How to Manage—and Motivate—Gen Z

On May 20th, join me at HBR's Annual Leadership Summit. With master classes, interviews with the CEOs of ATT and Mattel, and an interactive case discussion led by Harvard Business School professor Kareem Lakani. For 25% off, be sure to grab your EarlyBird ticket by April 14th. To learn more, go to HBR.com. org slash leadership summit I'm Alison Beard and this is the HBR I

Every generation has complaints about the ones that follow. The silent generation thought boomers were too freewheeling. Adi's not here to defend himself and other boomers. Boomers saw Jen Xers, that's me, as cynical slackers. They were only half right. I am very cynical, but not a slacker. And then Gen X has dismissed millennials as lazy and entitled. Today the youngest generation in the workforce is Gen Z, people born between nineteen ninety seven and twenty twelve

And a lot of bosses and organizations are having a hard time managing them, in part because of some unhelpful stereotypes. Maybe we think that Gen Z is overly fragile when we don't have time for coddling, or too demanding of work flexibility, pay, and promotions. without paying their dues. But our guest today says that we need to do a better job with Gen Z. First, because they're a large and growing part of the talent pool, now outnumbering boomers.

Second and most importantly because they're the people, the digital natives who are best equipped to help companies out. Social media, AI, and all the other technologies and trends they need to be innovative and successful. Tim Elmore is author of the book The Future Begins with Z: Nine Strategies to Lead Generations. disrupt the workplace. Tim, welcome to the show. Hey Allison, it's an honor to be with you. First I have to ask.

Is Gen Z really all that different than, you know, young people of any other era? Is it generation or is it life stage? Some of it is life stage, no doubt about it. But Gen Z has grown up in a different culture. than the millennials before them and certainly more than Gen X or the boomers. People develop a little bit like wet cement, you know the brain. And so we're really shaped as our neuropathways are growing in those first twenty, twenty five years.

Young people are young people and they're gonna have to learn some life skills along the way as they enter their careers. But I do think we're facing a little bit a greater difference right now. There's a greater sense of agency that young professionals bring with them and a greater sense of anxiety that young people bring with them that we didn't see twenty-five years ago. Are those the two things that most sets Gen Z apart from different generations?

Yeah, and as employers, as leaders, we're facing what I call a Peter Pan paradox. So we all remember that winsome character from the book and then the the movie, Peter Pan, right? He could fly into London uh and make magical things happen as he sprinkled pixie dust everywhere. The other side of the coin is Peter Pan wanted to live in Neverland where he didn't have to grow up, he could stay a boy, not a man.

Uh in many, many ways, not always, but in many ways, Allison, something magic and tragic is happening in culture today. I think the age of authority is decreasing. Young people are coming in knowing stuff that the boss may not know. You know, they're intuitive about AI and smart technology. The last data I read, forty two percent of companies are leveraging Gen Z to use AI for their company. So the age of authority is going down, but the age of maturity is going up.

socially and emotionally and the pandemic didn't help us. They're a little bit behind former generations at their age. Um, I've lost count of the number of employers that have said to me, twenty six is the new eighteen. Uh and that's a little scary'cause we need them to be twenty six if they're twenty six. We're going to have to listen more than we ever used to listen to that 22-year-old, but we're going to have to coach more than we ever used to coach.

How of those twin competing forces? The idea that they know more because of their access to the internet and their willingness to experiment with. new tools like AI and their sort of immaturity, maybe because of COVID, because of social media, how has it informed their approach to work?

Oftentimes a young team I always want to say oftentimes'cause there's fifty nine million Gen Zers and they're not all alike. Well the last thing we want to do is is stereotype. But oftentimes a Gen Z member will come in And they'll just blurt something out and it sounds like arrogance to their supervisor. And really I d it's not always arrogance. It's they know something and they're kind of excited that they might get some respect on week one.

The other ways it plays out on the maturity side is, you know, they might come in with flip flops on and You're going, What if a board member comes in right now? What are you gonna do? Or or they might just not act very professionally, showing up ten minutes late to a meeting, not realizing what that did to their teammates who need them to be there on time to start the meeting. So

I I tell a story early on, if you don't mind Allison, I'll just jump into it. Yeah, please. The story is such a picture of what's happening too often. I've known Colin Webb since he was in high school, smart young man, graduated from high school and went to MIT. When he finished, you can imagine he had a number of job offers.

