The primary demographic that characterizes Facebook is its youth. Its CEO is 23 years old, his chief deputy is 38-and was a key executive at Google in her early 30s-and some of its best widget developers are not even old enough to order a drink legally (King, 2008). This youth trend means that the company has a wealth of talent in the development area, but not so much talent in the sales and management areas. Thus the "older" Sheryl Sandberg (now 38) was brought in to provide management expertise to the organization (Stone & Helft, 2008).
This trend toward youth, a situation that also developed at Google, YouTube and Microsoft, gives companies depth in the development area, but makes the companies less strong in the management and finance areas. Some young entrepreneurs "gave away" their companies to more experienced managers in an effort to raise capital, while others retained control at the expense of the management expertise that older managers could have brought to the organization. Today's most successful entrepreneurs are those who recognize their weaknesses, and seek management talent who complement rather than overwhelm their strengths. Nonetheless, there can still be conflicts among older and younger workers.
Chief among best practices for dealing with the organizational conflict that can arise when a predominately younger workforce brings in older workers, for example, is recognizing that there are differences in styles and expectations among different generations. Incentives might need to be different to attract and retain high-quality younger workers, such as flex-time or the ability to telecommute. Younger workers tend to be much more familiar and comfortable with new technology, and tend to "meld" their personal and professional lives together. Thus younger workers may not always be in the office, but are still able to perform their jobs well. This can be a challenge to older worke...