The Generation Gap: Managing Boomers, Millennials, and Gen Z on the Same Team

Ryan Calkins and John Moore get into one of the most frustrating realities of modern management: you're not leading one kind of person, you're leading four generations at once, each shaped by different economics, different work cultures, and wildly different ideas about what work is even supposed to feel like.

What they explored in this conversation:

• The loyalty question: why older workers stayed seven or eight years and newer workers leave in three, and whether that's really about character or just doing the math differently
• What it actually felt like to manage experienced drivers twice your age with no authority to fall back on, and what Ryan did instead of pretending to be the expert
• Why John spent years giving more to companies than they gave back, and what finally made him stop
• The cross-training habit John built after watching teams get held hostage by the one person who knew how everything worked
• How economics (housing, healthcare, dual-income households,etc.) shape the expectations of the people you're managing right now
• The best piece of leadership advice John ever received, and why two words have held up for 30 years

"Leading ain't easy, but you don't have to do it alone."

Leading Ain't Easy was created by Ryan Calkins and Erny Epley, and is hosted by Ryan and John Moore.

• Ryan is the founder of Reframe & Rise, where he works with veterans who transitioned successfully but still feel something's off; helping them find alignment, not just a better job title.
• John is a certified life and career coach with 20+ years of experience helping people navigate transitions, find purpose, and lead with intention — drawing on backgrounds in corporate leadership, counseling, and entrepreneurship.
• Erny runs Bus Pro Network, supporting school transportation leaders across California with training and development, and joins the show as an occasional guest.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Leading ain't easy, the show that cuts through the noise and gets real about leadership. I'm Ryan Calkins, Marine Corps veteran and founder of Reframe and Ride, and I'm here with my good friend and fellow leader, John Moore. As we unpack the highs, lows, and hard-earned lessons of what it actually takes to lead with character in today's world. It's not another highlight reel or fluffy leadership pep talk. We're talking about the stuff most people don't: the doubt, the pressure, the people problems, the pivots, and the personal growth that it demands. Because the truth is, leadership looks good on paper, but in real life, leading ain't easy. And my group, the the Xennials, which is like the small microgroup of Gen X millennials that are from like 79 to 84. And I'm Gen X. I'm all Gen X 74 on. Go ahead. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

But uh we just wanted to, we were thinking about it because workplaces today, it it spans three to four generations now. And it's just such a diverse group in in terms of generations and how there's different stereotypes for each group. And you know, sometimes you can get put in a bucket. It's like, oh, those those boomers or these kids don't want to work today. And, you know, is it the same approach to everything? Do we have to tailor to each, or is it kind of a balance of considerations?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

You know, from an observational standpoint, when I look at, let's say, the 80s of what I remember from work, the 90s, and then going into 2000, you gradually see the change, but not trying to be biased, but looking at the generation that's now is totally different than any other generation. You think about it, okay, 70s, I'm just being, you know, funny, 80s, you couldn't bring a dog to work. That wasn't even a discussion. Like, you know, I want to bring my dog to work, or I I want to work from home, or, you know, all these different comforts that companies are really graduating more and more into and never has been done before because everything before in the 80s was about work. It wasn't about creating a home life at work. It was work was work and home was home. Now, what we're seeing now is I want everything to be like home. I want to be comfy. I want to, I want, you know, some they have the whole snack bars and the coffee places. I know some law offices have a full-on bar there on Fridays. Everybody's getting drinks. I mean, when we make it so to the point, and I know me being professional, being it for 30 years, they're going to disagree with me, but I come from a very professional type stance, and you have now where everything wants to be so casual. Haven't you seen that graduational change of it being from a professional standpoint to now being so cash?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

And I I guess it was a little bit different for me because I grew up spending a a majority of my time with my great-grandparents. So, like they were both retired, but my grandpa was born in 1918 and my grandma was born in 1920. So they were very old school, depression-era, you know, childhood. And it's like you worked for everything. And I don't know, my grandpa was just a stickler for everything. He was like the type of person where they had a rental house and I would have to go help him, you know, with electrical and plumbing and all this stuff. And I'm like, I just want to go play. And he's like, you'll sit there and you'll watch what I'm doing. You know, and it it, I mean, it was helpful because it it taught me a lot of skills I didn't appreciate until later. But I don't know, just going into everything, it kind of gave me like an old school work mentality, I guess, that would that was it wasn't even in line with the the group that I was with growing up. So it it was a it was kind of a different viewpoint on everything. So I got to, I guess, live an old school approach to work, but also view how everybody else was at the time, which kind of gave me a blend of old school and new school, which is now also old school. Um, but I don't know, it it is different. Kind of everything that I've seen is, you know, you you go in, you have that mentality, like you said, work is work, and and but you go to work and you give it your all. And everything that you have goes to the company, you go home, and then your own time is is what it is. And it's just it's a different shift. Like even seeing on Reddit and everything else, it's like, oh, you know, your manager doesn't appreciate you, screw that, leave. And it's like, well, so you got an ass chewing, big deal, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

