Gentelligence

Why Generation A Might Just Be the...Analog Generation

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 19:20:02 GMT

It has been said that everything old becomes new again on a long enough timeline. There's a fascinating generational trend I've been seeing among younger Gen Zs and the oldest of Gen A (Note: I am not calling that generation Gen Alpha, because that name is nonsensical and outdated already, and that generation is barely in their teens. More on that soon)--a craving for low-tech, no-tech, screen-free experiences. Gentelligence focuses primarily on generational dynamics in the workplace, and I do predict this will have implications for where and how these generations want to work. Despite the chaos surrounding back-to-office policies and experiments, our youngest members of the workplace (and our soon-to-be newest employees) are showing signs that they value time away from screens.

I first noticed this last year among my own students, who were overwhelmingly setting change goals in my change management class focused on reducing screen time. Versions included "cleaning up my sleep routine" (putting the phone away at least 30 minutes before bed, eliminating blue light before bed, reading physical books), "reduce my weekly screentime", "stop doomscrolling", and "impose limits on TikTok and Instagram time".

It was a sign that it was no longer just their parents or older generations who wanted them off their phones; they wanted themselves off their phones, too. For a wave of young people raised in an era of tech overload, it seems we have reached the point of maximum saturation, and they are pushing back. As one of my students astutely mentioned to me last year, "There are no boundaries now...our generation is just trying to figure out how to put some of them back."

I've doubled down on the need for this in my teaching, having conversations with students about how to ethically use AI as a thought-partner while balancing protected time for our most scarce resource these days: deep thinking and connection. It was this need, coupled with the overwhelming research showing the improved retention and learning that occurs when students handwrite their notes and put away their laptops in class, that led me to declare our classroom a laptop and phone-free zone. We still use slides to guide conversations, but there are no longer 30 laptop screens popped up in front of them, distracting even those who are trying hard to focus. Surprisingly, I've had very little pushback. I was concerned they would feel like I was forcing them backwards, but collectively we seem to be exhaling. The discussions have never been better.

As our younger Gen Zs reach young adulthood and our oldest Gen As become teenagers, they are emerging from a kind of social experiment they entered unwittingly — a life that has never known a world without constant screens. They are realizing how different they feel when they unplug. Gen Z and Gen A even have a term for this: touching grass. That's right, when the default is constant tech immersion, they had to come up with a phrase to represent the intentional effort it takes to step away.

Whenever possible, I try to engage in some real-time generational anthropology, just to explore my hunches and (when possible) debunk stereotypes. Gentelligence is all about being curious rather than judgmental, and I am most definitely curious about these early signs that our younger generations are seeking a better balance between their tech and non-tech worlds. Last month, I was in Chicago for a keynote and found myself in a trendy food hall over lunch. There were little shops surrounding the food hall, including one of my all-time weaknesses, a stationery store . Pens! Journals! Paper! Notebooks! (I, too, love the analog. After indulging myself in a number of vital paper goods, I was tucking into a sandwich in the food hall and saw a (literally) noteworthy sight: a table of early 20-somethings, gathering on their lunch hour and...writing in their journals. Multi-colored pens, stamps, and conversation were plentiful. There was not a phone in sight. That in and of itself was remarkable.

It turns out that stationary stores are experiencing a resurgence . Knitting, crocheting, embroidery, and sourdough baking are also all having a moment. Physical books ( and bookstores! ) are making a comeback.

A few weeks later, I was at another event, this time a very trendy commercial interior design conference, where we were discussing ways to design spaces that promote intergenerational interactions (yes, it was as cool as you might be thinking). I saw a young designer at the cocktail hour and walked over to introduce myself. I asked if I could pick her brain on something, as I figured it was part of her JOB to be up on the latest trends. I asked her whether she was feeling a personal pull to use less tech, or if this was something she had seen among her peers. That's when she told me about Analog Bags . (I won't go down that rabbit hole here, but feel free to explore the link and know that I am absolutely creating my own Analog Bag as we speak).

At that same design conference, a book was recommended to me: Megatrends by John Naisbett.

The gentleman who suggested it said it changed his life. He thought I would find it interesting, given my interest in generational trends, behavioral cycles, and, of course, my classes in change management. I ordered it as soon as I got back to my hotel room (fun fact: it was published in 1982, so you'll have to find a vintage copy!). I've been devouring it, and among the many eye-opening insights was the observation that " the more 'High Tech' we become, the more we need 'High Touch.” Now, Naisbett was referring to the high-tech era of the early 1980s, when personal computers were entering the scene, but the relevance of the comment almost 45 years later, in the age of AI, was not lost on me. Those who have lived their entire lives as products of high-tech are now blazing the trail to meet their need for high touch.

Let this be my formal declaration (for whatever it's worth) that I predict our youngest generations will lead us back to a balance between tech and high-touch: they are the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, and their message is clear. They are living, breathing embodiments of a life flooded with endless tech, fake news, constant connectivity, dopamine hits, and input dictated by algorithms, and it appears they may have had enough.

Out of Respect: Generational Differences Captured in One Sentence

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:17:52 GMT

What if every generation is trying to be respectful, but what that means is entirely different depending on when you grew up?

I love my students. Almost without exception, they are smart, energetic, and endlessly fascinating. The work world they are getting ready to enter is changing faster than we can prepare them for it. It's mind-boggling: AI is altering how they apply for jobs, the jobs that will exist, and how work is done; the post-pandemic workplace is still entirely up in arms about where we should work and why. No one has any idea what is ahead, and these young people are being dropped headfirst, ready or not.

Last year, I received an email from one of these students. I allow students to miss three regular classes during the semester without penalty, as long as they stay up to date with their work and are accountable for the content they miss. This particular student was simply letting me know she would be missing our next class, but it was the phrasing of one part of her message that stopped me in my tracks:

"I've really been struggling with my mental health lately, my stress level is too high and my anxiety is awful right now. So out of respect for you and my classmates, I will not be coming to class tomorrow."

Read that again. She was struggling, and I have found that my Gen Z students are more open about these struggles than prior generations of students have been (we are currently writing up a fascinating research project about this; more on that soon), but that was not the notable part.

Out of respect...she was staying home.

As a Gen Xer, I had to read that sentence twice. Later that day, I had a meeting with my research team (composed of a Gen Z, myself, and two Baby Boomers), and I read it to them (without a name attached, of course). I asked for their initial reaction to the message.

My Gen Z colleague nodded. "That tracks. You wouldn't go to class or work if you were physically not feeling well, the same holds if mentally you aren't doing well. You don't want to bring that around other people and expose them to it."

My Baby Boomer colleagues simply looked a bit...confused. "Read that again?" I did: "Out of respect for you and my classmates, I will be staying home from class tomorrow."

"But...out of respect for others, you GO to work. You don't stay home!" one of them replied.

"Well, actually, it appears that out of respect, you go to work. Out of respect, she stays home..." I replied.

This, folks, is IT. This is the crux of Gentelligence, wrapped up in one amazing sentence.

This is FASCINATING.

Let's dissect this a bit further. Gentelligence is, at its core, all about understanding why we see generational shifts in these kinds of norms.

In this example, the person in question wants to be respectful. This flies in the face of those shallow and awful presumptions that entire generations are lazy or entitled or have no work ethic. The value or need being expressed is a desire to be Respectful. Where the generational difference (and tension) lies is that we have learned very different norms about what that means and how best to fulfill that need.

My example above could be an anomaly. I only asked 4 other people for their reaction. But since then, our research team has surveyed almost 800 participants across generations to get their reaction to this statement (If you are struggling with your mental health, the respectful thing to do is to stay home), and while I don't want to give away the punchline, the pattern holds in a statistically significant way. That study is in progress, and I promise to share it once it's published!

When Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials entered the workplace, the norm was very clear: you are expected to show up. Physically. Your presence is expected at your desk to do The Work. Have the sniffles? Too bad. Feeling feverish? Suck it up. Nauseous? Mind over matter!

And that was the mentality when it came to physical health, something we could clearly capture on a thermometer, strep, or flu test. Rest on your own time, buttercup! Even we slacker Gen Xers, the first to push for more work-life balance, understood the assignment and the clear norms around what is now trendily called "presenteeism".

The idea that one would stay home because of mental health was, quite honestly, an alien concept. (That's not to say people didn't do it, but if they did, that was not going to be the reported reason).

Enter a global pandemic. I won't take us all through that journey again, but think about the seismic shift that occurred around the norm of showing up at work when you were ill. It simply was not DONE. Our responsibility to be aware of our own health and to protect others' was paramount. In the blink of an eye, the well-entrenched norm that it was fine (or expected) to show up when you were not feeling well made a 180-degree turn.

Gen Z was anywhere from age 8 to 23 when the pandemic occurred. No one wanted to be Typhoid Mary, exposing others knowingly or unknowingly--whether that was being the kid at school who ended up having to name their friends they sat by at lunch when they tested positive for COVID a few days later, or the newest hire who was the reason the office staff had to do contact tracing. Yes, we all had that experience, but for Gen Z, it happened clearly during their most formative stage of life (roughly ages 5-25). Events that occur during this window tend to have a disproportionate effect on our attitudes and behaviors, often setting the stage for the norms we take with us for the rest of our lives.

Layer onto this the increased importance of mental health during the pandemic, with employers regularly checking in on how their employees were doing, providing mental health days, and focusing efforts on more ways to support well-being. For Gen Z (a cohort already speaking more openly about mental health, likely due in part to increased accommodations in schools and greater awareness due to social media), this only further emphasized the logic of prioritizing one's mental health needs at the same level as one's physical health needs. While employer concern about mental health was a relatively new development for those of us in older generations, it was for many Gen Zs their initial experience with how such a topic was handled in the workplace. In other words, for this generation, it wasn't a "new normal", it was just...normal.

Fast forward five years. This past fall, I came down with some kind of bug. I tested negative for COVID and the flu, but still felt pretty awful. Off I went to teach my classes, despite a nasty cough, ringing ears, and exhaustion. The entrenched generational norm of sucking it up ran deep, so much so I didn't even think about the optics (or reality) of showing up to class being so obviously sick until I started teaching. I could almost feel my students' eyebrows raising with the unspoken question: what was I DOING there if I was sick? Wasn't Zoom invented for such things? Or (shudder the thought) couldn't I have canceled class and stayed in bed?

The memory of that email from my student came rushing back to me that day. I wanted to be respectful of my students, my employer, and my job, and to me, that meant forgoing my own need for rest and recovery and showing up to teach. To not do so seemed selfish.

Yet that day, through their eyes, I could absolutely see how the reverse could also be true: wasn't it selfish to show up and risk getting them sick? What was more important: the work, or our health?

From there, it's not such a stretch to think about how a generation that has grown up understanding the importance of mental health on the same level as (and connected to) physical health would also see a need to stay home to recover from burnout and stress. Isn't it better to do that once than to keep pushing ahead and risk greater fallout?

Last summer, I spent the day at a top medical school, talking with physicians, residents, and medical students about these exact same questions. This program has developed a "call out program" which allows doctors to call in to have colleagues replace them on shifts if needed. The challenge they were experiencing? Older doctors would use it only as a last resort, waiting until they were literally bleeding on the side of the road. It felt like an imposition on their colleagues: disrespectful and irresponsible, a shirking of their duty. Younger doctors, in contrast, were more regularly using the program, often taking all of the call-out days they were allowed. When asked why, the response was that they saw that as a way to prevent themselves from bleeding out on the side of the road; that taking time to recover or rest when needed was their responsibility, and that coming in to work when they were not fully healthy would be irresponsible.

And therein lies what I believe to be the most fascinating paradox: the same behavior can be seen by different generations in an entirely different way. Research shows we all share similar intrinsic needs. I want to be respectful and respected, but I may believe that is accomplished in a way that is entirely different from how you do. Neither of us is right or wrong, but a lack of understanding of these different ways of viewing the world is at the heart of the problem we need to solve.

I'd love for you to think more about this: where are you seeing different norms, rooted in the same values? How might improved communication and understanding help us navigate these generational pitfalls in a smarter way?

I asked AI to rewrite my email like a Gen Z. And a Millennial. And A Gen Xer. And a Boomer. Watch What Happened.

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 14:27:49 GMT

you're going to love this.

The idea came to me last week during a keynote. I was sharing my most sticky, crowd-favorite example of the Gentelligence practice of Identifying Assumptions: that Gen Z tends to interpret periods at the ends of text messages as harsh and sour, whereas people my age and older tend to see them as necessary and professional (if you missed this life-changing discovery, you can read all about it here . It became part of a CNN quiz. No big deal). Without exception, this example sets the room abuzz. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Scroll your texts: Gen Zs don't use the period to end the message. Sometimes an emoji. Sometimes an LOL or a hahaha ( check out why here ). But never a period.

During the Q & A session, an audience member identified herself as a Gen Z and admitted she is a generous user of the exclamation point in her emails, trying to keep the tone light and upbeat. "Should I...remove some?" she asked. "To be taken more seriously?"

This was a fascinating question, and I am so hip these days that my first thought was "I wonder what AI would do if she asked it to revise her email to be less...Gen Z?" Now, if you're new here, you may not know that I abhor all Generational Stereotypes and push back on generalizations, but at the same time, I embrace and research generational norms like it's my literal job. It's a delicate distinction, so while I did not suggest she use AI for this and instead told her authenticity and self-awareness were important in any communication, but so was knowing her audience. If she was realizing she may disproportionately use explanation points to "soften" her tone when compared to her older colleagues, this was interesting data and perhaps she could experiment with whether that was helpful. But my brain was already spinning.

Twenty minutes later the keynote was over and I was back in the car. My amazing husband had offered to drive me the few hours over to Indianapolis for this talk, so I had barely closed the door before I grabbed my trusty Claude AI app and went to work (note: Claude and I are close. He is my favorite AI thinking partner. He needs a lot of coaching and feedback, but I enjoy experimenting to see how well he can do with questions, and also like seeing where I am still convinced he cannot replace me). By the time we pulled in our driveway, I had finished my experiment.

Here was my question: we know AI is biased. Humans have trained AI, and humans are inherently biased. We are already seeing evidence that AI is ageist and all other kinds of ists. But I have yet to see anyone ask if AI has generational bias. Today, dear readers, that person will be me . What has AI learned from us about generational communication styles? Would I be delighted by the nuance or horrified by the stereotypes?

I jotted off a quick, generic draft of a work email (or was this really a Gen X style email, because I am a product of my generational norms?)

Hi Megan, Hope you are doing well. I have had a long week and have been dealing with a lot of personal issues, so unfortunately, I am not going to get the project in by the deadline. Thanks for understanding.

Thanks, Sarah

Then I told Claude: Edit this email to write it like a Baby Boomer.

(My favorite part is when Claude explains his process to me: Analyzing Baby Boomer communication habits. Thinking.

Result:

Dear Megan,

I hope this email finds you well and that you are having a good week.

I wanted to reach out to you personally regarding the project that is due. I am writing to sincerely apologize, as I will not be able to meet the deadline we discussed. This week has been particularly challenging for me, as I have been dealing with some unexpected personal matters that have required my immediate attention. I realize this puts you in a difficult position, and I take full responsibility for not being able to deliver on time.

I truly appreciate your understanding and patience during this time. If possible, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you further, either by phone or in person, at your convenience. I want to assure you that I remain committed to completing this project to the best of my ability and would like to work with you to establish a new, realistic timeline.

Again, I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and I greatly appreciate your support and understanding.

Warm regards,

Sarah

Claude explains his work to me:

Key changes: More formal tone, longer and more detailed explanation, explicit apology multiple times, offers to discuss by phone/in person, acknowledges impact on the other person, and uses more traditional business letter language.

Now I tell Claude to edit it to sound like a Gen Xer:

Hi Megan,

I need to let you know I'm not going to make the deadline on this project. I've had some personal stuff come up this week that I needed to deal with.

I can get it to you by [specific date]. Let me know if that works or if you need to discuss alternatives.

Thanks,

Sarah

Key changes: Direct and to the point, minimal explanation without oversharing, solution-oriented (proposes new date), no excessive apologies, maintains professional but casual tone, and gets straight to business. Gen Xers tend to be pragmatic and efficient communicators who don't feel the need to over-explain or apologize profusely—they state the problem and move toward a solution.

Now I'm getting cranky with Claude and his generational stereotyping. (Note I was less cranky when he was stereotyping Boomers, but now he's stereotyping my generation so it's getting real). Do I disagree with this in terms of my own personal email style? No. I infamously am not chatty or overly friendly in my emails. My sample size of Gen X colleagues and friends is vast, and there is of course variance based on all those other layers of our identity: personality being the most impactful. My colleague and good friend Dan is the living embodiment of all the best parts of Ted Lasso, and he would never send a message without genuinely wanting to inquire how I was and expressing gratitude for whatever we were resolving in the communication. Other friends of mine that I will not name fall even further on the range of terse and non-interested in the chit chat. But as a Gen X norm? Yes, I would hypothesize Gen Xers use fewer words per email than your average Baby Boomer, based likely on norms around formality and definitions of professionalism, as well as when email was introduce as a form of work communication. It's an empirical question. My favorite.

Moving on. I know you are waiting for the Millennial version. Millennials are the largest generation in the workplace, and the ones that have gotten the roughest treatment. I love Millennials. (You can verify this is true because I even have a TEDx about it, which you should watch, because mine has about 18,000 views and Brene Brown's first TED talk has about 18 million views, so I'm a little behind). Would Claude share my positive view, or was this about to be another generational shaming?

I asked Claude to rewrite that email like a Millennial:

Hey Megan,

I hope you're doing well! I wanted to reach out because I need to be transparent with you about the project.

This week has been really rough—I've been dealing with some personal stuff that's honestly taken more out of me than I expected. I hate to do this, but I'm not going to be able to hit the deadline. I'm really sorry and I know this probably throws things off for you.

I'm wondering if we could potentially push it to [specific date]? I want to make sure I can give this the attention it deserves rather than rushing through it. I'm totally open to hopping on a call to talk through the timeline and see what works best for both of us.

Again, I really appreciate your understanding and flexibility. Let me know what you think!

Best,

Sarah

Key changes: Casual but warm tone, transparent about mental/emotional impact ("taken more out of me"), apologetic but explains reasoning, emphasizes quality over speed, offers to collaborate on solution, uses phrases like "hop on a call" and "be transparent," and shows concern for both parties' needs. Millennials tend to be more open about struggles while still maintaining professionalism.

Dear readers, let's all pause to note that for once, Millennials were not abused or on the shame end of generational generalizations. Claude believes they are "casual but warm", "transparent", care about "quality over speed", and are "concerned about both parties' needs"! Is this because Millennials are responsible for inventing and training most of our AI? Or because these are stronger Millennial communication norms? Questions abound.

To round out this impromptu experiment, I tell Claude it's time to rewrite the email like a Gen Z. His thought process tells me he is "architecting a casual, authentic communication framework":

hey megan,

so this is awkward but i wanted to give you a heads up that i'm not gonna be able to hit the deadline for the project. ngl this week has been A LOT and i've been dealing with some personal stuff that's really been affecting my mental health.

i know this isn't ideal and i feel bad about it. would it be possible to get an extension? i just want to make sure i can actually do a good job on this instead of turning in something half-baked that neither of us will be happy with.

lmk what works for you and if you want to chat about it!

thanks for being understanding <3

sarah

Key changes: Very casual tone (lowercase, "hey," "ngl"), directly mentions mental health without hesitation, acknowledges the awkwardness upfront, shorter and more conversational, uses phrases like "lmk" and "A LOT," includes a heart emoji to soften the message, focuses on authenticity and quality, and has a more stream-of-consciousness feel. Gen Z tends to communicate more like they're texting—informal, genuine, and comfortable being vulnerable about struggles.

Oh my. Now, it's worth pointing out that Gen Z is 13-28 years old this year, so Claude is scraping the communication habits of teens along with young adults, so we have a mixed adolescent/adult situation going on here. I do appreciate Claude's positive framing of the casual approach as informal and genuine, as my own exploration of this from the texting example aligns with this interpretation. I was curious how a Gen Z young professional would react to this though, so I sent it to Hannah, my amazing Gen Z social media director (if you see good content on Gentelligence on LinkedIn, that's usually Hannah. Unless I'm really on my game that day).

Hannah was not pleased. Maybe it was the faux heart emoji?

"The Gen Z one is simply just NOT! COOL!"

"And it’s all in LOWERCASE."

Hannah is wonderful and professional and has fantastic energy, and never once has she sent me an email with a faux heart emoji or used "ngl". Her point was taken, if this was an email to her boss, I do believe Hannah would understand that the formality needed to be taken up a notch. But Claude isn't sure.

This is fascinating. This isn't a matter of clever anticdotes, gathered by yours truly at various workshops and keynotes. This is systemized generational...bias? Observation? Gathered perceptions? Programmed or learned through humans, now providing other curious humans with these patterns and beliefs. And so it goes.

I'm off to start some formal academic research on this, folks. This is what gets me out of bed in the morning these days-stumbling upon these questions out in the field where the people are navigating these challenges, and then going back to the Gentelligence Research Lab (okay, this is actually my desk, but we are going to call it the GENTELLIGENCE RESEARCH LAB, everyone on board?) to see what shakes out if we launch our academic research approach. I have so many questions.

Can't wait to see what you all think. Is Claude right? Biased? Dangerous? Helpful? Can Claude be an ally in separating generational norms from stereotypes, or is he part of the problem?

When 'Common Sense' Isn't Common Across Generations: The Curse of Knowledge

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 02:18:20 GMT

I can name that tune...

A famous experiment by Elizabeth Newton involved people tapping out well-known songs with their fingers. The "tappers" (who knew the songs) predicted listeners would recognize 50% of the songs, but listeners only identified 2.5%. The tappers couldn't imagine not hearing the melody in their heads.

This is known as the Curse of Knowledge.

Chip and Dan Heath wrote all about it in their fantastic book "Made to Stick":

It’s hard to be a tapper. The problem is that tappers have been given knowledge (the song title) that makes it impossible for them to imagine what it’s like to lack that knowledge. When they’re tapping, they can’t imagine what it’s like for the listeners to hear isolated taps rather than a song. This is the Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us. And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create our listeners’ state of mind.

The Curse of Knowledge is a well-established cognitive bias in which people who are knowledgeable about a topic have difficulty imagining what it's like not to know that information. Once you know something, it becomes nearly impossible to think about it from the perspective of someone who doesn't.

Once you learn something, you can't "unlearn" it to see the topic fresh. Experts consistently overestimate how obvious their knowledge is to others. The Curse of Knowledge creates several distinct challenges in intergenerational workplaces, where different age cohorts bring vastly different baseline knowledge and experiences, rooted in learning from different times in history. The Curse works in both directions--older to younger and younger to older.

Check out these examples and see if any of them sound familiar:

This Meeting Could Have Been An Email

Different generations assume their preferred communication methods are universal. Boomers or Gen Xers might expect phone calls or face-to-face meetings for discussions because of their experience with the richness of those channels, while Millennials or Gen Z handle the same conversation via Slack or text because of their increased functionality and efficiency. In both cases, we assume others understand the advantages we see, leading to misunderstandings about urgency, formality, or expectations.

Similarly, when it comes to office politics, older employees often assume everyone knows unwritten norms about hierarchy, approvals, or follow-up protocols that younger employees were never taught. When younger employees miss the mark, they tend to get labeled as "lacking professionalism", when it's possible we may have missed a step in their onboarding where such norms needed to be laid out as necessary organizational standards.