Well, he decided to move to Detroit, Michigan and work for one of the big three, General Motors. They put him in the smart car division, but immediately he looks around and sees some May I say maybe a little more traditional models of getting things done? And so he starts scribbling down some ideas on how they can get better. Notice the audacity. We need to do professional development better. We need to do this system better. He takes the ideas to his supervisor

But again, you can imagine they didn't go over very well. He was told to just keep his head down, get your work done. Well, I'm sure Colin said yes, sir,'cause he's very respectful, but he wasn't done yet. He emails the CEO of General Motors, Mary Barra, and says, I've got some ideas and he shares the ideas over email with her. She replies back and she says, Colin, these are actually very good ideas. Let me take them to my executive team.

She takes him to the exec team, they agree. But again, as they make their way down the org chart down to the middle manager and the supervisor, they die on the vine. Colin in fact was told you need to be around here eight years before you can lead anything. Hm. Well you might have well have said you just should leave college. Because this entrepreneurial spirit that Gen Z has, by the way, I should point out seventy two percent of public high school students in America want to be an entrepreneur.

Colin by the end of the year leaves GM. has since then started three companies. Just sold the second one. He's doing quite well financially. Right. I do think Colin's a little different, but I do believe we're gonna have to manage this. arrogance thing. And I I again I want to be so careful here, but it isn't always arrogance is what I'm saying. This book is a summation of both quantitative data and qualitative data. So I surveyed two thousand and fourteen members of Gen Z

And then I did twenty one focus groups from California to Georgia. I know they can be fragile snowflakes. I know they can be seen as lazy and what's wrong with this generation? They don't seem to want to work. But as I dug a little deeper, I thought, ah, they are just different. And if I can tap into that strength that's inside of them, and it is. I think we really get something. So I'm talking to a young lady in LA and I said to her, many employers are saying that they find Gen Z just

is it doesn't really care about work. They want to leave as soon as the clock strikes five and not a minute later they don't even finish the task they're working on. What do you say to that? And she very respectfully said, Doctor Tim, can I tell you why I leave right at five? She said, I have to leave at five to rush over to another job. I don't make enough here to pay the bills here in LA. And then after that second job, I rush over to take care of my mother who has stage four cancer.

Suddenly I realized she did not have a work ethic problem. And what she may have had is a connection problem at work with her with her supervisor. So we need to begin with belief and start that connection. Uh don't think control, think connect. And I think we're gonna get where we need to get to as leaders at our workplace.

Yeah, so don't start with stereotypes, don't start with assumptions. What problem specifically do you see in how organizations, bosses, even colleagues of different generations handle their Gen Z coworkers or employees? One of the big ones is that when we've been around a workplace for even five to ten years.

We pretty much assume that your position gives you the right to influence, right? If you're the president or the executive VP, you have a right to influence. Gen Z would come in assuming your connection gives you the right to influence. Now neither are wrong, right? I mean your position does give you the chance to say something and people should listen and implement it.

But there's so longing for connection. I need to stop thinking gatekeeper as a leader, meaning I'm the gatekeeper of the budget and the power and the people here, and start thinking guide. Let me be a Sherpa guide as we walk up this mountain and I'm going to lead you up, but I'm going to build a connection with you. I'm going to make sure you make it. I think they leave because connection doesn't happen and they are not their ideas are not welcome. Uh they desperately want a voice from day one.

And Alison, I'll be honest with you, I would have never assumed that when I was when I was young. I'm not gonna I'm gonna have to earn my voice over a year of production and performance. But it's a very, very different day today. So there's no I'm just gonna tell you what to do because I'm your manager. It's first I'm gonna understand you, then I'm gonna explain why you need to do it. That seems like a lot of work for a manager who has Earned their title and paid their dues.

particularly when the labor market is tight, particularly when bosses are strapped for time and they have other workers of different generations to manage. What do you see, Gen Z, as a whole? bringing to organizations that previous generations haven't. Why should I spend that time? Beyond wanting to be a nice person and a you know, obviously.