I mean Well, the appreciation is the paycheck, is where I come from. It was never that, oh, you know, we're gonna do these things for you, we're gonna do it. It was about you're getting paid. This is your job. Where this generation is about, this is the generation, you know, forgive me again, of those that get awards even when they lose. And that's not that good additive that really helps a person because we all have to work hard, like you said. And I love that your grandparents were that way, because in all honesty, it instilled a lot of values that today a lot of values aren't there, moral values, just values, period, right? And I think specifically when it comes to work, we are really seeing how value is not there. Think about it timeliness, um, being on time, coming to work, period, right? All those things are not there like they used to be. Where we honored and respected a job, right? And so I've heard I remember having a client, she says, I want to, I don't need nothing like my mom. My mom, and so I was listening, so I was like, Well, tell me about your mom. Well, yeah, she made$300,000, but she had to work every day and she couldn't spend time with the kids. But I was like, but she was making$300,000. So that comes with a huge amount of responsibility, evidently. You know, you're making more than the quarter of a million dollars. Think about that, right? So you're not gonna be able to do all the things, but these kids have these mentalities, like, well, you should be giving me all of the time. But then what happens to the living that you want? What happens to the things that you want, right? So it's kind of it's it's it's a it's an odd time in that way. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Well, it's also, I don't know. So that part of it is is it's hard for me because like before I would I would put in 50, 60 hours a week, you know, and everything that that I had, I would, I would give to the job. And I had pride in my work, not that I don't have pride in my work anymore, but it was after having kids, it it's different. And I do want to maximize the the time that I have with them, you know. So the nights and weekends that I used to sacrifice, I mean, it feels like they were born yesterday and they're already two and a half and four and a half, and they're growing more, and it's just going by so fast that it's like I think about the the generations before that the dads would leave before the kids woke up and they'd come home after dinner, and they didn't, you know, they got to spend maybe an hour of time where you would have the the stay-at-home parent that got to spend all of the time with them while they could, which obviously that dynamic has shifted and and both partners work, and it's just it's crazy to to see and feel how fast that can go. And selfishly, it's like I want to spend as much time with them as possible, and work is secondary, but it's also work is how you afford the the time and lifestyle to even be in that position. So it's really just a uh I don't know, being being a parent just it has changed everything for me in that perspective. And I don't know, it it's hard for like the the money is money uh angle for me anymore. It's like, yes, money's money, but it's also time is a resource that you'll never get back. You know, you can always make money, and not that your trajectory can't change because your career can stall and whatever, and you have setbacks, but there's always money to be made. You're never gonna get the time back.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

And I find that that is more of the the later generation that they're thinking about the quality time to spend with the children. I'm not disagreeing with that, but I I like the fact that we find balance within it because what I find now is that a lot of kids don't have the character and they don't have the disciplines and they don't have the creativity of being on their own. Think about when we were coming up. I'm just a little bit older than you. Just think about it. We we had our imaginary friends, we had our toys, we had the He-Mans and all my superheroes, and we played with them. We made fun with them. I hear parents come play with my kids now, come play with me, come play with me. It's like, you know, spend that time with yourself so you have the creativity, you have your own way of imagination and all these wonderful things, and not always attaching it to another person, right? Because then where does that lead the child to go into the world, you know, thinking of that way? But I agree with you. I I don't disagree with, and I'm very proud of you to say, yeah, I want to spend time with my kids. You know, when we look at fathers that are in the home, we have different ratios based on different culture and ethnicities. Some are not there at all, some are there more. Uh, so I think it's a great thing, right? But I also think working is great as well. And I think working and being able to provide for the family and in a way that we can do our summers together. So, what I miss in the year, we got our summers. We have great summers and we go traveling and we spend all of our summers that we make up for that time. Christmas, spring breaks, we make up for that time. It's fine. It can be done right then and there, it could be done over time.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah, no, that's that's true. And it's I I guess it's it's just more I'm not willing to to sacrifice uh as much of my personal time as I I I was. Because, you know, like when you when you're hourly, it it's fine because you're getting compensated for all that extra time. But when your salary, it just it it starts to diminish, and then your hourly, you know, rate is is dog shit while you continue to to work. But it it's how I continued to to move up the ladder and and get to to where I was. So I mean I'm I'm grateful for the the flexibility and the freedom to do that, even though like looking back, it's like, okay, well, maybe I wish I could have had some of that time back because I could have focused on other things instead of driving away for companies that didn't necessarily care about me the the same way that I that I did them. Um, not to sound bitter, because I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

It's all right. But at the same time, you know, it goes back to how your grandfather was instilling a lot of value in you about doing the job and doing it well and doing it in thoroughness. But also what you learned too is that everyone does not deserve that full investment. I think that's what I'm also hearing too. Everybody doesn't and they don't really deserve that full investment. Just enough, I think. Doing your job, just enough. Because now it's not like how it was before. You know, before, yeah, we I mean, picking, you know, I remember I was getting uh calls at all times of nights and you know, traveling over the weekend and all these things, not getting paid for it, but it was all about the job. Now, looking from the outside in, oh hell no, I wouldn't do any of that. No, I wouldn't do it. I would make sure, oh no, oh, can you be there? Yeah, I can leave on, I'm not gonna leave on Saturday, I'm not gonna leave on Friday. You know, I'm gonna make sure that my time, like you said, is of importance versus giving so much to companies that really don't deserve it. Not because you don't give me all the awards. It's that you don't, you don't honor me, you don't appreciate me. And that appreciation is not always done by tangibles, it's done by affirmation. It's done by uh, you know, you know, showing of how good the work ethic is. I don't know, but it's not always done from somebody saying, okay, here's this. You know, it's done from bonuses, it's done from giving me proper raises and good valuations. That's where I come from.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

