IDL27 Season 1: The Millennial Solution with Gabrielle Bosché
How do collaboration and delegation represent different generations? What is the connection between leadership and purpose? How can being curious encourage better workplace connections?
As one of the most booked Millenial Motivators in the world, Gabrielle Bosché really is the expert in this space. Millennials are changing the face of the workforce and this conversation follows on from the question we ask about how leaders, millennial or not, can be the bridge between generations. One of the biggest things that I took away from this conversation was how organizations today, need to be more responsible for training and mentorship and I am so excited for you to listen to this.
Gabrielle is one of the most booked Millennial motivators in the world. She has been called the "next generation of motivators" by Tom Ziglar and is a popular TEDx presenter, bestselling author, and co-founder of The Purpose Company.
Her work has been endorsed by the likes of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Brian Tracy, Lewis Howes, and co-founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Marc Victor Hansen. Gabrielle has worked with everyone from presidential campaigns, the U.S. Navy and Air Force, and the top brands in the world. Gabrielle has been featured in major media outlets including SUCCESS, NPR, Sirius XM Radio, Bloomberg Radio, Glamour Magazine, Business Insider, and Los Angeles Times. Gabrielle quit her job at 23 to launch her first company, consulting major brands and the government on how to reach Millennials. Her breakout moment came when at a networking meeting she introduced herself as a "Millennial expert" to someone who would end up being her first client (the U.S. Navy).
Gabrielle has written 5 books ranging from Millennial motivation, next-generation entrepreneurship, and how to find your purpose. Gabrielle's approach to life, love, and business is the self-deprecating deeply wise and insanely practical solution we need right now.
Visit her website. Connect with her on Instagram and her 7-Figure Purpose Facebook Group.
In this episode we discuss:
Leadership and purpose
Collaboration versus delegation
How a person leads
Generational curiosity
LEADERSHIP AND PURPOSE
What resonates with who you are, does not change, but how you enact that strength with the people around you; to support or guide or encourage them, that is what changes.
“Adaptability is one of those superpowers of great leaders, of being able to recognize a situation and fit into it, and adapting your purpose even to who it is that you are helping because your purpose throughout life doesn’t change but who you help with your purpose does. ”
The source of your inner strength – you – does not change, but the people who you help with that strength, they change.
It is therefore important that you nourish and protect that source, which is why self-care is essential. You cannot help those around you if you cannot help yourself first.
“I think that when we as leaders do not focus on ourselves first we then get to a place where it’s like [an empty] water-pitcher. If that pitcher is empty you don’t have anything to empty out to help other people [with]. ”
COLLABORATION VERSUS DELEGATION
The millennial workforce has been raised to appreciate a group mindset, to work together to achieve the greater good instead of only focusing on what you can do as an individual.
Therefore, there may be clashes between leaders from older generations and their millennial workforce, where employees prefer to work together while their leaders are urging them to go solo.
“[Millennials] come in with a high addiction to collaboration whereas older leadership sees delegation, we see it as collaboration: what do you think? How do we engage with other people? If you as a leader don’t understand that my generation sees collaboration as strength, you can interpret our need to connect and make collective decisions as a weakness. ”
This is how the education system has influenced how generations show up in the workplace and informs how they think they should lead, and how they want to be led.
HOW A PERSON LEADS
What informs how a leader leads their people? They are influenced by:
How they were parented, and
What their first and second jobs were like
In general terms, you either replicate or rebel against how you were raised. Observe your own leadership patterns: are you replicating the way in which you were taught, or are you rebelling against it?
GENERATIONAL CURIOSITY
If you are working with people that have ages that span across different generations, encourage yourself to be curious instead of judgmental when they may do things that seem strange to you initially.
“If you’re in an exchange with someone and you’re like “why in the world did they make this decision?” … rather than criticizing them for doing something different than you, be curious. Find ways to engage with them and even if their thought process was off, that’s an opportunity for you to adjust it rather than criticize and correct. ”
Whether you are a leader or an employee, ask questions and be curious first. Enquire and question to reach understanding instead of judging and assuming: not only will this encourage the relationship you have with this person, but it will teach you – and them – a lot about each another.
Another reason to be curious, enquire, and initiate discussions is that it helps both the employer and the employee understand what the expectations are.
This is important so that the employer hires the best-fit person for the job, and the employee will not have their work boundaries violated. Communication is the key to strong relationships and those relationships are what the business is built upon
Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:
Visit Gabrielle’s website. Connect with her on Instagram and her 7-Figure Purpose Facebook Group.
Visit the Purpose Company website.
The Impact Driven Leader YouTube Channel
Join the Impact Driven Leader Community
Connect with Tyler on Instagram and LinkedIn
BOOK | Gabrielle Bosché and Brian Bosché – Keep Them Longer: How to Gain, Train, And Retain Top Talent
About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast
The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.
Rate, review and subscribe here on Apple Podcasts or subscribe on Stitcher and Spotify.
YOU HAVE TO BE SELFISH ENOUGH TO FIND YOUR PURPOSE BUT SELFLESS ENOUGH TO USE YOUR PURPOSE.
Gabrielle Bosché
Podcast Transcription
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
As you know, as you've heard, part of this podcast is also doing the Impact Driven Leader round table. I want you to listen to this quick message. This is an invitation. I want you to come sit at our table. You're going to learn. You're going to grow and you can't help, but have a great time with us. And I invite you. You're listening. There's a seat for you with your name on it. Come join us.
