By Mary Ann Maxwell

Ever get that strange feeling that something's different? We all look the same, more or less, we're all out to achieve the same sorts of goals, but there's something very different about  the way we're talking to each other, and it's causing more than a bit of intergenerational confusion in the office.

Those of us who have been in business for the last few decades should be forgiven for feeling a little out of sorts with more recent entrants into the business community. See, we came into the corporate world at a time where hierarchies were strictly observed, and controlled by the simple fact that there were relatively few forms of communication we could use to break down those walls.

Things have changed, some for better, and some, well, for not so better, but the only way we're going to be at peace in this emergent business world is to recalibrate the rules, and update our expectations when it comes to communication.

See, when we formed our expectation of corporate communications etiquette, there were sets of rules to follow, hierarchies to respect, and chains of command to follow. But when you're dealing with a new generation who consider it normal to interact in cyberspace with complete stranger, and form close friendships with people they've never met in person, we're dealing with a new set of rules.

For starters, we now have so many different modes of communication available to us that it's impossible to attend to all of them as much as one would perhaps like. Returning phone calls was easy, when phone and snail mail were the only forms of contact, but after you've arrived at work, deleted tens, and sometimes hundreds of irrelevant emails, answered the most pressing, and finally got around to your voice mail, you're usually running late for your first meeting.

As such the expectation that all calls received will be responded to within 24 hours is in most cases based on the way we used to operate, but fails to take into account the way business is conducted today.

The problem is that there isn't much discussion around what our current expectations are or should be. We've left one set of expectations behind, but as yet we have nothing with which to replace them.

Sure, twenty years ago it would have been considered rude to leave a phone message unanswered, but similarly it would have been considered ridiculous for a young employee to expect to engage directly with CEO. In both these areas expectations have changed, and those of us who have been around the longest will need to update thinking according to what is actually going on, rather than what we would like to see occurring based on our past experience.

These days the way people within an organisation are so ubiquitous and varied that senior management is just as likely to get a sudden email from a junior staff member, as from anyone else in the company, simply because the means of communication is available.

But when I think about it, given the same technology I don't think we would have been any different. If we had the technology, we would have been steadily breaking the same rules of etiquette twenty, thirty or even forty years ago. This thrust into a new mode of communication isn't a new phenomenon, and it's not a technological phenomenon, it's a socially driven phenomenon, sure it's facilitated by the technology, but it's entirely driven by out desire to interact in new and different ways.

Until we recalibrate the rules based on the current round of technology, I'm afraid we'll be left bemoaning the way things have changed, and trying to figure out how etiquette works in this new environment.

And chances are when the current generation figures out those rules it will be time for the next to emerge, with a new round of technology, and new way of communicating, just to keep things interesting.

Mary Ann Maxwell heads up Gartner Executive Programs (EXP) in Asia Pacific. Based in Sydney, she manages product development and provides high-level coaching for CIO members of EXP.  Mary Ann was previously managing director of META Group in Australia, and prior to that, she was CIO and CTO of Westpac Banking Corporation, where she led development of an enterprise- wide IT solution and managed outsourcing partnerships with IBMGSA and Telstra. Previously, Mary Ann worked for Countrywide Credit Services, Health Net and Zenith Insurance in the USA.