I would love bonuses more if they weren't taxed like 50%. Oh hell, of course, yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Please. Or the fact that we're talking, we got a damn raise on a different tax bracket, right? All that bullshit. Yeah. Crazy, crazy.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

It's it sounds a lot like like you don't want to work hardly. You'd fit right in with this new uh this new generation of people, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:46

I guess I don't want to work hard. Whatever. I've worked hard so long that now you find your balance.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

No, but it's just, you know, the stereotype that the like the the old school CEOs, executive teams now. It's like, oh, nobody wants to work anymore. And I'm like, well, people still want to work. It's just they want to be appreciated for the work that they're doing. And but I I've also I I I don't know. So I had a You say appreciate it, I say compensated, go for it. Well, no, I I I I think that the there's both, right? You want to be compensated and you want to be paid for the value that you bring to the table, but there's also that sense of appreciation and and just hearing that you're doing a good job once in a while. It's not always the the negative, but there's also I I I've seen a lot of I don't know if it's just like newer generations, maybe maybe it it existed before, but there's a lot of entitlement. And when I was coming out of college, I I got a late start because I was in the Marine Corps before, and there were some uh kids at the time, because they, you know, they were 19, 20 or whatever, and I was a little bit older, but they were graduating and it's like they expected a hundred thousand dollar job like right out of college with no experience. I'm like, it's like, oh, I'm not gonna work for less than a hundred thousand. I'm like, who the fuck are you? Like, what if you you have no life experience, you have no career experience, and you think that you're entitled to a hundred thousand right out the gate.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

And that comes from that whole theory of give me an award even if I lose. Because it's that belief in which I still should get something. There's the entitlement. And that entitlement is a tinderence to this generation's or this generation's growth because you got to crawl before you walk. So it's not like, as you just alluded to, I'm just gonna come out of college and I'm gonna make that$100,000. Now I've seen it before, but I've seen it because dad owns the company. I've seen it because dad was an influencer to so-and-so. I've seen it in those ways, but that wasn't you working hard. That was something that was given to you here again when you didn't really do the work. So there's that entitlement that continues to perpetuate itself generation after generation. And then there are some that work hard. I remember there was a young man uh when I worked for an Asian bank years ago, and he had just came out of college and he was making like$65,000,$70,000. And I was like, you're 21. He was like 2021, something like that. That's good money for a 20, 21-year-old. And I was just like, you're making money that grown folks are trying to make. But he did the work. He was a good ass analyst. I mean, he would get on those computers and get the numbers together before all that was really a thing thing, and he worked. And it made sense. He was worth his value. He showed us that, and that's why they promoted him. Nobody couldn't say anything because he showed his worth. So he didn't just come out thinking, oh, I'm supposed to make that kind of money. He literally did all the things that they threw at him. And he he excelled in every last one of them. And they gave him a permanent job and he 65 to$70,000 at 21, 22 Living with your parents. Yeah, I I was making the whatever the the uh threshold that everybody made at at my level in the Marine Corps because it was you know and at that age I think I was doing maybe twenty, well, I think maybe twenty seven, twenty-eight thousand dollars. Come on. And he's like making a whopping 65 to 70. Yeah. But the thing of it is is that what w my point again, he worked hard and nobody, and I mean no one does not appreciate someone who works hard. Right? Now if you overwork, like we were alluding to coming into our conversation, and you're not getting appreciated or compensated, that's a whole different thing. But that was one where that technique of working hard worked for him.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

So this is an example of of of a younger person coming in and ex exceeding expectations, and we're talking about kind of of generational differences and everything else, which that kind of uh alludes to the I guess the point that age isn't necessarily the determining factor of of the generational gaps that people have, but it's more your surroundings, how you how you're brought up, your your work experience and and influences that really direct your approach to work. Like I said, with my with my grandpa, I was I was more, I don't know, Gen X or boomer than where I should have been with with my group, at least in in terms of of approaching work itself.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

And and it honestly worked for you. I mean, think about it. You gave your all, you you did your best, um, you were able to figure out the landscape of what was happening, and you were able to navigate it. That's that's a good work ethic. Now, again, you figured it out later on. You were like, ah, that's well, but you then you came in with that. You didn't come in with the thinking that y'all owe me something.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

True. Well, I don't know. I I guess in a way, it kind of, I don't want to say it held me back, but I I think the approach, because you know, it was a very you're you're you're you're loyal, you're a company man, you do this, like take care of the people that are taking care of you. And my own generation and the one right after me, it's like the mentality is you go somewhere for three years, you leave, you get promoted, increase 10%. You you you boost every every single time. And for me, it's like I spend seven to eight years at a company, and then I move on to to the next thing and spend another seven to eight years, and it it's more out of loyalty and turning down other opportunities because of the relationships that I built with these companies. And it just felt, I don't know, part of that feels a little more old school than the new age mentality and approach to work that is less uh uh emotionally involved.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