Yeah. No, that's absolutely true. And I I I hope that the listeners listening would say, I first want to be a good human being. I I really do believe that's where good leadership starts. But I would say I really do believe by and large, with some exceptions, they bring an intuition about where culture's going. When I hire these twenty-two year olds out of college, they seem to know tomorrow's consumer better than I do.

Uh they seem to know where culture's going and how we ought to market to them. Let me share something that may be counterintuitive, but I have discovered that Generation Z is the sandpaper on my leadership I did not know I needed. Okay. I like that metaphor. Yes. So I think my twenty two year olds or twenty-three year olds have made me a better leader.

If I can be forthright here, they don't put up with a BS that older generations say, ah, that's just Bob. That's just Bob. You know, he does that. They'll they'll go, I'm out of here. And maybe you go, uh good, I don't care, but I actually think when I stay with them, And I find that gold inside of them where they bring that intuition that I just talked about. We capitalize on it. When I begin with high expectation, high belief. I'm gonna find some gold.

And I love what Zig Ziglar used to say. Somebody says, well, what if I invest in them and they leave? Well I w I would say, what if you don't and they stay? You know, it's better to invest and make them better. And I believe when we invest in them, we actually keep a good person most of the time.

Okay, so let's start from the beginning. in terms of how to better attract Gen Z? How do you, you know, interview them? How do you welcome them when you're trying to bring them on board so that they don't you know, depart within a year because they're bored or unhappy with how the organization runs.

Yeah. Let me throw out two or three ideas real quick and listeners can eat the fish and spit out the bones here. One is I think we need to work to make our organizations more attractive to a new kind of team member.

I'll give you one example. Orange leaf frozen yogurt years ago was getting frustrated that they would hire a eighteen, nineteen year old young person and they leave in a year and a half. So they did all this time onboarding and getting ready to sell frozen yogurt and then they would leave. They decided to say, you know what, what if we capitalized on who we're attracting? It's this young person, and say to them in the interview process, we want to make this the best first job.

the best launching pad you could ever have. So suddenly the focus was on them, not just the business and the revenue and so forth. So they would say in the interview process, we want to help you sell frozen yogurt really well, but what do you really want to learn while you're with it?

And if some person said, well, I really want to work marketing, they would say, Oh my gosh, I need to introduce you to Susan. She's our marketing wizard. She is so good. I want you to get with her. She'll teach it. Or I want to learn bookkeeping. As they started doing this kind of or taking this approach, they kept them longer. You can imagine because the person thought, I'm getting mentored here. I'm getting coached.

So it's a weird reverse psychology thing, but it's a bet we make. Some of the Gen Zers in my focus group said, I feel like I'm treated like a commodity. A commodity is something, you know, it's raw material, you use it up and then you throw it away. And they said, I feel like they don't pay much money for me. They use me up and then they throw me away or or they've that they I I want to leave.

One of them said, What if you treated us like currency, not commodities? And that set me thinking. And I put this in the book. Currency's valuable. In fact, I want to invest that currency. I want to invest in that currency, you know, make it bigger. So it's a whole different mindset that I have as a leader. And maybe I'm that investment was well worth it because I later see they were way worth more than forty eight thousand dollars at the beginning. They were worth much, much more because

I did that seeking. So think currency, not commodity. Think connect, not control. Think why not what. I think Gen Z, we need to explain why we're doing this, not just what. I don't think they're satisfied with here's what I want you to do, Josh, go do it. I and once I tell them why, now they are incentivized. Yeah, it sounds like in the interviewing and the onboarding process, that listening piece that you're talking about is very important. Yeah. You have to engage and ask.

what they want to do and then figure out, you know, how that fits into what you're hiring for and what your needs are.

Yeah, in fact, I have another acronym. I use the word perks. There's five items that oughta happen in the interview process. Where you're not only telling them about the job you want them to do, but you're asking them questions. So the letter P reminds me, ask them about their preferences. What do they prefer to happen, or what do they wish to happen at this job? You might also find out that their preferences aren't aligned. That's exactly.

