Across the Generational Divide

In this episode, Gen Xer Rachel and Millennial Sarah are joined by Baby Boomer Joy Curtis, Gen Xer Nicole D'Avis, and Madison Poshkus- a member of Gen Z, to discuss the challenges and possibilities that are present in the intergenerational workspace.

Transcript

Across the Generational Divide

Rachel Gans-Boriskin:  [00:00:00] Hey, there beautiful people. Welcome to NOVL Takes, the podcast where we lift the veil on business as usual. Join us for our novel takes on business, culture, and the art of getting things done. I'm partner and principal Rachel Gans Boriskin.

Sarah Patrick: and I'm founder and principal Sarah Patrick. It's time for a new NOVL take.

 For the first time in our nation's history, we have five generations represented in the workforce. What is the impact of generational diversity? What are the obstacles, the possibilities?

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: If you've been on social media in the last couple years, you've probably encountered skirmishes in the war between the generations, but oftentimes the generational labels are thrown around without much precision. For instance, for a while, it seems like anyone over the age of 30 could be met with an okay boomer dismissal.

So when we say there are five generations represented in America's workforce, what does that mean? Though the borders of the generations differ a little depending on the website you visit, here are the general guidelines [00:01:00] we'll be using for today: the silent generation- born before 1945, baby boomers- born between 1946 and 1964, generation - born between 1965 and 1979, millennials -born between 1980 and 1995, and Generation Z- born in 1996 and after.

Sarah Patrick: Rather than talking broad generalizations, we thought we would bring together a multi-generational panel to discuss the challenges and possibilities that are present in the intergenerational workspace.

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: Representing baby boomers, we have Joy Curtis. Nicole D'Avis, and I will be representing Gen X.

Sarah Patrick: I'll be representing millennials. And lastly, for Gen Z, we have Madison Poshkus 

All right, well welcome everyone. Let's go around and have each of you introduce yourselves, giving your name, what you spend your time doing, and reminding folks of your generation.

Joy Curtis: I'm Joy [00:02:00] Curtis. I'm the Chief Human Resource Officer at Cambridge Health Alliance, which is a Harvard teaching hospital in Cambridge and the surrounding area. And I am a a baby boomer. 

Nicole D'Avis: Hi, I'm Nicole Davies. I run my own company, Enid. I work in web three and have worked with a number of DAOs providing leadership and strategy, community organizing amongst other things. And I am right on the young cusp of Gen X.

Madison Poshkus: Hi, my name is Madison Poshkus. I work as a legislative aid for the Massachusetts House of Representatives, mostly working on higher education policy and policysupporting survivors of sexual violence. And I was born in 2001, so I am Generation Z.

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: Well, thank you for being here. I think we should start with the caveat that no one person can speak for an entire generation, [00:03:00] and that in fact, these generational divisions are themselves a bit arbitrary. Still, having said that, we're now gonna ask you to speak for your generation. I guess we'll start with a question of how do you think your generational experience informs what you want from work? 

Joy Curtis: Well, you know that divide between the early baby boom and the later baby boom is actually pretty significant because the early baby boom is coming off of this post World War II nirvana, wonderfulness. And the second half we're dealing with assassinations. The first Earth Day affected us when we were like tweens.

And then we went into a very serious recession and an oil crisis. So for me, you know, my generation is known for being workaholics, wanting status symbols. And [00:04:00] probably part of that is due to this sense of, of lack or change from when we were very young and what we were expecting, and then things didn't materialize. Graduating from college in the late seventies and the early eighties, there weren't a lot of jobs and so people hunkered down and wanted to reclaim that sort of security. I think that they felt, and I certainly know I worked very hard and wanted to progress very quickly, but I do think that some of the generational changes also have to do with.

Development over time, you know, as at the late later end of the hippies. And believe me, nobody, no, our parents did not think we were hardworking or you know, they didn't think we'd amount to anything. They were actually quite appalled. So you know, you sometimes see that in generational differences too.

But I do [00:05:00] think that, you know, my generation, they was reading something about Generation Jones and they said you know you know, if you look at the c e o of your company, that's probably a generation Jones. Cuz we also are working a lot longer and I know younger generations are like, would you please retire and move out of the way?

 But, but we like to work. We've been working, you know, ever since we could. So it's hard for us to give that up.

