Sean Riley: So with all the fancy introductions outof the way, welcome to the podcast, Kim.
Kim Lear: Thank you for having me.
Sean Riley: Oh, the pleasure is all ours. So youspoke at PMMI's recent annual meeting and it was the largest annual meetingPMMI's ever had, and your presentation was very well received with dozens anddozens of audience questions, and I was able to access the extra audiencequestions that we couldn't get to just because we ran out of time. I have someof those questions and I was hoping we could continue the conversation based onyour presentation. The questions are coming from me, but they also are tiedinto what the audience was interested in. So anyway, the lead off, how do youthink generational differences in work ethic, especially between... I thinkthey're kind of lumping together, Baby Boomers, Gen X and Millennials, Gen Z,how do you think the generational differences in work ethics impactcollaboration and productivity in the workplace?
Kim Lear: Yeah, it's a good question and it comesup. The nice thing from a research standpoint about this question is that it'svery evergreen because I know I mentioned this in my presentation, but theolder generation never really thought the younger generation had a great workethic. And there's a lot of different historical examples that we can pullfrom. But even if you look at what traditionalists said about Baby Boomers, andyou think about that, right now, we feel like we have these huge generationalgaps. But you think about the gap between traditionalists and Baby Boomers, andover half of traditionalist men were veterans of World War II or the KoreanWar, and Baby Boomers had a really different makeup. And so these things havein some ways always existed. But I do think that there are kind of two thingshappening. One is that in a lot of workplaces, the way that technology isintegrated and the way that it's leveraged fundamentally changes the amount oftime that is required to complete tasks. And so when we think about work ethic,a lot of times what we're really thinking about is sometimes, not always, but alot of times, we're not necessarily thinking about the actual output or thequality of the output, we're thinking about the time allocated to the input.And that has changed. And part of that is technology. And even when you reviewscience fiction books from the 1920s having this huge geofuturistic vision oftechnology, this was kind of the original vision, that people could livewherever they wanted and have all this freedom of time because technology wouldmake their lives easier. And then in some ways, what was imagined in some wayscame true. And now we're like, "Well, wait a minute." So I thinkthat's part of it. On the other hand, I do think that younger generations havea real misunderstanding around the sacrifices that other generations had tomake. And so again, I think work ethic and sacrifice are very intertwined inthose conversations. And when I talk to Baby Boomers, traditionalists, some GenXers about their journeys to success, they are filled with sacrifices. Wedidn't have the technology that we do today where there can be some moreflexibility and that type of thing. And so their journey to success was a lotof missed anniversary dinners, it was a lot of missed dance recitals andsoftball games and things like that. So then when a new generation comes in andis like, "Well, I'm not going to do that," then in a very human way,feels like an incredible sign of disrespect. And so I think that there's kindof a place for all generations to bend here a little bit, on one end,understanding the way that properly leveraged technology changes the amount ofinput that needs to be in place in order to have great output. And then on theother side, understanding that the things that we have today were oftentimes adirect result of sacrifices made by other generations. And to have some respectand understanding for that.
Sean Riley: Right. Yeah, and I completely understandand that's a great way of describing it where it's not the work ethic so muchas the work input. And I guess what I'm thinking is for work environments, howdo you get past, I don't really have any other word for it than get past theresentment that you would get from the older generation?
Kim Lear: And this is so I almost cliche, but Ithink some of it is when we have a historical context, even if it's in atraining and development opportunity, when it's in a lunch and learn, I mean,it can be something sort of simple, but people do need to be reminded that ifyou're 65 right now, your life most of the time, not every time, but on theaverage, your life was actually significantly easier than the life of yourparents. And so sometimes, we always have to be to kind of keep ourselves incheck of being like, "All right, I have some of this resentment, but Iwonder how my parents' generation really thought about me." And then youkind of understand that you're part of that, that there's this generationalhazing that always exists. And the best leaders, the visionary leaders, thebridge builders are people who can get themselves out of that cycle. And to notalways be stuck in this idea of you cannot have what I have unless you gothrough exactly what I went through, because it halts progress for everyone. SoI think sometimes it is the recognition and the understanding. I think theother piece here is that managers and leaders have to be very prescriptiveright now about what excellent output looks like. And oftentimes, inorganizations where the expectation is that the result is excellent, a lot ofthat animosity disappears, only because even if the input is less, becausetechnology is properly leveraged, if the output can speak for itself, and ifobjective leaders even in any generation can look at what was created and say,"You know what? This is great work," then that resentment a lot oftimes can be overcome. Also, as long as the individual is respectful. So that'swhat I would say is have very, very clear articulated expectations about what excellencelooks like within your organization. And someone kind of sucking is not agenerational thing. There are people who kind of suck in every generation and-
Sean Riley: You're either good at your job or you'renot.
