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

Megan Gerhardt • June 29, 2023

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.

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

By Megan Gerhardt • February 13, 2026

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.