For the first time in history, many workplaces now span five generations. The colleague planning retirement and the colleague who just finished onboarding may sit in the same meeting, work the same project and interpret the same email in completely different ways.

Leaders are feeling it. In SHRM’s latest workforce research, nearly half of organizations named managing a multigenerational workforce as a growing challenge for the year ahead. Talk to managers and the friction points sound familiar. One employee thinks a phone call shows respect; another thinks it shows poor planning. One expects to earn flexibility over years; another considers it a baseline. One wants feedback annually and in private; another wants it weekly and in the moment.

It’s tempting to respond with generational shorthand. Boomers are like this, Gen Z is like that. Resist the temptation. The research on generational differences is far messier than the headlines suggest, and stereotypes, even flattering ones, are a lazy substitute for actually knowing your people. The 55-year-old on your team might be your most eager technology adopter. The 24-year-old might crave more structure than anyone.

So if stereotypes are out, what’s in? Treating generational range the way you’d treat any other form of diversity: as a difference in perspective that becomes a strength when it’s surfaced and an irritant when it’s ignored.

Start by making the invisible visible. Most generational conflict is really a conflict of unstated assumptions about communication, feedback, hierarchy and what commitment looks like. Teams rarely fight about these directly; they fight about the symptoms. I’ve watched a single honest team conversation defuse years of quiet friction. The question is simple: how do we each prefer to communicate, and what does respect look like to you? The answers surprise people, and the surprise itself builds empathy.

Next, examine your defaults. Every team norm was designed by somebody, usually to fit the people who were in the room at the time. Meeting styles, recognition practices, advancement expectations and even humor all carry generational fingerprints. Ask which of your defaults still serve the whole team and which simply serve the people most like the ones who set them.

Then turn the range into an asset on purpose. Cross-generational mentoring is the most obvious move, and it works best when it flows both directions. The veteran offers institutional wisdom and pattern recognition; the newer employee offers fresh eyes and fluency in emerging tools. Pairing them signals something powerful: everyone here has something to teach and something to learn.

Finally, hold the line on shared standards while flexing on style. A multigenerational team doesn’t need five sets of expectations. It needs one clear set of expectations about outcomes, quality and how we treat each other, with genuine flexibility about the paths people take to get there. Clarity on the what. Grace on the how.

None of this requires a generational task force. It requires a leader willing to get curious about each person instead of managing to the composite. That’s always been good leadership; the five-generation workplace just raised the stakes.

Your team’s age range isn’t a problem to manage. It’s one of the widest sets of perspectives you’ll ever have in one room. The leaders who figure out how to hear all of it will make better decisions than the ones still waiting for everyone to think alike. Spoiler: they never will, and that’s the point.