The job description, in which case it's a short conversation. Exactly. That's a win too, right? Yeah. The letter E is stronger than preferences, it's expectations. Conflict expands. based on the distance between expectations and reality. The bigger the gap, the more you're gonna experience conflict. So I want to find out right away what are your expectations of this workplace? Is it that we're gonna march for this cause every March or whatever?

And you might need to say, like you just said, we're n that's never gonna happen here, I'm so sorry. Or you might find, okay, I I see what you're gonna expect. And it informs what's gonna happen six months from now if we do hire them. And we don't have a fight or an argument or a debate on our hands that we did need to have. The letter R's requirement. far more coming in with a sense of audacity and agency. I'm demanding that I make six digits, or I'm demanding that you do this or do that.

Work from home. Yes, yes. I just talked to a HR manager from a major Fortune five hundred company, I might add, who said he was hiring a free fresh graduate and she said, So do I get paid more for the days I actually come into the office? And he goes, No, no, that's normal. But it's just a different assumption that they have. I wanna find out what you're requiring because I may have to say that's never gonna happen or that's gonna inform our leadership.

The letter K in perks is, I think we ought to take a few minutes in the interview to talk about the keys. The keys to their heart. This has little to do with a job, but you might find out they just love the Boston Red Sox or they d whatever. I'm making this up. But I find out about about them as a person, and now I've got someone to bring up in the hallway conversation real quick.

Hey, do you see that socks game last night? You know, blah, blah, blah. It's that connection again. To a result production oriented person like I am, this seems like a waste of time. I'm assuring you, my experience tells me it is not a waste of time. You sound like your Gen X. याइ That's true. I do. I do. Yeah, so the letter S is salary and even though salary probably was posted on the website

I am finding too many times they come in needing to talk about that because they had a different thought about the number. The last data I just read, it was twenty twenty four, but the last day I just read. Four out of five Gen Cers are bringing their parent with them to the job interview. Now they may be out in the parking lot, but they're there and oftentimes Mama wants to come in and negotiate the compensation because she knows more than her son does or her daughter does. That's exactly

So weird to me. Yeah. But think about it. Wouldn't you rather find out now? Preferences, expectations, requirements, keys and salary. Once I settle those issues and it goes both ways, I should share my preferences in an employee as an interviewer or as a hiring manager. I'm telling you, we all fare better, but it's relationship driven.

Talking about potentially tough conversations, how do you deliver feedback to a member of Gen Z in a way that, you know, will actually motivate them instead of causing them to want to run for the door? This is a gigantic issue. I have an acronym that I have used and used and reused in my own life and it's a leg. You know how we've said for years and years, this is the leg you got to stand on.

These four words that spell A-L-E-G, a leg, are what I carry with me when I have to offer some very difficult feedback to a young team member. The letter A reminds me I need to start by asking, not telling them what they did wrong. Think about it. When I ask a question of someone, they feel valued. I'm wanting their response. Yeah. It's not what were you thinking?

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's not a legitimate question. That's exactly right. It's it's tell me that thought process. Which may be faulty, but at least I'm finding out. The letter L, listen. I have come to believe that half of leadership is listening. I used to not think that.

In fact, I love what John Wooden once said. The more you know, the harder it is to listen. Isn't that true? If I know a bunch of stuff, it's very hard to be listening to nonsense from somebody else. But when I listen, they feel heard. And Alison, I'm telling you, this is the number one request I heard from Gen Zers that I interviewed. I want to have a voice. I want to have a seat at the table. I want to be heard.

So ask, they feel valued, listen, they feel heard. The letter E, empathize. This is a learned art form for me. I'm not good intuitively about this. When I empathize, I'm now learning to respond verbal and nonverbally with cues like, oh my gosh, I had no idea. Thanks for sharing that. Or I bet that made you feel awful when that happened. But when I empathize the receiver's thinking She gets me.

Or he understands me. I've asked and they feel valued. I've listened, they feel heard. I've empathized, they feel understood. Now I've taken away their defenses, right? Mm-hmm. Now I've earned my right to practice letter G, which is to guide them. But I've earned it through a bridge I built, not a badge I wear. This is the key to the future. I think we can keep those young entrepreneurs, maybe even create an internal gig economy where we have an entrepreneurial zone.