Ok, Boomer

The most popular age-based stereotype in the workplace is that tired trope that older people can't learn new technology, but that, too, is related to the Curse of Knowledge. Digital natives often struggle to understand how someone unfamiliar with technology can grasp concepts they intuitively know, and may underestimate the learning curve for those interacting with it for the first time. This can lead to skipped steps, rushed explanations, and universal frustration.

Office Hours

For those of us who have experienced the majority of our careers showing up every day to an office, those intangibles that a vibrant workplace can bring are a no-brainer. Popping your head into your boss's office to ask a quick question, grabbing weekly coffee with a co-worker, or discovering it's your assistant's birthday when someone brings a cake into the break room. These things seem trivial on a day-to-day basis, but over time they build commitment, strengthen relationships, and help make work something you can look forward to.

But many of our younger employees started their careers behind a computer screen, not getting any of that sickly sweet birthday cake, but also skipping the commute. While we can't imagine not understanding the benefits of occasionally being in the office, our younger colleagues may have a much harder time grasping why return-to-the-office mandates are occurring in some companies when their work can often be done efficiently and effectively from home. This is the Curse of Knowledge in action: if you've benefitted from a positive in-office culture, you likely have a hard time imagining a career without it.

Never fear, Gentelligence has a strategy to combat the Curse of Knowledge.

First, be aware of the warning signs that you have fallen victim to The Curse:

You hear yourself saying, "How do they not understand this?"
Someone refers to the issue in question as a "no-brainer"
Someone older or younger than you is struggling to understand something that seems unbelievably clear to you

Then we need to use one of my newest Gentelligence tools:

Make the Implicit more Explicit.

Implicit: implied, suggested, or understood without being directly stated.

Explicit: stated directly, clearly, and without any room for confusion.

Instead of skipping the logic or context, realize that you likely have a blindspot. The only way to escape The Curse of Knowledge is to ask yourself what you are seeing that someone who lacks your experience may not realize.

To make the implicit more explicit, try out phrases like:

"Let me back up and explain why this matters..."

"For context, this connects to..."

"The background you need to know is..."

"This might seem obvious, but..."

"What's not immediately clear is..."

" The reason we do it this way is..."

"The piece that's not visible is..."

You can always invite someone to stop you if they already have the information. I've started saying "I've realized I often assume people are on the same page as me when in fact we are getting wires crossed, so I'm trying to be better about slowing down and providing an opportunity for people to ask questions."

Have you experienced The Curse of Knowledge? I'd love to hear about it.

Gen Z Wants Pet Insurance and Other Things I Never Thought I'd Say

megan@gentelligence.org (Megan Gerhardt) — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 13:11:54 GMT

Maybe i do too.

Merriam Webster defines a "benefit" (ben·e·fit) first and foremost as:

something that produces good or helpful results or effects or that promotes well-being : advantage
a useful aid: help

At its core, a benefit is intended to be something helpful. When it comes to workplace benefits, ideally, we'd like at least part of our benefits to include something helpful to us right now. With a 5-generation workforce, our organizations are filled with people with different generational challenges along with different life stage needs, meaning there are likely very different ideas about what is beneficial. According to the 2025 MetLife Benefits Trends Survey , 89% of employees believe their organization could improve benefits packages as a way to build employee trust.

Eighteen years ago, a 2007 research study in Human Resource Management Review raised the question of how wise it was to continue to assume that different generations of employees would find value in the same benefits: "The design and implementation of longstanding employee benefits systems in U.S. companies generally rest on the assumption that employees have similar attitudes toward and will be motivated similarly by benefits systems...Several demographic trends in the U.S. work force call into question this assumption. Consider, for instance, the increasing median age of the working population, the growing dependency ratios—defined as the number of children and elderly per 100 working aged individuals—and the increasing life expectancy of present day workers ( Day, 1996 ). These trends may influence employee attitudes regarding their reward and benefit systems and call for greater scrutiny of these systems and their ability to address the changing needs and expectations of employees."

Last year, I wrote a bit about this : "When it comes to benefits, top companies are already exploring how variable options might better support employees across age and life stages. For example, those in later career stages have shown great interest in grandparent leave, while my fellow Gen-Xers are finding themselves in need of eldercare support right now. Younger workers are expressing a need for new kinds of benefits as well, including home-buying assistance and access to emergency funds."

This summer, I had the opportunity to work with several organizations to improve their generational climates, and inevitably, the conversation turned to the unique ways in which generation and life stage impact the kind of help and support we may need at work. One manager said, "Now I keep getting asked by my young employees if we offer pet insurance! Do I really have to offer pet insurance??"

That was a new one for me, but I gave it some thought. As with all things generational, one must Adjust the Lens (Gentelligence practice #2). My first reaction was that it was silly, but my second reaction was, "Of course." More and more young people are holding off on having kids, for a million reasons (economy, mobility, state of the world...). Pets take a central role in the family for many of us (not just Millennials and Gen Z).

The conversation then took an interesting turn as the manager asked, "Since when do we have to provide everything someone needs in their life? Why is that our responsibility?"

Such a fascinating question, and it definitely has a generational element. Think back to say 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago. Most people didn't expect their job to provide more than a paycheck, and hopefully a safe environment. Work wasn't expected to even necessarily provide meaning or purpose, it was what you did to pay the rent and out food on your table. As time passed, our expectations shifted, and this shift continues to happen today.

My answer to that question is "it depends". Certainly, workplaces don't have to provide these versions of benefits. Workplaces twenty years ago didn't have to add beanbags and Foosball tables, but they did so to appeal to the youngest generation entering the workforce. Now our thinking has expanded, and the most age-inclusive organizations are brainstorming ways to attract and retain the best talent of all ages. The willingness to meet different generations where they are in terms of life stage needs sends a strong message that we understand that support and help can take many forms, and none are considered less important than others. My eldercare needs are as vital to me as your retirement or childcare needs are to you, and an employer that is willing to Adjust their Lens to see that will reap the benefits of a multigenerational workforce that feels valued and supported throughout their career lifespan.

Then + Now

megan@gentelligence.org (Megan Gerhardt) — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 18:16:54 GMT

It wasn't a planned comment.

"We need to replace now versus then with now plus then. That's the magic formula."

This was my response to an audience question at a recent keynote. The participant, a 40-something Gen Xer, had asked what to do when they felt stuck mediating between their younger and older colleagues when it came down to upholding past processes or inventing new ones. Our five-generation workforce spans more of an age range than we've ever seen before, and those of us in the middle of our careers (currently most Gen X and Millennials) often find ourselves wedged between The Way We've Always Done It and The New Way to Think About It.

Gentelligence calls this Expanding the Pie (practice #4). It's a mindset shift to help us change the narrative we have about working across generations. Too often, we think we are in a tug of war with those who have started their careers significantly before or after we have, and when we frame it this way, someone will always appear to be on the losing side. Any gain on our end means a corresponding loss on yours, leading us to operate from a sense of scarcity and threat. We become defensive, digging in our heels and protecting our positions, and no progress is made in either direction.

But let's re-imagine this tug of war. Rather than Gen Zs squaring off against Boomers (with Gen X and Millennials playing referee) move everyone to the same side of that rope. The opponent is the problem we are trying to solve, not each other. Now our different perspectives and ideas can be seen as things that can all potentially help us win, and this reframing opens up an entirely new set of possibilities for innovation and collaboration.

The way we've always done it likely contains some important wisdom and value. Is it possible that value could be amplified or better understood by integrating a new element or refreshing the way we use it? That new approach being advocated by younger employees may be a total game changer, but might lack organizational relevance without input from those who've been around a long time and better understand the broader context of the organization and its' systems.

It's just a nudge: suggest replacing the "vs" with an "and". Let me know what happens.

How Can They Not Understand That? Making the Implicit, Explicit

megan@gentelligence.org (Megan Gerhardt) — Mon, 19 May 2025 20:25:36 GMT

I've always loved invisible ink.

There's something there, but it's not there. Workplace expectations and practices are sometimes like that. For some, they are as clear as can be. Often, that's because they helped create them, or they represent a way of doing things that has existed for so long no one can remember who decided it to begin with. This article isn't about eliminating existing practices. I've written other articles to help you decide which walls in your organization are load-bearing and which may now need to be torn down. This article is about the ways of doing things — big or small — that we assume others will see and understand as clearly as we do, and our frustration when they cannot.

A few weeks ago, I spent the day doing a Gentelligence® workshop with some outstanding physicians at a medical school. Much of the time was spent focusing on the challenges they encountered with residents, and how many of the long-standing best practices in the field (not medical ones per se, but rather those related to aspects such as professionalism and communication) seemed to be eroding. Whether it was responding to emails in a timely way or understanding that "optional" social gatherings weren't actually optional, but important for building culture, "they just don't seem to get it" was a common refrain.

As I listened, a question occurred to me. Gentelligence® is always about uncovering the why behind generational differences and understanding the root problem so we can have smarter intergenerational conversations. So I asked: "Why do we think the younger generation would know or understand this? Have you explicitly told them this is the expectation?"

I bet you can guess what the answer was: "We shouldn't have to tell them, they should just know." But why would they? I frequently discuss in my work how norms evolve over time and why, as well as how we should refrain from judging norms that don't align with our own as wrong, regardless of whether we are older or younger members of the workplace. However, there are some norms we need to align on to maintain a strong organizational culture and work together effectively. Some norms don't belong to a particular generation, but are essential to a profession. When it comes to those norms (what I would call those load-bearing walls), we often assume that they will make as much sense to those walking in the door as they did to us, or that through magic means (telepathy? osmosis?) the next generation will seamlessly absorb them and act accordingly. How's that working?

We need to make the implicit, explicit. If we implicitly just know or understand something as a member of a culture or organization, we need to resist assumptions (Gentelligence® Practice #1!) that those who are significantly older or younger will find that obvious as well. Instead, we need to explicitly set the standard again and again. And beyond this, when we are explicit about that standard, we need to explain why. Why does this practice matter here? Why is it so important to our profession? What have you seen happen when it didn't occur, or what are you concerned the result will be if it disappears?

Let's take communication norms, which do evolve for logical reasons. Let's say we have a norm that we have pressure tested and are confident is still relevant and mission-critical, such as responding to an email from a supervisor or client within a reasonable time. (If you've been paying attention, you might have caught what I just did there. The word "reasonable" is subjective, and we need to make that explicit as well).

I have actually lived this example. I direct our Center for Business Leadership at my university, and in the last few years, more time was being spent chasing down responses to emails and invitations than I care to admit. I was incredibly frustrated, especially because our students are on the whole quite responsible. I was assuming they implicitly understood something that no one ever had to tell me explicitly : when someone in charge sends you an email, you respond as soon as possible. When they weren't exhibiting this same practice, it was easy to jump to all kinds of judgments and conclusions, none of which were helpful or made it more likely they would magically respond. I heard this same concern during my medical school visit: physicians concerned their residents would be perceived by others as rude because of their non-responsive tendencies.

Instead, we took the leap and decided to set the standard explicitly. We waited and announced the standard independent of any specific message or any recent frustration; rather, we rolled it out as a best practice we expected everyone in the organization to embrace: emails from leadership denoted "action required" were expected to have a response within 24 hours. We made sure to explain why it was important (remember, our youngest generation in the workplace has grown up with unlimited access to explanations thanks to Siri, Alexa, and Google, so context is essential).

In our case, we simply said, " As a center devoted to developing future business leaders, we wanted to implement a standard we believe will serve you well: a 24-hour response rule. When you receive an email from leadership with an "action-required" subject line, we expect that you will respond within 24 hours, and we will do the same. While individuals differ in their communication habits, this practice balances respect for our own time and that of others, while also helping to build your reputation as someone who is both reliable and professional. We look forward to how this shared standard will help improve our work and our culture. Please let us know if you have any questions."

It's been about a year since we implemented this standard. While I won't pretend we have perfect adherence, I have noticed a definite shift. Those who are committed to the organization now definitely respond much more quickly, as the expectation has been made explicit. Some do not, but we have found that this is often a symptom of a deeper problem, typically overall disengagement or a lack of interest. The standard has enabled us to identify those issues more quickly than we did previously.

Where do you need to make the ink visible so other generations can see it? What practices or expectations in your organization need to move from implicit to explicit?

Why Gen Needs to End That Text With an Emoji (haha, lol)

megan@gentelligence.org (Megan Gerhardt) — Tue, 06 May 2025 01:04:19 GMT

the plot thickens.

Almost a year ago, I shared my discovery that there was a definite generational divide in one of the simplest and most common actions: texting. Specifically, I had learned from my students that Gen Z found the act of ending a text with a period to be harsh, the equivalent of "we need to talk". Younger colleagues shared that they interpreted that tiny bit of punctuation as a sign of hostility, the equivalent of wearing a suit to a picnic. Colleagues my age and older see a period in a text as a sign of professionalism, most often not even noticing it at all. While it seemed like a small thing at first, the more I looked into it, the less small it became.

Think of how many text messages you send and read a day. Imagine how often your tone or intent might be misinterpreted, or if you are on the younger end of the age spectrum, how frequently you might be unnecessarily stressed by innocent punctuation. Within work teams, wires are getting crossed, potentially dozens of times a day, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

After that blog post, I was contacted by the local newspaper , news stations, and even CNN picked up my scoop as part of their "What Generation Do You Text Like?" quiz. I've shared the example with audiences worldwide as a simple yet fascinating example of how easily generations can think they see the same things. Instead, we are viewing them through a very different lens of perspective and experience. The periods in texting is by far my stickiest example, my favorite discussion, and the thing I still get stopped to talk about in hallways and receive messages about several times a month ("I asked my interns about this and they confirmed that everyone thinks I'm scary based on how I text"). Better yet, these conversations have resulted in actual behavioral change. One of my clients shared that he now sends voice memos instead of written texts, so there's no question about his tone. Others have shared that they now try to adjust their texting style based on their audience. Even if you don't decide to change your texting habits, even the increased awareness and open dialogue that a simple action from us could be perceived in an entirely unintended way by someone with a different generational context can be incredibly valuable.

Now it's time for a follow-up, a sequel to my hot take. While older generations unknowingly evoke fear with their period usage, Gen Z has voraciously adopted emojis, lol, and hahaha to finish their sentences lol. While I am willing to embrace a generation's unique norms, I must admit this confounds me. But then again, I have that period to use to end my sentences, so I understand that not using it then requires something to take its place.

Not everyone in my age group or older is willing to accept this approach. Several young professionals (former students of mine, most older Gen Zs) have shared that their bosses have given them feedback that the laughing crying emojis and hahahas are "excessive" and "unprofessional" when used as a part of work texts. (Sidenote: my blog does not have emoji capabilities, which puts me at a severe disadvantage in writing this, lol).

This came as just as much of a surprise to my Gen Z colleagues as it did to me when I learned my period usage was being seen as "harsh". How could someone take offense at an innocent smiley face, they wondered? I understood their manager's feedback, I feel like I'm being sent cartoons. I had to learn more, for the sake of Gentelligence®!

To do so, I embraced Gentelligence® Practice #2: Adjust the Lens. Time to get curious, not judgmental!

To have smarter intergenerational conversations, we need to start with better questions. One of my favorite power questions to Adjust the Lens is "Can you help me understand?", so we started with that.

Me: Can you help me understand why Gen Z tends to end sentences with emojis and hahaha? Why are we lol'ing after things that aren't particularly funny?

The Gen Zs of Instagram gave me the following insights:

"I feel like it's because it adds a filler/light-heartedness"
"I feel like it's often hard to interpret tone in a text and ending it lighthearted makes sure the person you are texting knows you are not mad. And now it's become the norm and if you don't end a text like that people will assume you are mad"
"Fear of coming off the wrong way"
"I usually add “haha” to make sure something doesn’t come across as angry or mean. I feel like it adds a positive emotion!"
"I use lol or hahaha like I'd use exclamation points in work emails and stuff to show I'm not mad or upset. It softens whatever I'm saying even if it's not something hard"
Instead of using the most common end punctuations (. ! ?), we’re able to evoke more complex emotion/tone through additional punctuations we’ve adopted
"To soften the message and be relatable/casual. It expresses that it’s a more personal rather than serious or personal message. But I think some people do it when they’re uncomfortable or unsure of what they’re texting. It just softens the message all around and hopefully makes it easier to receive"

Fascinating. Reading between the lines, it's almost like an overcorrection for our period usage. That comes across as harsh and cranky, and Gen Zs are doing all they can to make sure their messages don't come off the wrong way. When in doubt, add an emoji! No one can be upset with me if I add a little hahaha! This might seem silly to you if you're my age or older (hey Gen X!), but let's use some Gentelligence® and think about why the younger generation might feel the need to do this. If you grew up amid cancel culture and relying on texting, you too might err on the side of making sure your messages aren't landing wrong.

As if this hot take is not ENOUGH KNOWLEDGE for one post, please enjoy what I unexpectedly learned next.

Remember in my original Instagram post, I made the mistake of asking why Gen Z tends to end their texts with an emoji, hahaha, or an LOL.

Then I received this IG message from my colleague Jacob, who I am pretty sure is a Millennial (but probably on the cusp of Gen Z, if I had to guess):

"Are they ending sentences with 'lol' or 'LOL'? Because I see both differently.. the latter I’ve always seen from older generations"

WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?

I, of course, had to investigate this. In for a penny, in for a pound, people. Gen Z delivered:

yeah but idk how to articulate how they are different but they are
True!!
Very true. LOL feels like you’re making fun of something, or could be laughing very hard depends on context. lol just an add on. Somehow neither is the default for just normally finding something funny hahaha
Gen Z tends to say lol. LOL makes me think of millennials or older

My 5-minute long, not remotely scientific data collection reveals that there is not widespread agreement on this LOL and lol usage, other than they definitely are different. Then this interesting millennial-Gen Z rift emerged:

Apparently the younger GenZ associate the laughing crying emoji with millennials...borrowing one of their slang words from a few years ago, the laughing crying emoji is “cheugy”

(CRIPES, need to go look up chuegy now).

I get asked every few months if I'd consider leaving academia to do Gentelligence® full time. Quite clearly, this misses the critical point that they are not mutually exclusive: I am able to be much more Gentelligence® because I have access to this fantastic network of younger people that I've met over my 20 years as a professor. I learn from them while they are my students, and then I keep learning from them once they enter the workplace, lol hahaha.

So what have we learned over these seemingly innocent miscommunications?

Gentelligence® takeaway #1: Communication styles differ across generations. When messaging someone much older or younger than yourself, be aware that they may interpret your message differently than intended, regardless of whether you end with a period or an emoji.

Gentelligence® takeaway #2: No one is saying you have to stop with the emojis or the grammatically correct punctuation, you do you--but I challenge you to start this conversation with people you text regularly across generations. " I heard something today and want to get your take: is it true you'd take a text message that ends with a period as aggressive? " or "If someone you worked with texted you using emojis, would you think that was unprofessional? What if they're just trying to keep things lighthearted?"

There's not one best way to communicate across generations. But we need to open up the conversation to see what we're missing.

Is Your Workplace Multi-Generational or Intergenerational? It Matters

megan@gentelligence.org (Megan Gerhardt) — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 18:43:07 GMT

(hint: one works, the other doesn't).

One of my clients emailed me last week to ask if I preferred the term "multigenerational workforce" or "intergenerational workforce" for an upcoming keynote address. My first thought was that those are entirely different things. I prefer an intergenerational workforce, but I'm not confident that is what you have. Yet.

A multigenerational workforce describes what you have: the demographic makeup capturing the age ranges of your employees. Almost every organization has a multigenerational workforce, and as I'm sure you've heard by now, we are currently the first 5-generation workforce in history. People are working longer, either by choice or necessity, so in that way our workplaces are more multigenerational than they ever have been before. (The Silent Generation (1928-1945) currently makes up just less than 1% of the US workforce. However, the 5-generation workforce is likely to remain a reality as Generation Alpha (the oldest of which turns 12 this year) will soon be slowly entering the workforce, just as the Silent Generation fully exits).

In contrast, an intergenerational workforce refers to how those multiple generations interact, specifically in a way that creates something greater together than the sum of its individual parts. An intergenerational workforce is one where proactive effort and intentional strategy have been put in place to develop high-quality relationships, beneficial interactions, and productive collaborations between colleagues of different age cohorts. It doesn't happen by accident, and based on the many organizations I've worked with worldwide over the last 15 years, I am confident in saying it doesn't happen very often. It's the magic that can exist inside intergenerational interactions that are marked by curiosity instead of judgment.

I first encountered the word "intergenerational" when researching our book Gentelligence. According to the Academy of Management Learning and Education , "research emphasizes that intergenerational learning should be framed as a bi-directional development process rather than a "one way street," because both generations can benefit from intergenerational exchange (Fair & Delaplane, 2015; Knight et al., 2014). From this point of view, all employees—irrespective of their age or position within the company—possess unique knowledge that they can share with their colleagues (Fuller & Unwin, 2004; Senge, 1990). Accordingly, interactions between employees of different generations are an opportunity for a bidirectional learning process in which individuals from both generations can learn from the unique knowledge of the other".

Research shows that organizations that simply employ a multigenerational workforce without working to create an age-inclusive culture to support it will suffer. Their age diversity ends up working against them, resulting in more significant conflict and turnover, as well as lower performance. We see this pattern across all kinds of differences, and age differences are no exception. It's hard to work with and trust people we perceive to be different than us, and age is a very visible signal of difference. This well-known phenomenon is known as the similarity effect. This dynamic also means we are less likely to befriend or seek out people significantly older or younger than we are to learn from or partner with in the workplace.

While generations aren't as different as we sometimes assume when it comes to things like needs and values, the time in which we grow up and start our careers does mean we tend to learn different generational norms around how to pursue those needs. When norms clash, conflict occurs, and misunderstandings are likely. From there, it's easy to see how age differences can quickly lead to issues with performance, engagement, and cohesion.

How do we move from multigenerational to intergenerational? That's where Gentelligence® comes in. It comes from reinforcing the belief that every generation possesses unique perspectives and different kinds of valuable expertise and knowledge. Research has confirmed this , finding that "both younger and older employees can be experts in particular subject areas and novices in others".

From a people strategy perspective, it's about ensuring employees of all ages have access to growth and development opportunities. They are encouraged and rewarded for sharing input and being willing to help others learn.

When we have a genuinely intergenerational workforce, something fascinating happens: age diversity transforms from a hindrance to an asset. In organizations where employees report a strong age-inclusive culture, age diversity results in better performance and more significant innovation.

I'm on a mission to transform multigenerational workforces into intergenerational workforces. Which one do you have?

Generational Fish

megan@gentelligence.org (Megan Gerhardt) — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 21:39:04 GMT

Here's the thing about water.

Fifteen years ago, I asked my class of college students what percentage of their parents they thought had ever gone to their professors' office to try to negotiate a better exam grade when they felt a test was tricky or unfair. They guessed 90%.

That's when I discovered something fundamental to Gentelligence®: a fish doesn't know it's wet. This is now one of my favorite sayings regarding differences in perspective. The saying comes from a famous commencement speech

given by David Taylor Wallace in 2005: There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

I'm not usually a fan of parables, but it is an outstanding metaphor for generational differences. When you grow up surrounded by people close in age to you, as just about all of us do, you are oblivious to the norms that guide your behavior. Because, by definition, they are normal to you, nothing noteworthy. They are your water.

When we are young, we are the least aware that our water differs from any other generation. When we enter the workplace, we start to slowly realize that our norms might be new.

Mac and cheese

For context, these students were Millennials (and no, this is not about to become an article on entitlement). Their parents would have been older than me, meaning they were Gen Xers, and speaking from my own lengthy college experience, the accurate number was likely close to zero percent. It just wasn't done. It wasn't considered an available option. If you happened to have a professor who wrote terrible exams, that was your bad luck.

