August 21st, 2024

The Advantage of Generational Knowledge (2022)

Generational knowledge impacts career advancement, creating inequities. Cultural capital influences success, and organizations can bridge gaps through mentoring and coaching to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.

Read original articleLink Icon
The Advantage of Generational Knowledge (2022)

The article discusses the concept of generational knowledge and its impact on workplace success, highlighting how it contributes to inequities in career advancement. It contrasts the experiences of two individuals, Brandon and Anwar, who, despite similar backgrounds, have vastly different career trajectories due to the generational knowledge they acquired. Brandon, raised in a wealthy environment, learned the social norms and networking strategies that facilitate career advancement, while Anwar, whose immigrant parents emphasized hard work and education, lacked exposure to these implicit strategies. The article emphasizes that generational knowledge, often referred to as cultural capital, perpetuates social stratification by favoring those with access to networks and social skills. To address this gap, organizations are encouraged to implement mentoring, sponsorship, and internal coaching programs that can help employees acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to succeed. By actively working to close the generational knowledge gap, organizations can foster a more equitable workplace and support diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

- Generational knowledge significantly influences career advancement and perpetuates workplace inequities.

- Cultural capital, or implicit knowledge gained from family and social networks, plays a crucial role in professional success.

- Organizations can help bridge the generational knowledge gap through mentoring, sponsorship, and coaching initiatives.

- Addressing generational knowledge is essential for fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.

- A more equitable workplace requires active efforts to provide equal access to social and professional development opportunities.

Link Icon 6 comments
By @EncomLab - 8 months
I do not see how this is remotely controversial - if you had trashy parents who spent their time partying and fighting the neighbors while living paycheck to paycheck, you probably have a harder path to success than if your parents had stable employment and taught you how to save and invest.

Does that mean that people can't come from nothing and achieve great success - not at all - and it's likely that you know someone who has. But as the article points out, "in general", if you grew up in a situation that normalized behaviors that are likely to result in better educational and work outcomes you will have an advantage.

By @readthenotes1 - 8 months
Generational knowledge, and perhaps more importantly, generational treasuring of knowledge have made a huge difference in the outcomes in my family members that I have had access to across four generations.

The parents who did not pass that on raised children who fared far worse than those who did.

By @roenxi - 8 months
The article isn't describing anything related to knowledge unless they mean that as a euphemism for knowledge of the unwritten social signals for how to to advertise your class (which isn't even the main thing). This is talking about cultural capital. Like financial capital, families can accumulate it over several generations.

Particularly for CEO-style jobs which are relatively close to modern aristocrats - there isn't any special knowledge floating around generationally. CEO skills aren't even hereditary. Being recognised as being in the pool of people who are expected to be CEOs is though.

By @mikewarot - 8 months
This walks the fine line between explaining how class differences work, and justifying the perpetuation of them. Clearly we don't have a meritocracy in the US, especially at the higher levels of income. I'm not traveled enough to comment on the rest of the world.
By @hyeonwho4 - 8 months
I was a bit disappointed by this site. By the title, I expected it to be about the importance of apprenticeship and mentor-like relationships, and how to use them to improve our lives. Instead, it starts with the racial implications of cultural transmission (Significant, but not very novel), and from there proceeds to give fairly boring advice about how to improve mentorship and cultural transmission within an org. These are good tips, but also very common business advice. What's really going to set an org apart are the implementation details and the thought they put into these things... which is generally not well documented, or when it is documented comes in book form rather than article form.
By @OutOfHere - 8 months
Generational knowledge is no doubt important, but this article is more about schmoozing than about the power of such knowledge. Schmoozing is a bs skill that fake people do, and the world is worse off for it taking away from meritocracy.