Where we have them solving a problem that we need to solve, but they still do their job. There's ways to keep them, but we may have to lead differently than we did even ten years ago. Yeah. And we talked about expectations, but I think that is one of the big challenges. that particularly my generation Gen X has with Gen Z, that they start and they do well and then they immediately think that they should get a promotion or get a raise or be able to have more flexible hours.

How do you handle that in the moment? You know, how do you make sure that those people who you do think are doing a great job you know, understand just it takes time. Tame t takes time to progress in your career. Generally speaking, I use a metaphor to start that conversation. I call it crock pots or microwave.

Many, many, many Gen Zers want their career to be microwaved. You know, I want to be VP when I'm twenty five, own the company when I'm thirty five. I'm I'm being facetious here. But they do wanna accelerate it and we wanna go, no. A great career is in a crock pot. If I put a hot dog in a microwave and it's done in minute and a half,

Another minute and a half. I don't even want to eat that rubber thing, you know, that's just been outside. That's how a career is. You speed that thing forward. You're not really worth the the title you've been given if you rush it. Yeah. But you put good food in a

Slow cooker. Remember Bama used to do that? It was three hours later you were smelling it all over the kitchen. Now you can hardly wait to eat it. It gets better and better and better with time. I think good careers are in a crock but not a micro. Good marriages. Crockpot, knock microwave. Good friendship.

So I try to start the conversation with you're not slow, you're not behind, but this is gonna take some years. Keep doing what you're doing, execute what's in front of you, and it will pay off. Now, some will still leave. But I I think we need to right size their expectations and that's usually how I start that conversation.

Gen Z is also, I think, probably the first generation that will just tell you straight up I need a mental health day. You know, all of us probably want one from time to time, but just don't think we're allowed. Um, so how do leaders accommodate that, you know, while still making sure that everyone is being productive? and n not slacking off. And then making sure that other employees Don't resent it.

Yeah. Oh my gosh, I'm glad you brought that up.'Cause there is resentment that happens on teams. Yeah. My wife was just at the Atlanta airport getting a coffee. And she noticed there was a long line and when she finally got up to get her coffee, she noticed it was because there's only one worker. One one person taking the c you know, credit card and then making the latte and then getting back and and she goes, Where where's your teammates today? And she goes, Well

They both called in and said, I was at a party late last night. I'm not my best self today. I won't make it in. Now, I've had a few days I went into work and I wasn't my best self either, but but you went in because you realized there's a ramification on the team members. So she was resentful, that clerk. Sometimes Gen Z needs to learn. Let me tell you why showing up late or not showing up at all affects the rest of the team. This is not a guilt trip, it's a reality check.

But here's what I would say next. They are quick to take a mental health day. Part of the reason I learned in the focus groups is they look at older generations who were indeed workaholics. I'm guilty. And they go, Oh God, I don't want that to happen to me. I actually found out they do want to work, but they're so afraid of becoming my generation who l work is their whole identity. But they also noticed over the years, well dad ruined Christmas because he never was there. He was so

tending to his laptop. You see what I'm saying? It's a reaction to overdoing. Here's my advice. We need to have a conversation about this mental health day and we need to empathize with where they are. But I think the conversation needs to be personal before work. Hard before easy, big picture before details. When I have a conversation with them, I'm such a production oriented person. I want to jump right to the job that didn't get done right or that won't get done if they take a day off.

I need to do personal first. Tell me how you're doing. Are you okay? You see what that screams to them. I care about you as a human, not just a a worker. Uh-huh. It's going to take a little time, but I think it pays off in the long run. I will get to work and I will get to, we kind of need you today that we're releasing a new product. This is a go-to-market week and I need you. You know, I need you to be here, not your best self.

When we have to have a hard conversation like the one we're talking about, it's so easy in our human nature to jump to easy topics first and then get to the hard. They can smell a rat a mile away. They can tell we're about to get something really hard and they know we're just, you know, faking it until we make it.

So I think courageous leaders say, you know what, I I gotta talk to you about something that's hard. Let's let's get to a solution together. Let's problem solve together. But then I get to close the meeting with easy. And then lastly, when people are anxious.

And that's what we're talking about, a Gen Zer that's anxious. Big picture before details. I need to show them the box top to that jigsaw puzzle. Here's a big picture. Then talk about where their puzzle piece fits into that box top along the way. When I do this, they get perspective.