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: I'm, I'm like Generation X two. So I'm just a, a little older than Nicole. And I think, you know, for, for us we're you know, at least for me when I was in college, there was a lot of the reality bites was, you know, we're, we were slackers too. I think we're gonna see a theme emerge there. And you know, we didn't have a lot of hope actually.

We were very [00:06:00] much in this space of. You know coming of age you know, sexually in, in the age of, of aids of looking around at a politics that was becoming more divisive. And, you know, and many of us were latchkey kids, parents getting divorced and I think, you know, we had a whole lot of being told it wasn't about us.

And so we got really good at that. I actually thought it was pretty funny in the pandemic. There was like a whole bunch of US Gen Xers going, yeah, you want us to stay home, watch tv. Cuz there's a pandemic that could kill us. Cool. We've got this. But yeah, I think that, you know, we are often Gen X we're often forgotten at work.

 And and in general, gen X is forgotten. We are just gonna put our heads down. But we don't necessarily [00:07:00] feel the security that I, I think other generations may have felt about a career. We went into it thinking our careers would be lifelong and then that just quickly didn't didn't materialize for us.

Nicole D'Avis: Although I, I think that you, I, I agree with everything you said, although I, I think also that, you know, not coming sort of into the workforce, say like right around 2008, there's something to be said for that. Like, I think that you know, you were talking about like, what does your generation look for from work and, and sort of expect and how do you show up at work?

And I think that this question of stability is one that we'll probably see like throughout the conversation. And I do think that, You know, we saw sort of this like stay somewhere for 20 years, 30 years, like with our parents, right? Where you just like sort of work your way up the ladder and then you stay there and there's like loyalty on both sides and you retire.

And so I think we sort of went in [00:08:00] thinking that that's how it was gonna be, and then have had to like adapt as we've matured through our own careers to the point where now as we're in our forties and fifties thinking about, you know, striking out on our own. I think like we're seeing that generally, I saw some stat literally today that that 50% of the workforce is now independent or freelance, which kind of blew my mind.

I need to go back and like, dig into that stat. But it was fascinating. And so I think that in some ways we were, we did have at least that jumpstart that we didn't come, you know, graduate from college and say like 2008, 2009, when everything was literally falling apart. And so I, I do think that we had at least the ability to get a few things on our resume before stuff was just kind of like, A wasteland.

And it does give us a little bit of that advantage perhaps. Although I agree that like we've still had to go through the various cycles that, that millennials have also gone through.

Sarah Patrick: I'm a millennial and came [00:09:00] into the workforce in 2008, like at the time of the economic crash. It is definitely hard to hear that negative feedback that comes in our direction.

 The sense that we are entitled that we are unwilling to, stick to a career trajectory that we are not hard workers things like that.

But when you come into a culture of impermanence, I think that tends to breed a comfort with impermanence. And you get used to, you're not there for long-term skills development, you're there to kind of get as much as you can really quickly because you're prepared to go you're prepared that the tide is gonna shift from under you.

 And that you need to be at the ready for whatever is coming next. And I think that, that tends to be interpreted as entitlement or as something negative. But I think, millennials are adaptive and really malleable [00:10:00] in a lot of ways in work environment for a lot of the reasons that coming into like very wobbly environments requires of us.

Madison Poshkus: Everything that I am going to say is gonna have to come with the caveat that my professional career began three weeks ago. So I'm very new to professional workspaces and therefore I think still thinking a lot and sort of figuring out what I need and, and what I come to looking for in work. That being said, I was three months old on nine 11 and I was a first year in college when Covid disrupted everything.

So I was seven months into my undergraduate education when we went online for two years almost. Rachel was my professor at the time for context, and I did over half of my undergraduate education online. So I think that the online modality definitely changed a lot of the ways that my peers think about work.

And I also think that the sort of changing divisive world that we grew up in, that we were born into in a [00:11:00] lot of ways informs the way that people my age think about work. Again, with the caveat that most people my age are still finishing up their undergraduate education and are not yet at work 

So I think that the kind of world I grew up in can sort of, not to bifurcate or make things too binary, but can manifest in sort of two ways. A lot of my peers are very pessimistic about the job market, very pessimistic about the world that we've inherited in a lot of ways. And I think the other camp is sort of like those who are therefore ,predisposed to world changing work. Like those of us who want to use our career to change things. And that's definitely how I ended up in the policy realm. So I tend to associate more with that camp than with the pessimistic camp. That being said, I have my moments. But I would also say that for me, having so much of my college experience be online, I am not attracted to remote or even hybrid work really.

