134. How to manage and lead Gen Z in the workplace

Transcript – Episode 134: How to manage and lead Gen Z in the workplace

Joe: How are you supposed to lead these Gen Z workers who are unprepared, can’t cope, and don’t want to work? Well, it starts by recognizing that none of what I just said is actually true. [music]

Joe: Hello again friends and welcome to the Boss Better Now podcast sponsored by Boss Hero School where we teach leaders and business owners how to activate employee commitment in today’s everchanging workplace. All right, today I’m going to give you some highlights from one of the modules in our Boss Hero School curriculum on what it takes to activate employee commitment among early career professionals. Now, a lot has been said about these folks. If you read the news, if you’ve participated in any conversations about this, there’s a clear narrative that has coalesced around Gen Z in the workplace, we hear uh stories of them being lazy, of them being entitled, of them being soft, of them being unable to communicate. We create this whole list of character defects that we apply to them. The only problem is that these are the same things that were said about every generation entering the workplace going back decades. The truth is that the there are persistent generational tropes that exist in human history. And all of the things that we are saying about the people coming in behind us are all the same things that were said about you when you got here. There’s actually a name for this this pattern in sociological research. is called the illusion of moral decline. It turns out that as we age and get into our 30s and 40s, our brains do a little bit of revisionist history about who we were and what we went through when we started our careers and what we endured to get where we are. We have to understand that most of the time when young people are coming into the workplace, they’re not coming in lazy or entitled. They’re just young. And if we take just a moment to step back and remove character judgment from the equation and just ask ourselves, what do young people need when they enter the workplace? You arrive at the center of what it takes to lead them effectively? Because what young people need when they enter the workplace more than anything else is patience and mentoring. By the way, guess what nobody has time for anymore and at work? It’s patience and mentoring. Now, it is true that this generation is coming to us with some unique experiences that shape what they do and don’t bring to the workplace. For example, a lot of folks that we categorize as Gen Z workers didn’t get the high school part-time jobs or the college internships or practicums to help them prepare for the workplace because of where CO landed on their journey. And so yeah, they didn’t get to practice communication skills or going to meetings or managing their time in those ways in the workplace. So, there is that piece to consider. We also know that right now for this generation, their start of career economics are the worst for any generation entering the workplace in the last 50 to 60 years. If you really pay attention to what these folks are being asked to endure, the math doesn’t math. when you look at what housing costs, transportation, food, these are professionals who are being asked to operate in a middle-class existence at entry-level wages. And so, when we see young professionals pushing for higher wages or moving around to try to grow their compensation, it’s not because they’re greedy, it’s because they’re trying to survive. We also know that this generation’s communication style has been massively shaped by technology. And so, yeah, when they get into the workplace, they don’t always know what the norms and best practices are for communicating in in written mediums, for example, on Slack channels or in emails. But think of it this way. If you had an early career professional who had not yet been trained on the software that you use in your company, you wouldn’t call them immature or unprofessional for not knowing how to use that software. Maybe we need to think to think about our early career professionals and their communication styles in the same way that they just need to be taught how to do these things in the way that we want them to do it. And yes, this is a generation coming into the workplace that is rejecting hustle culture and overwork. We know that generationally the priorities of one generation tend to reflect things that the previous generation tolerated but that the next generation is trying to correct. And I don’t think anybody’s going to argue that my generation and the generation ahead of mine has been caught up in decades of overwork of living to work and that we’ve seen the boundaries for what healthy work life balance looks like erode year after year. Gen Z is pushing back against that. Yes, they care about their career, but they care just as much about quality of life. And they’re making decisions about employment that incorporate that. Now, it’s important to absorb all of this. It’s important to take a moment and call this all out for one simple reason. You as a leader or business owner are not going to invest time and patience into mentoring young professionals if you believe that they are lacking in character. And so, we have to have a conversation that shifts us away from these folks as having a