Bridging the Generational Gap in The Workplace | Mitch Lomazov

Do you remember applying for your first job? Man, I was so nervous. I needed to go up to this guy named Ken, who's about 40 years older than me. And he had, let's call it an intimidating resting face. So I was 15 years old, going to high school. My favorite sport on the planet is gymnastics. And a couple of my friends on the team would stay after classes to teach sports to kids and gymnastics to these students after high school. And Ken ran a company that would partner with Park District to help facilitate teaching these classes. And I thought, how cool would that be to be able to work there? And so I asked one of my friends after class, how can I get a job here? And he said, you need to go up to Ken, introduce yourself, and ask him for a job. OK. I come to the gymnastics gym. I see Ken's there. Heart starts throbbing. I walk up, stick out my hand, introduce myself. Hi, Ken. It's a pleasure to meet you. And we start talking. Turns out Ken, very genuinely nice human being. But as we were talking, we discovered, or I discovered, that I couldn't work for him until I turned 16. So he said, call me back when you're 16, and we can talk about it. Months go by. I haven't seen Ken, haven't talked to him, and it's my 16th birthday. Family's starting to come around. They're coming to the house to celebrate. I leave to the room, go into the study, take out my phone, find his contact information, and heart starts throbbing again. I dial, phone starts ringing, and Ken picks up. Said, Ken, I don't know if you remember me. My name is Mitch. We talked months ago. You told me when I turned 16, and today's my 16th birthday. I'd love the opportunity to work for you and teach gymnastics to these kids. He was so impressed that I called him on my actual 16th birthday that he gave me the job right then and there. And so I was celebrating my birthday, celebrating being employed legally the first day I could. And what occurred to me later on was this success was the success that derived from adapting to a different generation. See, the way that I applied for that job was much more normative to what Ken experienced in his generation. There was no fancy application. There was no phone. I was pulling out on social media, finding a job applying. I introduced myself, shook his hand, followed up on the phone when I told him I'd follow up. And that led to a job offer. Years later, after graduating college, I moved to work for a consulting company. And it occurs to me pretty quickly that there are people in the workplace that were thinking very differently than I was. See, it turned out I was the first and I was the oldest of the youngest generation entering the workforce. I was the first of the Gen Z entering the workforce. I thought, man, going into a consulting company, what a value add. Because I saw all these different generations showing up and all of them were thinking and approaching work differently than I was. Some had a tremendous work ethic. Some were focused on mission impact in organizations. There were some that were working hard to live and there were others that loved what they did so they lived so they could work more. But you know what was interesting across all these different generations, all these different value systems, the one thing they had in common, they all thought their way was the best way. And so I remember I was going to approach this client and their entire department was being run on paper. Everything was printed out, everything was filed and I saw what an amazing opportunity to create value. Here I am, Gen Z. I got an amazing proposal for you. We're going to automate, we're going to streamline, we're going to get it in the cloud. And they looked at me, looked up, looked back and said, why would we do that? And I was taken aback. Here I am with what I thought is this innovative idea but it's being responded to as if I'm being not innovative but irresponsible. And there was almost this resistance, not a conflict, but we began to have difficulty because what I thought would help the organization, they thought I was putting the organization at risk. Where I thought they were being stagnant to change, they thought I was being reckless. And this difference in perspective began to occur. And I realized and I started seeing this wasn't the only gap in the workplace. Different generations kept on having different gaps because they had different value systems. And so in order to begin to bridge that, began to study and learn this, I realized we can't just look at the value systems. We need to look one layer beneath at what behavior patterns translate into those and actually go even beneath that to look at what occurred during their formative years. See, if we can look at what occurs during their formative years, what they grew up with in the workplace, that shows us the behavior patterns that occur, that shows us the value that they bring to the table. And so from my scenario growing up, I grew up immersed in technology. Internet, always there. Social media, pretty much always there. Phone, there probably earlier than it should have been. And so because it was always there, automation, tech, was secure. It was always known and so therefore, I thought it was a great idea and it carried minimal risk. Whereas I looked at the other individual in a different generation, they grew up before the internet even existed. At the time, I honestly didn't realize there were people in our workforce that had graduated high school before the internet was made. It was made in 1983. I was born after that. And so they experienced paper growing up. The security, the stability, something you can touch, something you can see, something that you can rely on because it's there. They saw tech happen, but they saw the issues with tech. They saw new protocols, new automation occur, and then the lost data, the hindrances. And so because of that, we both had tremendous value, but we couldn't adapt and first understand unless we looked at what was occurring at the behavior patterns and the formative years behind that. And so we were able to come up with a solution to automate, to streamline, by having the paper backup file. See, when we look at organizations, we talk about legacy often. Taking this business, this mission that we have, and growing it and building it greater than we ever could. Something that will outlive us, something that will grow greater than we could ever take it. But do we ask ourselves, who's going to take it after we let it go? Who's going to grow it after we step out of leadership? See, we're not going to be able to grow our legacies keeping the mantra that our generation does it best. We need to begin to seek to adapt, to seek to build bridges, not enable, but take steps forward to help others come in. And with that, we can start to harness everything every generation has to offer. The resiliency of one generation, the work ethic of another, the focus on social impact of one, the innovation of another. As we look at what occurs during their formative years, understand how that leads to behavior, understand how that translates to values. We as leaders can begin to build bridges of what was and appear to be chasms across generations. And with those bridges, create a pathway for the experience and knowledge to go down and for an innovation and new technology and new ideas to be brought up so that we can truly empower our rising leaders to build on and carry the legacy that we're building today. Thank you.