 Which I think is [00:12:00] something that is very different from generations older than me who like were so excited to work from the couch. I got to have some of what we're supposed to be like the most fun, carefree years of my life from the couch. I like putting on work pants and heels or a dress and packing a bag and going to work because it's not an experience I had in college.

I didn't get to go to class for four years the same way that those of you who went to college did. So I think that right now I'm, I'm looking for a desk. I'm looking for a cubicle. I'm, and that's what I've found for now. when I was job searching a few months ago.

I, I knew I wanted to go into an office, which might, that might be like unfair for me to speak for my entire generation. I'm sure there's lots of us who really enjoyed the online modality, but my peers and my friend group and those of us who are looking for work, are looking for in-person work. Above all.

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: That's really, that's really interesting. those larger cultural shifts, they're so important. Sarah, you mentioned this idea of people saying, you couldn't be relied on [00:13:00] millennials. You were just gonna jump ship.

But I, I remember thinking along those lines too, that the rules changed. So companies used to feel loyalty to employees and then, you know, all these layoffs come you know, 2008 changes things and companies don't have loyalty. So then this idea that a generation should have loyalty to companies that have no loyalty to them always seemed a little, a little unfair.

 I wonder, you kind of got to this, each of you a little, but what do you think is the stereotype about your generation that needs to be dispelled?

Joy Curtis: Oh, I can go with that one. Boomers there's this idea that we can't figure out technology, and believe me, there are boomers that cannot figure out technology. But I can tell you, you know, I have a [00:14:00] whole, the whole panoply of generations working for me and my Xers are terrible. And I was like, okay, let me show you my screen.

Go here, click here, look at this. And you know, and I'll find people like, oh, do you want me to find that on your phone for you? I'm like no, I, I can, I can do that myself. 

I think I can also speak for all generations, the stereotypes while they exist, because there are people who do that. It is really important that we not put people in in any way, in any sort of stereotype just by looking at them, right? You know, whether we talk about race, gender, et cetera. But certainly generational. And once we do that, it allows all the generations to work together when we meet people where they are.

And I loved hearing about Generation Z wanting to come in the office. I do find that [00:15:00] my boomers, cuz I, it, it full disclosure, I was meeting with all my managers and I said, I'm going to be on this podcast and I wanna hear what you are thinking about this. Cuz I had all these different generations and my boomers really like to come into the office.

I mean, we have total flexibility. You have to either be here for, cuz there's a business need for you to be here, or you have a personal preference and we'll honor. Those and my boomers are in the office like a lot. And and my Xers are so happy to not come in. And and then, you know, when we get a little younger, it's kind of a mixed, mixed bag.

 I don't know that the folks that I've worked with in the past, like kind of to your point, Rachel, not a lot of people. know, like if, if with all respect, Joy, if there is something that feels sort of, you know, old or antiquated, the go-to term is boomer. [00:16:00] So I, and I will often sort of like boomer myself also, like, I'll be like, all right, like boomer alert, like I'm gonna say this or say that to kind of like play off my age because I mostly work with folks that are, you know, five to 10 to 15 years younger than me.

Nicole D'Avis: And so nobody is referring to Gen X for anything. Like it just never gets brought up. Kind of to your point, Rachel, of like the forgotten generation. So I guess the benefit is that there's not many stereotypes to dispel because just nobody's talking about you.

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: Well, we're the, we're the Marsha Brady

Nicole D'Avis: Yeah, exactly.

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: Generations, which I wonder if that's even a reference that people get. 

Nicole D'Avis: Madison? 

Madison Poshkus: I know that reference because my mom is Gen X millennial cusp. She's definitely a younger Gen Xer, but wouldn't be considered a millennial. 

. Speaking of stereotypes, I feel like stereotypes for generations stopped at millennials. People [00:17:00] call me a millennial and like I said, my mom's little sister who is only a few years younger than her is a millennial, So like there are people old enough to be my parents who are millennials, but that's like, I feel like people are sort of starting to say Gen Z now, like maybe more so in the last three to five years.