whole set of character defects to actually just having some professional inexperience or deficits that through coaching and mentoring we can help them pretty quickly overcome. Now, as part of this conversation on Gen Z, there’s some neuroscience that we need to bring into the equation, too. We know that for all of us, no matter what generation we’re in, in the earliest stages of our career, how we show up and the degree to which we want to part with effort is heavily influenced by our perceptions of social status and competency. In other words, if I’m an early career professional and I am made to feel incompetent either internally or in front of others, I am going to shut down. I’m going to withdraw. I’m going to check out. So, the interactions that I have in the workplace, especially with my boss, they kind of have to help preserve my dignity. Think of all the things that you heard or were said to you earlier in early in your career that left you feeling insulted or dismissed. You know, there’s that person on the team who says to the young workers, “Oh, you’re just a baby.” Or that guy who says, “I’ve got socks older than you, kid.” Those comments are doing harm. They’re leading that person to feel dismissed and incompetent, they’re going to shut down and they’re not going to be want to be a part of what you’re doing. The takeaway here with all of this is that if you want to lead Gen Z effectively in the workplace and unleash their talent, their potential, and their effort, we have to adopt a mentor mindset that balances challenge and support and helps them to earn standing quickly. So, here are a couple of tips on some things that you can do as a leader to get them where you want them to go. Number one, create earned prestige. You have to understand that early career professionals, they don’t want grunt work or basic things that are given to them because we assume they’re incompetent. That doesn’t mean we can’t give them basic things. But rather than giving them word work that’s grunt work and baseline and obviously treats them as incompetent, we give them those basic things and we say, “Hey, I know this is pretty basic stuff, but this is the foundation that we’re building with you.” And so, you’re setting up immediately that this is a growth opportunity for them to learn the basics. The other thing that you’re going to want to think about is how can you give them an opportunity to demonstrate their worth and their value and make meaningful contributions quickly. We need to create paths for early career professionals to get wins quickly. And we do that with mentoring and support. So, the challenge here is how can you give them real work that has a certain amount of incrementalism to it where you’re there with them along the way trusting them coaching them and guiding them but actually having them make those meaningful contributions. You’re going to have to figure out what that looks like in your organization or in these early career job roles. But just giving people basic work and not giving them an opportunity to actually make meaningful contributions is a quick way to dis to create some um dissatisfaction among early career professionals. And so how can you help create earned prestige for them in the workplace? They want to earn their way into standing as quickly as possible. The second tip is that I want you to constantly speak to their potential. We have to approach the youngest workers on our team with a judgment not of who they are currently or what they bring currently, but who do they have the potential to be, what do they have the potential to contribute? And when you speak to someone’s potential, you’re treating them as special. You’re treating them as having a bright future. And we do this in a couple of places. We can do this upon hiring. We can tell someone, “I’m really excited that you said yes and that you’re going to be a part of this team. I know you’re at the start of your career, but I see big things for you. I’m really excited about the unique perspective that you bring. And once we get you trained and once we get you up and running on a couple of things, I’m really excited to watch you bloom in this role.” With that kind of dialogue, you’ve already set up that there’s a growth plan and a trajectory that this person’s going to be on from the minute that they get there. The other place that you can do this is when you delegate work. When you hand things off to these folks, you can start to say, “Hey, I’m going to give you this, and I know that some pieces and parts of this you might not already know how to do, but we’re going to work on it together.” Or you delegate and say, “I know that you’re ready to own pieces of this, so let’s have you own this piece of this.” or maybe there comes a point where they can own something completely. When you delegate meaningful work to people and you do it because of the potential that they bring, you lead them to feel capable and that’s going to unleash their effort. The other time that I want you to speak to their potential is when you’re giving them feedback, especially corrective feedback. There’s a lot of research around this and it’s something called wise feedback. We’ve recognized that among the youngest professionals in the workplace, when you share corrective feedback and then pair it with a statement that speaks to their potential, you dramatically increase