I remember having an English professor for my Shakespeare course my sophomore year who assigned two plays to read concurrently and still seemed to test us on entirely different plays that we had not yet read. I remember once asking her advice on how I could better prepare, never once considering it was not a lack of work on my part that led to the poor exam outcome. I never considered going to the department chair (or the dean) to complain. Truth be told, I didn't know we had a dean, and I had never heard of anyone pushing back on a professor. Professors were founts of KNOWLEDGE. Eccentric but supposedly brilliant. If we failed, it was implied that we did not yet UNDERSTAND, which was the work of education. I had a psychology professor who stood at the podium and talked about how love was like macaroni and cheese for at least 6 weeks, and I took notes on all of it. ( Love=mac & cheese? Think more on this! )

Was this norm healthy? I have no idea. Were there instances where someone should definitely have sought out a greater authority to check on what was happening in those classrooms? Probably. But it was all we knew, it was what made sense to us, and no one thought to question it. It was the pond we swam in, and those were the norms we grew up with. In time, the eccentric professors were left behind for managers whose actions were sometimes just as nonsensical, but again, it was above our pay grade. Eventually, we figured, it would probably become our pay grade and then we could make it make sense, but until then, must press on.

The 90 percent

Back now to my Millennial college students and that 90 percent guess. It wasn't that they were consciously choosing to act in a different or difficult way, they were entirely oblivious that there was ever a different way to act. Their way made sense to them, which is why they did it. Not to be disrespectful or entitled. Yet viewed through a lens of different generational norms (that make as much sense to us as theirs do to them), we judge them as wrong.

We had been talking about generational norms and how they evolve over time. Generational norms are a beautiful way to describe those differences we experience when working with those significantly older or younger, as they capture those differences without falling into broad and lazy stereotypes. A norm is a frequency of behavior or attitude, and we can measure that. We can say that a particular behavior (such as questioning someone in authority) was more or less frequent in one generation than another without insisting all people born across an entire generation acted or thought a specific way. The point of my original question was simply to emphasize that the norm about pushing back on authority (professors or bosses), no matter how respectful, was relatively new. Not right or wrong, but new.

This is where those fish come in.

Think about it: if you believed the generation before you had also gone to see their professors to negotiate better exam grades, or questioned their manager's decision-making, likely you wouldn't give pause before doing it yourself. If you assumed your norms were everyone's norms, you'd also assume everyone would interpret that behavior the way you intended it. You wouldn't rally your emotional intelligence to think through how your actions might land with someone with an entirely different experience with authority than you had. You wouldn't adjust your message or approach to manage its delivery so as not to seem disrespectful to those who wouldn't dare question authority. Because you are a fish, and you live largely unaware that the water you swim in is unique.

Gentelligence® is always about understanding the why behind generational differences. In this case, I asked my students why they went in to negotiate exam grades with their faculty. Their answers ranged from "I'd think you'd want to know your exam was confusing" to "I'm under a huge amount of pressure to get good grades and I know my friends are going to go in to try to get every available point, so I have to as well." In fairness, they often did walk out of those offices with higher grades or more points (not my office, but it was a strategy that seemed to pay off more often than not).

If we go back even further on the why, Millennials were the first generation raised when parenting norms began to shift dramatically in the US. Gen Xers were the last generation raised primarily under that "children should be seen and not heard" mindset, acting as supporting characters in the family dynamic. (F end for yourself, latchkey kids, we'll be home at 6! Don't get into that van with the man promising candy! ).

By the time the first Millennials came along, society was coming around to a different parenting approach: invest in those children early. Foster their potential. Support their challenges. Try not to scar them irreparably. Resources (time and money) began to flow to the children, and schedules revolved around their activities and needs. Was this bad? No, it was entirely well-intentioned. We should want the next generation to fare better than the last, or what are we here for? But that doesn't mean this new set of child-rearing norms didn't come with benefits and challenges, because it also meant new norms for that generation of children being raised differently. It meant many of them were raised with a greater sense of self and a louder voice and were encouraged to advocate for themselves and go after what they wanted.

And that is how they arrived in those professors' offices, and later managers' offices, asking questions and offering suggestions at an age unthinkable to prior generations. Who do you think you are? Like every generation, they were simply fish, swimming the way they learned to swim. We called them entitled, just as we called Gen X slackers (and Boomers pushed back against the Establishment, and it goes on and on...). All that means is that you aren't acting in a way that makes sense to us. Your norms aren't the norms we understand or are used to, and we are uncomfortable. We are fish out of our own water.

The discussion I had that day 15 years ago with my college students is still one of the most memorable Gentelligence® moments I have ever had. They didn't know their norms were different from those of the generations before them. Without this awareness, there's no sense that you might need to adjust your approach or consider your audience, and even the best-intentioned actions can land very differently than expected.

I had another version of this conversation this year with my students, now part of Gen Z. We talked about their norms prioritizing mental health and wellness in the workplace and whether they thought those were unusual (spoiler: they did not think so). Many guessed their parents and grandparents did the same thing at their age and career stage. I asked them to consider where their norm came from (if you experienced a global pandemic during your formative years, how important would you consider health and wellness???), and to have a conversation with their parents and grandparents about it. Would they have made such a request? Why or why not? How would they react if their employee did?

Gentelligence® is about being aware of the water. We are all generational fish.

3 Things HR Must Do to Build Gentelligence

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 18:58:36 GMT

3 Things HR Must Do to Build Gentelligence®

Is a multigenerational workforce an opportunity or a threat? It might be up to HR.

Research is clear on this: it depends on how that age diversity is managed and the workplace culture that surrounds it. Really. That is the linchpin on all of this, which means it’s entirely up to your organization to do what it takes to turn what most see as frustration into an incredibly valuable human capital asset.

How? Multiple studies have confirmed that there are key HR practices that can help turn the corner on this. In fact, these are vital to creating what we call an “age -inclusive” or “age-friendly” workplace culture, defined as one where all employees (not just older ones) believe their age is not a hindrance to learning, advancement, or support.

To quote the original researchers Boehm, Kunze, & Bruch, an age-inclusive climate is one where “not only should older employees feel free from age-related discrimination but so should younger workers”. When employees feel this way, age diversity results in innovation, performance, engagement, and lower turnover. If they don’t feel this way, the results are the exact opposite.This research is solid, with a sample of 93 different organizations and over 14,000 employees. When these age-inclusive HR practices (age-neutral recruiting, equal access to training, and equal promotion opportunities) were present, it positively influenced the development of an age-diversity climate within organizations, and that age-diversity climate ultimately resulted in better company performance and lower collective turnover intentions among employees.

So what are these 3 magical HR practices? According to research by Boehm and colleagues in the journal Personnel Psychology (one of the top journals in our field!), there’s a trifecta. I’ve added some actionable Gentelligence® ideas to each one to get you started:

Take an age-neutral approach to recruiting and development: First, let’s take a hard look at your job descriptions, folks. Let’s check that job posting language. Are you signaling an age preference, maybe without even realizing it?
Replace “energetic” with “motivated” or “high-performing”
Focus on skills and competencies rather than years of experience
Avoid age-specific phrases like “fresh graduate” or “mature professional”
Ask yourself why you specify a certain number of years of experience for a particular role. Even something seemingly innocent like “5-7 years experience preferred” could effectively discourage candidates on BOTH ends of the age spectrum. In 2025, do you really stand behind that number and range? Why? Are you willing to lose either more experienced talent (who might not apply if they have say 27 years of experience instead of 7) or younger candidates who could come in fresh off of learning critical skills your company is trying to build? Think about it.

How about your recruitment and interview process?

Share your job opportunities with various professional organizations representing different age groups
Ensure recruitment materials show employees over a wide range of age. If you’re open to older candidates interning as a way to start a new career chapter, do they see people similar to themselves in those internship postings on LinkedIn?
I hope this goes without saying, but:
Remove date fields for graduation or earlier employment where possible
Don’t require birth dates or photos (if you are requiring this then I am worried for your HR department)
If using AI to screen and filter resumes, double check you haven’t unconsciously embedded any age-loaded bias into your process
Use blind resume screening techniques
Think carefully about the benefits and drawbacks of taped video interviews or even virtual-only interviewing. As candidates of all ages are prioritizing value alignment and a sense of identification with their employers, those time-saving recruitment measures can signal your organization doesn’t have the time to connect personally with their people.
Recognize the interests and priorities of different age groups and life stages:
Research shows that all of us, regardless of age, value flexibility and autonomy. That said, the type of flexible arrangement that might appeal to your employees may vary based on career stage, life stage, or even amount of experience. For example, my students consistently report that they do NOT want remote-only jobs, as they are focused on building their professional and personal networks, need to learn the ropes, and need opportunities to stand out and impress their managers, all things that are hard to do via Zoom. That said, few of them want a fully in-person job that has no flexibility, hoping instead for something in the middle. People in my career and life stage (I’m 47) also want flexibility, but may define that differently or want it for different reasons, including balancing caring for children and aging parents. Those in latter phases of life and career may want to be helping out with their grandchildren, have more opportunities to travel, or even slowly ramping down their work hours as they explore retirement options.
When it comes to benefits, top companies are already exploring how variable options might better support employees across age and life stages. For example, those in later career stages have shown great interest in grandparent leave, while my fellow Gen-Xers are finding themselves in need of eldercare support right now. Younger workers are expressing a need for new kinds of benefits as well, including home-buying assistance and access to emergency funds.
All generations and ages can benefit from cross-generational learning and mutual mentoring. Older employees often report few opportunities for development, something that can negatively impact their engagement and retention. Younger workers are being shamed for not coming in with “basic” life or professional skills. Rather than the never-successful approach of shaming people for not learning the same things you did by their age, meet them where they are at and offer to programs that can help fill those gaps.
Promote and value the contributions of all ages: It can be easy to fall into the trap of putting more attention on the newest skills (AI anyone?), but keep in mind that there are many different kinds of knowledge needed in the workplace. For example, your youngest employees might be coming in the door with the latest AI skills, but those with more years of experience are well-positioned to complement that know-how with some “know-when”, “know-why”, helping to align the transition to AI with company values. Here’s some actionable ideas to make sure all kinds of experience and knowledge are showcased to their fullest:

Create platforms for employees of all ages to share their expertise. This makes it easy to share your skills or to ask for help, and can also build fantastic and unexpected intergenerational relationships in the workplace .
Feature diverse age representation in success stories and case studies (how about highlighting some of those intergenerational friendships?)
Ensure leadership development programs include all age groups
Proactively encourage intergenerational points of view through intergenerational employee resource groups or roundtables, especially ones that focus on timely challenges for the organization.
Focus on results and contributions rather than years of experience. One of the top frustrations for younger employees are arbitrary timeline for promotion. It’s fine to be firm on the skills and contributions that need to happen prior to advancement, but revisit whether that always occurs on a set, inflexible timeline.

Why do these matter so much? According to the article, these HR practices accomplish two key things: first, they signal to your employees of all ages that they are committed to treating them fairly (this is known as the “signaling effect”). Second, when HR practices consistently demonstrate fairness across age groups, employees develop a shared understanding that age differences are valued and supported in their own company (known as “collective sensemaking”).

I’m passionate about taking academic research insights and turning them into actionable tools for leaders. That’s what Gentelligence® is all about. Let me know what steps you are taking to make these changes in your organization.

What Happens When We Shame & Judge a Generation For Growing Up in a Completely Different Time?

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 19:07:41 GMT

What Happens When We Shame & Judge a Generation For Growing Up in a Completely Different Time? 

Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a provocative opinion essay entitled What Happens When a Whole Generation Never Grows Up?

In case you can’t get behind the paywall, the gist of the article is that the entirety of the Millennials (that’s over 72 million people in the US alone) are in a permanent state of what the article called “arrested development” because they are not reaching traditional milestones of adulthood (for those playing along at home, those would be getting married, having babies, and buying houses). Sigh. The Atlantic ran a similar article 4 years ago (entitled Why Millennials Can’t Grow Up ), and I hated that one too. The Atlantic used this same set of benchmarks to judge the older Millennials (I will never use the phrase “elder Millennial”) in their 2021 article, and this WSJ take tells us this is still the case as the youngest Millennials approach 30 this year.

Where shall I begin?

I think we can all agree that the phrase “grow up” is a loaded one:

“You need to grow up!”

“Are you ever going to grow up?”

The phrase “milestones of adulthood” paints maturity as an objective concept anchored in the rites of passage of marrying, purchasing a home, and having children. Yes, for past generations, those have been common benchmarks that occur as one passes through life, but the article is based on what I consider a number of flawed premises. First, the assumption that not checking those boxes represents some personal failure and symbolizes a lack of maturity. Second, the assumption we are anchored to a static definition of growing up and adulthood.

The trusty dictionary told me the definition of grow up (verb) is: 1) to reach maturity; become adult or to
2) come into existence; develop. Even these descriptions, like growing up itself, are subjective. What it means to “mature” and the milestones we choose to use to mark this rite of passage have always changed over time.

In the book The Way We Never Were , author Stephanie Coontz notes: “In 1900, 120,000 children worked in Pennsylvania mines and factories; most of them had started work by age eleven.” One hundred and twenty-five years later, our social norms on child labor have evolved to the point where we have formulated them into law, not wanting 11 year-olds working anywhere, much less the in the mines.

According to researchers Elizabeth Fussell and Frank Furtzenberg, “the transition to adulthood has become more complex in the latter half of the twentieth century…As more young people, regardless of gender, race, or nativity, participate in secondary education through their teens, young people leave home at later ages. Furthermore, the norms surrounding the appropriate age for marriage and childbearing have changed radically over the century.”

Let’s rewind just 55 years to 1970. The average age for a woman to marry was 21, for men it was closer to 23.

Fast forward to the year 2000. The average age of marriage has increased to about 25 for women, and 27 for men.

A trusty trip over to Census.gov gives us a big picture:

If we insist on using a static definition of growing up (i.e. getting married around the same age as the past generation) it appears those pesky kids have been refusing to grow up for a very long time. With the exception of some outliers around the end of WWII and an interesting spike in age during 2020 (thanks COVID), the average age of marriage has been steadily trending up for the past 100 years. But those outliers are important, as they demonstrate that context and life events matter, and that “growing up” doesn’t occur in a vacuum, but rather is the result of the social and economic forces at work during our lifetime.

The average age to have a child has also gone up steadily over time as well. The average age for a woman to have her first child was just over 21 years of age. By 2000, that rose to 25 years.

Let’s check out homeownership. Apparently this is important to be a grown up. This data was harder to find. According to marketplace.org , in 2023 the average age of a first time home buyer was 38, up from 35 in 2022. In 1981, the average age was 29 (I was able to dig back to 1970, where the average age was 30.6). So again, we see an upward trend line due to all kinds of important contextual factors that would have impacted the ability or desire of a young adult to purchase a home. Affordability. More young people going to college. Increases in school loan debt.

I think you get the picture. Through this lens, the Millennials don’t have a unique Peter Pan complex. They are following a long trend where these vestiges of “adulthood” are happening later, if at all.

They are up against some challenging economic realities meaning that those that may feel otherwise ready to purchase a home or get married may not feel it’s economically possible (or responsible) to do so. Mix in concerns about things like climate change and sustainability (more important for younger generations, according to the Pew Research Center ), and many Millennials are thinking more carefully about whether or when they want to have children.

There is an argument to be made that waiting (or deciding not) to purchase a home or to have a child until it is more economically feasible is the definition of mature. If as a society we are concerned about the impact of a smaller population, we would need to address the fundamental reasons why these norms have shifted over time, rather than cast judgment on those navigating those waters in real time.

Gentelligence® reminds us that every generation must navigate the realities of their own time. What it means to “mature” for a particular is dependent on what is realistically possible and desirable during their time in history, a phenomenon influenced by formative events and social, economic, political, and cultural realities during that era. To judge a generation based on norms from an earlier one is not helpful, it’s just tone deaf. This is how polarization occurs, and this is why we are failing to embrace generational differences as beneficial. Criticism and judgment results in polarization, while curiosity can lead to constructive conversations and meaningful change.

Reframe: Say This, Not That When Navigating Generational Differences @ Work

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 19:15:12 GMT

Reframe: Say This, Not That When Navigating Generational Differences @ Work

You know I am on a quest to change how we see generational differences at work. The argument for why we need to do this is pretty clear: we’re losing talent across generations and career stages because they don’t feel their perspectives and unique life experiences are valued. It’s creating team dysfunction. It’s interfering with knowledge transfer (in both directions).

What is more challenging to grasp is how we change the dynamic. The clients I work with and the audiences I speak with want practical tools and tactics they can use today to start making progress. This year, I’ve developed a 96-page workbook full of exercises and activities (what will I do with this? Publish it? Carve it into 96 pieces and share each one here? Stay tuned). I’ve been relentless and restless, determined to develop new everyday nudges to create small wins.

My latest is a simple reframe, a tactic to help with our second Gentelligence® practice, Adjusting the Lens. I try to avoid scripts, as there’s no one best way to lead or manage people, regardless of generation. But in the spirit of jumpstarting a smarter intergenerational conversation, I present a few Gentelligence® phrases for you to try instead of judgment.

Instead of “These kids today can’t get their heads out of their phones. They are incapable of having a conversation.”

(I hear this at least once a week)

Try: “I’m fascinated by how attentive my younger employees seem to be to their phones. It’s so different than how I use mine.”

Instead of “This place is so old school, they force us to wait two years before we can even be considered for promotion. There’s no development opportunities here.”

Try: “I’m trying to learn why the timeline for promotion here takes two years. It seems long to me, but there must be a rationale I’m not understanding.”

Instead of “Gen Z has no work ethic.”

Try: “I’m struck by how Gen Z is prioritizing things like mental health and wellness and the boundaries they are putting up around work hours. It’s so different from what my generation did at their age.”

Phrases like:

I’m learning why…

I’m curious about…

I don’t quite understand yet…

are small but powerful nudges that set an entirely different tone for the conversation and express an interest in seeking understanding and context for things that don’t currently make sense to you.

Remember, generations are a form of culture. When we visit other global cultures, we do so because it’s fascinating, different, and enriching. Gentelligence® is about taking that same mindset into your intergenerational interactions. I guarantee you’ll learn something.

Thank You, Next…We’ll Wait for the Next Generation Instead

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:07:16 GMT

I have bad news.

Based on all the clickbait headlines clogging up my newsfeed lately, the narrative we are now supposed to believe is that employers “don’t want to hire Gen Z”. (Hint: This is not the bad news)

If you don’t want to hire Gen Z (that’s an entire generation made up of 69.3 million people in the United States alone) then I’m not sure what the talent strategy is here. Skip over 15 years of workforce? Is the plan to wait for the next generation because you don’t like this one?

Here comes the bad news: you won’t like the next generation either.

They, just like Gen Z, will bring an entirely different set of generational norms yet to be formed in response to the world they are trying to navigate. The challenges will be different, but they will still be ones rooted in misaligning norms and different preferences for approaching work.

Gen Z is upsetting the workplace because they are bringing their new norms and ways of thinking into the workplace, vocalizing needs older generations are either uncomfortable with or begrudge them asking for, usually because we wish we had been able to ask for the same things. They are also creating new challenges: Gen Z has all kinds of new things to learn and work on and develop to become fully polished professionals, just as we all did (and likely still do).

How do I know this problem isn’t going to be solved by waiting for the next generation to come along?

Exhibit A:

We also disliked the Millennials when they arrived in the workplace for the same reasons: new norms. Too bold. Asking for things we didn’t ask for that we didn’t think they should have because we didn’t get to have them.

Exhibit B:

Gen X was met with the same scorn, those slackers who had the audacity to ask for work/life balance. Those rascals!

And if we want to go back further, I present Exhibit C, a reminder that the Baby Boomers were not always crowd favorites either:

Here’s a quote from The Guardian, speaking about the year 1966, when the oldest Boomers were just 24 years old, a bit younger than our oldest Gen Zs right now:

“It was a year when audacious ideas and experiments were at a premium in the mass market and in youth culture, with a corresponding reaction from those for whom the rate of change was too quick. The more the young pushed forward, the more the adults pushed back.”

How about another?

“Never have the young been so assertive or so articulate, so well educated or so worldly. Predictably, they are a highly independent breed, and—to adult eyes—their independence has made them highly unpredictable. This is not just a new generation, but a new kind of generation.”

The latest on Gen Z? Nope, it’s a quote from TIME Magazine’s 1966 Man of the Year issue. The “Man” of the Year they were talking about? The Baby Boomer. That exact quote could be said when any new generation moves into the workplace. Highly unpredictable.

That’s what I love about different generations. We don’t need more of us (whoever we are). We have millions of people across generations in the workplace. Let’s add the latest wave of new thinking, different perspectives, and unpredictable norms. That’s how we determine whether our tried and true practices and processes are still relevant and important, or whether the time has come to revisit and update them to better serve all of us (not just those pesky members of the newest generation).

That’s not to say we need to replace all of our past generational norms because Gen Z has different ones. It’s about reframing the judgment we bring to age and generational difference, and getting comfortable with being willing to teach as well as learn from people who are significantly younger and older than we are. That’s Gentelligence.

But Employers Don’t Want to Hire Gen Z, the headlines tell me so…

This is just silly. Gen Z currently composes 18% of the US workforce. They range from 12 years old to 27 years old. How exactly will you fill your talent pipeline for the next decade? I’m all for hiring employees of all generations and life stages. Retain and recruit those Baby Boomers, engage us Gen Xers, and support those Millennials! But we don’t get to skip over an entire generation of people because they need different kinds of development than we did.

How about changing the way we are framing generational differences instead, viewing the chance to both teach and learn from those younger and older as a strategic talent opportunity, rather than this ridiculous shaming and negativity? That seems more promising than skipping over an entire generation in our workforce because we don’t yet understand them.

I’ll leave you with a few words spoken by those wiser than me, just to remind us this isn’t a new problem, and it’s not going to be solved with the same resistance we have been using so far. It’s time for Gentelligence®.

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households.”

-Attributed by Plato to Socrates

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

-George Orwell,

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible – and achieve it, generation after generation.

-Pearl S. Buck

Who You Gonna Call? Crossing the Streams of Gen Z and the Boomers at Work

Sat, 28 Sep 2024 01:36:53 GMT

Who You Gonna Call? Crossing the Streams of Gen Z and the Boomers at Work 

Someone Check on Newsweek.

Allow me to present these headlines from the last six months:

What in the world is going on here? Is Newsweek okay? Was there a meeting where Gen Z was pulled from a hat and all journalists were required to write a generationally shaming article about why we should despise them?

ENOUGH.

Let me make this as clear as possible:

There are roughly 69.31 million people in the United States who are part of Generation Z. This is slightly over 20% of the current US population.
They range from age 12 to age 27. This means they will likely be making up the youngest part of your workforce for a long time.
Shaming and judging 20% of the population because they have a different set of norms as well as a new set of learning opportunities and challenges for us to support is not a good talent strategy.

The norms Gen Z is bringing to the workplace are a product of many interacting realities, not the least of which was a global pandemic that impacted education, development, and upended workplace practices everywhere. This is our first generation to begin their careers in a hybrid/remote/post-COVID/mid-AI world of work. Do they have things to learn and improve upon? Of course. Is name calling and alienating them a good way to build the trust needed to teach them? Again, no.

So why the surge of animosity? Newsweek isn’t alone in the piling on, and there’s something driving this uptick.

Perhaps this surge of Gen Z vitrol is due to the crossing of the streams.

Who You Gonna Call?

