Four Boomers, Four Gen Xers, Four Millennials & Two Gen Zers Walk Into A Room...

The first-ever Breakfast Club XYZ took place the second week of January.

It brought 14 brave, diverse and kind souls together. These souls included C-Suite executives, angel investors, startup founders, university students and established and emerging thought leaders in various industries. During this gathering we discovered “Hey, I hadn't thought about that!" moments that, in turn, built cross-generational empathy and, I believe, led to the realization that we aren't that different after all (and in some ways we are, and that's okay!).

What's this Breakfast Club XYZ I speak of? See my previous post. If you don't feel for clicking on that and reading more words, just note that the only requirement for a Breakfast Club XYZ gathering is that you bring someone from a different generation of you as your guest. 

Without revealing our attendee’s identities (the breakfast table is a safe space), the following are a number of the key takeaways, learnings and thoughts on the experience, conversation and connections made during our hour of intergenerational magic. Please feel free to add your "agree / disagree / but did you think about..." comments below so we can keep the conversation going. Healthy debate only makes us smarter, better, and progresses society.

Away we go...

In who do we trust?

There is a critical difference (and similarity) between how generations earn and value trust – the key to the success of any organization and relationship.

Understanding the “why” behind these key differences will help organizations, leaders, employees, and, all of us, as human beings, go about establishing and maintaining trust better, and, therefore, lose trust less often.

Boomers and the majority of Gen Xers grew up with the belief that trust is earned over time (there’s a reason why one of our attendee’s mom’s refuses to provide her email when they ask for it weekly at the supermarket checkout). Whereas Millennials and Gen Zers grew up with the internet at their fingertips and, therefore, find it more efficient and engaging for trust to be given outright.

Knowledge and relationships have always been immediately accessible to Millennials and Gen Z, and trust is the starting point since otherwise information and people would be useless. A system where trust in others is gained and proven over time may be superior, but it is more efficient for millennials and Gen Zers to first google and trust initially until proven wrong based upon one’s experiences.

Considering that the Millennial generation will comprise nearly 75 percent of the world’s workforce by 2025 and eclipsed boomers in 2019 as the nation’s largest living adult generation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, it’s in every organization’s best interest to both establish and maintain trust and mutual respect with all younger generations / future talent they deal with.

However, we can’t forget that Gen Xers and Boomers are generally the ones leading these organizations today, and therefore it’s in every Millennial and Gen Z employee and future employee’s best interest to make an effort to establish trust and reliability over time (one key way in the workplace we learned from Breakfast Club XYZ attendee Dan Schwabel's research, is by making face-to-face time a priority with your managers and leaders on a regular basis).

What came first? Passive Consumption or Active Participation?

The different ways generations go about consuming (and / or actively participating) news and information has a massive impact on our beliefs, actions and behaviors. One attendee of the Boomer generation, told us about how their recent shift back to a physical newspaper subscription. Holding a physical copy of the newspaper in their hands allowed them to learn about new and more things outside of their comfort and passion zone. For instance, while leafing through the Monday morning newspaper, they happened upon an article on a topic they never would’ve sought out or seen if they had been searching online.

Why? When online, generally users are searching out and self-selecting the news topics and/or stories they want to read or are being served up with what the media thinks they are most interested in with a host of different algorithms (don’t get me wrong, I love seeing only puppy and baby videos on my TikTok feed). Therefore, we are missing out on learning and seeing things that fall outside of our views and interests, which is not always (or ever) a bad thing.

We discussed how Twitter and the algorithms of news sites tend to present you with articles, news and ideas of like-minded individuals and topics (think Trump, DNC, local store openings). Without healthy debate and the ability to hear both sides of the coin, we miss out on finding a balance and empathizing with the other side…something that is more important today than ever before with so many generations in the workplace and the world.

Is Ignorance Bliss?

One thing to stress and that I really walked away saying “HOLY MOLY!” to after our sparkling, fascinating and thoughtful conversations, healthy debate and collaboration is this:

One of the attendees pulled me aside on their way out to tell me that they often feel ignored in the workplace. Note that this person is in the C-Suite of their organization so I was like “Huh? Please explain”. They went on to tell me that because the organization is filled with young people who tend to value what their fellow generational cohort thinks, this person often feels like their ideas (which, I can wholeheartedly attest after listening to them during the hour conversation, are brilliant, innovative and worth listening to) are ignored. Yet when a younger person in the org repeats them, they are often celebrated.

I really had to pause and think more on this over the last week or two. Why? Because this is typically how I’ve felt at some of the large organizations I was lucky enough to be a part of over the last 13 years. Like I was just “another crazy millennial” with “another crazy, far “too out there” idea”. I guess what I’m trying to relay is that we all feel unimportant and ignored at times, but that we all matter. If we can stop viewing people as a number, or a gender, or a title, we will all be better off, as will the organizations we work for and the world that we live in.