But like before it was like anyone young was called a millennial, which is like, I don't really identify with millennial,Like I, I don't even know where to begin. Just cause I feel like my generation being sort of the first like digital native generation sort of has its own entire like cultural differences. I think that being said, I don't know what stereotypes exist about Gen Z at work because we're barely there yet.If we're extending the stereotypes that I think sort of are slung equally at millennial people and Gen Z people, it's the like inattentiveness, addicted to technology, gonna job hop on you, like not wanting a whole ton of Like years at one place. Whereas I would say that like, [00:18:00] again, me, for myself and also the majority of like my peer group and my friends, like we are craving stability in a world that is increasingly unstable. So I think that it's assigned to us that we are going to jump ship or that we are not looking to stay in place 

But I want to be at a place for a long time because so few things about the time that I've grown up in have been stable. 

 Like I, I wouldn't take a job if I didn't see myself there for a while or didn't see room to grow.

I also feel like millennials I know, feel that way too. And that the stereotype of like the hopping from job to job is one unfair. Cuz like Rachel said, the rules have changed. And also like, just kind of not true in my experience.

Sarah Patrick: 

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: I think there's something too about if we go into, to working together I wonder what your thoughts are generally about differences in what people want in the structure of work. How much, sort of go [00:19:00] off and figure this out on your own, how much contact, feedback, managerial connection are you looking for?

Because I think, you know, I've heard managers talk about that as a major generational difference.

Joy Curtis: to the, the focus here from the, you know, the managers that report to me is how do you engage your employees, which means to think about them as individuals and to think to, you know, there's some people who are like, I'm so happy to have a job and please don't ask me to do anything new.

I will just do this. And you need those types of players and you have them do this, but you kind of say, Hey, I think so-and-so's got some capacity. Or they, I think that would be a growth plus. We always talk about that. And I think that, Is what I'm hearing. And people wanna know, they're appreciated.

The people who wanna grow wanna have opportunity to grow, and the people who wanna do [00:20:00] work in a certain way need to do it. Now, there's a certain type of work that needs to happen in an HR department, and if you're really not cut out for it, then you know, you, you might opt out. But creating that type of environment goes across all of the generations.

And when you think about it like that, it, it allows the person to opt in and, and, and get what they want. And you create psychological safety for that. And then the generations can work together. And, and, and you're not driven crazy as a manager to go, well, this person's generation X I'm gonna let them doing work from home in their pajamas.

And this person's, you know, just Gen Z and they probably wanna come in the office and you, you just would drive yourself crazy. But when you allow that type of environment, then I think the generations can work effectively together.

Sarah Patrick: Absolutely, because I think what you're talking about is honoring our motivational differences, right? You're meeting people where they're at, 

Joy Curtis: Exactly.

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: I do think having taught [00:21:00] over a 20 year period I certainly saw though a change in the way I had to structure assignments, the kind of directions, the level of specificity that I needed the kind of feedback students wanted Gen Z definitely wanted much more detailed instructions, wanted more feedback really craved that kind of positive engagement in a way that, you know, certainly in college I never expected and, and definitely didn't receive.

And I think even, you know, my students that I had 15 years ago weren't looking for in the same way. So, I changed my teaching structure over that time. It's not a judgment, it's just a different style. I wonder, what have you seen in your lives, your [00:22:00] work around changing norms?

Nicole D'Avis: Yeah, I've definitely, I've seen that both as a teacher as a manager and leader. you know, I think it's interesting because like when you're managing a team or when you're leading an organization, you have the perspective of, okay, this is sort of how my brain works, or this is how I think this is how I work So that often leads the sort of culture, whether or not you mean it to. And so even if somebody's not necessarily there yet, where they do need more detail and more instruction and more feedback and more specificity, there's an expectation, or or I have, I've brought the expectation that what we're moving toward is this comfort with ambiguity and the fact that like, you're gonna try something and, there's an expectation to like put work out there without concrete direction, get feedback and based on that feedback, like as you're going to, pivot and iterate and, and learn and grow and develop.