the likelihood that it’s going to be heard and acted on. Here’s what it sounds like. You give the piece of corrective feedback. You tell them what you need them to do differently. And then you say, “I’m giving you this feedback because I have really high standards and I know you can meet them.” those, you know, 14 or 15 words, I’m giving you this feedback because I have really high standards and I know you can meet them, speaks to what they are capable of and it shows them that you care enough about them to hold them to a higher standard and that’s going to supercharge effort. Now, you don’t have to use that turn of phrase in the exact same way every single time. You might say something to the effect of, “I keep pushing you because I believe in your talent and your potential.” When we feel like our boss, our supervisor, is on our side and believes in us, we are much more likely to hear what they’re asking us to hear, you, as a leader, are going to buy yourself more trust and influence to coach and correct when that person across from you believes you’re in their corner. And the last tip for today is to ask before you tell. We have to think about that mentoring relationship as consultative a little bit more than directive. Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t get to tell your direct reports what to do, but if you can pick your spots and ask them if they’d be interested in something that you what you’d like to share with them and give them the chance to give you permission to do it, they’re going to hear it more clearly and it’s going to feel more consultative to them. So, for example, if you’re giving a new hire a role in presenting at an upcoming meeting, don’t say, “Hey, here’s what you’re going to need to do to make sure they understand this piece that you’re presenting.” Instead, ask, “Hey, do you want some tips on how this group likes to receive information so that your piece is heard and well understood?” This helps us stay away from what is sometimes referred to as grown-splaining, right? If you just tell everybody what to do and then get out of the way, it actually leads people to feel incompetent. But if you say to the person, “Hey, would you be interested in some advice on how to make this piece easier?” They give you permission and they come to that conversation as a willing partner. Now, you can pair all these things together. For example, if you have somebody who has been uh coming into work right at their start time and you want to give them some feedback around that, pair that wise feedback sentence with this idea that you’re speaking to their potential by saying, “Hey, I’ve noticed that, you know, you’ve been coming to work right at your start time the last couple of weeks, and I thought you might be interested in some tips on how to make the start of your day a little bit less stress stressful.” I would actually invite you to consider that if you got to work just a few minutes earlier, it would be a little bit of a less stressful start to the day. And also, that’s how you make sure that you are at your best for our customers and the other people that you’re working with. And you know what? I thought I would mention this to you because you told me that you want honest feedback, which I really respect. That last sentence I just used, by the way, is a variation of that wise feedback sentence I gave you earlier. So, there you have it, folks. My advice to you is that if you’re hiring Gen Z workers, stop expecting fully baked professionals. If you can switch your mindset from one of these people having a deficit to them being a resource, if you can focus not on what they lack, but on the unique perspective and insight they bring and the potential that they have, you’re going to come to lead them in the right way. Change the story in your brain. Not that these folks have character defects, but that they are raw talents who could become potential stars if they’re giving given mentoring and support. And that if you can show up and provide that in the way that you lead, the sky’s is the limit. So, there you have it, friends. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Drop a comment in the box below the video here on YouTube or if you’re listening on your favorite podcast channel, you can tell me your thoughts by saying sending an email to boss bettergmail.com. Thanks for being here. See you next time.

Joe: It’s rooms like this one where when we gather together for a couple of days at a time to really understand what it takes to activate employee commitment in the workplace that [music] leaders experience profound transformation. If you’ve been wondering how to [music] take your leadership knowledge and skills to the next level, if you want to go deeper on [music] what it takes to be successful at leading people in today’s everchanging workplace, then you should check out Boss Hero School. Over 3 days, I’m going to teach you both the methods and the mindset for activating [music] employee commitment in the workplace. This is not theory. We are getting into the weeds. We are upleveling your skills. We are giving you scripts. We are giving you blueprints and frameworks that you can take [music] back to your workplaces to meet people where they are and propel them forward doing whatever it is you’re asking them to do [music] on the job. For more information, visit bossheroschool.com.