Kim Lear: Exactly. And so I think that that issomething to keep in mind as well. But yes, you want to make sure that that isgreat and that there's a culture of respect and then having some honestconversations about generational hazing, some awareness around historicalcontext for resentment and animosity. And a lot of times, surprisingly, thatcan be enough to get people over that hump.
Sean Riley: And that delves in nicely to anotherquestion I want to ask. You spoke at the annual meeting about Gen X'sindependence and Gen X's skepticism. And this is something you may have alreadyanswered with your other answer and your answer might be, "Yeah, I kind ofalready touched on that, Sean," but how do you balance that strength withthe need for collaboration in modern workplaces, especially in kind of thesecross-generational teams, like the advent of remote work? I'm someone who's GenX and works remotely, so I get it. I think it's great, but I know my peers, mycolleagues might not think the same thing. So how do you balance that?
Kim Lear: One thing that I've seen, and I'll kind ofuse remote work as an example just because a lot of times, people who operate alot more independently are really comfortable with this, but there's also nodenying that it has deteriorated aspects of culture and cohesion. And so Ithink that organizations and the leaders that I have seen do the best job isthat when they do have people together in person, they are so careful with thattime together. They make it more experiential, they make it more immersive. AndI'll give you an example, right after COVID, there were a few clients that Iworked with where I participated in their first back-together meeting. Some ofthese people have not seen each other in two years and they go back togetherfor a meeting. We're in a window-less conference room, and it's a very tacticoriented agenda, and you could tell in the room, this is so not what peopleneeded. Not at all. And so I think you can honor both needs, the needcollaboration and trust building and culture cohesion with independentcontributions by being very clear about what is the type of work that reallycan be done best independently. And then when we are together in person, whyare we there together and what is the goal? There was one organization I workedwith where their main goal is they wanted people to leave this with peoplehaving inside jokes with one another, this type of thing that then when youdo... So that real collaborative piece so that the people when they work remoteand they do want to collaborate more, they already have a better inroad intotheir colleagues to understand what do they see as really respectful behavior,how extroverted or introverted are they? It's that type of thing. And so Ithink that is really the best way to find that balance between independentcontribution and honoring someone's autonomy while also finding the room andplace to collaborate more effectively on the things that need it and maintain asense of culture even if people are not together as often.
Sean Riley: Yeah, I can picture that room withoutany windows being very sterile and difficult to work with. So I touched on it.I would take this question, excuse me, that kind of touches on millennials andGen Z and seeking more meaning is the best way of putting it, more meaning intheir work. So how can leaders better communicate the broader impact of theorganization's mission to better attract and retain younger talent?
Kim Lear: Yeah, I'm glad that you asked this becauseI actually think that we're in a time of change around how people drive meaningfrom their work. And there are some organizational psychologists who havedifferentiated between meaning and impact, and that we're in this shift rightnow where people really want to understand the impact of their contribution.And the nice thing about this is that it's like I think we got a littlefatigued from these really grandiose mission statements and this idea of,"This is what our organization is doing for the world and for thecustomer," and all that. And the reality is their organizations all have ameaning, but not everyone is solving climate change or curing cancer. And alsothat wasn't enough.