[MOLLY]
Hey, this is Molly Sloan. The Impact Driven Leader book club and round table have been transformational for me. I've been involved for the past six months and it's taken me on a journey to be a better leader and a better person at work, at home, and really in every interaction with people. Tyler's done a great job of guiding us through the books. They're current, thought-provoking and they apply to all of us. The weekly round table has become an accountability team. I've done lots of leadership trainings in the past where you feel on top of the world, the week after the event, but ultimately it wears off over time. This group is better. We're on a leadership journey with each other through frequent, ongoing discussions and continual growth. I strongly recommend this group to anyone aiming to continually develop as a leader.
[TYLER]
Hey there, welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. That first time listening, glad you're here. If you're back for another episode, thank you for coming back. And if someone shared it with you, thanks to them. My name is Tyler Dickerhoof, the host here of the Impact Driven Leader podcast. So excited to be with you again today. And today's guest Gabrielle Bosché. She and her husband, Brian, who, if you've listened to many of my episodes, you've probably heard the interview with Brian a couple of months ago. Gabrielle is back to really talk about the subject that I think she is really the expert about. And that is being a millennial, working with millennials, discussing millennials. She's done a Ted Talk about it, she's had that experience growing through it. She and her husband, Brian just released a new Ted Talk. So excited to share that as part of this episode in the show notes, so catch that out.
But today we talk all about millennials. We talk about the differences that they are in the workforce, but really to me, it follows on this conversation that we've had now for a couple of weeks with a couple of our other guests, is how is leaders, whether we're a millennial or not? Can we be the bridge between generations? Not looking at it as an excuse, but as a valuable tool, the different viewpoint and lens that millennials look at, but also understanding, hey, they were raised totally different. I'm Gen X. I was raised totally different than my parents. My kids, Gen Z will be raised totally different than other generations. That's just normal. That goes on. So millennials, aren't the outcasts. And I know as we discussed the companies and organizations that really embrace change and accepting and being excited about what a younger generation brings to the organization and they have tremendous success. So grab a notebook, get ready to take some notes during this conversation with Gabrielle and I'll catch you at the end.
[TYLER]
All right, Gabrielle, thank you for joining me. Thank you for being here today. I'm excited to talk about just this whole idea of millennials, but generations in the workplace and just your experience and what you've discovered in writing books and doing Ted Talks and helping all the people you've helped really understand this idea of purpose. So with that, I guess let's jump off here. How do you think leaders really have an opportunity when specific, we'll say older leaders, Gen X leaders, or older millennial leaders have the opportunity to really help those that they lead and work with, understand their purpose and how that can affect what they do within a business?
[GABRIELLE BOSCH]
Yes. And it doesn't matter how old you are. You're 22, 62, somewhere in between. Everybody wants to know two things. They all want to know, number one, do I matter and number two does what I do matter? So I think the role of any leader, whether you're a parent or an executive or selling coffee, it doesn't matter who you are. You're trying to answer that question for the people that you lead. And in answering that question for yourself first is one of the most important things that you can do. Like we talk about in our book, The Purpose Factor, we call it the oxygen mass principle, like when you're on a plane, they always talk about you put the oxygen mask on yourself first, before assisting someone else because you're not much help if you're passed out.
So you've got to focus on yourself first. Sometimes I think as leaders, we're so focused on making sure other people find purpose and mission. Like, oh, I want them to feel connected to the mission. I want them to love what they do. I want them to feel motivated by the work that we're doing as a team. And sometimes we miss out on the connection that we need to have to the work that we're doing. And I think that's where burnout comes in. I think that's where distraction comes in. I think that that's where bitterness even comes in, where we feel like we're not really appreciated for the work that we do. So if you, as a leader can answer those questions for yourself and for your team, number one, do I matter and number two does what I do matter, it solves a whole host of issues.
[TYLER]
So I'm going to lean into one piece that you said there that really kind of sparked my mind, is this idea as leaders that we don't take the time to focus on our own purpose. We're focusing on others to make sure they understand the mission, make sure they fit, finding a lot of people in that sense. And then that inherently, we kind of lose what our purpose and our mission and leadership and how that fits in leading to burnout. So kind of that really caught me and I kind of want to unpack and say, "Okay, let's process through that and say how much our responsibility is to free ourselves from almost having to toe the corporate line and be that one almost out of our own personal sacrifice, as opposed to saying, "Hey, this idea of how I fit may evolve. My purpose might always be the same, but my role within that can evolve. I need to be open to that so that I don't burn out."
[GABRIELLE]
Yes, that's exactly right. And adaptability is one of those super powers of great leaders of being able to recognize a situation and fit into it. And in adapting your purpose, even to who it is that you're helping, because your purpose throughout your life doesn't change, but who you help with your purpose does. So if you're a stay-at-home mom, it's not like you don't have a purpose. It's who you're serving with your purpose changes. If you're an executive, you have a purpose. If you were retired, you still have a purpose. You don't need to go out there and find a new one. It's who is it that I'm helping with my purpose? And I think that when we, as leaders, don't focus on ourselves first, we then get to a place where it's like like a water pitcher. If that pitcher is empty, you don't have anything to empty out and to help other people. And it feels good to feel like the martyr and talk about how we're giving of ourselves. A friend of mine said once, get off the cross, we need the wood. He's a good Southern guy from Alabama. But it feels good to be needed, but that can oftentimes hinder us from helping number one, ourselves and number two people with the purpose we have inside of us.