Loyal readers of the Gentelligence® blog will know I rarely miss a chance to make a Gen X 80s pop culture reference. (I risk losing part of my audience with this, but I view this as a Gentelligence® opportunity: if you don’t get this cultural reference, that’s absolutely understandable, but you must then go find someone over 40 to loop you in).

Today brings us yet another opportunity to harken back to classic 80s cinema, this time to Ghostbusters. Throughout the movie, we are warned of the dangers of crossing the streams .

Total proton reversal . End of life as we know it.

“ The important thing to remember is that you must never under any circumstances, cross the streams.”

–Dr. Egon Spengler, Ghostbusters

In the US workforce, we have successfully managed to not cross the streams for a very long time.

A New Era

But just this year, it happened. Take a look:

Department of Labor, Aug 2024

(Yes, I just did that. I did just make an amazing leap from Ghostbusters to generational dynamics. Stay with me).

The Baby Boomers have been such an anchor and shaping force to the workplace for so long. It was only in 2016 that they gave up their long held title of largest generation in the workforce (to the Millennials). And now, in 2024, we see them quietly take a 4th place slot in terms of representation: Millennials (38%), Gen X (31%) Gen Z (18%), and Baby Boomers (15%). Gen Z is taking up more space, and we are struggling to understand what that means.

The generational ebb and flow in the workplace always comes with growing pains. Remember, we called Gen X “slackers” for wanting more autonomy and work/life balance (we were ahead of our time, what can I say), we called Millennials “entitled” for wanting faster advancement and more voice than older generations. Now as the Gen Zs slowly make up more of the workforce, we’re sounding the alarm.

Firing them!

Warning them: Stop being different! We don’t like it, it’s uncomfortable.

(This is where I should remind those of us old enough to remember that at the end of Ghostbusters, they crossed the streams too. They didn’t have a choice, it was the only thing to do).

No one knew what would happen (total proton reversal???) but it was what the situation required.

So what does this situation require? Gentelligence. Seeing these changing generational dynamics as an opportunity for growth and learning, not just for Gen Z, but for the rest of us as well. Firing or refusing to hire Gen Z (as so many of those Newsweek headlines proclaimed) is not a long term talent strategy.

What’s the Answer?

Examine what norms and organizational practices are still valid and vital to the a healthy, thriving workplace today. What is truly non-negotiable as it relates to our organizational cultures (my colleague Asya Miller calls this the “load bearing walls” and I am very jealous I didn’t come up with that, but have to give credit where credit is due). If there are true load bearing walls (e.g., returning to the office for a certain set of days, being able to adapt and self-directed in the face of uncertainty) that are core to who we are as an organization, take the time to explain why (see the Gentelligence tool of Pulling Back the Curtain here for how to do this well) . Don’t assume it makes sense to those who may not have experienced it before or have much practice with it, and don’t assume they don’t need to understand the reasons behind those load bearing walls. This generation grew up with explanations for everything at their fingertips (thanks Alexa), and being willing to provide them will go a long way in building that needed trust to continue to teach and develop them.

Before you ask “Do we really have to do that? No one did that for us!” (I get this question a lot), consider the long term goal. Investing and developing your people is critical to every organization’s mission. While Gen Z may need development in places we assumed they would already understand, they also are bringing new kinds of skills and expertise they may have to explain to us. That too will require patience and trust, and a willingness to take the time to slow down and teach new ways of looking at things. Mutual respect is always a good investment.

Building Healthy Generational Workplaces

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 01:59:38 GMT

Building Healthy Generational Workplaces

Here’s the most practical generational expertise I can offer: if you want collaboration and learning across generations, you must build a workplace culture that supports it.

“Gentelligence just seems…healthy.”

Those were the words of the head of learning and development at a large hospital last month. He had just finished my book and said he was a “big fan” of the Gentelligence approach. He had shared it with his colleague, and the two of them were hopeful we could work together to bring the approach to their workplace. “We’ve had other generational training before, but as you say, it was so surface level. We’re ready for something more. People want to know what specifically they should be doing differently.”

The word “healthy” has been linked to Gentelligence several times this summer, and I must say, I love it. My 5 minutes of fame on the local news was part of a “What’s New in Health” segment. The American Psychological Association invited me to be part of a main stage session at their national conference, speaking about my work to find practical ways to translate research into practice to help create more psychologically healthy workplaces (see the APA Speaking of Psychology podcast conversation we had on this here ).

Gentelligence is absolutely aligned with this mission. Age inclusion is, at its core, about creating an organization where people across ages, generations, and career stages feel valued and appreciated for their unique experiences and perspectives. When we feel this way, our well being improves, as does our engagement and our commitment to those organizations. So how do we create these psychologically healthy workplaces when it comes to age and generation?

(fun fact: image searches for “healthy workplaces” yield many pictures of yogurt, granola, and blueberries. So provide those, but how about some other ideas as well?)

Research Says…

As you know, a big part of my Gentelligence work is translating the existing research we have into practical solutions. The research on this is still in early-stage, but what is out there is promising. I’m currently up to my ears in it (I’m working on a paper) and this is what the initial work shows: we need to create positive age diversity climates.

A 2011 study by researchers Kunze, Boehm, and Bruch in the Journal of Organizational Behavior found that the impact of age diversity on performance is moderated by the organizational climate. That means a positive age diversity climate—where age diversity is valued and supported—enhances the benefits of having a diverse age group. Conversely, a negative climate can lead to challenges and undermine the potential advantages of age diversity. In other words, whether our age diverse workforce is a benefit or a hindrance comes down to the environment we create to support it.
In 2014, this research was taken a step further in a study done by Boehm, Kunze, & Bruch , focusing on the role HR practices could play in creating that age-inclusive climate. They define an age-diverse climate as follows:
“It reflects a shared conviction that age is no potential stumbling block in making progress within the organization. …an age-neutral organizational behavior toward all groups; that is, not only should older employees feel free from age-related discrimination but so should younger workers”
This study recommended that bundles of HR-inclusive practices should relate to knowledge, skills, and abilities (e.g., age neutral recruiting & equal access to training and education), motivation (e.g., equal opportunities for promotion & responsiveness to the unique needs of different age groups), and also opportunities to contribute (promoting and valuing the contribution of all ages).

Take the First Step

So let’s start there. Taking an honest look at your workplace, is your recruiting age-neutral? Are those pesky words like “energetic” and “fresh” showing up in your job descriptions? Is there a lingering requirement for 3-5 years of experience for entry-level positions, even though no one remembers why that even matters any more?

When it comes to upskilling, is everyone equally able and encouraged to access training in those ever-important future of work skills, whether that’s AI, wellness training, or digital literacy? How much attention are particular segments of your workforce receiving as compared to others? (As a Gen Xer, I rarely hear companies wondering what we in the 45-60 year old age group are needing or wanting to stay engaged and committed!).

More progressive companies are thinking creatively about how to make sure employees across ages and career stages feel seen, understood, and valued. One of my most read LinkedIn posts last year was a mention of a Wall Street Journal article about grandparent leave.

Eldercare is a significant need for people in my age group (who have aging parents yet are potentially still supporting their teen and young adult children as well). This trend will continue to grow. According to Met Life, “Wearing both caregiver and employee hats comes at a cost: according to MetLife , people with elder-care responsibilities can cost their employers as much as $34 billion a year overall, thanks to absenteeism, disengagement, turnover, and increased healthcare costs for themselves”. Some workplaces such as Johnson & Johnson have responded by establishing impressive caregiving resources as part of their benefit program.

Menopause leave is also a relatively new and promising benefit for organizations. A 2023 Bank of America study showed that “64% of women want menopause-specific benefits, yet only 14% believe their employer recognizes the need for them.”

In Case of Emergency…

For younger employees, initial survey data shows a high value being placed on greater mental health support from employers. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprising for a cohort that began their careers during a global pandemic, the availability of emergency funds if needed also rates high for Gen Z.

I’d love to start a dialogue about other ways we can support and recognize the unique needs of employees in different age groups and career/life stages. What are you seeing? What would you love to see?

Tools for Intergenerational Communication: Welcome to the 3rd Conversation

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 02:45:06 GMT

Need a practical way to improve your generational communication in the workplace? Let me introduce one of my favorite tools: The 3rd Conversation.

Here is how to use my 3rd Conversation tool to improve intergenerational communications. This involves using some of the Gentelligence® Power Questions (if you don’t have these, you can add your email here and they will automatically be sent to you) and the 4 Gentelligence ®Practices as well ( here’s a quick clip from one of my webinars if you need a refresher on those practices):

Let’s take a recent example from my own leadership experience. I sent my team (composed of primarily twenty-somethings, mainly Gen Z) what I felt was a clear and direct email sharing information and asking for a response. After several days, very few of my team members responded with what I needed.

Gentelligence® Practice #1: Identifying Assumptions and #2: Adjusting the Lens were critical to use here.

My initial assumption was that my team hadn’t prioritized my request and was being disrespectful, leading to resentment and frustration on my part.

1st Conversation (taking place in our team group text as I know they respond to that): “

Hello, team–I sent an important email several days ago, and very few people have responded with the information I needed. Can you please send what was requested by the end of today, and can you also please help me understand why there were so few responses?”

In this case, I did receive the info I needed by the end of that day. One or two people responded to the text, apologizing and saying, “I’m sorry, I haven’t checked my email in several days; I’ll do it now!” This alone was eye-opening. As someone who has a norm of checking my work email at least once an hour, it was unthinkable to me that someone could go several DAYS without checking it.

Were they maliciously avoiding their email in an effort to thwart our productivity? Most likely not; that goes against everything I know about my team members. Instead, as digital natives, they have many communication channels they use. In our case, my team didn’t view email as a priority or a preferred way to communicate, preferring faster and more informal channels. When they did check their email, there were so many messages stacked up that some fell through the cracks. Using that Gentelligence® Power Question (can you help me understand?) resulted in some meaningful learning for me about their communication norms and habits.

2nd Conversation:

“Fascinating, I check my email so often (at least once an hour) that it seems unthinkable to me that others could go days without doing so. I assumed you all checked email regularly, and I tend to use it for more formal and important requests. When I don’t get a response, I get pretty frustrated, and in this case, it ended up almost causing us to miss an important deadline because I didn’t have the information I needed from all of you.”

The second conversation is such an important one, mainly because there is often a presumption that improving generational dynamics means one generation is somehow forced to adjust to the norm of another, whether that is older people feeling pressure to forgo existing ways of working or communicating to placate the youngest generations, or younger generations submitting to the way things have always been done due to organizational policies or norms that may or may not still be effective. Neither of these is Gentelligent. This is why we need the Third Conversation.

3rd Conversation:

This is where we bring in Gentelligence® Practices #3 (Strengthen Trust) and #4 (Expanding the Pie). Now that we have learned more about where all generations involved are coming from in this communication dilemma, we can move forward with a smarter intergenerational conversation about where to go next. The key element of the 3rd conversation is to remember (or reinforce) that everyone is on the same “side”, working toward the same mission as a team. Center that as the beginning of the third conversation.

Here’s a script to start with:

Me (age 47, avid email user, would like everyone to respond to my requests in a timely manner): “I think we’ve uncovered some important insights on the way we use different communication channels. Can we agree that we need to come up with a clear strategy for our future communications that ensures we all see the messages and are responding in a timeframe that allows us to meet our mission?”

Team: “Yes!” (let’s just pretend the team is amazingly agreeable and rationale)

Me: “Great. Given that is our shared goal, I’d love to hear how you think we should approach this. I have some thoughts, but I am open to your suggestions. You all seem to prefer channels other than email. Can you help me understand why you prefer those?”

(Note: “How would you approach this?” is a Gentelligence® Power Question designed to help Expand the Pie, and then we see that ever-handy “Can you help me understand…? surface again).

Team: Shares the benefits of Slack or GroupMe over email (e.g. speed).

Me: “Interesting. I’ve struggled using Slack, it’s not intuitive to me. Would one of you be willing to sit down with me for 20 minutes and walk me through some of the things I’m not enjoying? Maybe I just need more practice with it.” (Note: this takes some confidence as a leader to be vulnerable about places we may need to learn or upskill)

Team: (feels respected and valued for their unique expertise, happy to be heard and allowed input) “Yes, of course.”

Me: “Okay, how about this: after I have some additional training, our team will exclusively use Slack for 30 days for all communications. Let’s meet in a month to debrief and see how it’s going. If I still have concerns, I will ask that you then be willing to try a different approach until we find one that works for all of us.”

Give it a Try

That’s just an example, but there are all kinds of important team and leadership dynamics taking place under that simple conversation: mutual respect, vulnerability, increasing engagement, and openness to a learning/growth mindset. Slack might be a disaster and I might still really hate it (I do hate Slack), but I’m willing to admit I may just not be used to it or have taken the time to explore it’s features (note: this is not suggesting a lack of tech-savvy from older generations, see my CNN article on how different ages rely on different kinds of intelligence).

Give the 3rd Conversation a try. I’d love to hear how it goes!

I Love You, Period

Sun, 07 Jul 2024 02:55:00 GMT

I Love You, Period

Passive aggressive, or just correct grammar?

BREAKING NEWS

Never before has my role as generational translator been as important as it is at this moment. Right now, your Gen Z employee may be panicking that they have somehow messed up. Questioning their career future. All because we included a PERIOD in a text message.

That’s right. If you are Over 30, you must learn what I learned yesterday: when you use a period in your texts, Gen Z finds this “harsh”, “scary”, and “passive aggressive”.

I learned this reading a research paper my sophomore students wrote for my class talking about generational differences in workplace communication. They said the use of a period in texting was “harsh” and “sour”. I headed straight for Instagram, my informal source of much Gen Z intel:

Never before have I received such a response from an Instagram story

and the Zs responded in force:

“I can confirm”

“This is true LOL”

“I feel this deeply”

Note my use of the Gentelligence® power phrase: “Help me understand…”

Exclamation points=totally fun

Kudos to my 16 year-old niece Gwen for the Gentelligence®

If you are Under 30, you must learn this: if the person texting you is over 30 and their text ends with a period, they aren’t mad at you, they are just…using punctuation. (I have inquired about the undertone of an ellipsis, stay tuned).

Never fear, it’s only punctuation…

This is why I created Gentelligence®. Imagine the misinterpretations raging this morning as we speak! Gen Zs wondering what they did wrong and Gen Xers like me over here wondering what has happened to punctuation and society.

It might seem like a little thing, but generational communication differences is one of the most common questions I get from my clients.

Sharing with permission, check out the responses from my Gen Z content creator, my former students, and most eloquently, my 16 year-old niece. I told them I must bring this intel to my people.

Spread the word on both sides of the age continuum. My work continues.

How the Wizard of Oz Can Help Us Lead Gen Z

Fri, 22 Mar 2024 01:22:47 GMT

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

Many of us in older generations will recognize this sentiment, not just from that classic Wizard of Oz, but as the prevailing management philosophy as we began our careers. Whether it was decisions made above our pay grade or an understood workplace norm that it wasn’t yet our place to question the status quo, the tradition of passively accepting even the most dysfunctional practices as “just the way things were done” was deeply embedded.

Of course, the roots of this can be traced back to the dominant parenting philosophies for Boomers and Gen X: “Because I said so, that’s why!” Children should be seen and not heard. Many of us grew up in an era when it wasn’t our place as younger people to ask questions, and we took that with us to work.

Fast forward to our younger generations and the parenting trends that dominated their earlier years: children as the central concern of the family. Investing in their development, interests, and potential talents from a young age to give them a leg up later in life. These generations were raised to have a strong voice and grew up with their needs being the center of family time and resources.

They also grew up with something earlier generations did not have: unlimited access to information and explanation . While information was reserved for parents, bosses, and the World Book encyclopedia for older generations, younger ones have never had barriers to answers. Until they reached the workplace, when suddenly the reasons why things were done in particular ways became inaccessible to them. If you grew up being able to find the Why whenever you wanted it, suddenly existing in a world where it was unclear would be disorienting and frustrating.

Behind the Curtain

Our workplaces are rife with what I call “Behind the Curtain” practices: processes or rules that may make sense to those who created them but few others, norms that have existed for as long as anyone can remember but that no one has ever stopped to analyze or explain. Older generations accepted the curtain and largely left it alone, figuring we would be able to change things later on when it was our turn. Our norm was not to question what was behind it, even if knowing would have helped us do our work better.

Now, let’s bring in Gentelligence.

Identify Assumptions

The first practice of Gentelligence is to Identify Assumptions. Older generations tend to assume that our youngest employees will understand and accept the norms that preceded them, even though they’ve grown up learning an entirely different set of norms to navigate the world they are entering. We assume they are signing up to obediently follow the same set of operating procedures we did. We can insist they adopt the existing norms without question or explanation, but there’s a cost to that choice: their disengagement and turnover.

And this is where the tension occurs: older generations accepted the curtain and we assumed the next generation would naturally do the same. It can seem entitled from our lens when they want explanations. On some level, we expect them to do as we did, accepting those in charge had the right to make the policies and trusting that things were the way they were for a reason.

Assumptions are made here on the part of younger people as well, specifically, that assumption that their unlimited access to information and explanation should extend into the workplace as well and that, as part of the organization, they should have access to the information they want and need. Perhaps the greatest assumption that is often made is that, just like Google, everyone will be happy to provide information when asked. I’ve had multiple experiences of assuming my students or my younger colleagues understand that the way they are approaching me or a workplace situation is a deviation from the way it’s typically been done, only to learn that they are assuming people have always operated by the same norms they use.

Adjust the Lens

Next, we must Adjust our Lens (Gentelligence Practice #2). This is where we focus on understanding the generational perspective that seems counter to our own (be curious, not judgmental).

Older generations who put themselves in the shoes of their younger colleagues are likely to better understand that a sudden lack of information and explanation after a lifetime of unlimited answers would be concerning and surprising, almost like being asked to navigate a new place without GPS. From this lens, it makes sense they would be searching for explanations, questioning why things are a certain way, and feel relatively lost when explanations are not clear.

Younger employees also need to Adjust the Lens, but this can be more difficult. In my work, I’ve found that often the youngest generation in the workplace is unaware that their norms differ from those who entered the workforce before them. (This becomes apparent soon enough, but usually through unfortunate communications such as “In my day, we never questioned policy!”). Helping our younger colleagues adjust the lens might require a bit of conversation (“It’s interesting you asked why we do performance evaluations that way. When I was at your career stage, I would have never been bold enough to ask, so I am surprised when you do”).

The key to this practice is remembering that neither norm is right or wrong; they’re just different. Once we know our assumptions and think about how our younger (or older) colleagues see the situation, we can move away from frustration and toward a more productive conversation.

Strengthen Trust

Last fall, I wrote a piece for Fast Company on performance reviews after multiple managers called me with the same concern: their usual way of giving constructive feedback was falling flat with their youngest employees, leading to disengagement and even turnover. While feedback was being delivered as it always had been, the reaction to it had changed.

My advice was to pull back the curtain.

In 2017, I published a research study on generational differences in how credibility is determined. In a nutshell, all ages cared about expertise and character. The most significant difference was the value younger generations placed on connection and sociability in their leaders and the willingness to reach out and discuss. This wasn’t a factor for older generations when determining credibility, but it was a significant one for younger generations. As people who have always had access to more information than they know what to do with, what makes someone credible is their willingness to take the time to connect and explain.

We want to create organizational cultures where people feel comfortable asking questions. We also want our colleagues to trust that the policies and practices in place are there for valid reasons. Pulling back the curtain allows us to accomplish both.

Expand the Pie

Here’s a question that requires an honest answer: If someone had bothered to pull back the curtain for you as a younger person in your organization and explain the reasons and rationale behind How Things Were Done, what impact would that have had on your learning and development? Just because the norm then was that those in power didn’t need to explain, it doesn’t mean that norm was in the best interest of the organization or the people who were trying to find their way. Expanding the Pie is about finding win-win solutions that promote intergenerational learning and collaboration.

The best part of Pulling Back the Curtain is that it’s mutually beneficial for everyone involved. Here’s the strategy:

Consider a current process in your organization, one that is deeply embedded. Let’s say it’s your policy that employees must spend a minimum of 2 years in a role before they are eligible for promotion to the next level.

This process is prime to be questioned by younger members of the organization who have been raised with norms that promote individual needs, development, and interests. As one of my students once told me, “We grew up choosing our own adventure when it came to everything from media to news. We want to do that with our career as well.”

During onboarding (or even interviewing), Pull Back the Curtain on why your organization has this long-standing policy about requiring 2 years in-role before considering promotion. Here’s where the mutual benefit comes in: if there are valid and important reasons for this process, it should be easy to explain clearly, providing your newest employees with important context and understanding. In my experience with Gen Z, that’s usually all it takes to help them be on board. On the flip side, if no one actually knows why the 2-year rule exists (“We’ve just always done it that way…”), that’s an excellent sign that the process may need to be revisited. It may be that the timeframe was arbitrary, or was meant to be temporary, or has outlived its original usefulness. If the policy is deterring young talent from joining the organization or resulting in promising young hires to leave before you want them to, that’s a great opportunity to gather input and decide what the right policy needs to be. Perhaps it is dependent on the progress of the individual employee and up to their manager, or the timeframe is changed to a range.

At a recent conference, I was approached by a leader who had a very promising young employee who had set her sights on CEO and was ready for that to happen tomorrow. He didn’t want to lose her, but he also knew there were a lot of experiences and learning she would need to successfully take on that CEO role. I suggested he share that very message with her: that he agreed she would someday make a great CEO and that there were important learning experiences she would need prior to that. I told him to focus on the learning he felt was needed and to collaborate with her to seek opportunities for her to gain that learning rather than focusing on artificial timelines.

Pulling Back the Curtain is not about changing all our existing policies and practices to appeal to our younger employees. It’s about providing context and explanation that all of us want and need to truly commit to what is being asked. We can get compliance (people doing things because they have to) by setting policies without explanation, but if we want commitment (people doing things because they want to and understand why they should), we have to be willing to Pull Back the Curtain.

Gen X Trifecta: 3 Key Cultural Touchstones

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 01:27:42 GMT

Gen X is having a moment right now. Through my Gentelligence work, I champion the value of all generations in the workplace, but will always be a proud member of Gen X. Born in 1977, my 47th birthday is coming up this week. As such, I decided to devote my birthday month to all things Gen X: the oft-overlooked generation.

When I speak with clients, I walk the fragile line of helping people appreciate the value of the unique experiences our generational identity can bring while simultaneously pushing back on lazy one-size-fits-all generational stereotypes. It’s a careful balance, but one I strongly believe in. The cultural touchstones, societal trends, and zeitgeist that mark the time we grow up and begin our careers can have an important and fascinating impact on the perspectives, norms, and beliefs we hold throughout our lives. They don’t impact everyone in a common generation in the same way but rather provide a helpful lens to begin to understand some of our generational dynamics in the workplace.

What were the norms of a generation coming of age–and specifically relevant to the workplace–what factors collectively contributed to our views of success and what matters in life?

Gen X (born 1965-1980) was shaped by all kinds of things, many unique to a person, but I point to 3 broad societal realities trending at the time we were in our most formative years. As we were coming of age, our attitudes about work, trust, success, and independence (among many other things) were shaped by many of these dynamics. Beyond cliches, we can use data to pinpoint what makes this time unique.

Enter what I have dubbed the “Gen X Trifecta” (who doesn’t love a good trifecta???):

Touchstone 1: The spike of dual-career families and divorce rates

Gen X grew up from the late 1960s through the late 1980s. In the US, the number of dual-career households and divorce rates spiked during this time as well, driven by advancements in women’s rights as well as the establishment of no-fault divorce laws in places like California.