I I don't know how else to explain it. But I want to stay on that word because that was very important, and it's not like a why we word, but it's really the core to the generations, which is loyalty versus not being loyal. Now there's no loyalty. If you're not giving me what I want today, this generation, I just leave and I go somewhere else. And I keep keep going, keep keep going. I don't have five, I don't have ten, I don't have eight years with a company, right? I have no stability, so I just keep moving because I'm looking for something. Well, in our generation, we had loyalty. And our loyalty was one in which we felt, hey, I'm here. They're good to me. I want to be good to them, I want to work hard for them because they, you know, give me a check. But then when we again later on figure it out that, yeah, it's more than just a check. I want to, I want to hear, hey, are you doing a good job? Hey, here's a good bonus. I remember getting a$14,000 bonus out of freaking nowhere. And it blew my mind. I think that was the biggest bonus I had ever gotten at that time. And it was like, here's$14,000 because you did a good job. You you brought down these ratios, you did this, you did that. Yeah, but like you said, after taxes, it was pennies, but it was still$14,000. So I mean, those are the things we appreciate.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Yeah. Well, I mean, I I I don't know. You I feel like even the the the conversational uh uh approaches to different generations are are so vastly different. Like tell me more, speak more to that. What do you mean? So I I I've been in this weird situation where in high school I graduated at 17, I was the youngest of all my friends going up through school, and then I went to the military and I was the youngest, and then I went to college and I was immediately the oldest. And all of the you know, uh guys that I was with uh that I was in leadership positions for, it's like now I'm the the elder person. Then I went to waste management, I was immediately the youngest person, like severely the youngest again, and where workers like drivers that I was now responsible for were old enough to be my dad, you know, and trying to navigate different approaches in and communicating. Because when you go from the military where it's oh, well, you do it because of the rank I have, like you have no choice. I told you to do it, you're gonna you're gonna follow orders, to then going to college kids that they don't give a shit what you think. Like you have to find a way to motivate them to to do what you need them to do because you got to find a way that that makes them want to do it because they want to do it, not because you're saying, Oh, well, go do it. Like, well, who the hell are you, buddy? You know, and then taking that approach and motivating people to get there to immediately becoming the youngest person again and now trying to uh uh you know manage drivers who have more experience in in this career than I have in an entire career's worth of of knowledge, you know, in this one area. And like I I talked about it in the show before with that kind of dynamic, and then I never approached it as an expert or knowing more than them because I I wasn't, you know. I knew that they were the experts, and that's how I treated them. I treated them with respect and and everything else. And I think that helped with, you know, with the uh the transit and the yeah, and and the relationship building and the trust and everything else. But it was, it was just it was different because with that group, they very much just wanted stuff straight. Nothing sugar coated. It's like just tell me what you need, tell me what the problems are, I'll take care of it, blah, blah, blah. And then going from there to the consulting role, it was like everybody, I hate to use the term soft, but that's what it felt like. It was such a stark difference from give it to me straight. And now it's like, oh, well, I don't like that tone. I don't like how you were talking to me. And it was a very, you know, now I'm I'm older again, and we have analysts that are coming in that are are a generation younger, and just shifting the the approach to communication with them, where ever you have to be so careful with every email that goes out because I'd have to read it three times. Like, is this offensive in any way? Like I it was just going from one extreme to another and bouncing all over with how the reception of words would be for people, and trying to be mindful of of who may take offense to something that that's written or or said.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

And that's interesting, Nick. You say that I had, and I don't mean to offend any women out there, but I had that more problem with women less generation because it was more about a male-female dynamic. And Matt was just like, you, you know, it was just odd for me because I was brought up with women. So it was just very odd to have someone say, you know, to your point, oh, the tone or the email could have been. It's like, I'm not trying to offend anybody. This is what we gotta do, you know. There's no easy way to say it. This is it, you know. I need you to do blah, blah, blah. But I think that sometimes, again, we try to conform our workplaces to, and I find this to be interesting, we try to conform our workplaces to places in which we have control. And that control in which they want is how they want to be treated, how they want the environment to be for them, how, and it's just like that's a bit much. It's work. And that's where my mind can't ever change work is work, home is home. And so when you're at work, I should be able to manage you correctly. Yeah, I need to manage you with respect, of course, all those wonderful things. I don't want someone to disrespect me, but I also want to be able to tell you what I need to get tell you done. Let's make it rock and roll. Come on, let's get it done. Um, but I find that in this generation that's more current, you got to go through what you're going through. And that's what makes it difficult for managers. What managers are feeling like, am I managing based on individuals or am I managing based on generation? Because you just can't talk like you've been. Let's say you've been in the industry of 40, 50 years. You, in that 40, 50 years, you look at all the different people you've managed. And then now you get to this new generation, it's like everything is, oh, I don't like the way he talks, I don't like the way he looks at me. Oh, he doesn't say good morning to me. It's like, look, I'm not your dad. And don't give me that energy that that, you know, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. You know, that's we need to go to therapy for that. Don't bring that in here. But that is something in which they do because they want to have control of the narrative. And that's just not the work environment to me, it's not the place to have the control of the narrative because it's a neutral place, if that makes sense. It's not a place where it's yours or mine, it's kind of everybody's. It's kind of like that. It's not, it's not a place that we really have that much control over as we think we do or want to. What do you think about that? I I agree. I agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Um, I also, I don't know. I as you were talking, I was thinking about it, and and I hope I hope we haven't come off negative like we're we're crapping on younger generations or anything like that. It's it's I think that there's a lot of of positives in in that like you said, that the younger guy that came in that was more impactful and and uh uh had a better handle on technology. And I I think that younger uh people today, you know, have a grasp on a lot of things where it's like I felt like I was always at the the forefront of technology. And then I meet people today and they're doing shit on iPads and sliding it over onto their computers. I'm like, oh man, I got left behind. What the hell happened here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and it's just seeing like the the adaptability and flexibility and just in and kind of the creativeness that people bring in that I I feel like you know, when when like you said, when you've been there a long time, you become reliable and and consistent, and you have that that tenure that is that institutional knowledge, but it also allows you to get comfortable. So the the worst thing you can do is is close off to new perspectives where somebody may not have the the same level of knowledge, but they could have a new approach to do something that could be an absolute game changer for you and everything that you do. And I did see that with waste management when uh I talked about before how we did the the onboard uh computers and the older guys were the the ones that fought the hardest, but then when they saw the advantage to it and how much time it saved them, they were they became the biggest advocates immediately. And it was just it was cool to see like the change happen and just I don't know, being observant to that from my point of view, trying to teach these older guys something new. It's like, okay, I gotta remember to do that when people are coming in and not say, oh, you know, get out of here with your with your snazzy new tech.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