 I've sort of operated [00:23:00] with the assumption, that where we're trying to get to is this place of autonomy andself-managing. And I think that that'll be interesting, to,observe over the next say 10 years what does it look like when you fast forward out 10 years and obviously like when they're 10 years into their career, most people that have been there that long are not gonna be having the same type of specificity.

And so what does that look like when you've, you know, grown in, are expected to be doing more sort of like big picture organizing and, and planning yourself.

Madison Poshkus: I am definitely of the generation that does appreciate and like that level of specificity and that level of feedback. Rachel gave the best feedback when she was my professor, and I do attribute that sort of similarly to what I said before, for a generation sort of trying to find 

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: It seems to me actually, as people talk, that some of the generational stereotypes are really just about sort of place in life. right? Like of course when [00:24:00] you are young, you don't know anything, right? And, and you don't know how to do it. And also I think, you know, developmentally, you know, you, you are less comfortable with nuance.

I mean, that's one of the things that happens with people as we age is, is we have a growing capacity to understand nuance and complexity. I'm sure that when each of our generations graduated college or went into the workforce, there were these similar ideas about slackers who, you know, were pessimistic or impatient for change or whatever, right?

what we're seeing partly is just each new generation getting integrated into a workspace.

Madison Poshkus: So if I could add to that, Rachel, this definitely intersects with my work as someone who observes education policy. It always comes back to standardized testing [00:25:00] with me in the work that I do. And I will be quick to, not blame or fault, but attribute my generation's sort of one track, highly specific.

One way about it. Tell me how to do it. Nature with the fact that I went to school kindergarten through 12th grade, being taught how to take two kinds of tests, the MCM c s and the s a t and that my entire schooling in a Massachusetts public school was built around standardized test taking, which. Is a terrible metric of children and districts and teachers because there's only one right way to do it.

 I was good at taking tests and succeeded by those metrics. That being said, I do prefer a high level of specificity now and sort of tend to think that there's not a right way in a wrong way, but like a correct way to do things. And there is like an approach that always works, which isn't always true.

Right. And as I'm sure I'll, as I'll get older, I'll become more comfortable with that [00:26:00] nuance. But it starts in the school systems. I really do think that's true. I, I was taught how to take tests and therefore, you know, I think that there's a level of ambiguity that multiple choice questions don't cover, you know?

Joy Curtis: Madison, I really wanna pick up on what you said. I, I taught graduate school for three years and even in that three year period, and part of it was by the third year, the makeup of the class was younger. I saw a change. So it's the same, absolutely same syllabus all three years.

,. But in the third year I kept getting this feedback of like, well, you didn't explain the syllabus, you didn't explain what we had to do. There was a group that was just very confused what I got was, we wanna get this right. We wanna get an A But this is a business school, right? you're supposed to use critical thinking skills. And it's [00:27:00] not to be told how to get to the answer or what the answer is., It very well may be attributable to developmental issues, as well as what you've said is that these are the folks that went through school training for taking standardized tests where there is a right or wrong answer and there's this expectation that they better get from the teacher what it is they're supposed to do.

And that's the teacher's responsibility. And this real uncomfortableness with might be in a shade of, of gray.

Madison Poshkus: I wonder too, as we're thinking about this in that work context to what extent do we end up changing how we're doing things because what each generation, coming in needs? 

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: So, how do we make room in the workplace for, more feedback, [00:28:00] more specificity at the very moment where you know, everybody's remote or half of the team is remote. how does that work?

Joy Curtis: I think it's one of the biggest issues right now in the workplace for leaders because this, everybody being remote changed like that 

And suddenly we had to get used to this. And so one of the things that I think in the workplace that, that we have to continuously experiment with And keep it top of mind is how do we engage a remote workforce? How do we get people to have a sense of connection and to spend some time and we've got the work to get done, making sure we create those experiences

to get together in person for perhaps something fun, to get to know one another that doesn't feel onerous.But I don't know [00:29:00] that anybody just like has the answer.

And and we also have to remember that people in general are different. And so there's not gonna be one size fits all. So you've gotta do different types of things that will appeal to certain subsets. 

So we've talked about our generational differences and how they show up in the workplace. But I'm wondering though what's something that you've learned from another generation. 

Madison Poshkus: I'm learning from folks older than me that, not instability, but a degree of ambiguity is okay and survivable which is not something that I'm super comfortable with. I'll also just say outside of work, my 72 year old grandmother is how I learned to dress.