When Baby Boomers were coming of age, divorce rates in the United States ranged from .24 to .28 percent. In the 1970s (when the oldest of Gen X were heading off to school), that number jumped to .40%, and during the 1980s (when the youngest of Gen Xers reached school age), that number spiked again to an all-time high of .50% before falling in the 1990s, just as the Millennials were entering their formative years:

Dual-career households followed a similar trajectory:

All of these statistical shifts mean that we Gen Xers were the least-supervised group of children…ever. With more mothers able to work outside the home and more single-parent families, there were simply fewer people at home to manage the daily ins and outs of this generation’s younger years.

Widespread daycare was not yet the norm, leading to the Gen X nickname of “latchkey children” (fun fact: my Gen Z students aren’t usually familiar with that term, making it the very definition of a cultural touchstone!). My mom stayed at home with us, which I always bring up as an example of being wary of the one-size-fits all narrative of a generation, but I knew a lot of people my age whose parents both worked. Their houses were deliciously empty after school, allowing us a few precious hours of unsupervised time after school to watch after-school specials and eat Cool Ranch Doritos (it took me a firm minute to decide if that should be all be capitalized. Gen X takes Doritos seriously).

These demographic shifts meant Gen X as a whole experienced a high degree of freedom even as children as compared to their parents and even their children’s generations.

Touchstone 2. Children were not yet considered the center focus of the family

While it might be hard for some of the younger generations to imagine now, the idea of child-centered family dynamics is quite new. If we go back in history, the role children played in the family dynamic has evolved depending on the economy and parenting norms of the time. For the early part of the twentieth century, for example, children were often relied upon as economic contributors to the family.

By the time mid-century came along, parents interacted with children primarily to provide discipline and life lessons, but the adults remained the focus. Children were expected to entertain themselves. At one of my recent keynotes, a gentleman of the Baby Boomer generation stayed afterward to share that while he played baseball throughout his school years, it was unheard of that anyone’s parent would take time from their day to watch their kids play a game. It wasn’t right or wrong. It was just a different time.

This dynamic continued throughout the Gen X formative years, especially as many older Boomer parents of Gen Xers were logging very long workdays, popularizing the 60-70 hour workweek. As their parents focused on definitions of success that often included the corner office, position on the corporate ladder, and acquiring new levels of family wealth, Gen X was experiencing independence when it came to how we spent our time (while at the same time learning there were a LOT of things we needed to be afraid of, see below).

It wouldn’t be until the Millennial generation that parenting norms would again shift, this time to a child-centric model where the needs and development of the children were of central importance. Soon family attention and resources would be investing in the potential of the children, with funds channeled into things like Mommy and Me, youth sports (Itty Bitty Soccer, anyone?), music lessons…anything that might give the Millennials a head start or leg up. But for Gen X, we were once again caught in a bit of an in-between.

Touchstone 3. It’s 10 pm…do you know where your children are?

The second piece in our Gen X Trifecta is a snapshot of a time when things were shifting from a time when there was little fear for the safety of children to a new, heightened level of caution. While a Baby Boomer might have left home at sunrise and returned home for dinner only when the street lights would turn on in the evenings (with mom’s permission, of course), a Gen Xer had little supervision in a world that was just beginning to become concerned about potential threats to child safety. In the late 1960s, New York’s FOX 5, began their late evening broadcast with the now famous tagline: “It’s 10 pm. Do you know where your children are?” It was the signal of a shift, raising parental awareness of the need for curfews and somewhat closer boundaries for their kids.

Childhood kidnappings began to make national headlines in the 1970s and early 1980s, leading to many an afterschool special about Stranger Danger (this is the most 1980s thing you will see all day).

In Iowa (where I grew up), I have vivid memories of the headlines about Johnny Gosch , a local 12-year-old paperboy who disappeared early one morning in 1982. I was only five years old, but I remember the story vividly. We were never to walk home after school alone, always with neighbors or friends (keep in mind that it was unthinkable at that time that someone’s PARENT would be walking to or from school with you). Never accept candy from a stranger. If someone tells you they lost their puppy and need you to come with them in their van to go look for it, this is a LIE, and you should run and find a grown-up.

Any Gen Xer worth their salt will recognize this as the creepy sign that was on every telephone pole in the neighborhood:

This was for the ubiquitous Neighborhood Watch, intended to scare away any ill-meaning stranger who might be thinking about lurking our streets.

To add to the complexities of growing up Gen X, it wasn’t just Stranger Danger we needed to worry about in the 1970s and 1980s. The consequences of both the free love and experimental substances of the 1960s were now apparent, leading to the famous DARE campaign (Drug Abuse and Resistance Education: DARE to keep your kids off of drugs!) as well as the safe sex education in the wake of the crushing AIDS epidemic.

So, just in case you are keeping track, as a generation, we were relatively unsupervised but were on the receiving end of a LOT of public service announcements and warnings not to wander too far, not to do drugs, and definitely not to have unprotected sex. That said, we had a lot of other great things to do that were still totally allowed. MTV. Roller skating. Sticker collections. Cabbage Patch Dolls. Muppets. Waterbeds. Ghostbusters. Michael Jackson. Madonna. John Hughes movies. Cool Ranch Doritos. We Are the World.

(Note: If you have NOT watched the new We Are the World documentary that came out this month, please finish this blog and then go watch it immediately).

Why Does it Matter?

The goal of the Gen X trifecta is to give a sense of what I love to call the generational zeitgeist (a truly underused word, really). There were things going on in the 1970s and 1980s (many more than we have time to talk about here… I haven’t even mentioned the Challenger disaster yet) that played a role in the way people who grew up during that era thought about the world and their place in it. Watching our parents dedicate themselves, often thanklessly, to very long workdays teaches a generation what that life would be like, and as happens in many generations, when it was our turn to begin our careers, we pushed back against that norm in favor of something new.

Research has shown that all people, regardless of their age or generation, have a need for autonomy.

Where generations can differ is in the norms and expectations for how much autonomy they have come to expect in the workplace. Gen X experienced earlier than any other generation before or since that being in charge of your own time and schedule can be magnificent. It provides freedom to explore your passions and allows you to make room for all kinds of interests. Therefore, when we entered the workplace, Gen Xers were more vocal than prior generations about needing ways to balance our work with our lives.

Make no mistake, many Baby Boomers would have loved to do this as well, but Gen X came to work with an already established norm that our definition of success needed to include independence, and many were willing to make tradeoffs on careers to maintain that lifestyle. To the hardworking Baby Boomers, this seemed unreasonable, earning Gen X that famous “slacker” nickname.

(Sound familiar? We are seeing a very similar shift from Gen Z at the moment. Unlike the prior Millennial hustle culture, Gen Zs are exploring new ways to create more balanced lives that don’t necessarily place careers in the center. Gen X and Gen Z, long lost soulmates…).

I just love the narrative of generations and the echo our formative years can continue to make throughout our lives. Generational identity blends with many other levels of our identity to make up our broader world (and work) view.

Throughout the month, I’ll continue to post on my LinkedIn about Gen X, now aged 44-59: our current career challenges, how our promotion rates stack up to other generations, and how the smartest organizations are beginning to think creatively about how to engage and retain us during this critical mid-career years.

Join me there for more!

Here’s to the Cuspers: Born Between Generations

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 19:12:05 GMT

Twice this week I’ve been asked about the cuspers: those born at the very beginning or very end of a generation, or simply put, born between generations.

“Have you done any work on understanding those who are almost between generations?”

“What does it mean if you are born on the cusp of one generation and another?”

So this post is for you, cuspers.

Microgenerations

To be born where we have decided one generation ends and another one begins is to be part of what we call a “microgeneration”. The concept has been around for a long time but really has never reached the level of recognition that our major generations have.

But inevitably, those with a foot in two generations do tend to feel a bit separate, not fully part of either generation. Also, they are able to understand the experiences and perspectives of both. From this comes a need to draw their own circle around themselves. One that signals they are both but neither.

We mention cuspers only briefly in our Gentelligence ® book:

Gentelligence® tells us the real purpose and value of generational identity is to help us understand how the time in which we grew up has shaped our unique view of the world and out place in it; how the events and happenings of our formative years contributed to our norms and beliefs, and the kinds of tools and expertise we gained as a function of growing up when we did.

To recognize how our generational identity contributes to our perspective can help us appreciate why others older and younger might view the world in somewhat different ways than we do. Above all, Gentelligence® is about appreciating how those complex differences can be a fascinating source of learning and opportunity.

A Gentelligent mindset suggests that generational identity be used as a valu-able lens of understanding: it can help provide important context for different behaviors or higher frequencies of particular attitudes when we compare one age cohort to another. However, Gentelligence® pushes back against universal labels and assumptions that all members of a generation are always a specific way

So, what is the difference between a generational stereotype and a generationally intelligent perspective? Stereotyping an individual based solely on one’s generational identity is lazy and fails to consider other elements that impact an individual’s identity and point of view.

Within any generation, there are myriad individual differences that influence one’s experiences, opportunities, and perspectives. Such elements include nationality, socioeconomic status, race, gender, and even age (being born at the beginning versus the end of a particular generation).

While a deep exploration into the impact of all of these differences is beyond the scope of this book, we do feel they are vital to mention. As such, when individuals do not feel the narrative of their generation particularly applies to them, this disconnect is often rooted in other aspects of their identities.

For example, while Millennials are often described as being entitled due to the attention and resources they received as children, this is much more true for those who grew up in higher socio-economic classes than those with fewer resources to spare, who would not have had the luxury of such additional opportunities.

Consequently, individuals born on the cusp of a generation may not see themselves in the typical narrative for their generation, perhaps finding more connection with the neighboring cohort.

Keeping up with Generation Jones

Those born at the end of the Baby Boomer generation or the beginning of Gen X called themselves “Generation Jones”. Vice President Kamala Harris is part of this microgeneration. Once she took office, both the Boomers and Gen X wanted to stake claim to her being “one of them”.

As I wrote in a piece for NBC News at the time:

Harris (like others who are born on the cusp of two generations) is a product of both the progressive spirit of the boomers and the cultural zeitgeist of the earliest wave of Generation X. Harris grew with her parents’ taking her to protests strapped into a stroller, most certainly a foundational experience worthy of baby boomer status, as are the stories of the protests she organized against a neighbor who refused to let kids play on his lawn. In a recent article, the San Francisco Chronicle found : “Much of who Kamala Harris is today travels back to her childhood in Berkeley in the 1960s and early 1970s.”

On the other hand, many of her formative experiences are shared with Gen Xers, as well: Harris was the child of divorce at age 7, a decidedly Gen X coming-of-age trend. According to The Post , “As a latchkey child of non-European immigrants who has Salt-N-Pepa, Prince and Phil Collins on her summer playlist, Harris — a Doritos-loving, Converse- and pearls-wearing collaborative leader who doesn’t always seek the spotlight — is ours. Pure Gen X.”

I Just Realized I’m a Xennial

Those born at the end of Gen X and the beginning of the Millennials are sometimes called Xennials. The oldest Millennials were recently saddled with the rather unfortunate “geriatric millennial” moniker (which I will continue to steadfastly argue was nothing but clickbait).

Fun fact: I do this for a living and it was only when I googled to find the exact years of a Xennial that I discovered apparently I am one ( Xennials are born between 1977 and 1983 . I was born in 1977. If we want to get really micro, that makes me a “geriatric Xennial”. I’ll be sure to add that to my LinkedIn profile).

Merriam Webster jumped in to help those of us of a certain age navigate this cusper journey, asking “Are you a bit too young to remember Voltron, but a bit too old for Power Rangers? You might be a Xennial!”

Sarah Stankorb of GOOD magazine explains , “Those of us born in the fuzzy borderland between Gen X and Millennial are old enough to have logged in to our first email addresses in college. We use social media but can remember living life without it. The internet was not a part of our childhoods, but computers existed and there was something special about the opportunity to use one.”

And for those straddling the Millennial and Gen Z divide? Zillennials.

Seriously. Xennials and Zillennials.

I need to have a word with The People Who Name Such Things. What will we call the Gen Z/Gen Alpha cuspers (don’t get me started on the name Gen Alpha, blog on that to come later)? Zalphas?

When is it too much?

Where does it end? I love generations, but even I have limits on how micro it makes sense to get. I prefer to talk about the importance of considering age and generation as both being valuable layers of identity. This allows everyone to consider how their age may create a different experience within their generation.

Cuspers often feel disconnected from their generation because generations are too often thought of as boxes of stereotypes. Most of us don’t agree with all of the labels placed upon our generation. We disconnect with the assumptions made about us based solely upon the year we were born.

That’s why every so often there are calls to “put an end to generations”, when really what people are calling for is an end to generational stereotyping. For those born on the tails of generations, the tired tropes can feel even less accurate.

Layers Not Boxes

But what if I told you that generational identity isn’t meant to be a box, it’s simply a layer? One layer of a complex identity includes layers like age, life stage, gender identity, culture, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, profession…the list goes on.

This is Gentelligence: understanding generations as a complex and multi-faceted layer of who we are, and also realizing that it has intersectionality with so many other layers of our identity. In this case, its age.

And for those who are born between, that is another layer of who you are. It is the layer that can create even greater opportunities for learning. So lead on, cuspers…create those bridges we need between generations.

How Many Gen Zs Does it Take to Dial a Rotary Phone? I found out.

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 02:23:46 GMT

How many Gen Zs does it take to dial a rotary phone?

This was the question last weekend when my family and I had our first escape room experience.

We were back in Iowa visiting my parents and my sister’s family, and after exhausting the usual options (movies, shopping, eating, bowling), my niece suggested we attempt an escape room. I would be hard-pressed to think of something all of us ever agree upon, but everyone was game to try it.

There were six of us: my sister, brother-in-law, and I (all proud Gen Xers), my two nieces (age 12 and 15) and my son (age 17)–all Gen Zs.

We knew there would be a lot of strong opinions and divergent kinds of intelligence in play. No one in our family lacks a strong point of view and no one is remotely quiet ever.

Over dinner, we did a bit of pre-escape room strategizing. We had to split into groups of 3, and we didn’t know if we’d be collaborating or competing. We ultimately decided my sister would join my son and 15-year-old niece in their room, and I would join up with my brother-in-law and 12-year-old niece.

The theme of our room was “Parole Denied”. We worked in side-by-side prison cells to attempt escape.

To preserve the integrity of the escape room experience, I will only divulge that the first half hour involved much bumbling about, searching for clues, and yelling possible helpful information.

The only Gentelligence® involved was when my 12-year-old niece was able to see some hidden numbers etched under some shelves that the rest of us were too tall to notice (not entirely sure this even technically counts as Gentelligence®, but close enough…).

Success…or so we thought.

We broke out of our cells in 33 minutes. I was feeling quite cocky, as we only used a bit over half of our allotted time and hadn’t needed any hints. That confidence disappeared quickly when I realized we weren’t done–we had two more rooms to go!

We struggled in the second room, finally figuring out how to open the door with about 12 minutes to go.

The last room was a library of sorts, equipped with bookshelves, a chess board, maps, and…a rotary phone. To unlock an essential drawer, you had to decipher a code to figure out a phone number (using a periodic table on the wall).

My son and 12-year old niece had figured that out in mere minutes, and set to work dialing the number. I toiled away on the bookcase, searching for clues in between the volumes on the shelves.

Several minutes later, I heard the two of them still at work on the phone. My niece grabbed the receiver from my son, who hadn’t been able to get the number to unlock the drawer. She began to dial the numbers. I looked over and saw her…confused.

Gen Z vs. a Rotary Phone

It was then I realized it was a ROTARY phone. That’s when I started thinking, how many Gen Zs it takes to dial a rotary phone?

Well played, escape room! No one under 40 would likely be sure how to work one of those.

Gentelligence® to the rescue.

“Watch and learn, young people!” I exclaimed, sprinting across the room with real Gen X prowess.

They watched in true wonder (no, just kidding) as I showed them the real skill involved in rotary phoning. “See, you have to put your finger in the spot for the number you want to dial, and then pull the number up to the top…”. Except really they didn’t care because there is no other time or place when a 12 and 17-year-old need to know how to use a rotary phone in 2023 other than an eclectic escape room or perhaps a visit to an abandoned mansion with no cell service (also a great theme for an escape room).

But I felt like a real power player when that phone magically dialed and then unlocked the ever-important drawer.

“Gentelligence® for the win!” I exclaimed, but no one was listening because it became clear we still had more clues to solve.

While I wish I could end this amazing tale with the story of our victory, we were sadly defeated in the final minute. We had a chess piece in the wrong spot and couldn’t get the last door unlocked.

But we were not foiled by a rotary phone. #GenXforever

I usually use the blog to cover those deep and important generational topics. But I just couldn’t resist this one. Gentelligence® is everywhere if you look for it.

Why Generations Matter, But Not in the Way We Keep Pretending They Do: It’s Not a Magic Decoder Ring.

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 02:49:39 GMT

Generation has become a polarizing word. But generations matter.

I know this because it’s what I do.

I work with clients across industries to help them see their generational diversity as an asset, not a liability. Often that work starts with addressing a core issue:

Are generations real?

I’ve written about this before, so I won’t lament on it again at length now, but the short answer is that used effectively, they are a lens for understanding differences.

Used incorrectly, they are ill-fitting cliches. But the answer to this is not to stop using them, it’s to use them the way they were intended. It’s to become smarter about what they help us understand and what they don’t.

Generations are what we call a “social construction”. It’s a category we created to help us capture and understand why people significantly older or younger than us seemed to be different in some important ways.

But like any framework in organizational or social psychology, there are ways it can be misused. As soon as you take it too far and insist “all people” in a generation are this way or that way, you’ve missed the point.

When it comes to human behavior, our field is full of past unsuccessful theories and frameworks that tried to insist that people always act or behave in a particular way.

The one thing you can be certain of when it comes to human behavior is that it depends on many things, never just one.

That brings us back to the idea of a generation.

It is one layer of identity, not a magical decoder ring (I put this in bold so you don’t miss it, also because I found a way to use the phrase “magical decoder ring”).

People turn away from the lens of generations because too often it is reduced to lazy stereotypes that don’t fit.

We wouldn’t say “all women” are a particular way because of their gender identity.

Nor would we reasonably infer that all Catholics or all democrats have had identical life experiences or share universally similar attitudes or behaviors.

When generations are used this way, trying to magically put people into boxes based on birth years and then purporting to know everything about them as a result, we should turn away.

In my work, I meet this issue head-on.

I’ll never pretend everyone in a generation is a particular way. But I will also insist we not ignore that the time in history in which we grew up has an important influence on us.

Everyone learns the tools they need to be successful in the time they enter the world and learn how to survive within it.

I often get questions about whether this isn’t just a matter of life-stage differences. When we bemoan Gen Z’s different behavior, isn’t that always the case with 18-25-year-olds?

Life stage is another important layer of your identity. However, it ignores that my 17-year-old son faces an entirely different world to navigate as he begins his adult life than I did (or you did) at 17.

That leaves the challenge of how we acknowledge the validity of a generational identity while not falling into cliched stereotypes and tired tropes like these: slacker Gen Xers
entitled Millennials,
Gen Z snowflakes (not to mention OK Boomer).

The Gentelligent answer to this has two parts. Exploring the importance of layers of identity and acknowledging the existence of generational norms.

Part I: Layers of Identity

I’ve written about this before, but let’s say it louder for those in the back: Who you are and your experience in the world are the product of so many layers of your identity.

Not to get too into the weeds of the research here, but this is why our field of organizational psychology considers the following.

A correlation between one construct (such as a personality trait or an attitude), and behavior to be “moderate” or “moderately strong” when it reaches a level of .3 or so (correlations can range from -1.00 to + 1.00).

Finding a significant relationship between a construct and a resulting behavior is challenging because of all the different dynamics that go into our behavior.

A blog post I did last fall on the intersection of age and generation blew up on LinkedIn, hitting a nerve with those that we call “cuspers”–at the end or beginning of a generation.

I’ve talked at women’s conferences about the intersection of gender and generation. Think about what it meant to be a woman and a Baby Boomer. Now compare it to the experience many Gen Z women are having as they begin their careers now.

As a result of changes in our legal, cultural, social, and workplace environments, norms have shifted. Learning those norms as you begin your professional career is a formative experience that impacts the norms you will be more likely to understand throughout the rest of your life.

Part II: Generational Norms

I’ve now done hundreds of talks across the world and across industries on reframing how we view age and generational differences in the workplace. In every one, I’ve pushed back against the use of assumptions and stereotypes. However, I am a fan of generational narratives and norms. What’s the difference, you ask?

It is ridiculous to assume we can understand everyone born within a 15-20 year timeframe based on their generation. Generations are social constructions, created to capture shifts in the world that we see impacting those growing up in it at that time.

It is far from exacting. It’s a lens to help clarify understanding. And that’s it, just a lens that gets misused quite a bit.

When we instead use a generational narrative, we can tell the story of a generation. How? By using the formative events we know occurred, and how they created changes and trends in particular ways of parenting, communicating, and working compared to times past.

We can use those narratives to identify generational norms while not claiming they were true for all people in a generation.

Instead, we are saying the frequency of occurrence went up or down for this sample of the population.

For example, Gen Xers were more likely to grow up in dual-career or single-parent households. Compared to Baby Boomers or the Silent Generation, it’s because of women’s rights. That’s a norm shift.

That impacted how many (but not all) Gen Xers were raised. It impacted how they viewed their career possibilities and their priorities. That’s interesting.

That’s why generations matter.

We Don’t Need No Education: How the Boomers Can Pass On What They’ve Learned

Sun, 23 Apr 2023 01:41:50 GMT

How the Boomers Can Pass On What They’ve Learned

As retirement approaches, many older employees may feel that their knowledge and insights are not valued by younger generations. However, in today’s fast-paced and ever-changing work environment, it is crucial to embrace the transfer knowledge across generations to avoid losing valuable organizational experience

“I’m 67 and I’m going to retire soon. I have so much to teach, but I don’t think anyone wants to learn from me.”

Last month I was doing a webinar for over 300 people. The moderator encouraged the audience to use the chat function, and the comments and questions were flying by throughout the session. I’m usually sharing slides so I don’t always see all the conversations, but on this day I happened to stop sharing in time to see the above quote pop up in the window.

I stopped the presentation.

He brought up an important point: are we interested in learning from those older than us, or is generational tension standing in our way?

What Will They Take When They Leave?

If all of our Baby Boomer employees retired tomorrow, does anyone know what they know? Have they/ will they transfer their knowledge across generations, or will they leave a big gap in our organizational knowledge & wisdom when they go? Chances are, most of our Boomers haven’t passed down their experience or insights to those who will succeed them. According to a recent survey shared by PBS ,

57 percent of boomers have shared half or less of the knowledge needed to perform their job responsibilities to a younger generation with those who will assume them after they retire
21 percent have shared none of their knowledge
Only 18 percent have shared all of their knowledge

As we wrote in Gentelligence :

“Baby Boomers are now eligible to retire at a rate of ten thousand employees per day. This means vast

amounts of organizational experience stands to be lost if leaders do not encourage the passing down and transfer of certain kinds of vital

knowledge. Once it is gone, it cannot be replaced. Recognizing the need for generationally positive atmospheres in the workplace is also

needed for younger workers to be willing and interested in transferring their unique knowledge, as well as for them to be open to learning

what older generations have to teach.”

Gentelligence: The Revolutionary Approach to Leading an Intergenerational Workforce

41 Million Strong: (That’s Why They’re Called The Baby Boomers).

As of 2022, one in four employees were members of the Baby Boomer generation . That’s 41 million people , ranging from 59 to 77 years old this year, still very capable of transferring knowledge across generations. By 2031, every Baby Boomer will be age 66, eligible for full retirement (Fun fact: Age 66 is the full retirement age for most Baby Boomers, other than the very youngest. According to the SSA.gov: “the full retirement age is 66 if you were born from 1943 to 1954. The full retirement age increases gradually if you were born from 1955 to 1960 until it reaches 67. For anyone born 1960 or later, full retirement benefits are payable at age 67”).