And making people feel certain ways about it. But I I want to go back to the generational statement. Um, I think that what you were saying was even even you touched on was even more important, which is being able to pull the value, and I'll say out of every generation, not one specific. I think that when you have older generations, you have traditional knowledge, you have knowledge that should not be disrespected or said that it's, you know, oh it's grandpa, that's not how we do it anymore. That's a that's you know, that's disrespecting that. Then you have another generation. So each of the generations has its input and they bring value, right? But uh what I sometimes have a concern with is that one generation believes that they have more value than any other. And that's where there's a problem. Because if we don't respect the people who come before you that allowed you to have, if you will, this, then it's like, mm, you're not really respecting that, but you want us to respect you. You want us to respect your value. We want it has to be something that we respect all of the what brings and what's being brought, then just saying, well, you know, I've I've been doing this. Well, you've been doing this for what, every bit of five years? Well, we've been doing it for 45 years, you know? And so I think that being able to respect that, that in that the holistic approach to it all and not just one, you know, and oh, we gotta all do this first. I remember I remember this this brings up another point. I remember we were getting into doing LMS learning management systems uh for training, and they said, Oh, we have to bring in gamification. My my my eyebrow went up. And then another one was, oh, we should only do five-minute snippets. I said, five minute snippets? Yeah, because a new generation's attention deficit. I'm just like, well, wait a minute, what about all the rest? So we're gonna create a program that's gonna meet one generation, but we have a company that's been around for 35, 45 years. We got multiple generations here. A five-minute snippet, it's not gonna help me. I need to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I don't just need this and you know, get it from there. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 29:40

Well, I I I think when you're trying to to push out the expensive 40 plus crowd and and bring in, you know, cheaper labor that can that's that was one of the purposes. Do more work. I mean, I get it. Like you want to attract the the the newer wave of of cheaper employment. Um I don't agree with it. But it it's not surprising.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

They're not even getting paid their work at that time.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Man, uh no. When you were talking about the the I was thinking of I can't remember the there was a movie with Robert De Niro where he got hired as like an executive assistant or something, and they all wrote him off as like this old timer.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

And he was a marketing exec. Uh, it was with um the young lady from um Prada, uh whatever it's called. Um uh the Oh, uh Ann Hathaway, right? It's her. She's she becomes a new marketing person and she kind of you know dismisses him. And then when he starts giving her snippets information, and he says, she's like, you know, looking at him like, okay, I need him to come into the meeting. But it was it was a hard, it was a hard transition because she had her mindset on what she thought it was supposed to be of this generation of this, and he didn't know, but his adage, his traditional ways got a lot of deals put in. I think it saved the business, if my memory serves me correctly.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

I think it did too, and then she became reliant on his his wisdom. But that's a good movie.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

I mean I like that blend. Don't just say, you know, don't segregate, blend us all. Yeah. I like it. Respect the generations, all of them. Not just one. What are you thinking?