[TYLER]
Because I would suspect, and even my personal self is that we get hung up in this, I guess, challenge between, do I help others, do I focus on myself? Is it selfish, focusing on me? Which again, if you're putting the oxygen on yourself, it's not selfish. It's just saying, I need to empower myself to be able to serve and help others, but being in tune with that whole idea of, "Okay, today, I've identified my purpose. I've gone through that work. And today who I serve may look different than tomorrow." And it's just being willing to ebb and flow and knowing that in your position in an organization and leadership that may alter and change, and the values based upon generation may look different. How do I become a catalyst to bind those people together, as opposed to, "Oh, it's all their fault." They're so different. Is that kind of, do you see that as the real world challenge?
[GABRIELLE]
Sure. Yes, you have to be selfish enough to find your purpose, but selfless enough to use your purpose. And into this generational piece, why we even got into discovering and looking into purpose is because we started working with major companies, major brands, and they were having a hard time reaching the next generation. I'm 32 years. I got into this generation space when I was 17. I've written six books about the next generation. And as I had been studying my generation and how we interact with other people, millennial motivation, it became overwhelmingly clear that that purpose wasn't a nice to have. It was a need to have. And it wasn't just for this next generation. As we started working with the military, as we started working with brands like Audi Volkswagen, these major companies. They all started to recognize millennials, the only difference is millennials are bold enough to demand it, what other generations only wished for.
So that's really rightsized, I think the economy, I talk about it all the time. We're in a purpose economy where before you, as an employer had a transactional relationship with your employee. I pay you to do this work for me. I give you a certain amount of days off a year and some retirement, and that's our exchange. But we moved, during the last five years, we really moved from the transactional based economy to this transformational based economy where I work for you, yes, but I want you to make me a better person and I want to make this economy or this industry, or this company a better place as well. We're looking for partnerships, not employees.
[TYLER]
I want to park on that transactional versus transformational. And as you said, that's really evolved the last five years. You know, the largest generation in the workplace today is millennials. One of the things that I've had a friend tell me, and I'm going to pose this framework and see, compare or contrast, disagree or agree, is that one of the biggest reasons that millennials, that generation see the world so differently, this transactional versus transformational is part of how they were educated. It's really this change between, it was Laura's book, Laura Bush's, No Child Left Behind where it's kind of like, hey, just get this accomplished a done. They almost didn't experience this transformation in education and yet now they're looking for it. I look at it as people that are what I would consider millennials. I love and endear the fact that they're looking for mentorship. So do you see that playing out, have you, in your research as you've worked with people, are you seeing that, and that's one of the biggest reasons why it went from transactional to transformational or what was the change there that really brought that about?
[GABRIELLE]
Adults crave what they were not given as children. So if they weren't given mentorship, they crave it as adults. If they weren't given opportunities to thrive, they crave it as adults. And oftentimes as leaders, we assume that we're getting this complete 22 year old, 32 year old, 55 year old who's coming in and working for us. But a lot of adults are just gray haired children who haven't really grown up yet. And as employers, we expect them to come in and put on the suit and act a certain way. And we expect them to kind of show up as their adult self. But we're still not realizing that there's a lot of brokenness in the people that we're leading. There's a lot of hurt. There's a lot of pain that we have the opportunity. Some employers don't see it as a responsibility. I do because of the values that I have, but no matter what your value system is, you have an opportunity to be able to connect with and inspire those people who are working with you and help them heal from the hurts that they've experienced.
But to your point about the education, absolutely, and how a generation is educated, sets the tone around expectations in the workplace. So I'm a part of a generation, the millennial generation, largest generation to ever exist now, the largest generation of the workplace. So your point, we were educated very democratically. It wasn't what you were taught. It's how you believed about what you were taught. It wasn't, "Hey, this is the grade you get. It's what grade does your group get." So, because of that, we've come in with high addiction to collaboration. Whereas older generations see leadership is delegation, we see it as collaboration. What do you think? How do we engage with other people? What does this other person on the team think?
So if you, as a leader, don't understand that my generation sees collaboration as strength, you can interpret our need to connect and make collective decisions as weakness. You give a decision to a millennial, she turns around and she asks someone else for what they think. You may think she's not ready for leadership, but in reality, that's the leadership that she most craves and it's the leadership that's been modeled for her; that she needs to connect with other people to make collective decisions. So that's one of the biggest ways that I think that the education system has really influenced how millennials are showing up today in the workplace.
[TYLER]
I mean, I've seen that firsthand and the friend that exposed me to it's like, well, yes. And I think what's amazing is, you know I'm almost 42 and kind of that cusp of the Gen X-millennial, and really kind of look at it as I was the last group of students with the old style of education that hadn't changed for almost hundreds of years. It's the same style. You fail, you fail. Just get your work done. And then all of sudden we decided to upgrade the education. And I think that's so important as leaders, as you discussed. And it's so great to understand it's delegation versus collaboration. And when you look at highly effective leaders, those Jim Collins level five leaders, the pinnacle leaders that John Maxwell talks about, they inherently are very, very collaborative.
They're collaborative because they ask great questions. They make sure people feel valued and involved. Going back to what you said earlier is do they matter and what do they do that matters? And one of the points that I think you said that I love because I think it's so imperative is taking the time to connect with people and find out where they fit in there. You know, at that collaboration process, it's real easy to, when you delegate. Just tell people to do, but o collaborate, you have to connect with them. And I look at it as that's a super power of some great leaders is their ability to connect, their ability to say, "Hey, I see you and that's what you're great at. This is how it can benefit the organization."
[GABRIELLE]
Yes. And in those leaders that you're talking about, whether it's Jim Collins or John Maxwell, they were really the atypical leader of their generation. So baby boomers are the last generation in American history that were raised by military or military-era parents. So for them and their relationship with their parents, it was, don't let them see you cry. do what I say so because I said so, and we're going to do whatever dad or mom wants. I mean, my parents' generation, my mom's 75, she's first year of the baby boomers, no one was asking her where they wanted to go on family vacation. No one was asking her what she wanted to watch on television. It was, you're the youngest, you sit in the back, you eat what we eat, you do what we do. And in your generation, generation X is the first generation where both parents started to work.
