Why is Everybody Always Picking on Gen Z?
Photo by #NIKEIYOMIURI + #YORUKOKABUYA | TicTok
Word Count: About 1,100 words, with an approximate reading time of 4 to 6 minutes. Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Please be kind and follow and subscribe to this newsletter on either LinkedIn or Medium.
My website’s recommended reading page has links to purchase the books discussed in this and previous newsletters.
Over the last few weeks, I have seen dozens of articles focusing on Gen Z and their poor work performance. Last week, I had a conversation at the golf course with a Gen Z worker who criticized his peers for not being hard-working. The articles focus on people who entered the workforce in the last five or six years.
One important caveat. The articles lump everyone in a single basket, which we all know is not true or fair.
Some Criticisms
Gen Z’s lack of motivation is often attributed to their perceptions of how companies treat employees, including company actions taken during the pandemic and the 2008 financial crisis. Seeing how these events affected their parents left many skeptical.
This generation is also criticized for putting too much emphasis on ‘work-life balance.’ They reject the need to go above and beyond for any reason.
This attitude has resulted in passive-aggressive behaviors like Quiet Quitting and Minimal Effort Mondays. Tools like mouse jigglers, screen mirrors, and keystroke software that mimic product work only reinforce these negative perceptions.
What Leaders Can Do
Recent entrants to the workforce experience something no one else living today experiences—the COVID lockdown. Whether in high school, college, or work, this generation spent two years isolated from their peers. This experience affects how they see work and subjected them to unique stresses and mental health issues. Leaders need to meet the new generation where they are and help them move forward. They need to be more patient than they had to be in the past.
What the Current Generation Needs to Learn
Know that the following two statements are always true and always present.
Life is good.
Life is hard.
There are ups and downs, but these truths are constant. The more you embrace the hard parts of life, the more rewarding it will be over time. The extra work and occasional long nights and weekends are where you learn how the world works. Those unwilling to put in the extra effort will not earn the trust of their co-workers and managers. Skill and experience are important, but you will not be given the best opportunities if people do not trust you to come through when times are tough.
Play the long game. Your career will last forty or more years. If you want continuous opportunities to grow and succeed, you have to do the early work to learn your craft and how to work within your company culture. To do this, you have to immerse yourself in your profession. To have a comfortable retirement, you must start proactively managing your career in your twenties.
Related Articles
3 Reasons Gen Z Is Getting Fired From The Workplace — A Psychologist Explains | Forbes
Companies are quickly firing Gen Z employees | Team-BHP
Young People Are Balking at Becoming Managers | Newser
How to progress in your career without becoming a manager |Yahoo!Finance UK
5 Ways’ Conscious Unbossing’ Can Help Gen-Z Climb The Career Ladder | Forbes
Work Stress is #1 Threat to Employee Mental Wellness, Per Report | Athletech
The Coasters – Charlie Brown (Why is everybody always picking on me?)| YouTube
Chips and Salsa: Snack-sized news and posts
I am eagerly awaiting the grand opening. I have the privilege of volunteering for the National Medal of Honor Museum. It is less than five miles from my house.
I always enjoyed Calvin and Hobbes. This final story about a boy and his tiger is well-written and touching, and an excellent ending to their saga.
Calvin? Calvin, sweetheart? | Calvin and Hobbes
Pundits are usually wrong, and the most vocal are often wrong. Nate Silver explains this in The Signal and the Noise.
Six-Chart Sunday (#41) – Nobody Knows Nothin’ About Nothin’ | Bruce Mehlman
This is an interesting article about how humans make decisions.
Distinction Bias: Why You Make Terrible Life Choices | Nir and Far
Make time to be healthy. The dividends are amazing. My wife and I are members of Inner Strength. They focus on personal training for people over the age of fifty.
1 big thing: Your body’s supporting cast | Axios
Happy Diwali to my friends. It feels early this year.
Adapting Old Diwali Celebrations To A New World | Medium
The last point is the most important. Choose the system that best helps you manage your work and stick to it. The first two points are half of the Eisenhower Decision Matrix.
A CEO’s Guide to To-Do Lists: How to Organize and Prioritize Your Tasks | Inc.
With the cost of natural disasters rising, changes need to happen within the insurance industry. No individual firm can sustain these massive losses over time.
A NY nonprofit is piloting community-based flood insurance. Could it be a model? | Marketplace
Things are changing fast in the home insurance market | Marketplace
An ‘Obamacare’ for homeowners insurance could protect against climate change | The Hill
Solutions to Catastrophe Insurance Post-Hurricanes | Rutgers Law School
A little bit of math for wonky people like me.
‘Groups’ Underpin Modern Math. Here’s How They Work | Wired
Some movies premiere with high praise and age poorly. Others are released to poor reviews but become regarded as great with time and reflective thought. The criteria used to review movies are constantly changing. If you watch them while respecting the mores of the era in which they were made, their greatness shines through. Some Like It Hot and Mrs. Doubtfire are a perfect example. In today’s world, comedies about men dressing as women would result in a political firestorm.
What Makes a Movie Hateable? A Statistical Analysis | Stat Significant
Quotes
“The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.”
- A. A. Milne
“The more danger, the greater the glory.”
- John Adams
“We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.”
- Joseph Campbell
You can order The Leader With A Thousand Faces on the Recommended Reading Page of my website.
My goal is to make this newsletter as interesting and valuable as possible. Please share your thoughts and suggestions for improvement. If there are specific topics in leadership you would like me to focus on in future issues, please send them my way.