So if this is a generation that sort of works to live, not lives to work, how do you motivate them to really care about the job and care about the career? Okay, I'm gonna say something zany, but stay with me, listeners, before I make this before I finish this comment. So as I talked about the different approach to work they have than people over forty five. They wanted work to feel like a hobby. So this is problem number one. Because the first thing I wanted to say was it's not your hobby, Josh.

Right. That's why we pay you. That's right. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So let's double click on this idea. What if work did feel like a hobby? Remember the last time you had a really good hobby? I remember when I was twelve I had a electric train set in my basement that had homes and hotels and electric train going around. I rushed to work at that hobby after school.

Right? I mean I worked at the hobby harder than I did my my math at school. And I wanted to be there. I didn't have to be there, I wanted to be there. What if we could reframe their job as not duty but devotion to a hobby. Well in other words, we need them to get the work done, no doubt, but we had it feel like what if you developed a passion for what we're doing here and what you're specifically doing on this job?

When I have done that with my sent Gen Seers and we began to think of it that way, made a total difference. They did more than what was on the job description. So let's talk about development too. How do you start training these Gen Z workers to become leaders, you know, to develop the resilience that they need to grow in their careers? As I watch this generation of young people grow into adulthood, I have find there's two tugs at their heart on the inside.

I wanna be me and I wanna belong. And I think maturation means we have conversations about How can you find out who you are and then make the appropriate sacrifices on behalf of the whole to reach the goal? That doesn't mean I compromise who I am. I'm bringing my whole self to this team, but I'm doing it on behalf of a larger vision or big picture. But I think next is ownership.

Gen Z is going to have to learn to own their work and to own the mission of the company. I don't think you can be a great leader unless it goes from renting my job to owning my job. And now I'm taking it to a whole nother level because I own it and I'm getting to the goal the way that I would best use my talent to get there.

And ultimately, you know, if bosses and organizations get this right, what do you see as the payoff? Are there particular companies you would point to to say, yes. The managers in this company have made this investment, have they listened, they've coached, and now, you know, this is the result. I think enterprise car rental is a great example who hire many and maybe most of their new team members right out of college, but they put'em on a leadership track.

Uh now all not all are gonna be brilliant leaders, but that's they assume you're gonna influence well, you're gonna move up the ladder. And that's very appealing to a Gen Seer. You're they're starting with belief, right? I think Chick fil A restaurants do a great job with young team members. They have a hundred thousand team members working at their restaurants around the country and they tend to be values based and believe in those young people, offer college scholarships to them.

Which is a sign of we believe in you. But most of the time when I think about what all of these companies have in common, it's what we said. It's relationship before results. They do care about results, but they believe we're going to get to those better through good relationships. One statement we make at our workplace is this. Everyone is more important than their job. No one is more important than the mission.

I think that's a healthy balance. So I remember one particular year we had a young team member that had a boyfriend that was toxic. It was an abusive relationship. They were living together and our team stopped our work that day and we rushed over to her apartment and got her out of there and got her resettled somewhere else. And I'm getting a little teary now because I'm thinking You might say we didn't get any work done that day, but we really got some work done that day.

Yeah. Because man, we were able to show that we care for her and I mean she went to the mat for our organization. You can imagine when we loved others that way. So I think that's gonna be key in the future is is that we're able to do those kinds of things that are counterintuitive. But show that we actually care. Well, Tim, it's been such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much. Allison, great to be with you. Thanks for the honor.

That's Tim Elmore, author of the book The Future Begins with Z. Next week, Adi speaks with the head of McKinsey about the organization's 100th anniversary and where the consulting industry goes next. If you found this episode helpful, share it with a colleague and be sure to subscribe and rate Ideacast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. If you want to help leaders move the world forward, please consider subscribing to Harvard Business Review.

You'll get access to the HBR Mobile app, the weekly exclusive Insider Newsletter, And unlimited access to HBR online. Just head to HBR.org/slash subscribe. Thanks to our team: Senior Producer Mary Dew, Audio Product Manager Ian Fox, and Senior Production Specialist Rob. And thanks to you for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. We'll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. I'm Alison Beard.