, intergenerational or otherwise, requires hard work to accommodate what each brings to the table. We should focus on what unites us, not what divides us. If everything we work on together must be framed as a matter of social justice, then intergenerational work will have limited impact. To be able to move forward together, we need to understand not just what the other person thinks, but why they think what they think and how they see acting on their values in the workplace. Understanding does not mean agreeing. Sometimes we are simply going to disagree at a fundamental level and conclude that our skills and time should be spent separately. We can still honor and respect each other’s intentions to make the world a better place.

Read more stories by Steve Kaagan & John Hagan.