Like she is the most fashionable person I know even though she's a bunch of generations older than me. So I definitely value the relationships that I have with people in my life who are older than me, cuz they certainly know a lot more than I do in every way.[00:30:00] 

Nicole D'Avis: I guess one of the things that I see sort of with a generation coming up is just because digital communities are much more a thing, and I see this with my kids and their friends as well, there's a lot of just blurring between sort of professional and social activities online.

 what we're seeing is that like the work that we do online and the play that we do online are perhaps gonna be closer than they are right now. And so I think that that's kind of this interesting thing that like Gen Z and Jen Alpha even more are bringing to the table, the ways that they interact online and the relationships that they have, both with people that they've only met online and or people that they know i r l.

I would say that that's something that I've both like, seen this generation bringing to the table and then also I've, that I've learned from them, which is just the strength of these [00:31:00] digital relationships.

 So I think that that's both like the, the blurring between physical and digital, but then also like the blurring between work and play. And so like what they bring to the table from their digital selves is very relevant and applicable as far as work as well. 

Sarah Patrick: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think the part of my learning is kind of twofold. To your point, Nicole, my like learning about what the definition of community is and how that's kind of busted wide open definitely comes from Gen Z in a lot of different ways and generationsafter millennials.

 And just kind of rethinking all of the ways in which that can be even more dynamic than it has been in my generation and in generations that preceded mine. But I think the other kind of learning that that I extract definitely comes from a kind of baby boomer generation and generations that preceded which is a sense of of maybe permanence[00:32:00] or the possibility of permanence.

And that at least I and members of my generation don't need to be in survival mode kind of all the time. And that we, don't need to be prepared to be on the move. And that the ground doesn't necessarily need to shake from under us all the time. So it's just like, I think these really interesting dual learnings of both permanence and the possibility of that and constant shifting from these, generations that bookend mine in, in a number of ways.

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: Joy, what learning do you have?

Joy Curtis: so my exs and millennials, cuz like I said, I really don't have any Gen Zs here. They, they both in different ways have, have taught me about the importance of enjoying flexibility and, balance. Because, you know, being in my generation and just being who [00:33:00] I am, cause it's not like, Every baby boomer is a workaholic.

 But I am a recovering workaholic. And and, and you know, some of us you know, boomers, particularly the younger boomers, we're kind of proud of it, right? You know, like we just work 60 hours this week, you know, which off. And and, you know, that's not necessarily good. And I, you know, I've seen my exs tend to be work hard, play hard.

I mean, they, they play hard. And my millennials not the stereotype, tend to be more like fluid and, and balanced about that. That there's not this definition I'm working, I'm playing it's, it's more combined, which I think Nicole was alluding to. And so they, you know, they, they teach me and the way they get to me is [00:34:00] like, if you act like that joy, everybody else is gonna feel like they have to do that.

And so you're not helping anybody else. You're certainly not helping yourself. But that's not a good argument with me. But you're you're not helping anybody by setting that example. And and they're right. And so I really think that that's been been great and just you know, like right when we were maybe coming back into the office, I went to the structured, well, you know, people will come in two days a week or three days a week.

And, you know, they, they stop me and they're like why? Like, cause I'm lonely. I don't know.

I was like, oh, right. It was like, you, you know, you're gonna have to explain the why and why do you wanna disrupt people's life by some arbitrary rule that you have? No why for? And so they were the ones that really, you know, taught me to think about that. And where we came up with, you know, business need [00:35:00] and personal preference.

It wasn't the place I went to. Initially. And so learning from both those generations in a kind of blended way and just sort of, one thing that I have have noticed when I've had discussions with people, particularly when I've taught graduate school, as we talked about generations, that adjacent generations tend to not have as much tolerance for one another because they, my Xers were like these millennials, so, you know, and the boomers are sitting around going, oh, they're that bad, you know, but those Xers so adjacent generations tend to rub each other a a little bit, which was kind of interesting to me.

But with that, you can learn from one another too.

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: Yeah, it's, it's interesting to hear what you're talking about because I think on one hand, I don't necessarily as a Gen Xer think of myself as a work hard, play hard person mostly cuz I've never really quite mastered the play hard part. Like it's [00:36:00] just, it, I think it's a personality flaw.