That means at any moment, significant parts of your workforce might choose to retire, most likely without sharing all the insights they’ve spent the last four to five decades accumulating.

Many Boomers aren’t interested in retiring at 66 or for many years after, as people are both living longer and needing to financially remain in the workplace longer than prior generations. This means that thankfully, we might still have time to do better when it comes to transferring knowledge from many employees in this generation.

That brings us back to where we started. That being the 67-year-old man dropping his comment in the chat: “ But no one is interested in learning from me .”

We can change that with a little Gentelligence. When I stopped the presentation to address that comment, I asked the gentleman how often he shows interest in learning from those younger than he is. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s really a core tenant of any effective leadership: to get respect, you must give respect. To teach someone else, you must also be willing to learn from them.

Collaboration Over Competition.

And for today’s younger generations, the need for a voice is stronger than ever before.

Rapid change means that younger generations do possess unique expertise and different perspectives than older ones. However, it is often overlooked or discounted.

It’s hard to let go of the notion that those that have been at the organization the longest always know best.

It’s even harder to embrace that unique knowledge from one generation that doesn’t threaten the unique knowledge and wisdom of another. But Gentelligence tells us that generations need to stop viewing themselves in competition, and instead embrace mutual learning. Younger generations having valuable input doesn’t threaten the importance of what older generations know or vice versa. This will foster the ability to transfer knowledge across generations.

No One Wants a Lecture.

I hear a common theme from younger employees. The lessons being passed down to them from their older colleagues tend to sound like a lecture. Oftentimes, one that lacks understanding of the context and environment that young people are having to navigate today.

At a recent Gentelligence workshop, a participant shared that the person who had been assigned as his mentor seemed well-intentioned. However, the advice he was giving lacked relevance to the challenges the participant was experiencing on a daily basis.

He expressed frustration that the “wisdom” being passed on was one-way. His mentor didn’t seem interested in whether his advice resonated. Nor did he show interest in how to adapt it to the way the world of work had evolved and changed. As a result, he wasn’t interested in listening to that guidance.

You Go First.

I had some advice for that gentleman. It was to be proactive in seeking the perspectives of his younger colleagues. What I mean by that is to first ask what they thought and what they believed about the topic they are hoping to teach others about. That alone is valuable, as I have done it a hundred times myself with my students (age 18-22). I always learn something new and interesting.

For example, some wisdom and advice about building a meaningful career is timeless.

But other pieces of insight may no longer work so well in a post-pandemic world of work.

Asking your younger colleagues what their biggest challenges are in building their career, or what is harder than they anticipated can be a great segway into sharing valuable advice. This can also reveal that some strategies that worked for you might not work so well for someone today. My research on this topic shows that younger generations don’t simply want information. They have more of that than they can process.

They want to understand how that information is relevant to them today. Or how to use it in service of what is most important to them personally.

The simple act of reaching out and first asking those younger for their input will pay great returns. Once you’ve asked someone to share what they know, they are much more interested in learning what you know. And that is how you transfer knowledge across generations.

Leaders Think Gen Z Doesn’t Want to Work. Here’s Why They Are Wrong

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 01:53:48 GMT

The Headline Everyone Is Tired Of Reading: Gen Z Doesn’t Want To Work

In late January, the headline “Davos attendees can’t stop hating on Gen Z” appeared on my newsfeed. For some reason, these leaders think that Gen Z doesn’t want to work.

It was the daily story from the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum , so one would think they would have something more constructive to discuss.

I had been following the updates on Davos closer than I normally would, as the WEF has been a fantastic leader in research on creating age-friendly workplace climates. I was looking forward to hearing what might come from sharing that work. That meant the tired clickbait headline about Kids These Days was even more disappointing than usual.

I did watch the YouTube clip where Bloomberg discussed how while the conversations at Davos start with “worldly concerns like climate change or the economy, everyone really just wants to complain about their young workers.”

A few days later, the Washington Post followed up the news with an article titled Hey Gen Z, It’s Not Good to Have Your Boss Hate You.

So the subtitle of my article is “Hey Everyone, You Are Misunderstanding Gen Z and Judging Them Inappropriately in Ways that Will Alienate Your Youngest Workers Indefinitely, and That’s Not Good.

Enough of this “Gen Z doesn’t want to work” narrative.

This kind of rhetoric keeps feeding this mythical generation war in the workplace. It’s tired and exactly what we did when the Millennials entered the workplace.

We saw generational norms different from what past generations had subscribed to. Then we judged those norms as wrong ones because we didn’t understand them. We didn’t like them either. As a result, we alienated a generation. Let’s not do it again .

I’m not negating the frustration of not understanding a segment of your employees or the potential losses workplace experiences when there are misaligned norms on engagement or performance. These are important concerns!

However, I guarantee complaining about what’s wrong with Gen Z will not result in a motivation shift.

So what’s the solution?

We need a little Gentelligence here. (For those just joining this work already in progress, Gentelligence is about understanding the complexities and uniqueness of generational differences in the workplace and using them to create opportunities for intergenerational learning and collaboration).

By applying the 4 Gentelligence practices, what looks like an insurmountable challenge can become an important conversation to create that elusive engagement so many leaders are craving from Gen Z.

First, Practice 1: Identify Assumptions.

“Gen Z just doesn’t want to work.” Beyond the broad brush used to characterize an entire generation, there’s another assumption you might not pick up on here. It’s one I have become more and more aware of the more generational consulting I do. I guarantee it will be a game-changer.

Those making this statement assume that Gen Z defines the concept of “work” the same way they do. That’s not how generational norms work.

Every generation learns the tools and norms they need to survive and thrive in their own time; the formative experiences they have growing up help shape how they see the world and their place in it. A generation collectively decides how they define success based on the social, cultural, economic, and political norms at work during their most impressionable years.

The popular jobs, the people that were most admired and who society holds up as role models as they grow up, and the things they see the prior generation doing that they both agree and disagree with combine to create generational norms.

Observations of Generational Differences

Through my work, I’ve come across so many concepts that we assume those younger and older than us see the same way we do:

Flexibility
Balance
Transparency
Communication
And of course…Work.

This is not a new phenomenon. Those of us in Gen X watched many of our Baby Boomer parents devote significant hours to careers (Baby Boomers coined the word “workaholic,” after all.) They defined success based largely on their position on the corporate ladder.

When we pushed back in favor of more work/life balance and a desire for more meaningful work, we were given that “slacker” nickname. It’s one that Gen X has never really been able to shake.

Millennials wanted opportunities at work earlier than prior generations, and we called them entitled.

Inherent in the current leadership lament about Gen Z not being willing to work is an assumption that they define “work” the same way their leaders do. Thus begins the miscommunications and misalignment.

Practice 2: Adjust the Lens.

Once we’ve identified that potentially faulty assumption, it’s time to deploy practice 2.

We tend to see things through our lens (whether age-based or otherwise), often without realizing the lenses of others would show something entirely different and often quite fascinating. To paraphrase Walt Whitman, this is where we need to use curiosity instead of judgment. Here are some questions to get you started:

“I keep reading that leaders feel like Gen Z isn’t interested in working. What do you make of that?”

“When you think about the idea of work (or success, or career…), what does that mean to you? Do you think it means something different to people now than when I started my career?”

Practice 3: Build Trust

As a leader, one of your most essential jobs is creating an environment of psychological safety. If you haven’t come across this term yet, it means ensuring everyone on your team is comfortable with the following:

feels safe to speak up
take risks
ask for help

It’s not a term specific to generationally diverse teams but is particularly important to their success.

We tend to find that older team members are less comfortable asking for help than younger ones. Younger team members may be reluctant to speak up out of concern they will be seen as entitled. These barriers to psychological safety can get in the way of intergenerational learning and collaboration.

Using the momentum from the questions asked in practice 2, we can dig into the answers in a way that demonstrates to Gen Z that we care about their viewpoint. We can also demonstrate to the rest of the team and the organization as a whole that regardless of generation, we are committed to creating a workplace where everyone is engaged and committed to helping the team accomplish its shared mission.

Once we are more confident that everyone agrees on our mission, it’s easier to be open-minded that we all may have different views on how to get there.

A great way to proactively explore these dynamics is to create an intergenerational roundtable. A dedicated session that invites all employees to share their perspectives on the formidable challenges surrounding topics like quiet quitting and the Great Resignation.

With that invitation to share comes a requirement to listen as well. What important (and interesting) differences exist in how employees of different ages, generations, and career stages view the purpose of work? Where do we have more common ground than we realized?

Practice 4: Expand the Pie

The final practice involves moving away from the false dichotomy that for one generation to win, others must lose. It’s rooted in the perspective that our workplaces can benefit from an intergenerational workplace. The opposing view is viewing generational diversity like the plague.

Workplaces that can proactively and successfully create climates that respect diversity are more likely to have successful succession planning. There is research that supports this!

They also tap into different informational networks and leverage complementary skills. Lastly, they have more engaged employees who are less likely to leave.

The three prior practices are fundamental in creating these kinds of age-friendly climates. To go even further, create a mutual mentoring program. It’s my favorite Gentelligence tool. It normalizes the idea that all generations have something to teach as well as something to learn.

Bring together older employees interested in passing down their experience and developing new skills with younger ones. Particularly, those eager to learn from decades of experience. Additionally, there is motivation to share their perspectives and different ways of approaching work.

I have the privilege of working with Gen Z every day. It allows me to add a few things to the sentence “Gen Z doesn’t want to work…”

Gen Z doesn’t want to work for people who are judging them for growing up in a different time and way.

Gen Z doesn’t want to work if it means they lose agency, interest, or engagement with what matters most to them.

Gen Z doesn’t want to work the exact same way everyone else does, and that should be seen as fascinating and important, not as wrong.

Age-Based Microaggressions: The One Phrase You Need to Squash Them

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 02:06:18 GMT

Have you ever thought about age-based microaggressions?

Microaggression | mi·cro·ag·gres·sion
/ˈmīkrōəˌɡreSHən/
noun
a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group

Last fall I was on a call with a client preparing for an upcoming workshop. I asked them to share examples of age or generational challenges from their organization. They collected anonymous input from their employees on the subject, and as they shared the results, a theme emerged; seemingly little things that were resulting in ongoing significant tension. One example was from a young female employee who reported her older male boss addressed all emails to her team “Dear Girls” or “Hey Kids”.

As we talked more, I realized these were age-based microaggressions. Most of what we hear about microaggressions tends to focus on how they occur related to differences in race or sexual orientation. But, they can exist around any marginalized group. Can you think of others?

Psychology Today defines a microaggression as, “the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership. In many cases, these hidden messages may invalidate the group identity or experiential reality of target persons, demean them on a personal or group level, communicate they are lesser human beings, suggest they do not belong with the majority group, threaten and intimidate, or relegate them to inferior status and treatment.”

A quick search found very little out there written about age-based microaggressions. I found a few short pieces and a very well-done piece in The Gerontologist (specifically about age-related microaggressions against older adults) but not much else.

So let’s get into it here. I’ve been on a bit of a mission to collect examples since this showed up on my radar screen several months ago. I’ve brought it up in a few interviews I’ve done. I’m also trying to drop the term into more conversations to spur discussion.

Here are a few exam ples of age based microaggressions from my current collection:

“Hi Girls…” (or “Hey kids…”)

“You’re so hardworking (for your age)”

“Maybe we shouldn’t give that project to John, he might have trouble learning the new technology.”

A job ad that wants to hire a “recent college grad.”

Calling older people “hun” or “adorable”

Saying an older job applicant wouldn’t be a good “cultural fit.”

According to Kevin Nadal , professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, “The difference between microaggressions and overt discrimination or macroaggressions, is that people who commit microaggressions might not even be aware of them.”

First, let’s set the stage for the different ways microaggressions can surface.

Microaggressions can take 3 three forms:

Age Based Microaggression 1: The Microassault

Overt and deliberate, subtle or explicit, these often take the form of biased attitudes or behaviors. Microassaults are intentional and convey the message that members of the group in question are “lesser” in some way.

I’ll lead with an obvious one here… OK Boomer ?

Back in 2019, I wrote a piece for NBC News on the impact of OK Boomer, not just on those it is said to, but its overall impact on preventing Gentelligence in how we frame intergenerational collaborations.

We can also substitute “entitled Millennial”, “Gen Z snowflake”, or “Gen X slacker” for “OK Boomer”. They all make the same point.

Age Based Microagression 2: The Microinsult

These are messages that are more subtle or indirect than a microassault, but still intend to deliver a clear message of rudeness or play into tired stereotypes or tropes, resulting in an insult to the group in question.

Are you an intern?

You must be about ready to retire, huh?

or “You’re about the same age as my granddaughter!”

Job listings that state the company is “ looking for a youthful, energetic, agile worker to join our team.” may be embedding microinsults right into their job search process. Speaking more slowly (or more loudly) to older employees is another example of a microinsult. The Journal of Nonverbal Behavior found that younger people speak more slowly and in high-pitched voices when addressing older people than when talking to younger ones.

Age Based Microaggression 3: The Microinvalidation

This type is are often even harder to detect, but the key element here is “invalidation“. Any messaging or cues that undermine or try to negate the experience or viewpoints of an age-based group as not accurate, relevant, important, or valid would fit under the umbrella of microinvalidation.

A senior partner taking undeserved ownership of the work or ideas of a younger associate (while common in many corporate cultures) may qualify as an age-based microinvalidation, especially if others are aware of who did the work and also do not speak up.

Another example of microinvalidation toward younger people?

“You’re too young to be a ______” (insert respected position here: doctor, vice president, astrophysicist, manager…).

Microinvalidations toward older people often involve negating issues of age discrimination as a misunderstanding or a joke. Other examples might involve brushing off their input as lacking relevance because “they won’t be here much longer”.

Do age based microaggressions really matter? Yes.

Research suggests that those who experience microaggressions can experience substantial negative outcomes. These can range from poorer physical health, increased anxiety and stress, decreased in self-esteem, as well as loss of trust. We know that poorly managed generational and age diversity can damage teams, prevent succession planning, decay employee engagement, and lead to higher turnover.

Microaggressions of any kind keep us in the tired space of generational and age-based tension and bias and prevent us from realizing the benefits of Gentelligence®. That is realizing complementary expertise and strengths, tapping into different information networks and types of knowledge, innovation, and better decision-making.

Gentelligence® requires us to raise our awareness of the seemingly small but dangerous messages and actions of microaggressions from ourselves and from others. Here’s where we can lean into the wisdom of how to combat microaggressions against other kinds of differences. But we can also apply it to these age-based transgressions. Here’s my favorite strategy. I encourage you all to try it!

“ Can you help me understand what you mean by that ?” This is my favorite strategy because “Can you help me understand” is already a golden phrase in Gentelligence work. It’s linked to Adjust the Lens (Gentelligence® Practice #2) and uses the wonderful strategy of curiosity over judgment, which is more likely to keep everyone’s defenses down.

Them: “ I’ll just never understand your generation .”

You: “ Can you help me understand what you mean by that? ”

According to HBR , “ Acknowledge that you accept their intentions to be as they stated but reframe the conversation around the impact of the microaggression. Explain how you initially interpreted it and why. If they continue to assert that they “didn’t mean it like that,” remind them that you appreciate their willingness to clarify their intent and hope they appreciate your willingness to clarify their impact.”

I’m still studying this issue, so reach out with more examples if you have them!

Quiet Quitting is Not the Problem For Gen Z and Work

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 19:23:59 GMT

This is Gen Z & Quiet Quitting Is Not The Problem

Gen Z (or the Zoomers, as I still vehemently feel they should be called as it is both accurate and fairly clever, a tough balance to achieve) is anyone who is aged 10-25. Much has been written lately about Gen Z “quiet quitting” , so much so that I promised myself I wouldn’t jump in with commentary. Quiet quitting is not a problem, it’s a symptom. We have to understand the underlying problem if we are going to make it better.

Except we’re missing something.

Embracing Gen Z

Gen Z is a unique and wonderful generation, as all are. They have been shaped by their tumultuous formative years in ways we will continue to see for decades to come.

Early signs show they are more risk-adverse , more self-directed , making different choices when it comes to education , and have a different view of what it means to craft a career , even when compared to the Millennials.

Yet amidst all those wonderful and important distinctions, it is important to remember that they also share similarities with other generations. Research has shown that across ages, we have similar needs for things like autonomy and connection.

Autonomy & Connection

That need for autonomy, or independence, is why the more flexible work environment appeals to all generations, not just younger ones.

Where it gets complex is when we dig into how those generations define autonomy, or what would make them feel they have it, thus the continuing struggle to determine what sort of approach to flexible work is going to be best.

But it’s that need for connection that I think we’ve forgotten about-something all ages need, but that takes on particular importance at the life and career stage Gen Z is hitting right now. Remember that the very oldest of this generation was only 23 when we all went into lockdown. That means very few Gen Zs of working age has ever experienced a pre-pandemic workplace.

It’s Not All About Productivity, People

The data seems convincing that we are able to be productive in a hybrid or remote workplace, and that’s where much of the focus and interest has been . If we can gain greater autonomy and keep up our productivity, where’s the downside?

The downside is we lost connection.

And for Gen Z, that need for connection is particularly important because they are at the very beginning of their careers. This is a time when professional and personal networks are being created. Gen Z is seeking out mentors, climbing a steep learning curve on their first jobs. Perhaps most importantly, they are figuring out what it means to be a working adult with a sense of belonging.

They are trying to form their professional identity, and there’s a screen in the way.

Think about it:

You land your first career job and rather than moving to a trendy Chicago apartment and learn to navigate the El, you’re living in your childhood bedroom logging into work from the desk where you used to do your geometry homework.

In lieu of days of onboarding and cheesy team-building exercises with their cohort, they got a box of lane swag and a few Zoom sessions of orientation.

(Think it doesn’t matter? 63% of Gen Zs say they would rather be onboarded in person, with just 13% preferring remote.)

Want to make a good impression on your boss? There is no such thing as coming in early or staying late. You just log on to your Teams meeting on time.

No popping your head into your colleague’s office to ask a quick question without scheduling a zoom appointment. In some cases, a simple Slack message to instead is all you need.

Forget about grabbing drinks after work because the people that started at the same time as you don’t come in on Wednesdays and Thursdays, they come in on Mondays and Tuesdays. And so on.

Enter Genetlligence: Pushing Beyond Gen Z Stereotypes

But these are Gen Zs, you will argue! The most tech-savvy of all! They don’t need these things! Yet if we push past stereotypes and dig deeper into the data, we will find that’s just wrong.

Gen Z, counter to many stereotypes, has consistently shown a preference for face-to-face communication , even before being forced to complete their education or internships via Zoom.

According to a Skynova survey :

61% of Gen Z workers said it was challenging to make friends when they worked fully remote
39% of the same respondents found it difficult to find a mentor and network with other professionals
Nearly a quarter of the Gen Z workers surveyed also said they were struggling to acquire new skills.
58% of Gen Z workers are planning to leave their remote job in the next year, and most of them said they wanted hybrid or in-person positions.

We assumed because they were so tech savvy that Gen Z would thrive working from home, and that it would be our older generations that would struggle.

Yet surveys consistently showed that was wrong too: Gen Z reported the LOWEST levels of satisfaction ( and highest levels of burnout ) working from home during the pandemic, followed by Millennials, Gen X, and then the Baby Boomers.

According to a Gallup State of the Workplace Report, the pandemic affected younger workers’ careers more negatively in 2020 than older workers. Younger employees (those under 40) also experienced more stress and anger, lower employee engagement, and lower well-being than older workers.

It wasn’t a lack of comfort with technology that was the issue.

It was a lack of connection at a life and career stage when it is incredibly important, particularly when it comes to developing both motivation and loyalty to an organization.

That brings us back to “quiet quitting”. This is where it starts to become obvious that quiet quitting isn’t the problem, it is a symptom of a larger problem.

Here’s where I’ll drop some organizational psychology research into the mix. There are all kinds of insights in our field that explain why sometimes people just come to work and do the bare minimum, but much of it comes down to employee engagement.

Quiet Quitting is the Symptom. Here’s the source.

“Employee engagement is the holy grail for every business leader. It’s described in a variety of ways but generally defined as when employees fully invest emotionally, mentally, and physically so they focus on achieving the organization’s objectives”

– Pangarkar and Kirkwood (2013)

This is what those quiet quitting Gen Zs are missing, right? They’re coming to work, but apparently not invested in doing more than the bare minimum to keep their jobs. It’s easy to blame them, but more accurate to look at the work environments they have suddenly been given as they start their professional lives.

In their article for Sloan Management review , Kumar and Pansari talk about the key elements that make up employee engagement. Employee engagement is the result of 5 things, and I would argue starting a career behind a screen is killing at least 4 of them.

Here are the elements included in their Employee Engagement Scorecard, a common way to measure engagement:

Satisfaction: the positive reaction employees have to their overall job circumstances. (this is measured by items like “I feel good about working here” and “I feel close to people at work”). The more satisfied an employee is, the less likely they are to miss work and the more committed they feel to their job and company, which strengthens performance.
Identification: the emotional state in which employees identify as part of the workforce. (“This organization is like a family to me” and “Working here gives me a sense of pride”). This is strengthened by things like individual mentorship and strong, unique organizational culture, both of which are much tougher to experience remotely.
Commitment: Strongly related to employee identification, commitment induces employees to do more than what’s in their job descriptions (the opposite of quiet quitting). It develops over time and is an outcome of shared experiences. (“This organization has a great deal of personal meaning to me”).
Loyalty: This is a positive attitude about the organization, which can motivate employees to do more than expected and which can trickle down to have positive effects on the employees’ work”I’m content to spend the rest of my career at this organization”
Performance: The increases in work productivity and quality. (“I believe I can continue to improve and succeed in this organization”)

Employee engagement matters for all ages and generations.

As a 45-year-old, I need those elements as much as a 25-year-old.

Consider where I am in my life and career stage. The fact that I was well established in my career before the pandemic changed work as we know it, I already had many of those elements established. This allowed me to weather changes more successfully without them diluting my commitment or loyalty.

Whereas a 45-year-old who had just started a new career or job might feel more like a 25-year-old in terms of engagement. This is why we can’t talk about these generational issues in a simple or surface-level way.

The more fragile or new the ties, the easier they are to break.

I’ll bring my employee engagement class to a close. But don’t just point the finger at Gen Z for phoning it in. Take a closer look at what your organization is doing to build the employee experience for Gen Z.

Engagement can be rebuilt, but only if we recognize the need for it. We can stop quiet quitting, but only if we understand where it’s really coming from.

Autonomy matters and all ages can benefit from having options and flexibility in where and how we work. But connection matters too, and companies are going to need to rethink what that means. They need to understand how our new reality may be interfering with the engagement of those who need it most.

The Hotmail Generation: What could your email address say about your age?

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 19:25:35 GMT

Several months ago, I received a call from a leader who wanted to invite me to speak to his organization. He said he has sent me several emails with no response, which caused me a bit of a panic. I am notoriously aware of my email. I don’t always remember to respond to everything, but I definitely pay attention to what is coming in, and I hadn’t seen anything from him. So off I went to explore my spam folder, and there it was. It went to spam:

LeaderX@aol.com

Okay, his name was not LeaderX, but you get the point. He had an AOL.com email address, and my email filter determined that obviously meant it must be spam. (Fun fact: AoL merged with Yahoo in 2019 to become Verizon Media, and then the whole thing became Yahoo again. But you can still log on to aol.com to check your email). I had not met this leader in person, but based on the email address, I took an educated guess that he was in his 60s or 70s. When we did finally meet in person for the company visit, my guess was confirmed.