So that's why you're known as the latchkey generation. So you have this very entrepreneurial, I love working with Gen Xers because they're so naturally entrepreneurial. They're these natural problem-solvers because no one sat around and said, "Hey, I'll do this for you." No one was going to school and dropping off your history homework because you forgot it on the kitchen table. But my generation was, we had game boys and we had cell phones and we had emotional support dogs in our kindergarten class. We had such a different approach to how we were parented. And so it's interesting to know what we've actually found, and I've studied this over the last five years in particular on generational leadership theory is how a person leads is based off of two different inputs.
Number one is how they were parented and number two, it's how they were led in their first or second job. So what was their first or second boss like? Because you're either replicating or rebelling how you were raised. You're either going to replicate the same parenting style that your parents imposed on you. You're either going to replicate the same patterns and behaviors or you're going to rebel against them, which is usually a conscious decision to say, I love my parents or I love and respect my first boss, but I want to do it differently. And so looking at your own pattern as a leader, you can start to recognize, am I replicating or am I rebelling?
[TYLER]
Well, I mean, I look at my personal evolution through that and kind of, again, like you're talking about raised is that entrepreneurial mindset and had that passion, but that made it difficult in some of the workplace where it was kind of like, well, it's, it's hierarchal. It is, you need to just wait your time. It's like, no, I've never had to do that. And I was raised on a farm where it's like, go figure it out, dude. I mean, that was the lifestyle I lived, which I also can trust so differently with what you said, that the millennials and now the Gen Z, my kids where it's kind of like, okay, it's a little bit more catered to you where we have to find ways for them to struggle and, or build that resilience. And it's this understanding, as you said earlier, it's how were you parented and or how were those people that you first worked with or what coaches did you have? What style of coaches did you have in athletics and sports and activities that you did really shape? What becomes of people in leaders? And I don't think in the past we have comprehended that impact and how it impacts the workplace as much as maybe what people are talking about like yourself today.
[GABRIELLE]
I couldn't agree more. And I think that that conscious leadership is a huge wave that I think that you're helping lead the conversation around, is not leadership by checklists and not leadership by the should dos, but reflecting on what has most influenced me? What do we do unconsciously? Because that's really, I think where the true leader, the DNA of you as a leader comes out is what do you do when you're frustrated? What do you do when you're stressed? What do you do when crap's hitting the fan and you don't know what to do next, because that's really where the true DNA of who you are comes out? And when you take the time to reflect on what are those inputs like? I'll have people when we do leadership sessions, just start to write out what was your first boss like, and start to recognize some of those patterns of things that they enjoyed or things that they didn't like.
I remember my first boss ever. I worked at a frozen yogurt place and he sat me down with a giant whiteboard and he walked me through the customer life cycle. He was teaching me this principle of why one customer isn't just a scoop of ice cream that's maybe $2.75. And that customer represented over $10,000 because that one customer then brought their friends and they would come back time and time again. And he attached me to the profitability of a company. I'm 15 years old sitting there, it's totally going over my head, but now as a 32 year old executive myself, I teach my people, everyone who comes into work with us, how we make money as a company. Because I know if they can recognize that they're a part of a profit making machine, that it's not just the one person that they're serving. What that person represents is so much greater than that. The impact is so much greater than the one exchange. That's how you help your people, one example of how you help your people know that what they do is making a difference. But that simple input made a deep impression on me, subconsciously. I didn't even think about that until a few years ago, when I started to recognize I've been teaching my people this for years. Where did I get it from? And it was Rich, my first boss at 15 years old at a tasty time ice cream in Folsom, California,
[TYLER]
That's awesome. I mean, I wrote down that note. It's so often we don't include it. I would say, even as parents, we don't children into those thought processes, which we don't even realize are going to have a massive effect. It's kind of like, why are we doing what we're doing? And the more that people understand the why, when people have a why and they understand the why they can buy into the vision so much more. And to applaud that guy Rich, I mean, that's impressive. You know, that was early two thousands and he was doing that. I look at it, it's like, man, how have I failed by not doing that but yet that is so powerful to get people to buy in.
And I think as we look at generations where it's in the past is like, "Hey, you're transactionally. You're here. Okay, you're going to be here. You're going to be here." And it was taught, "Hey, you're going to be here because that's what you do. You stay in a job until you get fired or you have to go somewhere else," whereas now where it's kind of like, "Well, what do I want to do?" And there's so many options. And when you start to seek those transformational experiences, like you just talked about that's a responsibility of leaders I believe, to really engage in that. How are we getting people to buy in so deeply to the vision and the mission that it's beyond, what they're making? It's not a salary-based decision.
[GABRIELLE]
It absolutely is imperative for leaders today to understand that they are not competing against their competition, the employer, the company across the street. They're not even competing against a different industry. They're competing against the entrepreneurial opportunities, drop shipping, going into real estate. I mean, the advertisements that are being pushed in front of my generation are causing my generation to not only question a traditional career path, but look at what other alternatives are going to be more fulfilling. And so the career model, I think, has been extremely disrupted because of the competition of what could be out there. So it's FOMO. It's this fear of missing out that my generation has had because we got, we were raised with the internet where we don't want to make a decision because we don't know what else we're saying no to, by saying yes to working for you.
