Crazy kids and their yeah-yeah music …
Our most recent podcast discusses Millennials as both customers and employees.
We’ve talked about inter-generational conflict before:
A while back, I had a post explaining how Millennials are not lazy (see: Nashville) and do want help (see: my friend Andy Buck).
I added another Nashville post since then: a young artist–the exact opposite of lazy–whose hustle led to this excellent exhibition.
I’ve also posted about how, for those worrying about Gen Y, the real new kid in the workforce is Gen Z–and concern about generational differences will accompany them just like they have all generations.
If you are struggling with the younger work force, the posts are all short reads and worth your time.
In case you are still rolling your eyes about all this extra effort for the young, let me remind you that we are reaping what we sowed. Somebody had to raise these young ‘uns.
I suppose we could argue that the young really are different nowadays … ever since, and because of, the Industrial Revolution.
Ever since farming people moved to the city for work, ever since there was enough technology to do some of the household chores … there have been …
… Teenagers.
We don’t just marry and start scratching out a living or setting up housekeeping in our teens nowadays, do we?
Technology has been such a blessing. We don’t have to spend all our time and energy just getting food and shelter. We have medicine to keep us alive, too. If you are in your teens, you have some time to yourself to “be a teenager.”
And now that we have all that time … what’s the point? Especially when we look at the downsides to technology: systems that treat people like numbers instead of names. Weapons that inflict human suffering on a literally global scale.
Teens have been asking “what’s the point” since society allowed their existence.
The combination of young, trying to figure it out and free time to think–or not think–creates a kind of existential crisis that we don’t quite appreciate. There are holes in us that teens have tried to fill in a variety of ways: sex, drugs, rock and roll, religion, diversions, and everything else.
If you pride yourself on being a hard worker or being busy (not the same thing!), this may be hard to wrap your head around. Why the existential dread? Get to work!
It’s especially hard to understand what looks frivolous, the current obsessions with diversions: taking tons of selfies … playing a video game all night … binging a TV series. …
(Then again, older generations are starting to do some of this too. …)
At any rate, underneath all the technological diversions at their fingertips, teens want to know “the point.” They want meaning, something real.
Authentic as a vinyl record
We all want to get to what’s real. But teens are so fresh into their ability to think about this, that they are incredibly sensitive. The see what is just surface. They smell shallowness a mile way. They want authenticity.
Vinyl records are back in style. So are shaving brushes. And so on. Last week’s Squirrel Nut Zippers song has the same ethos: “If it’s good enough for Grandad, it’s good enough for me.”
The punk scene may not have answers, but it can really point out the questions. The above quote is from a piece I posted about punk in the workforce.
You may not be punk, but I promise you that you can attract younger workers and customers by considering a teen, even punk, point of view.
Managers patient enough to explain “the point” on even small things, like a work process, will earn credibility and grow employee engagement.
Leaders taking time to coach instead of order demonstrate that a workplace is life-giving–a place worth sticking around.
Companies willing to tell the truth, even when it hurts, on why a product or service is what it is show an attractive authenticity to customers.
ANYONE willing to take the time to get to know an employee or customer and connect on a human level multiplies the impact of that interaction. It truly is what elevates something from a transaction to an experience.
If you are struggling with connecting to employees or customers, this is difficult stuff to wrestle with. But, as we say at Hip Socket, it’s worth the wrestle in order to grow.