I mean, I actually did some work for a big cancer researchnonprofit and they had a lot of turnover because it's a huge organization andeven within that organization, there's still people where their job is fillingout Excel spreadsheets.So even if the overall mission is really meaningful,it's like if your day-to-day contribution feels so minuscule and unimportant,then it gets lost. And so I think it's a little bit more about understandingthe team that you're on, what is its role in meeting the goals of thisorganization? If we're all trying to push the same boulder over the same hill,what is my role in that? And so really focusing more on the impact of theircontribution instead of the overall meaning of the organization and a missionstatement. And I mean sometimes, this is very simple and it's things thatcompanies have been experimenting with for a long time. Even that line-of-sightprogram of being able to look at, "This is our end goal, this is eachteam's role in this goal, the work that you do contributes in this way,"that type of thing.And then sometimes, it's just an individual managerproviding some recognition. Where I see the biggest hiccup on that is I talk toa lot of managers who say, "When I came into the world of work, no newswas good news. No one was standing over my shoulder giving me a pat on the backfor everything I did." But I think recognizing that people respond towhatever carrot's in front of them, and I think we're in a little bit of adifferent carrot environment right now, and I think good leaders just pivot andare not so caught up in like, "Well, this is what I got and you didn't getthat." And they're more like, "What is the type of engagement anddiscretionary effort that I need from you and what are the most effectivelevers to pull?" And we have found definitely with younger workers, thatthe recognition of achievement, the recognition of contribution is a reallypotent lever.
Sean Riley: That's very interesting. Okay, here'sone. Given the challenges baby boomers face from the angle that they're facingretirement and leaving the workforce, so from that point of view, they stillobviously though play a critical role in the labor workforce. So what kind ofstrategies can companies implement to engage them better and leverage theirexpertise going forward rather than just let them leave with all of this tribalknowledge?
Kim Lear: Well, I think there's two sides to that.One is in order to engage them more, some of this is like the lowest hangingfruit. But one of the things that we saw with this huge acceleration ofretirement is that even if one individual in a marriage didn't want to totallyretire, if their spouse was retired, then they would retire because there waslimited flexible work, limited remote work opportunities. And so if theirspouse wanted to travel or do whatever, then they couldn't and so they left.Now, I think if there is some flexible or remote opportunities available,that's a huge one because just the family aspect is quite a bit different.
The other piece is during the pandemic when so many babyboomers left the workforce, in my conversations with many of them, part of itwas very pandemic related. Part of it was they were bored.I think because wejust live in such an ageist society, I think that giving something new andexciting and really innovative to an older worker is not top of mind forpeople. And so you lose a lot of people because they still are filled with thissense of vitality, they're still very motivated by the latest and greatest, andby what is new, but maybe not given those opportunities. So I think that's partof it, is the encouragement of change and adaptability and innovation, and thensome of that flexible work. In terms of leaving with all of this institutionalknowledge and part of what has happened is that baby boomers who findthemselves on the precipice of retirement, I think there's a lot of fear aboutwhat happens after that. And so many feel like they're really retiring fromsomething. They're not really retiring to something. And so they hold on withwhite knuckles to what they knownd their identity oftentimes can be verywrapped up in their career, which makes sense. And this is only if you'refortunate enough to have a job that you actually cared about and people whoyou... Not everybody has that, but for the ones that do.
So one HR director that I had worked with, he had threeleaders who were all going to be retiring within about a year of each otherndhe had them come together every other month, gave them a great reading list,books about reinvention and transformation. And he wanted them to have thesense of camaraderie as they went through this time of transformation. And sothis group, they helped each other come up with what they were going to doafter retirement, whether that was travel or whether that was start a newbusiness or whatever that was. And the purpose of it was to get this group ofpeople to feel like they were retiring to something, not just from something,to develop a sense of enthusiasm for their next step.And his theory was that ifthey were excited about what was next, they would be more generous mentors.They would be more generous with knowledge transfer. They wouldn't be holdingon so tightly to what they know because they were excited about what was next.And this is a conversation I think all of us should be engaged in because theonly thing we all have in common is that if we're very, very lucky, we'regetting older every single day. And what it means to age today is verydifferent. And we as a society have not made any changes based on how longwe're living. The gap between health span and lifespan is shrinking. And so wesort of tell 65-year-olds that, "You're no longer really relevant. You'reno longer needed, you can't really change. There isn't really a place foryou." And if we're really lucky, we'll all be 65 one day. And when we diedat 70, that was fine. But now when we're living to 100, it's like we can't justhave this huge portion of our population adrift in that way.
Sean Riley: I like that answer a lot. And yet it issomething that we're all going to have to think... Well hopefully, like yousaid, hopefully get to think about. So we better start preparing a better wayof handling it. Well, we've already taken more than enough of your time, andyou've already given us a bunch of time with your presentation at the annualmeeting as well. So I just wanted to thank you, Kim, once again for taking timeout of your day to come on our little podcast.
Kim Lear: Thank you for having me.
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