SPEAKER_01 31:25

No, I was I was thinking uh now earlier when you said there was one generation that thought that they were better than everybody else, and I was curious which generation you think that is.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

But see, well, you know what, that's a valid point because the Gen X or the before Gen X may think they're better than the rest of us, but it just seems more, it seems to be, this is, and I could be being biased, but it just seems to me that it's more put out there like the newer generations are the better. And it's like, but I think all of them, and the reason I'm a little biased is because I'm coming from the 70s. I got a chance to look over 50-something years of different ways of life. You know, we got a chance to see the rotary phone. We got a chance to see all these different things that they only saw one way of life. And that's cool to be able to see all these transitions from having a big old phone on your face and now having a little small thing in your ear. I mean, that's that's excellent. I love it. Have you seen Hot Tub Time Machine? Yes, I think I saw, I think I saw pieces of it with the crazy guys in it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Yeah, well, when they're when they went back to the 80s and it showed the guy on the mountain, he's like, I'm calling you from my phone.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Little great phone, huge phone. Absolutely. But yeah, but you you have a point there. I think all of the generations are great. And I think that um the newer generations are great because, of course, of technology, uh, AI, you know, we're all gravitating into that world. And I also believe that the ways that, let's say, for an example, Heinz companies, how they grew to where they were, was from traditional marketing, door-to-door sales. I mean, remember it's like encyclopedias. Encyclopedias were not a thing until somebody brought it to your house and said, hey, we got encyclopedias. That was a door-to-door kind of uh sales, you know, thing that we were doing back then. And that's way before the 70s.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

So as a leader, what we've been talking about with generations and different approaches, we're not necessarily managing two generations, it's more managing the expectations of individuals shaped by their experiences, which may be heavily influenced by the generation that that they're in, but not necessarily. You can, like you said, you can have somebody that is young that has a an older mindset and approach based on on where they came from. I don't know if I've necessarily seen the the the reverse where it's like an older person that is somehow, you know, in in a younger uh generation. I don't think I've seen that.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Maybe Michael Jackson, but No, I think we've seen it, but I think also sometimes the reason you don't see it as much is because it probably is not as long last because you have someone else that feels like, oh, that's my dad, oh, that's my mom, and they want to move them out the way, but they're losing out. Again, that video was a the movie we're talking about, was a perfect example of that. Perfect example of that.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

So as far as leadership responsibility to approaching, managing different generations. What is your take on how to uh approach it for people that are potentially in leadership positions now that are dealing with multi-generational workforces or somebody that that's coming up that would need to consider different generations that would be above them uh upon promotion?

SPEAKER_00 35:03

And see, the first thing that came to my mind was balance. The first the first thing that came to thought as you were talking was balance. You have to be very balanced. And I don't I don't subscribe to managing individuality. I think I like to manage across the board. Because when you start to manage from an individual standpoint, uh publicly and with noticed, now you're showing favoritism. Now, oh, you must like this person now. And I found that that especially having instances happen, you know, that is the way that it can be translated, right? So if you do it from a balanced approach, from a skill level, the reason I'm giving this to, let's say, John is because he knows AI. Now, what I want you to do is work with John so you can also uh learn AI as well. I believe in cross-training, right? Then if I had someone that was an of our of a more traditional older generation, I want to just happen to their knowledge. What, you know, what was your skill set? And I really put people where their skill set was, but I always cross-trained them as well. I always put someone with them, either from a different generation or just period, so the knowledge was spread and it was balanced. But if I came in and said, okay, I gotta do this specific, it's just like it makes me think of another client, cooking three meals because each of your children don't like something. So you're gonna make one meal for this person. I can't do that in the workplace. And that's what that teaching is done, even from the home aspect is thinking that I should have things done, you know, for me because I I like it that way, but I can't, I can't do that because it's unfair to the other.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

So with with the with the the plate approach, you would cook dinner for the same dinner for everybody and say, pick out what you don't want to eat.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Hey, this is this is it. We we're not doing a meal for you and a meal for you and a meal. And I've I've had clients that talk about here's a meal. No. This this is this is what we're eating. If you don't like it, my mother knew I didn't like onions. So everything else was on the plate. I would I would eat everything, I would pull the nasty onions out, but everything else I ate because we were brought up. What was put in front of you, you ate. Yeah, I knew I liked you.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Absolute. I I I am a a an avid onion hater as well. So I hate it. I mean, I I still can't do it. But passion, passion hated. Like onion powder, I don't mind.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

The actual onion, like no. No, all right. I could smell them. Oh but yeah, you so my mom knew that. So yeah, she was a John, I put some onions in, but I didn't put a lot in it. And I'm like, okay. And I would pull out the ones that I was see, but I would eat my food. But I dare not might tell my mother, I want this separate. I don't want you to make make me a separate, make me separate beans, no onions. Really? No, that's not how the world works.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

No, it's like anger management when uh Chad Nicholson throws the plate and he's like, I said over easy.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