So why we have such high turnover with the millennial generation, why millennials still today, the oldest millennial is 39 years old, and yet our retention has not changed. The average millennial still stays at a job between three and five years. And as someone who has conducted focus groups and research and work with companies around the world on millennial retention specifically, I can tell you the number one reason that millennials quit is the same reason anybody else quits - the direct relationship with their supervisor. But the second reason, and this is really interesting, the second reason that millennials quit is training and development. Back to that informational piece. If you're not making me a better person, and we call it whole person training, I wrote a whole book about it called Keep Them Longer. How do you create a that's developing a person to not just work better, but live better?
Can you help me make better life decisions? Can you help my relationship with my wife or my kids? Can you help me save money better, learn a second language? We're recognizing as employers, and I think the pandemic really underscored this from any leaders today, is that your role as an employer has expanded significantly. No longer are you just coming in back to that transaction I pay you and you show up, but now am I helping you with your mental health? Am I helping you set up a work from home scenario that's safe for you physically and emotionally? Am I helping you homeschool your kids better? And I think that that role has really expanded in a way that's really beautiful and much more collaborative. And that's where I think that this cross-generational conversation of how do we create a workplace that works for us? Because I would, I've worked with so many brands that are like, "Gabrielle, you got to come in. We've got these upside down, walking treadmills, we've got a ball pit, we have kombucha on tap. Like we've got the coolest place. You've got to come check it out." And millennials are still quitting left, and right. It's not the stuff that's going to keep us. It's the opportunity to make a difference, to plug into something bigger than ourselves and to find and use our purpose at work.
[TYLER]
It's really the culture of it. It's holistically that person. That person is not just a cog or an asset. They are an appreciating individual that can grow and learn and taking responsibility for that. One of the things that I've said, and I believe this, and I think it kind of, in two words, say, I want to be an incubator, not an incinerator. I want people to grow within our organizations. I want them to, I want people to leave because of the great opportunities they get to grow into not because they're so used up in burnout where we just burn through them; it's like, okay, one out the next one in. I've learned that from mentors that I've had, I've learned that from people that I've engaged with.
It's like, "Hey, when you have that growth type culture, everyone's going to get better." And if someone leaves because they grew, well, that means that you had an environment that was supportive as opposed to this lid on top of it and just burn people out. And to me, I think that is the workplace that is going to post pandemic, absolutely thrive. And I believe that's where my generation, this younger Gen X, the older millennial, or even through the entire millennial generation, as we're becoming leaders, it is our responsibility to say, "Hey, how do we do this differently? How do we really put into action, all those things that you have mentioned to say, we can do better, and not because we just have to do better because that's table stakes, but because we care about the people?"
[GABRIELLE]
Yes. And it's also to doing for others what we wish someone did for us. When you take that moment to really reflect on what kind of leader did I need when I was coming up, as millennials, millennials are now asking these questions, because we've got Gen Z coming behind us, which is an extremely different generation. Gen Z is not just a younger version of millennials. They have extremely different expectations coming into the workplace. For example our work has shown that millennials were deciding what career they wanted to go into as juniors in high school. Gen Z is deciding in seventh grade. So if you're looking, if you're in an industry and we work a lot in the manufacturing space, a lot in spaces that are trying to recruit and retain younger people, I tell them all the time don't focus on that high school or the community college career fairs.
Go to the middle schools because that's where they're making their decision. They're far more practical than millennials. They're being raised by Gen X parents who are very skeptical. Like baby boomer parents were saying, "Do whatever you want. You can be anything that you want to be." And Gen X parents are like, "Yes, you probably can. Pick a couple of things that you're pretty good at it and follow that." And so if you just understand that the same approach that you've taken and learned to take with millennials isn't going to work with generation Z, it comes back to that, and we teach it all the time called generational curiosity. Generational curiosity simply says that I'm more curious than critical about people who are different than me. So if you're in an exchange with someone and you're like, why in the world did they make this decision or why in the heck, did they not do this, or move forward on this, rather than criticizing them for doing something different than you be curious, find ways to engage with them. And even if their thought process was off, that's an opportunity for you to adjust it rather than criticize and correct.
[TYLER]
How we encourage and how we, we engage people do open up their mind to the processes, as opposed to, I look at it as much myself. And especially, I would say up until the last few years we were a generation of overeducated. It was like, you have to go to college to make yourself worth anything in the world. And then all the sudden we go, we get a bachelor's degree, and they're like, "Well, that's not good enough. Now you need to go get a graduate degree." And you have people getting MBAs. You have people getting masters, you have people getting doctorates and we have all this education, but yet the greatest need in our society does not match up with that because we've really falsified the economy, believing that education was going to yield results in our society.
I see in my own kids is that younger generation, those middle schoolers, they are way more fiscally responsible when it comes to, how are they going to educate? Where can I go make money? Oh, do I need to go pay for four years of college? Well, I don't need to, if I can create an entrepreneurial endeavor where I can make six figures in a year plus right out of high school, or even before high school, because the opportunity is there. Or I can go into a physical labor. I can do physical labor. I can get educated. I can learn about business and grow a business and start employing others. That to me is, I see, what you mentioned is way more in the conversation of that younger, that middle Gen Z, that up and coming, that soon to be in the workplace that has never been in the past.
[GABRIELLE]
I know. And I'm so here for it. I'm so excited that I think Gen Z is really right-sizing the education economy. Because my generation, I'm the first person in my family to go to college, me and my sister. No one sat us down and said, "Hey, Gab, you need to go to college." It was, "Do you want to do anything with your life? Well, you better go to college." It was this unspoken pressure, which then turned into the arms race of education. You can't get a job? Go back to college. Oh, it's not the job that you want? Go back to college. Not getting paid what you want? Go back to college." So we started racking up this ridiculous debt, thinking that at one point it was going to pay off because everyone was telling us it would. And so now we've got a younger generation who saw their cousins, sisters, brothers, friends, and my generation making these educational mishaps and are now saying, is there a better way?
