Stillman

Meet Your CoWorker
The nub of their work, then, is helping businesses mesh four distinct generations - each with its own attitudes and expectations around work - into teams that can excel in the increasingly competitive world economy. It's no easy task. Using admittedly broad and imprecise generalizations, here's how experts break down the generations:

Traditionalists, those born before 1945, typically have faith that institutions - be it the government, business, family, or church - have the capacity to accomplish great things, like winning a world war or overcoming the Great Depression. They tend to respect authority and are comfortable in a top-down hierarchy.

Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are marked by their optimism, having been born into affluent times, as well as by their competitiveness - there are 80 million of them, after all - and a preternatural need to challenge the status quo.

Generation Xers, born between 1965 and 1977, by contrast are considered skeptical, raised as they were in a time of recession and downsizing. In response, Gen Xers are resourceful and independent, intent on burnishing their own skills as a way to achieve job security; they're also typically more ­concerned with work-life balance than Boomers. "They want to be constantly learning - that is their job security," says Stillman. "If I know enough and am constantly getting new skills, then if anything bad happens, I'm going to be all the more employable."

Finally, there's the tech-savvy progeny of the Boomers, known alternately as Generation Y (and sometimes why), Millennials, and Echo Boomers. These newest entrants to the workforce are used to customizing everything they touch - from their iPods to their sneakers, and now perhaps their careers - and having been fed a steady diet of positive ­affirmation by their parents, now expect the same from their supervisors and bosses.