I'm working on it. But I do think that we, we have a very clear sense of these boundaries. You know, you had this idea of- a phrase that like makes no sense to younger generations- a private life. People now talk about a personal life. We used to talk about a private life. But now your personal life is out in public, you're sharing it so it's not private anymore. But we had these clear sort of distinctions.

And I think probably my frustration, but also the thing I value and love about the younger generation, is this questioning, this pushing back and saying, well, why are these things completely separate? And why do I have to have a whole other wardrobe to show up to work? Why are we all pretending and, and, you know, fitting into miserably uncomfortable things [00:37:00] because that's what we've always done? And my answer has often been because that's what we've always done and that's the rule of this place. And then, you know, oh wait, maybe I don't have to wear control top pantyhose anymore. That would be, that actually would be great. You know, these are, stupid examples of learning.

and it's often for me a question of like, well, how far do we push it? I do think it's important to have some boundaries and some things that belong in one place or another that we can kind of code switch. But, but it is really helpful. You know, Joy, as you mentioned that well "why?" Gosh, I don't know.

 Which, you know, as a parent is also something you figure out all the time when the kid is like, why, why? And you know, you default to the, cuz I said, so when you go into the other room going, ugh, I have become my mother and I didn't wanna do that. And maybe we're gonna rethink it, you know.

Nicole D'Avis: I mean, I think that's a great point though, because, so yes, Joy, like, I, especially like as I was starting to hire at my sort of first wave of millennials, it was like, oh, these [00:38:00] entitled youngsters that are wondering why they haven't been promoted and they've worked here for a month. Like, you know, not you, Sarah.

This is, this is pre before

Sarah Patrick: Nicole hired me

Nicole D'Avis: mean, this is true, but I'm not talking about you.

Sarah Patrick: dang, here comes a story.

Nicole D'Avis: But you know, I think as I matured and as I worked with more millennials and as millennials, took the world by storm, like we have, like, I. Black Lives Matter and #MeToo. And like body positivity and like all of these things that, you know, we were just like, oh, I guess you just have to feel bad about your body.

And like, I guess like just racism and sexism in the workplace or like, you know, and police forces and like all of these things that we were just kind of like, yeah, we can like whisper about it and like be displeased. And millennials were like, why? Like, why would you have this be okay? And I think that that has been, I like, there's this entitlement that like, yes, like on [00:39:00] one-on-one in the workplace, sometimes you're like, ugh.

Like, okay, can you just do your job? But the other side of it is that like, there was things that we just accepted that, these younger generations came in and that same entitlement was sort of entitlement to a, just a better society. And so I think that I'm very grateful that now looking back with a bit of perspective it's like, okay, thank you.

Sarah Patrick: I think that was one of the points I, I wanted to make earlier, kind of jumping off of something that Madison said was that like, I think, Millennials I think are marked by their drive too. Like micromanagement is not a thing that is gonna work for us. I think that we are, we seek a lot of guidance, but really we seek a lot of room to grow and make change and have impact wherever kind of we go.

And so, you know, yes to coaching, yes to championing, yes to feedback, but like really a lot of space to like, yes to space, to self-manage. And so I think Nicole, to [00:40:00] your point, like it, a lot of those things come about because of that desire to like question, but also to like, Make change and, and, and really put that drive into into action.

This seems like a good place to pause And hopefully we've bridged 

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: some of the generational divide in today's conversation. We wanna thank our guests, Joy Curtis, Nicole D'Avis and Madison Poshkus for joining us and acting as generational translators. 

Joy Curtis: Thank you. This was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot.

Nicole D'Avis: Thanks for having me. It was, it was fun.

Madison Poshkus: this was really enjoyable. Thanks all.

Rachel Gans-Boriskin: To learn more about them, you can check out their full bios on our website, thinkNovl.com. Before we go, if this conversation has piqued your interest and you wanna hear more about what we have to say, stay tuned for other [00:41:00] episodes. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, please rate and review us. Give us some love.

Sarah Patrick: If you're curious about what we do over at NOVL or think we could help you or your organization, check us out or send us an inquiry over at thinknovl.com. That's T H I N K N O V l.com. That's it for us. Shout out to everyone who helped us make this show. This is NOVL Takes.