And uh thank you. We're trying to say, that's my mom throwing the plate back as you said, I too eat it.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Yeah. So what what you were saying about the the leadership responsibility, it was silence and setting the clear standards that applied to everybody, even though you would have communication that may have adapted to the individual, but it didn't change the the expectations that would apply to everybody.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Nope. It didn't and it didn't change the approach. The approach didn't look like I was favoring anyone. Um, the approach didn't look as if um this person had more skill set than this person. It made it to where they yes, they had more of a skill set, but we did not um we didn't we didn't make that be the standout. We we didn't make it be the standout so that another person would feel indifferent. We just didn't do that. Made it where everyone felt like we were all on the same level playing field. And that's just a good old corporate adage. I just never we were never taught to do it any other way because we knew the the litigation that would come from that. We knew the favoritism, we knew the HR that would come from that. So if we stayed away from those types of behaviors, there was less time we spent time in HR.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Well, and the and the the other benefit of that is that everybody is operating under the same unwritten rules and and has that kind of that shared respect with within one another, and the and the expectations are kind of already fair and easy to manage because everybody is already uh holding each other accountable.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Absolutely. And then when you add the other component, which is the cross-training, now you are sharing of information. Now we are now engaging everyone in. So if I get something new, or if I train someone on something, I want to make sure Betty knows about it too. I'm not holding it to myself. I'm making sure she's up to date on stuff. That type of buddy system creates this whole synergy that really believes making up a team, right? Which was my whole adage was I wanted a team. And I wanted my team to be multiculture, I wanted to be diverse, I wanted to have everything that it possibly could have, because I coming from the training world, uh, I wanted it to be representative of the people which they were training, right? So if they if person saw them, they could relate to them, they could, they could get it, they they had no favorite, they just were like, oh, the training team is great, period. But when you get into that kind of um specialize or specialty, or when you get into the generational, well, he's good at this, so he's gonna just do that. Well, why can't he do that? But why can't he train someone else to do it? Because another thing I might have said, and I think I did say this in one of our other uh podcasts, which is I don't like to be held hostage for my my staff. If my staff knows something that I don't know, we all are gonna know that. Because if they leave, they're not leaving with that information. No, we're all gonna have that information. Somebody else is gonna have that knowledge. Because if that person holds us hostage with bad behavior or bad conduct or just period, we're screwed. I've seen that quite a bit. So have I. That's where I learned from it. I don't do it. I'll tell somebody in a minute, oh, they will not hold me hell high. We'll not have staff to hold me hold, hold me hostage, you know. Where I've gotta keep them because they are, you know, they're good at this. I think we talked about that before, you know, about you know, managers feeling like we we we feel that managers don't always they're not doing something. Sometimes they're not doing it because they felt held hostage.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

That'd be a good uh future episode. It's it's also the piece that we talked on earlier about the uh relationships at work and wanting to bring, you know, make it your home and have that that family feel. Um Yeah, we'll have to come back to to both of those.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Good, good. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Not to to put you on the spot, but I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna do it anyway. Um one thing, so we when you were our our our first guest, I didn't have the the question yet. Like I did it for every guest after you, but um what was the best I it's unrelated to this topic, but I'm just curious what the best piece of leadership advice you ever got was. Be fair.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Be fair. It was just as simple as that. Be fair. And I have never not done that. Be fair. Because when you start to again show favoritism, when you start to honor others and others, you are you are literally putting poison into the water. And one thing I know for sure is, and I'm not trying to be funny, but staff smell blood. And if they see that, they're gonna respond to it. But if you're fair and you're balanced, you can't go wrong. That's why when you asked me that, immediately it went to balance because I remember them teaching me, be fair. And of course have a managerial work epic that was, you know, superb, but be fair. Yeah, be fair. There's no need to, you know, just because you're a leader doesn't mean you have to be an a-ho. You know, or that you need to be arrogant, you know, and and a lot of a lot of times people who have never had anything or never had experience in management, that's the first place that they go. And they always lose. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Oh, you know what? I know we got off topic, but before we close out, there is one difference that may kind of be shaping everything. And, you know, obviously older older generations, you could survive on a single income, right? You would have one worker pay for the house, you have your your person at home, whatever, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:52

But as you have to incorporate in that, we were talking about a whole different economics too. Everything was cheaper and things like that. And that's why you had the one person. In the home doing. Go ahead, please.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Right. And as women enter the workforce and now you have dual income families, everything starts to increase because there's more spending. And obviously everybody's going to leech off of that and pull it and blah, blah, blah. So as that has changed and shifted, it's also become, I mean, just looking at at the demographics, but the the economics of everything where uh you know healthcare is skyrocketed and and schooling has skyrocketed and housing.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

So with all of this happening, where you had generations that, you know, you you're 18 years old, get out of the house. Like you're you're a grown-up now. Go, go live your life. And now it's like, you know, people are living at home until they're 30, 35, 40, whatever, not getting married, and they're just, you know, piling money. And it's just it, it's a different generational thing that may contribute to some of the thought process in work ethic and everything else is that I'm not saying people that live at home are coddled or anything else. Like sometimes there are circumstances where it's like you feel trapped and you don't know what else to do. So you're trying to save for a better life, you know. But then there's other people where it's like they never had the boot in the butt to get out. And it's kind of, you know, you're a coddled 35-year-old man that lives in your parents' basement. That yeah, you have a job or or you don't. And it, I don't know. It's just it's just another piece that I wanted to touch on before we completely wrap today, that that I don't know. It it came to me while we were talking about uh uh other stuff. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Sometimes I think there's I think there's a value to that, and I think that you have a uh a point, especially in today's era, which is really sad because if you think about it, in the 70s we were in a recession, which I didn't know. Uh, in the 70s we were in a recession, people still had their own apartments, right? People were still able to be at 18 and go get an apartment and things like that. Well, now you can. I mean, you're talking about the average rents. Well, you know, let's say in in California, average rents, we're talking about 25, 35. Well, at least high, let's say high, you know, 1,001, 8,500, whatever, high all the way into$2,500 to$3,000, realistically. And even on the on the East Coast, we're finding that the rents are going skyrocket. So yeah, you're right. But then sometimes um people use, I find, those things as a crutch to not leap out, right? Because you can always get a roommate. You and your buddies, your buddies can get a house together. You all can do that together. But sometimes it's the comfort of being home, cook meals, wash clothes, all those things. And the things of that is is not wanting to ever really grow. That then lies back on the parents. Did you instill things in them that would make them want to leap out and go? Did they go to camp for two weeks or for summer where they knew what it was like to be away? Did they go summer breaks to go visit family so they had their independence? Did you, you know, did they have a full day like when we were growing up? Yeah, full days when we were out, you would think we were on the job. We would just be exploring. Just exploring. Just exploring. They don't do that stuff no more.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