So now we've got a new marketplace of short-term certificates and credentials that are experience-based and apprenticeships and people starting companies at earlier ages recognizing that just having a diploma doesn't mean that you are qualified to do anything. So it really is this ultimate proof of, can you do what you say that you can do? I can learn how to code by going to MIT or I can learn it on YouTube. The democratization of wisdom and knowledge is absolutely exciting. And so as an employer, if you are recruiting a new generation, you have to consider that, that resumes are going to look different. You can't start looking at years of experience and assume that that makes someone experienced and you can't look at degrees and credentials as something that typically qualifies or disqualify someone.
You're going to have to start creating more experience-based interview processes to determine, can this person actually do what is it they say that they can do? Alternatively, if you're in a position where you're wanting to become more competitive, more valued and make more money in your economy, the opportunities in front of you. So the economy and the marketplace is going to reward people who are going to be self-starters, people who are going to say, "Hey, there's an opportunity here. There's a niche I want to go after. Why isn't anyone doing this? I should go after it." Those are the ones who are going to win in this economy more than ever, because the opportunity is there. The initiative is really on the individual.
[TYLER]
I sat down with some friends. This was back in the summer of 2019. I had this idea. I said, by the time my kids get into college, college will be a thing of the past, going to a physical university. The pandemic accelerated that. With everyone taking online classes and now looking as I talked to friends, the cost differential, like they can get online education or they can physically go to the university and there's like a five to one expense ratio. That's stupid. And I think it comes back to this great responsibility of leaders and business owners and in organizations, executive, businesses to say, "Hey, we need to be a part of that transformation. We need to be a part of that education, encourage people to say, great, we're going to hire you based on values, based upon character and based upon willingness to learn and grow great. We will find the assets to make sure that you learn what you need to learn and transform and grow in that process, as opposed to shirking off that responsibility to afford university, and then coming into the workplace and finding out they have no idea what they're supposed to be doing."
So often you hear that from people. I look at myself. What I'm here doing today, I have an animal science degree, and yet I am enthralled by leadership and personal development. And all of these factors that I've seen are the catalyst in my business and not the technical stuff that we've been led to believe is so important. It's important to an extent, but not the be-all and end-all as much as it is the personal transformation of leadership. That really is what moves people.
[GABRIELLE]
Yes. I couldn't agree more. And for the majority of us who don't use our degrees every day, I majored in political science and religion, so unless it's a heated Thanksgiving Day dinner, I'm usually not called upon to say anything. Where we are now looking at what's the practical application of what it is that we're learning. And this just in time information, age, where I don't need to really focus on the theory, I need to focus on the practical because information is flowing so quickly. Applications of that information is changing so quickly. Our phones are updating constantly. Everything's changing that by the time that you're graduating, what it is that was taught to you in a textbook is five years out of date. And so I think that that's going to certainly change the competitive nature of what it looks like to find a job or to find a great employee is giving them the opportunity to constantly be learning and kind of be on that cutting edge of what it means to help innovate.
[GABRIELLE]
And back to the kind of this partnership theme that I'm seeing so profoundly inside of companies now is the old way of hiring and the old way of keeping, the old way of advancing is a thing of the past where you now need to partner with your employees to say, "What do you want to get out of this?" Whenever I hire someone, I have them write down three expectations. What are your expectations for working with me? Because if I don't know what their expectations are, I'm going to violate them. You're married, I'm married. If I don't talk to my husband about what my expectations are about date night or vacation or going to see family, or we work together, how we're managing our time, if we don't communicate our expectations, one or both of us is going to end up bitter.
And he hates it when I tell the story, but he's not here, so I'll throw him under the bus. A few years ago I was speaking at a conference in Austin and I showed up to the hotel room and there were these chocolate covered strawberries and like some popcorn and some other stuff, which it was just kind of a speaker gift. So I walk over and I start chatting down on these chocolate covered strawberries, because they're mostly fruit. So that was dinner. And I'm reading this note and it says good luck on your keynote tomorrow - dash Brian. Brian, he's been on your show, great guy, zero romantic bone in his body, which lucky for him, I'm not romantic either. I don't know what our wedding song is. I often forget our anniversary. He really lucked out in marrying me.
So I look at this note and I said, that's interesting. I'm like, is there anybody on this team named Brian? I'm like, I don't think so. So Brian calls me a few minutes later and he's like, "Hey, did you get my strawberries?" I said, "Oh my gosh, that was from you? Thank you." And he goes, "Wait, who is sending you chocolate covered strawberries that you don't even think this is my husband?" I said, "I don't know. I just assumed it was someone from the conference." I said, "No, no, no, don't make this about me. This is about you. Why is it that it was signed Brian?" And I didn't once think this was from my husband. And he's like, very fair. But if I go into every hotel room expecting that he's going to send me chocolate covered strawberries because he did it once I'm going to be bitter and upset.
And the same is true, as employees. Oftentimes a mentor of mine once said, the first time you give someone a gift, they're excited. The second time you give it, they expect it, the third time they're entitled to it. So what are you giving your employees that they now feel entitled to? Because you're not talking about those hidden or unspoken expectations. Because when a millennial quits and I'm called in to say, "Hey, what happened? This was our high-performing millennial and she's leaving after 16 months or two years." It's because her expectations weren't met and more often than not, they never even talked about what those expectations were.