You’ve Got Mail!

Was my presumption somehow an age-based stereotype? (When you’ve written a book on championing generational diversity, you really must be tough on yourself about whether you are inadvertently carrying around age-based biases. To do so would most definitely NOT be Gentelligent).

The thing is, it’s not a stereotype, it’s a hallmark of sorts for a particular generation. Many in their 60s and 70s first set up their personal email addresses during a time in history when AoL was THE game in town:

If it wasn’t for AoL and a man named Elwood Edwards, it’s possible none of us would even have email today. Edwards is the famous voice behind that legendary phrase “You’ve Got Mail!”

And if those individuals in their 60s and 70s weren’t required or encouraged to move their email address to another browser, many in that age group may have seen no reason to do so. As we get older, research shows we tend to prefer using what is known as crystallized intelligence : we use what we know works, and we are less interested in seeking out or trying the newest tools or tech just because they are there.

This should not be confused with not being able to learn new tools or technology. THAT is a stereotype, and an incorrect one: research shows older people are just as able to learn new tech, they just may be less interested than younger people are in doing so. Younger people have been shown to be more apt to use fluid intelligence , which makes them more likely to embrace new trends and ideas.

Back to my spam folder and that AoL address. I began to conduct some non-scientific, anecdotal research: the few other AoL addresses I found in my contacts aloowed me to verify they belonged to those in that 58-76-year-old Baby Boomer age group (full disclosure, these were dads of friends and relatives of mine). Hundreds of thousands of Baby Boomers have chosen to move on to more updated options, but the remaining AoL addresses out there do likely belong to the Baby Boomer generation, happy enough with what AoL provides them and seeing no need for an update.

Here We Are Now…Entertain Us.

Lest we leave out Gen X (and I never do), we can find a similar pattern in the hallowed halls of Yahoo and Hotmail. We’re talking about My Generation (hat tip to The Who), and I had a LOT more data on this one. Without exception, every remaining hotmail.com and yahoo.com address in my inbox belongs to someone 43-57 years old.

This is because we got our first email accounts when Microsoft (who owns Hotmail) was all the rage, and Yahoo was the browser of choice. Many Gen Xers have held onto those personal accounts even as their work emails have evolved to company domains or Gmail. They work well enough, and at our age, who wants to try to remember everyone who might need to be given your new email address? That’s a solid 25-30 years’ worth of friends, family, and colleagues who have that yahoo account saved in their contacts, and nobody has time for that nonsense.

Me Me Me.com

As for the Millennials, most are still young enough to fall into that fluid knowledge phase of life (the oldest are turning 41 this year, so this is changing as we speak), and most seem to have committed to Gmail as the optimal option for their personal email. I have a lot of former students who are Millennials, and some still retain their university email addresses for personal communications. There was a point in time when they embraced the @me.com trend, or maybe even the icloud.com. This is not a commentary on the “Me Generation” nickname (remember, I love Millennials and have a TEDx Talk to prove it!)

Apple backs me up on this one, people. According to Apple :

If you created an iCloud account on or after September 19, 2012, your email address ends with @icloud.com. Learn more about @icloud.com mail addresses .
If you created an iCloud account before September 19, 2012, or moved to iCloud with an active MobileMe account before August 1, 2012, you have both @me.com and @icloud.com email addresses.
If you had a working @mac.com email address as of July 9, 2008, kept your MobileMe account active and moved to iCloud before August 1, 2012, you can use @icloud.com, @me.com, and @mac.com email addresses with your iCloud account.

And Gen Z? It’s my prediction they just might stop using email altogether at some point, favoring Slack and texts and all other more efficient forms of communication. For now, most are in camp Gmail or are still using their school email accounts for personal communications. So as the world turns, so do our email addresses.

@generation.com

I went digging to see if anyone else had picked up on this phenomenon. Twitter came through, though I think this tweet gives Gen X way too much credit for modernity, while this one went too far in the other direction. The website sixtyandme.com advised Boomers to rethink their AoL addresses, citing a lack of updated security and protection measures.

There’s no earthshattering conclusion here, nor is there a recommendation. I suppose I could go down the rabbit hole and point out that we could inadvertently be signaling to others (like potential employers) how old we are by using these emails, flying our generational flag without realizing we are doing so. But I’ll leave that one to you to think about, as I am always an advocate of owning your generational identity.

Instead, it’s just an interesting observation, the kind that I love to come across in my Gentelligence® work. The kind that reminds us that growing up in a particular time in history brings with it all kinds of artifacts and souvenirs of what was new, what was popular, and what was important when we were first starting our careers and establishing ourselves as adults. Next time you’ve got mail, gather some data for me on my hypothesis and see if it holds up.

Pete Buttigieg, Pilots, and the Continuing Myth of the Zero-Sum Age Game

Wed, 20 Jul 2022 00:42:57 GMT

In case I wasn’t clear the first time, I am not in favor of raising the mandatory retirement age for pilots to 67. I am in favor of not having a mandatory retirement age at all because that is ageist.

Apparently, this conversation on mandatory retirement age for pilots is far from over. Usually, I dig into age-related challenges in a particular industry, view them through a Gentelligence lens, and try to raise important questions for consideration. That’s what I tried to do a few weeks ago when the role of mandatory retirement in the pilot shortage was in the news, with the thought that I would weigh in and then move on to other industries and other questions. But the calls keep coming in on this one, and it seems important to keep the conversation going.

Pete Buttigieg & the Zero Sum Game

On July 11, Fox News shared an excerpt from my recent NBC piece during an interview with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The host raised the question about the wisdom of the mandatory retirement age of 65 for commercial pilots, a rule that would result in no Baby Boomers being eligible to fly by 2029. Buttigieg responded, “The answer is not to keep the baby boomer generation in the cockpit indefinitely. The answer is to make sure that we have as many and as good pilots ready to take their place to have a stronger pipeline.”

And here, friends, is where we see the Myth of the Zero Sum Game in its’ full glory.

Allow me to define a zero-sum game: “A situation in which one person or group can win something only by causing another person or group to lose”.

A false dichotomy is being presented here: that either we allow pilots over the age of 65 (who yes, have passed their health checks) continue to fly, OR we invest in the development of the “new generation” of pilots. This doesn’t have to be an either-or situation. The problem is that it is being presented that way, and creating the illusion that there are just these two choices.

Happy 65th Birthday, Pilots!

The goal of Gentelligence® (and, I hope, the airline industry) would be to fully engage our talent across all generations, providing the training and opportunities needed to welcome younger people into the profession but not kicking pilots with decades of valuable experience out of the plane on their 65th birthday because of mandatory retirement age.

Why are these things being seen as mutually exclusive? A past student of mine sent me this Instagram video recently, showing the clear “us vs, them” mindset that is driving this tension.

Research (and interviews with the many pilots that have called me after this story) reveals that the way opportunities are given in the airline industry is based on seniority. According to ATP Flight School, “Seniority is everything as an airline pilot.” The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Foundation concurs: “You’ve probably heard the saying, “seniority is everything.” Well, in the airline piloting business, that’s absolutely correct.” For an industry that puts so much value on seniority over all else, it seems quite odd that this reverence for experience abruptly ends at 65, full stop.

If the System is Broken…Fix It

Therefore, the perception is that if older pilots continue to fly, they somehow stand in the way of younger ones being able to get the training hours they need and better routes they crave. If the way opportunities are granted creates the perception that it pits older against younger, then it’s the process that is the problem. A system that always prioritizes more senior people is also potentially ageist, just in the other direction.

However, based on my interviews with a number of pilots, it’s not quite that simple. Older pilots have shared that there are plenty of routes and opportunities to go around, especially with so many planes grounded at the moment because there is no one qualified to fly them. It’s also important to note that “seniority”, while correlated with age, is also not specifically about age, but rather your tenure with a specific airline. Things like mergers and the age at which you began with the airline can mean that younger people can (occasionally) have seniority over older pilots.

The solution to a dysfunctional process isn’t to force people to retire based on an arbitrary age to create more opportunities for younger people. And it’s not to deny needed opportunities to younger people to retain the older ones. The answer is somewhere in the middle, in a mutually beneficial approach that balances these needs and interests.

This is the goal Gentelligence Practice #4: Expand the Pie. Can younger pilots win without older ones losing, or vice versa? What would that look like, and why aren’t we focusing on that as a solution?

I would argue this is not unique to the aviation industry. Other industries have found ways to both create opportunities for their younger professionals while retaining and engaging their older ones without a mandatory retirement age.

Remember, you can count on one hand the jobs that still are clinging to the mandatory retirement age: air traffic control. Commercial pilots. The military. Some federal judges (but not the Supreme Court), and some CPAs, depending on the firm. (Let me know if I’ve missed any, as I am putting together a chapter on this for my new book).

Every industry must balance this reality and find solutions that aren’t ageist, either in favor of older or younger people.

What solutions have worked in other fields, and how can we use them to move this discussion in a more Gentelligent direction?

How The Princess Bride Can Help With Your Generational Return-to-Office Strategies

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 01:21:25 GMT

Something interesting is happening.

With the momentum of our Harvard Business Review article that came out in March, and the continuing ripples from the Gentelligence book , I’ve been speaking to a lot of audiences this year.

Every conversation is a little different, depending on the industry and how they are being challenged by an intergenerational workplace. But across industries and across borders, everyone wants to talk about how generational differences are playing into what is happening NOW. Especially as it pertains to return-to-the-office strategies and the Great Resignation.

The Search for a Magic Answer

At the core of these conversations is the hope that there is a simple answer. Something such as a generational formula that I can share that will help companies understand the percentage of Gen Zs vs Baby Boomers willing to return to the office and for what optimal length of time. Perhaps it could looks something like this:

(Z*BB/5*9-5=X)

While I wish I had that magical solution, I can provide another one instead. This one comes from the insights of Gentelligence®. Gentelligence® means being smarter about how we understand generations at work. It’s about how they are different in meaningful and interesting ways, and also how they share common ground. By leveraging those differences in a strategic way and building upon those areas of commonality, we can more successfully solve tough challenges, including the return to work quandary.

By the end of this post, you’ll know the magic solution. I promise.

But you have to understand the thinking behind it, which I’ll expand on below.

Assume Nothing

My magical solution comes from Gentelligence® Practice #1: Identify Assumptions (see our book for more on this one!). When we first wrote about this practice, we focused on the problem of generational stereotypes. Those are still relevant to this equation, as reverting to broad-based generalizations about Gen Zs, Millennials, Gen Xers and Boomers is lazy and leads to ill-informed strategies.

We saw this when we all first began working remotely during the pandemic. Given the presumed digital savvy of our Gen Z and Millennials, and their prior push for less rigid office hours , it was widely assumed that our youngest generations would be thrilled with the reality of always working from home. Concerns abounded for our older workers, who we worried would be derailed by all the new tech demands. In short, those assumptions were just wrong.

Data from multiple sources began to show that Gen Z was reporting the LOWEST levels of satisfaction with working remotely, followed by Millennials, Gen X, and our Boomers . Basically, the exact opposite of what we had presumed, showing in glaring clarity why generational stereotypes are never a safe bet.

More than Meets the Eye

Gentelligence ®requires us to dig deeper.

Is satisfaction working from home really just about digital savvy? Of course not.

It’s about many things, including having strong professional networks in place to help support your work, confidence in your ability to be self-directed and having the resources you need to do your work effectively. These are things our older workers had in place to a greater degree than many of our younger ones, due simply to their tenure in organizations.

Many younger workers reported greater feelings of isolation and disengagement, and these are key elements of job satisfaction. According to Kara Hamilton, Chief People Officer for Smartsheet, “Even though they may be more proficient with different technologies, the stress and uncertainty might be impacting their work in greater ways,” she stated.

Enter The Princess Bride

That’s just one way assumptions can lead us astray. In the last year, we’ve come to realize that Identifying Assumptions isn’t just about assuming all members of a particular generation fit a stereotype, it is also about a different kind of assumption: that everyone who works for us shares a common definition of important concepts.

In the wise words of The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

For example, how many times have you heard the word “flexibility” or the word “balance” in the last few months? Or perhaps, something along the lines of: “We need to craft a flexible work policy”.

You bet.

But does a Baby Millennial define flexible the same way a Gen Xer does? As a group, are our Gen Zs defining balance in a very different way than our Boomers might?

Yes, there are important differences within a generation, but also important ones that can exist at a group level between generations, and we need to consider these. Different generations have learned different norms about what it means to “work”, and these are playing into our preferences and definitions of terms that companies may be assuming we all see the same way.

Back to that magic solution you are waiting for. As companies craft their return to the office policies, I’ve received so many questions on “what Gen Zs want” “what Millennials will do” and “how to retain Boomers” (to be honest, no one usually asks me what Gen X wants, and as a Gen Xer, this does not go unnoticed…��)

Slippery Stats

I can share with you all kinds of amazing statistics that will make your head spin:

Statistics can be framed in so many ways. Usually, we frame them to help support the story we want to tell. It’s hard to make sense of what they mean, and what lessons we are supposed to take from them as we develop these important strategies that will impact our companies for years to come.

Now…are you ready for the magic answer you’ve been waiting for?

Here it is…

Personal Agency.

That’s it.

EVERY SINGLE GENERATION WANTS PERSONAL AGENCY RIGHT NOW. That means your return-to-work strategy has to provide it in order to retain your top talent (of all ages).

What is personal agency? The National Institute of Health defines it as “ the feeling of control over actions and their consequences ”.

That’s what everyone wants. Every person, every generation. Gentelligence tells us that we will likely see some interesting generational differences in how that agency plays out or what decisions it may lead to, but the underlying need for that agency is universal.

When I first saw the research showing that 74% of Gen Zs would look for a new job if their employer “insisted” they return to the office full time, I was less focused on the Gen Z part and more focused on the “insisted” part.

It’s Motivation 101.

Extensive research supports that “insisting” someone does something will, at best, get you compliance. The employee will do it because they feel like they have to, not because they want to or agree it makes sense for them or the company. Worst case, they won’t comply. They will resist, and then they will leave.

In Search of Commitment

That’s not what we want. We don’t want resistance or compliance. We want commitment: to the company, but also to the strategy. Our employees will embrace our return-to-work arrangements when they understand them, are involved in crafting them, and are given a degree of choice and autonomy in deciding what returning to the office will look like for them.

Employees who feel included in the process and understand how and why decisions were made will be more committed and more likely to stay. This is because they feel heard and seen, not as cogs in a company machine of productivity, but as valuable and complex humans that are vital for the success of an organization.

Sure, we may see different norms emerge from Gen Zs with personal agency than we end up seeing from Gen X, who are in a different life stage and began their careers with different work norms. That story is still unfolding. But return to work policies that understand the need for personal agency at their core will be the most successful ones—for all ages.

Harnessing Age Diversity Training: Introducing Gentelligence Academy

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 01:29:19 GMT

We’re taking major strides towards making age diversity training the norm in 2022! I am so honored to share that Harvard Business Review recently selected Gentelligence as the Big Idea for the first quarter of 2022, featuring our piece “ Harnessing the Power of Age Diversity “. The article came out in early March 2022 with 10,000 views on its first day and over 1000 shares.

Now it’s time to take that next big step and help people everywhere learn how to leverage age diversity training in their own teams and organizations through our brand new online learning platform, Gentelligence® Academy.

What is Gentelligence® Academy

Gentelligence® Academy was designed to give people leaders, DEI experts, executives, and proactive employees of all ages the opportunity to explore and apply what it takes to harness age diversity training to effect organizational change.

For the first time, I’ve recorded all of my Gentelligence® trainings into short, digestible chapters that can be listened to anywhere, at any time.
You’ll also find a Gentelligence® Toolkit full of practical digital exercises and thought-provoking discussions to bring to your team.
Certification is available as a powerful indicator of your commitment to culture change and next generation people leading.
You’ll also enjoy regular access to myself and others in a vibrant, multi-generational community of like-minded – and differently minded – folks along the Gentelligence® Certification journey.

Why Gentelligence® Academy is Needed

In the HBR article mentioned at the top, we share a clear business case for paying attention to your generational diversity at work: if a multi-age team is left to its own devices, the results can lead to discord at best – disaster, at worst.

Poorly managed age-diverse teams experience all those things we think of when someone says “generational differences”:

Conflict. Stress. Miscommunication.
40% of employees report believing that their company values one generation over others.
And when people of any age or generation don’t feel valuable, they leave.

Here’s where it gets interesting: none of these negative outcomes are inevitable.

They are reversible.

Research shows that when you lead and manage your age-diverse team well, you don’t just get rid of the conflict and stress, you can end up with a team that makes better decisions. How?

Age diversity training develops teams with access to broader information networks
higher engagement and retention
stronger innovation and performance vs. teams that are non age-diverse and lacking in generational training.

So, it’s not the generational differences that are causing us problems: it’s how we are managing them. That’s why we need a strategy. We need Gentelligence, and that is why we built the Gentelligence® Academy.

The Age Diversity Difference

Leveraging age diversity happens through best practices in DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) and cross-cultural management. These best practices are imparted through years of research distilled into training, discourse, and action.

If this raises your eyebrows, that’s a good first step towards progress.

Generations are, at their core, a type of culture. Culture is learnable. The experience and expertise that comes with growing up in a particular generation is a type of valuable cultural difference. Acknowledging these differences can help to ensure that nothing is left on the table when it comes to organizational success.

We can and should apply the kinds of leadership strategies that help us to learn and leverage age differences. But for some reason…we haven’t. Until now.

Join the Gentelligence® Movement

The Gentelligence® Academy not only allows you to learn and apply what it takes to harness age diversity in your organization, it also gives you the opportunity to become certified in Gentelligence®.

For leaders, certification in age diversity training signals to your teams and employees that you value the perspectives of all of your people and are dedicated to creating an organization that engages them, regardless of age and other differences.
For DEI and HR professionals, Gentelligence® opens up an entirely new avenue of diversity thought that is rarely explored or leveraged via formalized training modes.
For the rest of us, becoming Gentelligence® Certified signals to employers and managers that we are ready to work effectively across generations to drive organization-wide success.

At every level, from leadership, to DEI and HR professional, to team member or prospective employee, when we come to understand that all generations have something to learn – we also come to understand that we all have something powerful we can teach to others.

I’m so excited about this next chapter in the Gentelligence® Movement. Send me questions about the Academy, Certification, or anything you’re curious about .

I can’t wait to have you join us!

Successful Teams Need These 3 Things

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 15:34:31 GMT

Here’s a secret: left to their own devices, intergenerational teams will not naturally become successful teams. Research backs this up: teams with greater age diversity tend to experience more frustration and conflict…unless there is a proactive strategy in place to help overcome these challenges and reap the rewards that lurk underneath. Gentelligence is that strategy.

Why the conflict?

There are many reasons why age diversity can lead to conflict in otherwise successful teams, but let’s talk about one big phenomenon: age polarization. Without intervention, people in the workplace tend to gravitate to people they perceive as being similar to them in some kind of meaningful way. In this case, it’s age.

The scientific term for this is “homophily”. It’s a psychological term that taps into the safety we feel by sticking close to those we see as “like us”. According to the article Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks :

“Homophily limits people’s social worlds in a way that has powerful implications for the information they receive, the attitudes they form, and the interactions they experience.”

Think about the colleagues you are closest to at work. Chances are, they are likely similar to you in age (give or take 5-10 years).

This might not seem like a big deal, but this phenomenon can have unexpected consequences on successful teams in the workplace. When we don’t regularly interact with people who are significantly older or younger, we lack personal connections to people in other generations. This leads us to rely instead on vague generalizations of “those people”. THIS is the stuff stereotypes are made of.

How do we overcome it?

To combat those stereotypes, we have to find ways to replace generalizations with personal, trusting connections of teammates of different generations. When it comes to our most successful teams, strong connections are built up by using the Gentelligent Team Trifecta (I love a good trifecta!). It’s made up of 3 key elements: support, structure, and significance.

Support:

We lack natural trust in those we perceive as different than us, regardless of whether this is rational. When it comes to team members of different generations, age differences can be interpreted as threatening. For those who are younger, a lack of work experience can make them question whether their input will be valued by older teammates. They can also worry that their questions will be seen as a sign of a lack of competence. For older teammates, they may have similar worries–that their views will be written off as outdated, or that their questions will be perceived as critical by those wanting to try new approaches.

On both ends of the generational spectrum, the team is lacking what is known as psychological safety . Professor Amy Edmonson defines it as “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.” In other words, everyone (of every age) needs to believe their team is a safe place for them to ask questions and a safe place for them to share their best ideas. That is after all the entire point of successful teams: to build together what we cannot create on our own.

To create psychological safety, leaders need to break our natural tendencies to stay close to those similar in age, and instead proactively create meaningful opportunities for team members to both get to know each other personally as well as work together on things that matter. When we have an opportunity to hear the stories of a Baby Boomer or the first-hand experiences of a Millennial teammate, it becomes much harder to reduce them to a stereotype. When we are tasked to work together toward a shared team goal, we begin to see how the unique perspectives and expertise of those who have grown up in different times can be an asset to accomplishing what matters to us all.

At your next Zoom meeting, try setting up an anonymous poll to see how comfortable team members report being with asking questions or suggesting ideas. The answers will clue you in to the relative degree of support perceived by your team.

Structure:

The only way successful teams can create unique value is to make sure all voices have a chance to be heard. All kinds of factors associated with age and generation can make it unlikely this will happen naturally. Those with greater tenure are often looked to as the de facto captains of any team. When those natural feelings of threat emerge while faced with the input of those older or younger than us, we can begin to elbow for what the Center for Creative Leadership calls “clout.”

According to Deal, “Most conflicts have to do with the natural desire of older people to maintain their clout and the desire of younger people to increase theirs. As organizations increasingly promote younger people over older people, elders naturally work to maintain the balance of power—in their favor—by appealing to their greater experience.”

We can neutralize these issues by creating a Gentelligent team structure: establishing decision-making processes and norms that are designed to give all voices (regardless of age) equal weight and air time. There are many to choose from. In our book, we talk about strategies like anonymous input submission, where one person reads all the entries and each is given equal attention (this can be used for questions or brainstorming), removing the sometimes unconscious biases we can attach to input from those who are younger or older.

What process could you create for your own team that would allow all voices to be heard?

Significance:

We are in the midst of the Great Resignation, and employees across generations are contemplating what they want their careers to look like moving forward. The number one reason people leave their jobs? They don’t feel appreciated. This means every single member of your team needs to feel they are an important.

Our need to feel respect is a universal one. However, where we often fall into the generation gap is when we fail to realize that the way we fulfill those needs might look quite different based on our generational norms, and to some extent our life/career stage. For a team member with decades of tenure (such as our Boomers and Gen Xers), sharing the lessons they’ve learned (and how they learned them) is often seen as a way to invest in the future of the organization by passing on their earned wisdom. Especially in a time when so much attention seems to be put on the newest tools and ideas, knowing teammates value the expertise gained over time matters.

Younger team members may still be trying to prove themselves and carve out their place in the organization. Millennials and Gen Zs grew up learning that their voice mattered. Parenting norms for both these generations emphasized the importance of children’s self-esteem and placed them as the central focus of family time and resources. These formative experiences mean our younger team members need to be heard and have their input considered on its own merits, and not discounted because they come from someone with less experience.

The bottom line? Everyone needs to feel they are a valuable and important part of the team but may define these experiences differently. Ask your teammates how they define terms like “success”, “recognition” and “appreciation”–and whether they experience them as a part of your current team.