Yeah, we used to jump on our bikes and we'd ride all the way across town to get to Toys R Us.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

You know, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. I mean, we would do some awesome stuff exploring, but now, you know, kids don't do those things no more.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know if it was the safest thing in the world, but my grandparents were like, go play, be back by by the time it gets dark.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Yeah, exactly. When it's done, when lights come on. But what's funny about that statement you just made, think about it. You don't know if it was safe, but it was it was less safe then than it is now. I think it's a little bit more safer than it was back then because now we got cell phones right on our hips, we got trackers right on our arms. Look at all these things that we have versus what we had then. Then I think it was less safer for us, and we still explore.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

Well, yeah, I mean, I I I guess the the way that everything was was presented then also, I mean, you know, you'd have news stories every now and then when it was like a major travesty, but now it's like everything is aimed at scaring the hell out of you. I I just feel like kids don't play outside anymore. Like everybody is indoors or they're on a screen or or something. And and you know, we grew up with TVs and and and video games, but it was like we're still outside for the majority of the time playing. And I don't know. I mean, cell phones didn't really exist then unless you had the big Zach Morris phone.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

So But the the funny part about that when you were talking made me think of the summers we was spending in uh the Southern Belt, and we would watch TV to a certain degree, I think it was around 12, and then we had to go. We had to literally get out of the house.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

And we I did have a pager though, like like a drug dealer. Oh God. Who who was paging you? Well, I had to have it in case some well, in case my you know, my parents or grandparents needed to reach me, and then I'm like, We didn't have pages.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

It was the way of contacting us. I mean, it's really when you think about it, it was really I mean, it was fun to explore. It was. Yeah, no, it was totally fun. It's a different world now. I don't think people, and that's again, people don't have the creativity, they don't have the spontaneity like we used to have. We don't have that anymore. Too many options in a way.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

That's what really scares me, like uh about AI, which is another thing we may want to talk about in a in a separate episode, is just the the reliance, and I I don't I I see a shift that is extremely concerning. And it's not just youth, it's it's every right.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Yeah. But that was kind of the divine purpose of it all.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

Well, it is. I mean, it's supposed to I mean maybe it maybe it is. I mean I I like to think that it it would the intent would be to to remove like menial tasks and free people up to do more important things, but maybe it is just another tactic to dumb down society. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 50:27

I mean, because uh when you look at any futuristic movie, you see this transfer to where we were doing things and all of a sudden this wave of technology just comes in and then here it is. I mean, and the thing of it is is that it would be it would have been great if it was gradually, like how it would maybe brought into the high school and the college, and then it was more of that, and it was more adaptable to it, and it would have been a part of that, but it just came in like a thief in the night one day, but then it really didn't because someone had broken down to me and said, you know, when you were doing this, you're doing that, that was AI. And I was like, Whoa, so AI actually was here much, much longer than we thought it was. We were just seeing it really be and call it AI. So he was using an example of like uh how Netflix would uh say, Hey, you were watching that, hey, check these out. Well, that's a form of AI, it's tracking what you watched to then suggest to what would be good watching. I was like, Oh, that's interesting. I never thought about that. And it is, it's a form of AI. IBR services is a form of AI. Anything that can predict what we would maybe want or what we were trying to do, it's a form of AI. So it's been around much longer. It just didn't, it wasn't called it and it wasn't addressed as if it was.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

I'm gonna write that down too. So we we got three future episodes now that we can work towards. I'm down for it. For those of you listening, um, if there's a a piece of frustration that that you have with the with the generation, what do you what are you doing that, you know, in instead of trying to to understand what's going on, is there a level of frustration that you know you can talk about and share, share a comment. And you know, John and I would love to hit us up, let us know. Engage.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Or or consider, you know, even assumptions that you're making that that that may be wrong. Um But for us, and and until next week, leading ain't easy. It sure isn't. But you don't have to do it alone. Thanks for tuning in to Leading Ain't Easy. If something in today's episode resonated, please do us a favor and share it with someone else who leads or aspires to lead. Because honestly, none of us have this figured out, but we can all get better together. If you're a leader or professional feeling quietly stuck in your career, visit reframeRise.com. It's a career and leadership coaching firm where I work with veterans and other high achievers to realign their work and lead with purpose. Again, that's Refraimerise.com. And if you're looking for leadership tools, training, or support for your transportation department, check out Bus Pro Network, where Ernie helps school transportation leaders across California build safer, stronger teams. Please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and let us know what topics you'd like us to tackle in the future. And remember, leading ain't easy, but you don't have to do it alone.