[TYLER]
So one of the things that my wife so astutely did, and we have done is we go through and we have everyone fill out the love languages so that way we can understand how to recognize it. And we see so many organizations that just fail at that, absolutely fail in the recognition piece. And I know one of the things that's often maligned in the millennial generation is everyone getting participation trophies. And if I stop and think about that, and I thought about that coming to this interview, it's like, to me, there was like, hey, we see recognition is valuable. People need encourage, but our encouragement was misaligned. We just thought we can throw a trophy to everyone as opposed to writing out a note, to give them a pat on the back, to spend quality time with them, all the other different love languages that really would be more meaningful we just, as those parents or that generation, that thought all this is the solution.
So now, as you mentioned, we have people that were children of that. And now all of a sudden they're adults of that and thinking, "Oh, well, if I'm not getting recognized, then I don't have value here." It's really, we have to go through this and say what are we doing to recognize and show that encouragement in all the different ways, because that's more meaningful than money. And that's been shown time and again, and I imagine your research absolutely confirms all that.
[GABRIELLE]
Yes, that's exactly right. I mean, people are either motivated, intrinsically or extrinsically. And we created expectations for a generation that unless they are given feedback, recognition, praise, a monetary bond, something externally like a trophy then what we do doesn't matter. So gone are the days where intrinsic, internal motivation is enough. And I think older generations can oftentimes look at my generation and say, isn't just knowing you did a good job enough, or knowing you're providing for your family enough. And I have a hard time with people who sit in positions as generational experts or commentators and blame our parents' generation for how my generation turned out. Number one, I don't think that it's whole cloth true. And number two, I don't think that it's helpful, because one of my core values is respect and I don't ever want to do anything that's disrespectful to a generation that honestly was doing the best that they could.
No parent was out there saying but this is really going to mess my kid up. And they're doing the best that they could. So I think that that's really important to have empathy for other generations as well. But because of the trophy generation, I get, I played competitive sports. I have more trophies of games. I probably didn't play in thinkings that I won. And because of that, it has trained my generation to expect the validation of someone saying Gabby did a good job or hey we recognize your role on the team. And what that has translated into is an expectations around feedback, which by the way, millennials expect feedback five times a week. Now, most employers look at me, roll their eyes and throw their hands in the air, like, "Well, I got a job to do and I can't sit there and like praise them for wearing close toed shoes on Tuesday."
But what it turns into is that this is a generation that wants micro pieces of feedback just like they'd have a like, or a share. I mean, everything is micro with this generation. So we don't need to have a 360 every four days, but we need to know again that we matter and then what we do matters and your role as a leader is especially at the beginning, maybe not forever, but especially at the beginning, help your people make that connection so that they can start making that connection for themselves and better yet they can start making that connection for other people. Because as a leader, whether you're leading two people or 200 people, the people who follow you will simply mirror what you model. So if you, as a leader are frustrated, people aren't showing up on time, they're not doing good work, they're not staying focused, look at yourself first.
We were working with some military leaders and one of the guys stood up in the back. He was a captain and he's like, "How do we get our people to be more vulnerable?" It was the ultimate irony of this guy who was the antithesis of vulnerability, asking how he's going to get people to open up and I was like, "I wouldn't want to open up to you." And so it starts with you first and saying, what holes am I experiencing? Um, in my employee's performance, look at myself first and say, what is it that I'm modeling that my people are mirroring?
[TYLER]
Well, I believe personally that is the greatest way for leaders to get healthier. And that's my purpose, to help other leaders get healthy too. And part of that I feel is admitting, being open with our insecurities. And how do you do that? You be more empathetic. You put your arm around people and say, "Hey, I'm going to walk with you. Let me share a piece of my vulnerability. Let's connect." And to me, that is the great attribute. And if I look at, again the people we've mentioned earlier, Jim Collins to John Maxwell and looking at those level five leaders, those people development, those pinnacle leaders, they're no longer saying my role here in the organization is to do tasks. My job is to help develop people and see opportunities no one else can see, to see before and more.
It's really separating as leaders, oh, I'm solely here just to do a bunch of tasks. Everyone else should mimic what I do. But no, our job as leaders is to be those encouraging coaches, to point people in the direction where they can have great success and give them encouragement for what they're doing right, to help them maximize what they're doing. And I believe when we're healthy enough as leaders to do that for ourselves, except that for ourselves, we start to do that for others. And that's when organizations absolutely explode. It's not because I'm going to show up and do 15 different tasks today and expect everyone else just to model me it. That doesn't work. And again, these are people like you mentioned earlier, that were way ahead of their time that recognized it. And now we just need to put it into action as generation of leaders.
[GABRIELLE]
Yes. And especially with the younger generation, coming in back to expectations, they're expecting vulnerability from leaders. No longer is it, I'm the leader because I'm the most removed from the people I lead. I'm divided by floors and doors and a name on the front of my door. It really is are you in the trenches with me? Can I relate to you? So this next generation cares about accessibility. It's one of our core values. We don't care as much about ownership as we do about accessibility.
I don't need to own the car I've got Uber. I don't need to own the boat. I can go through a boat sharing service or the vacation home there's Airbnb. We don't need to own it. We just want access to it. And the same is true with our leaders is if I can tweet at someone or DM someone directly and get, get a connection, why can't I talk to my executive, my CEO, or my VP. So we've got a generation and that's painted in the slide of entitlement where if you don't understand accessibility is an expectation of ours, you may say, well, they feel like they're entitled to talk to the CEO. Well, they don't see why they shouldn't. Where we come in and I've had a company call me up once and they're like, "We don't know what to do with our millennials. They walk in the front door, they put their feet up, they call us by our first name, we have no idea what to do with these kids." And I told 'em, "That's amazing. You don't have a problem. You have an opportunity here." But they viewed the fact that this next generation wants to relate to them and be in relationship with them is disrespect when in reality, the millennial form of respect is, are you like me? Because I will like you if you're like me.