Check out chapter 6 of Gentelligence: A Revolutionary Approach to Leading an Intergenerational Workforce for more on intergenerational struggles towards forming successful teams – and practical ways to overcome them. (Fun fact: Chapter 6 was our favorite one to write!).

Resisting Assumptions: What’s a Landline?

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 15:46:16 GMT

This is a subtitle for your new post

I have to tell you a story regarding generational assumptions. Recently I received a voicemail from my friend Ty, a consultant I met during one of my first coaching courses at Gallup many years ago. Ty was on my book launch team and is in general just one of those people you want in your corner no matter what. She is the walking embodiment of charisma and even a voicemail from her is wonderfully entertaining. This one made me laugh out loud (not in the LOL kind of way, but in the literal way where I stood in my kitchen laughing so hard at her story I had to replay the message to make sure I hadn’t missed any of it). When I called her back I warned her I fully intended to steal this story. Why? Because it has everything to do with the assumptions we make and how they can break down communications.

A Tale of Two Generations

The tale starts out on a low note. Ty had a medical situation that sent her to the emergency room one morning. On her way to the hospital, the ever-responsible Ty handed her cell phone to her college-age daughter. She asked her to contact several of her clients to let them know that she had a medical emergency. She had important deliverables they were expecting from her that day. Doubled over in pain, she reiterated to her daughter that these were very important high-end clients. She made her promise she would contact them immediately. Her daughter assured her she would. And she did.

Thankfully, Ty recovered quickly and was back to work the next week. Imagine her surprise when one of those same clients reached out wanting to know why Ty missed their deadline. After doing some damage control with her Very Important Client, Ty called her daughter.

Ty: You said you contacted these people!”
Her daughter replied, “I did!”
And suddenly, Ty’s Gentelligence radar kicked in.
“Hold on. How exactly did you contact them?”
Her daughter said she had sent a text to everyone on Ty’s list.
“You texted them? Those were their office numbers! They aren’t mobile numbers, they’re landlines!”
“What’s a landline?”
…

Mind that Gap

Ah. There’s the rub. The place where we fall into the dreaded generation gap – the land of assumptions. There was a time when we would throw up our hands in frustration, curse about kids these days, and force ourselves to carry on. But that was before Gentelligence. Now the appropriate response to such a situation is instead to call me and leave the story on my voicemail because we all know this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I live for.

So let’s dissect this situation. As with most generational breakdowns, neither Ty nor her daughter was wrong in this situation. It was, however, a most excellent example of both of them forgetting the first practice of the Gentelligence Method. The Gentelligence Method is made up of four key strategies designed to decrease frustration as well as help us leverage intergenerational opportunities:

Resist Assumptions
Adjust the Lens
Strengthen Trust, and
Expand the Pie.

All four of the practices are based on the premise that Gentelligence is something we build over time. By committing to these practices, we commit to replacing our ingrained habits and behaviors. We practice becoming more aware of our own generational lenses and more appreciative of the value of a wide range of generational perspectives.

Do You See What I See

Ty’s experience is deeply rooted in the assumptions we all (regardless of age) make when we are interacting with those that grew up in a different time. We don’t usually realize the assumptions that go along with our generational identities, because to us our perspectives are obviously correct and don’t need explaining. It rarely occurs to us that others (using their own generational lenses and norms) may be looking at the same situation and seeing something entirely different.

For Ty, who is a fellow Gen Xer, it went without saying that the appropriate way to contact a professional colleague was via an office phone. When she began her career, people only had office phones and home phones. When her colleagues became friends, of course, she would reach out to them on their mobile, but not an important client with a message about needing to miss a deadline. She assumed this would be crystal clear to anyone.

Phone Home

Her daughter, a Gen Z, has grown up in a time when landlines are becoming extinct. According to a survey done by the CDC, “Among adults aged 25 to 29, 66 percent live in a house without a landline. Among the 30 to 34 age group, 60 percent live in a house without a landline.” As our oldest Gen Zs begin to move out to live on their own, it’s safe to say that almost none of them will bother setting up a landline.

The directive to “contact” her mom’s clients came with an assumption that this must mean via text. She hadn’t been given an email address, and a text seemed the obvious and most efficient way to communicate the message. Whereas her mom’s generation saved texting for those they knew well, Gen Z didn’t grow up with this distinction and has learned to use text for a wide range of interactions, both professional and personal.

It Goes Without Saying

Are we doomed to generationally-crossed wires? Not necessarily. But this is where the Resisting Assumptions practice of the Gentelligence Method becomes so important in changing these kinds of dysfunctional dynamics. When communicating across different generations, never assume . What you think goes without saying needs to be said .

When I talk with audiences about Resisting Assumptions across generations, the conversation is often about stereotypes. These are an incredibly important (and damaging) kind of assumption that we absolutely need to step away from, but they aren’t the only kind of assumption that can wreak generational havoc.

Assuming those of different ages understand the same norms as we do is also a recipe for disaster. In Ty’s case, it was the seemingly simple word “contact” that was the culprit.

What other terms are we using that might be interpreted differently than we realize?

About Generational Categories -What Everyone is Getting Wrong

Fri, 19 Nov 2021 15:53:29 GMT

Every few years, new thought pieces emerge claiming that getting rid of generational categories is the solution to ending harmful generational stereotyping. Over the last month, I’ve been sent several articles calling for the end of generations. Whether from academics who are failing to find the differences they hypothesized between Boomers and Gen Z, or journalists who have decided the answer to the dangers of generational stereotyping is to just eliminate generational categories altogether, the call to end generational labels just doesn’t quit. While these concerns are well-intentioned, they almost always miss the mark. Why? Most articles fail to grasp why generations actually matter. They also tend to offer simplistic solutions that put simply, don’t work.

An End to Stereotypes, Not Generations

Beneath the noble cries to “get rid of generations”, these articles want what I want: for generational stereotyping to stop. It’s lazy. People born within a 15-20 year time period are not all the same and cannot be fully understood or captured by a cliched generational trope.

But the solution to ending generational stereotyping is not getting rid of generational categories. One more time for the people in the back row: Stop suggesting that getting rid of generational labels is going to somehow solve this problem.

To understand why this isn’t the solution, we need some Gentelligence – generational intelligence. Gentelligence allows us to view generational differences in a smarter way, one that views this kind of diversity as an important source of potential for learning and collaboration.

Peeling Back the Layers

Generational labels are best thought of as a layer of our identity. This layer exists among many other layers: age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, the list can go on. There is room to embrace all layers of identity that influence who you are and your perspective on the world. As stated in Vanity Fair , “A generation is the creation of shared experiences, the things that happened, the things you did and listened to and read and went through, and as important, the things that did not happen.”

Growing up in a different time does influence the way we see the world and our place in it, and to eliminate generational categories is to pretend it doesn’t. But being part of a particular generation doesn’t describe everything we are; that is where those other layers of identity come in. Born at the beginning of the Millennial generation? Your age and your generation interact to create a generational lens that is different from that of the youngest Millennials.

Needs vs Fulfillment

So how different are generations, really? That’s a question I get asked often. The answer is too long for a blog post. But here’s a secret: we all share universal needs, no matter what generation we are. Research shows that all people have core needs for values like respect, connection, competence, and autonomy. In that way, people across generations aren’t different at all. This is where Gentelligence comes in. While these needs are universal, the ways in which the different generations define and pursue the fulfillment of those needs can look quite different.

Let’s take the need for autonomy. Gen Xers grew up in an era when parenting norms allowed for children to roam the neighborhood unsupervised. They became our first “ latchkey kids ” letting themselves in the house after school to enjoy a few hours of parent-free time before mom and/or dad returned from work. For this generation, autonomy at work may mean not having a boss that tells them how they do their work, preferring instead to figure it out for themselves.

Millennials, in contrast, grew up when parenting norms had shifted toward a need to schedule children’s time and fill it full of activities . In school, teachers handed out rubrics to help students understand how to fulfill (and exceed) their expectations. For Millennials, autonomy may be best defined as choosing the kind of work they find most interesting, but wanting more direction on how the work itself should be done.

Mind the Gap

When viewed through a different generational lens, we can find the behavior of those older or younger than us pretty confusing. We often end up misinterpreting it. That’s when we fall into the generation gap.

The answer to ending generational shaming isn’t getting rid of generational categories. It’s using Gentelligence to understand our similarities and differences and find more successful ways to communicate. Our generational lenses are full of potential, and it’s time to start treating them that way.

Generational Differences: 5 Questions You Should be Asking Right Now

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 16:11:22 GMT

Greetings! My blog has been quiet lately, but conversations about generational differences have been popping up all over the world! We are getting ready to launch an all-new monthly Genelligence blog series sharing my favorite tips and tools for creating intergenerational learning and collaboration. Look for that starting in November!

Before that launches, here’s a quick update on some of the great Gentelligence discussions we’ve been having lately. From a podcast out of the UK to a group of luxury marketing professionals to Harvard Business Review, questions about generational differences are front of mind for many. This reinforces that the potential of Gentelligence is a relevant conversation just about anywhere.

Here are some of the most eye-opening questions I’ve been exploring with amazing collaborators on recent podcasts, webinars, and publications:

These are just 5 of my favorite conversations on Gentelligence over the last few months. I’d love to hear how the role of generational diversity is sparking discussions in your corner of the world.

Tweet me @profgerhardt and tell me what questions you want to see me cover next!

Gentelligence is Everywhere These Days: Can you see it?

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 17:05:22 GMT

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” -Thoreau

I’ve barely been able to keep up over the last few weeks: Gentelligence is everywhere. I know, I know–maybe I’m seeing it everywhere because it’s pretty much where my head is at all the time these days. But there are signs of it everywhere I look. Here’s just a few examples…

The Vaccine Angels.

Two days ago, my brother-in-law (a Gen Xer) texted me that he had managed to snag two vaccine appointments online for my parents (both in their 70s). They’ve been on their county public health list for more than a month. No call so far. My brother-in-law is a high school teacher and has been proactively searching out vaccine appointments. After securing one, he used his internet savvy to see if he could get my parents signed up as well since they are also eligible in the current phase of the rollout.

He got them both appointments on Valentine’s Day. This means he’s our family’s version of a “vaccine angel” . That term has gained popularity in the last few weeks, referring to younger, tech-savvy citizens who are using their digital prowess to scour the internet to find those scarce vaccine appointments for seniors who need them the most (but are least likely to feel comfortable navigating the online space). That, folks, is a perfect example of Gentelligence in action.

Game Stop.

I know there’s a lot of moving parts to the whole GameStop drama. I lack the stock market savvy to speak expertly about the nuances of what really happened. But from where I’m standing, a bunch of Millennials and Gen Zs banded together and used the tools that are clearly the stomping ground of their generations to pull off something fairly extraordinary (and I’m not alone in this view!)

As a (super hip and awesome) Gen Xer, I know Reddit exists. My 15 year-old often texts me Reddit threads that I don’t understand. But if my life or livelihood depended on navigating Reddit, I’d be in trouble. I have friends my age who heard about the Game Stop rebellion and commented, “Man, I should have been in on that!” But really, we weren’t going to be.

Lack of Reddit-savvy notwithstanding, it’s unlikely those of us in our 40s and 50s (or beyond) were going to feel confident taking stock advice from the “Wolves of Reddit”. We weren’t going to follow a movement involving investing money led by a guy who went by the name “DeepF—ing Value” (or Roaring Kitty, if you check YouTube. Which we really don’t). We grew up believing that the stock market was a very SERIOUS business. Something best handled by well-dressed brokers and requiring the insights of a very serious, stable operation like a Charles Schwab. Gen Xers have been relatively willing to jump on the social media wagon, but for fun and entertainment, people–not stock tips. This was something that really could have only been pulled off by the Millennials and Gen Z, using the tools they understand better than the rest of us.

Super Bowl LV.

It was hard to find a news outlet that WASN’T talking about the age gap between Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes in the weeks leading up to Super Bowl LV. Brady, a Gen Xer, had 18 years on Mahomes (a Millennial, but barely). I couldn’t resist jumping on this–I know little about football, but I know a lot about generation gaps, age, and leadership–and those were all I could see when it came to the impending Super Bowl. My piece on what we look for in leaders of different ages appeared here in NBC News the day before the big game.

The White House.

I found the 2020 election intriguing in many ways, starting with the generational dynamics of the Democratic primary (a Millennial was in the mix for the first time, but Buttigieg didn’t resonate with his own generation– here’s my piece from last year on that interesting dynamic).

The front runners were from the Silent generation, which has NEVER had a president before, despite the youngest members of that generation turning 76 years old this year. Younger voters were turning out in numbers not seen in a while but weren’t necessarily voting for the candidates that were closest to them in age (Gen Z, as a general rule, loved Bernie. Have you seen the meme ?).

Once Biden was announced as the Democratic candidate, his choice of Kamala Harris as a running mate energized his support. Harris herself was the subject of a generational custody battle, with both Boomers and Gen Xers making the case that she belonged in their generational tribe. I wrote about this phenomenon too–you can check it out here .

I will admit that I am on the lookout, which might be why Gentelligence® is everywhere. But part of my mission is to help others begin to see it as well when they look at the world–it often is at the heart of innovation, and a lack of it is frequently the cause of misunderstandings and miscommunications. “Not Gentelligent!” and “That’s Gentelligence® right there” are lenses through which I see so much now. How about you?

Gentelligence: About Those Millennials

Sun, 10 Jan 2021 17:15:20 GMT

Happy New Year! 2021 is the Year of Gentelligence. The book is coming out in June. and I’m dedicating this winter and spring to sharing tools and ideas to help you build up your Gentelligence. Our 2021 Gentelligence lessons start with a better understanding of the Millennials. (And just so you know, I love Millennials. I did a TEDx talk about it, so you know it’s true). A force to be reckoned with, they upended the way many workplaces had been thinking about younger talent and brought generational differences back into the forefront of conversation (and headlines ). Gentelligence tells us that we can only begin to learn and teach a generation if we take time to understand them, and how their generational identity has contributed to how they see the world.

Happy 40th Birthday, Millennials!

This past week on my social media , I wished our oldest Millennials a happy 40th birthday in 2021. That’s right–while so many enjoy using the term “Millennial” to refer to all young people, they are not forever suspended in time. Born 1981-1996, they will be 25-40 years old in 2021. Still “young”, relatively speaking, but not “punk teenager” young. Not “kids these days” young. So the first Gentelligence lesson of this year is to stop using the word as a sweeping term for young people that disagree with you (doing this makes us no better than those using the “OK Boomer” retort, and we can all do better).

More insight on the Millennials: I often am asked why this generation are called “Millennials” if their birth years don’t include the actual…Millennium. (There’s much debate about generational cutoffs, but I like to nip that in the bud and use the Pew Research Center ‘s ranges on this. As with any subject, research and insights cannot move ahead if we are stuck forever in arguing what framework to use. Generations are determined using a lot of factors–formative events in society and culture that are likely to result in different collective experiences for those growing up during different periods of time. It’s an art and also a science of sorts. So I’m calling for everyone interested to just get on board with the Pew Research Center’s guidelines and end this nonsense so we can move on). Everyone with me?

Drawing Lines

Back to the Millennium. I love the school of thought behind generational cutoffs. Because we want a generation to represent a group of people who have experienced formative events during a similar life stage, we think about the things that will likely change how they grow up, the challenges they will face, and the opportunities they will have.

Among other notables, 9/11 and the turning of the Millennium are some of the key events we believe have influenced the early years of this generation. Our oldest Millennials would be coming of age at the turn of the Millennium. To determine a cutoff, we had to determine how old would one need to be at the turn of the century to remember it. It was decided that 4 years old was a reasonable age. Those 4 at the turn of the century would be about 5 when 9/11 occurred. And so the cutoff for the Millennial Generation was established for 1996.

Entitled or Proactive?

Interesting, right? Every generation has these kinds of formative stories, and understanding them can help us develop a greater understanding of why different generations may have a different lens through which they see the world. There’s a quote I love by Elwood Carlson , who said, “Generations help us understand the context in which your life has unfolded.”

Millennials developed a strong reputation for being outspoken and demanding–the most frequently used word used to describe them has been “entitled”. Yet if we dig deeper into the zeitgeist of the world when Millennials were growing up, we can see where this reputation may have come from, and we may also be able to step back and reframe our judgments about it.

Older generations were raised with more of a “children should be seen and not heard” mentality. This approach to parenting was long gone by the time the first Millennials were born. They were the children of Baby Boomers who had worked hard to accomplish career success (and often the monetary success that came with it). The Boomers wanted to give their kids opportunities they didn’t have had as children of the Greatest Generation (who struggled to rebound economically after the Great Depression and WWII).

To Whom Much is Given, Much is Expected.

What would be possible for our children if they were given every opportunity for education, development, and success??? It was a way for the driven and optimistic Baby Boomers to unlock yet another level of achievement and success–by raising fully developed and highly successful children.

This led to kids being enrolled in classes and sports earlier than we had ever seen before. Mommy and Me classes, Itty Bitty Soccer, early language immersion, three-year-olds taking Spanish. This began to breed a bit of competition and FOMO (fear of missing out, for you less hip kids) in this generation, and in their parents. Little Jimmy needed to be in town for the summer or he couldn’t be on the Little League team! And if he wasn’t on the Little League team, he wouldn’t be ready for junior varsity! And that would mean he might not play baseball in college! So he better start at age 4, and mom and dad needed to drive him to practice every night and cancel summer vacation so he wouldn’t be behind or miss out on the opportunity.

Trophies for Everyone!

Thus the era of the “trophy kids” was born. Everyone expected to make the team so they wouldn’t miss out on opportunities. This was also the beginning of “helicopter parents”. Parents hovering just close enough to make sure their kids were included and treated like the special people they were. While well-intentioned, this level of attention and intervention resulted in a generation with almost no free time to be bored. It also meant they had little chance for failure, or to develop the same kinds of resiliency that had been built into past generations.

By the time these kids applied for college, the pressure was pretty intense . When I (a Gen Xer) applied to college in 1994, you basically just needed to have a respectable ACT score and a high school diploma to get into the school of your choice. By the time the first Millennials went to college, they needed to show a steady record of extracurriculars and leadership ability. 18-year-old bilingual soccer team captains who were proficient in the flute and volunteered for Meals on Wheels had become the norm.

As a professor, I was asked a few years ago to help review the applications for a prestigious full-ride scholarship to our university. I was both humbled and terrified. These kids had started non-profits. Developed sources of clean water for third world countries. Ran for office! All before age 18. What was I doing with my life? (Was there any hope for my teenager, sitting at home playing X-box?)

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the children that were so highly invested in arrived at universities and workplaces ready to be heard. The children whose schedules and needs drove the priorities of the family? They grew up into driven adults with high expectations for their own development and contributions.

You Say Entitled, They Say Proactive

They were the most educated, invested-in generation we had ever produced, and wanted to bring that same level of intensity to their careers. For older generations that had been expected to start at the bottom of the corporate ladder and work their way up, this thirst for advancement and development looked a lot like entitlement. But to our Millennials, it was simply being proactive and receiving the same level of attention and involvement they had experienced throughout their lives.

This was the dynamic I first stepped into when I began doing generational consulting in the early 2000s. Managers (most of them Baby Boomers) were tearing out their hair trying to figure out how to understand and lead “those Millennials”. Yet ironically, many of them were the parents of children the same age as their young employees. They admitted they had raised their own Millennial kids with similar drive and expectations of the world around them. But when these needs came instead from their employees, it was a completely different animal, thus setting the stage for years of angst and generational tension in the workplace.

But those Millennials are no longer kids. They are now the ones hiring and training an entirely new generation of employees. The future of generational dynamics will be determined by today’s Millennial managers, who stand to be leading our companies for decades to come. Will they embrace the generational differences the Zoomers will bring their door? Or dig in their heels wanting things done the way they have always done them? Stay tuned.

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Gentelligence

Why Generation A Might Just Be the...Analog Generation

Out of Respect: Generational Differences Captured in One Sentence

What if every generation is trying to be respectful, but what that means is entirely different depending on when you grew up?

I asked AI to rewrite my email like a Gen Z. And a Millennial. And A Gen Xer. And a Boomer. Watch What Happened.

you're going to love this.

When 'Common Sense' Isn't Common Across Generations: The Curse of Knowledge

I can name that tune...

Gen Z Wants Pet Insurance and Other Things I Never Thought I'd Say

Maybe i do too.

Then + Now

It wasn't a planned comment.

How Can They Not Understand That? Making the Implicit, Explicit

I've always loved invisible ink.

Why Gen Needs to End That Text With an Emoji (haha, lol)

the plot thickens.

Is Your Workplace Multi-Generational or Intergenerational? It Matters

(hint: one works, the other doesn't).

Generational Fish

Here's the thing about water.

Mac and cheese

The 90 percent

3 Things HR Must Do to Build Gentelligence

What Happens When We Shame & Judge a Generation For Growing Up in a Completely Different Time?

Reframe: Say This, Not That When Navigating Generational Differences @ Work

Thank You, Next…We’ll Wait for the Next Generation Instead

Who You Gonna Call? Crossing the Streams of Gen Z and the Boomers at Work

﻿

Building Healthy Generational Workplaces

﻿

Tools for Intergenerational Communication: Welcome to the 3rd Conversation

I Love You, Period

How the Wizard of Oz Can Help Us Lead Gen Z

Gen X Trifecta: 3 Key Cultural Touchstones

Why Does it Matter?

Here’s to the Cuspers: Born Between Generations

Microgenerations

We mention cuspers only briefly in our Gentelligence ® book:

Keeping up with Generation Jones

I Just Realized I’m a Xennial

When is it too much?

Layers Not Boxes

How Many Gen Zs Does it Take to Dial a Rotary Phone? I found out.

Why Generations Matter, But Not in the Way We Keep Pretending They Do: It’s Not a Magic Decoder Ring.

Part I: Layers of Identity

﻿

Part II: Generational Norms

We Don’t Need No Education: How the Boomers Can Pass On What They’ve Learned

Leaders Think Gen Z Doesn’t Want to Work. Here’s Why They Are Wrong

Enough of this “Gen Z doesn’t want to work” narrative.

First, Practice 1: Identify Assumptions.

Observations of Generational Differences

Practice 2: Adjust the Lens.

Practice 3: Build Trust

Practice 4: Expand the Pie

Age-Based Microaggressions: The One Phrase You Need to Squash Them

Here are a few exam ples of age based microaggressions from my current collection:

Age Based Microaggression 1: The Microassault

Age Based Microagression 2: The Microinsult

Age Based Microaggression 3: The Microinvalidation

Do age based microaggressions really matter? Yes.

Quiet Quitting is Not the Problem For Gen Z and Work

This is Gen Z & Quiet Quitting Is Not The Problem

Embracing Gen Z

Autonomy & Connection

It’s Not All About Productivity, People

Think about it:

Enter Genetlligence: Pushing Beyond Gen Z Stereotypes

It wasn’t a lack of comfort with technology that was the issue.

Quiet Quitting is the Symptom. Here’s the source.

Here are the elements included in their Employee Engagement Scorecard, a common way to measure engagement:

Employee engagement matters for all ages and generations.

The Hotmail Generation: What could your email address say about your age?

You’ve Got Mail!

Here We Are Now…Entertain Us.

Me Me Me.com

@generation.com

Pete Buttigieg, Pilots, and the Continuing Myth of the Zero-Sum Age Game

Pete Buttigieg & the Zero Sum Game ﻿

Happy 65th Birthday, Pilots!

Pete Buttigieg & the Zero Sum Game

What is Gentelligence® Academy