The wisdom of the universe has an interesting habit of turning up in the strangest of places.
When I look at the above joke (cheers to whomever it was that emailed it to me originally – I am sure at the time it served as a wee pick me up – given the trials and tribulations we face each day, I know it would have been most welcome) I do wonder where I fit in relation to the cartoon and its characterisation of age.
Somewhere in the middle I suspect.
I realise its an unusual item to seek wisdom from, but when you stop and look at it, there is a ring of truth in the statement “At least we all understand each other on Wednesdays”.
For me, when I think about leadership, and indeed life, it serves as a timely reminder that we all need to make the effort sometimes to try just that little bit harder to understand those who are not the same generation as ourselves.
We do have similarities – but we do not always see the similarities when we are so busy pointing out the differences between generations.
The irony is, at some stage of our lives we are all likely to fall into the:
- misunderstood generation
- too old to understand the younger generation
- stuck in the middle mediating generation
- or, stuck in the middle too old to relate to the younger generation and too young to be given the mantle of responsibility generation
So, lets try to understand each other more often than just on Wednesday!