And likeness doesn't mean you need to wear skinny jeans and have crazy hair and like try to be woke or whatever. Like, don't try so hard to not be yourself. We care about authenticity, but like us means, are you vulnerable? Are you willing to say, I don't know? Are you willing to admit you made a mistake and not spin it around and say, oh, we can do better but just say like, I really messed up? Because that's something that my generation and particularly Gen Z, we're seeing now too. Mental health is on the forefront of everyone's conversation. When I go and I work with the military, with the medic team at basic, they're like, "We've never seen so many Gen Z cadets pull themselves out because they say, mentally, I can't do this. It's hard for my mental health."
And they're like looking at them, like, what do you mean? You know, like, they're like Tom Hanks in the league of their own. Like, there's no crying in baseball. What are you doing? It doesn't compute. But this is a generation that's had such an awareness of mental health that we're coming into a situation wanting to protect our mental health and expecting our leaders to value the things that we value. As a leader you don't have to agree. It doesn't have to be the same priority as you, but you need to respect the priorities of the people that you lead.
[TYLER]
Well, to me, what you described is being active empathy, healthy empathy. It's not being the callous, hard, that CEO that stands there that has no fallibility. And it's also not being the doormat that just enables everyone. It is having that healthy place of being curious. And I think, to wrap all this up and I think to focus on this one point, every great evolution brings a greater opportunity for learning. You know, just as much as we've had, as you mentioned this idea of becoming more vulnerable, then we need to understand how to display vulnerability appropriately. Brené Brown talks a lot about that and I appreciate it greatly. Another, one of the mentors that I follow, Craig Rochelle, is like, it's important that a leader always tells the truth, but they need to understand what truth to tell when, because telling all the truth does not necessarily help.
Being totally vulnerable all the time does. And I think it comes back to that as we're going to learn, being more intued to mental health is very, very important, but there's also, we need to learn resilience. It's kind of like in sports. There's a difference between being hurt and being injured. And you need to understand that you can play hurt. Oh, it hurts. But when you're playing injured, that's not good. And I think is what we'll learn as leaders, as a society is, okay, how do we address the practices of mental health as opposed to, oh, that's a cop out as so many people will start to question as opposed to no, that's realistic and let's go through and building that grit and resilience that isn't being hard and callous. It is finding that proper place.
Dude, we could go on and on about that one, I don't want to dig into that. Maybe that's for another time and situation, but man, you've given me some great notes here. And I think that the greatest thing that I'm going to take away, which has been so wildly impactful in my life, that I think is so great is this idea of being transformational. And transformational happens in collaboration with others. You can't do it on your own. And, and to me, that's what part of growing as a healthy leader is and I know that's what you and Brian and everyone else at the Purpose Company is so we're really doing in a big way. And I appreciate it. I appreciate getting to know you and Brian and becoming friends and having these conversations because I think it's important as leaders that we all do and grow. So Gabrielle, thank you so much for your time and being here with me today.
[GABRIELLE]
Yes. Well, thank you. I'm really honored to be a part of it. It's always a lot of fun when I get to come in after Brian. We kind of do like a both end approach for like doing stuff together. But yes, I just want to thank you and acknowledge you for your voice and for bringing in some really collaborative, profound conversations around leadership in a way that isn't just parroting what's already been said, but applying it in a really practical and a really a modern way. So I'm really honored to be a part of the conversation and keep it up. It's awesome.
[TYLER]
Well, thank you so much. And I want to make sure in the show notes, everyone can find you and the purpose company and your husband, Brian. And I so appreciate it again. So thank you for being here.
[GABRIELLE]
Thanks
[TYLER]
Man. I hope you enjoyed that. One of the biggest things that I learned in the conversation with Gabrielle and is probably whether I learned it or just reaffirmed it, is how today's organizations, working organizations, really, what they're responsible for in training is so much more than it was 20 years ago when I started into the workforce. As I went to college and I came out, I jumped in the workforce and it was just off and go. I didn't look at that company as saying, okay, now train me how to be an employee. But that's reality of what's happening today. That's a little bit of the education system that is very much a new generation saying, they're looking for mentorship, they're seeking mentorship. And as Gabrielle really pointed out, it is the organization, the company, the leaders' job to say, "We are going to teach you and train you."
So much I believe over the next generation, we're going to see where post-secondary education is going to fall out of the hands of the university and really into the hands of the employer. We're going to have more and more people choose to say, "Man, I'm going to go start working and learn on the fly as opposed to go spend four to five to eight years working in education and then go out into workforce." We're going to see much of that change. And as Gabrielle pointed out, I think that is one of the greatest opportunities. So I ask you this in your organization, what type of education, what type of mentorship, what type of development do you guys have? And as a leader, really stopping and thinking, what are we doing to develop people? John Maxwell's Five Levels of Leadership, level four is people development.
To me as a leader, you want to really get far somewhere? You help develop people as Gabrielle pointed out, you want to get they in today's workforce? Focus on developing people because that's what they're looking for. So they're going to seek out those organizations that are going to help them develop, put a pension and a priority to development. And it gets me excited because I know there's opportunity and when there's opportunity, there's responsibility to change and I'm all about it. Let's go.
So thank you for being here. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Go share it with someone, give me a review. Let me know how I did. I hope I earned a five star review. Let me know, share it with other people, and until next time go have a great day.
