100 days working with the Gen Z(en)

I think I've graduated. It took me a lot of effort to understand their way of thinking, and I'm still trying.

I have been working intensively with a group of young women for 100 days. They all belong to Gen Z. They all have digital skills superior to mine. They all have a very different daily outlook compared to mine.

It took me 100 days to get a sense of them. Not because of their speed, but because of their zigzag nature of jumping from one thing to another.

Their strength is not in the documentation. They incline to create a new file for each topic. Therefore, the destination of each document may inexplicably appear in different places but will never be without an accompanying emoticon.

The cliché states that this generation is not accustomed to waiting because they were born with a phone that can do everything in a matter of seconds. Well, the cliché is not a lie: waiting feels beneath them. They expect results to happen as soon as the sun rises.

If a competitor does something, they immediately want to do the same. They want to do it, but I'm afraid they have a hard time getting started. The fear of not being in the wave also stresses them out tremendously, but they choose to procrastinate until they decide to take a break and change the page or the topic.

I may be exaggerating, but it's not false. It has been challenging for me to understand the way Gen Z thinks. Another cliché: they have a different mindset.

I had worked with similar profiles in terms of interests and ages but within a non-Gen Z culture. And that makes all the difference. The Gen Z culture will eventually be the way companies operate.

I will explain three reflections on how I am handling it and how I plan to adapt.

1. Fewer meetings and less demanding meetings. I'm used to having ongoing meetings to follow up on matters of varying importance. I'm used to these meetings being result-oriented, which can sometimes become tense. Gen Z tends to be much more lenient.

   Overtime and pushing oneself to the limit seem to be absent from their belief system. I can understand it, but it has been very challenging for me to follow up on initiatives. First, because I'm aware that they have a different culture, and second, because being from a different generation, there is a natural gap that I haven't wanted to make bigger in these first 100 days.

   What can you do if you eventually find yourself in this situation? Don't try to win the battle immediately. A counterintuitive piece of advice is to gradually win the battle instead of setting the tone from day one. My opinion is based on my own experience and the profile of the Gen Z individuals I work with daily. I don't think perpetual meetings are the best way to manage a team, but they do need the necessary formality to occur in an executive and effective manner.

   In these first 100 days, I concluded that Gen Z has a different understanding of meetings, perhaps due to virtuality or their multitasking perspective, which will likely change as they age.

2. Avoid deep work. I don't want to sound like a nostalgic old person, but having so many tools that make things easier and faster takes away incentives for deep work.

   In these first 100 days, I noticed a certain aversion to dedicating more than 20 minutes to a particular activity. Ideas or initiatives that could be executed in a single day take up to a week due to this tendency to "kick the can down the road" for activities that require deep work in terms of documentation, analysis, or writing.

   The only thing that I believe can work is setting a deadline from one day to another, being super clear about the expectations, and clarifying that even partial delivery is necessary by the agreed date and time. The next day, the activity is repeated until it is completed.

3. Their constant and inevitable interaction with digital platforms makes them move from one trend to another in a matter of days without any kind of attachment. The status they seek is associated with aesthetics. With this context in mind, my interpretation is that the blood of this generation is not very hot.

   Let me explain.

   Among the things they are passionate about, work is not one of them. They do it, they understand that it is a means to sustain their lifestyle, but they are not willing to passionately defend their ideas or actions.

    

   This personal observation, I insist, may be biased.

   A few days ago, Brett Peterson of The Washington Post wrote an article titled "What Gen Z wants in the workplace." The text consistently repeats that Gen Z will irreversibly modify work environments in search of a balance between personal and professional life.

   From the relevant argument of emotional stability, it seems to me that Gen Z operates to access a Zen state. I applaud it, but in the long run, I believe it is not viable. So far, I have remained in the same Zen state, letting certain things go, but gradually, I am injecting a bit of passion into conversations and commitments. Stretching the boundaries is a way to positively challenge people. I believe that this supposed Zen state about everything and everyone will also evolve.

¡Vamos Carajo!

Fran Michavila