Generational Translation: UNCORKED with CHARLOTTE BERRY

Have you ever mistaken generational resistance for rebellion? 

In this UNCORKED conversation, Tim Windsor sits down with Charlotte Berry, an expert in workplace communication, to unpack the urgent need for generational translation in life and business. This conversation provocatively challenges listeners to confront their biases, asking, "If communication is connection, how often have you accidentally disconnected people because you refused to translate?" Throughout the conversation, Charlotte illuminates why today's leaders need sharper ears more than louder voices, emphasizing that understanding and bridging generational gaps isn't optional—it's essential.

Through compelling real-life anecdotes and sharp insights, Tim and Charlotte reveal how misinterpreting generational behaviours can cost organizations dearly, from losing talent to damaging productivity. They discuss practical strategies for effectively translating across generations, highlighting why the most successful teams aren't just cross-functional but cross-generational. Whether it's learning from subtle cultural cues or understanding that a simple text might not signal disrespect, this conversation offers critical insights for anyone aiming to communicate clearly and effectively across generational divides.

Tim Windsor
the UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast – Host & Guide
tim@uncommodified.com
https://uncommodified.com/
  
PRODUCERS: Kris MacQueen & Alyne Gagne
MUSIC BY: https://themacqueens.ca/
 

Transcript

PLEASE NOTE: UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast episode transcriptions are raw text files and have not been proofed or edited. They are what they are … Happy Reading.

© UNCOMMODiFiED & TIM WINDSOR

[00:00:00] Do you ever mistake generational resistance for rebellion? And if communication is connection, how many times have you accidentally disconnected people because you refuse to translate for them? Here's what I think. Leaders today don't just need a louder voice. They need a sharper ear. And ultimately, as we're gonna discuss today, a translator's mindset.

Hey, my friends. Welcome back to the Unmodified podcast. I'm Tim Windsor, and today my guest on the show is Charlotte Barry. Charlotte, welcome to the show.

Hi, Tim. Nice to be here.

It's gonna be great. Now, the question on everyone's mind is, who is Charlotte Barry? Well, let me tell you who Charlotte is. Charlotte is a workplace communication specialist who helps businesses fix everyday communication problems that lead to turnover, lead to tension and missing targets.

She works with managers and employees to build practical communication [00:01:00] skills, especially when it comes to working across different generations, and that's gonna be the main focus of our conversation tonight. Of course this is an uncorked conversation. I did pre-warn you about that, Charlotte. So, uh, what are you drinking tonight?

I am in the south, in the United States, so I've got some. It's southern iced tea tonight.

There you go. That's, I love iced tea when I come to the States as well. And I am not in the states, I'm up in Canada, and I'm gonna celebrate our conversation with a really nice, actually, a Cabernet Franc, which is growing in the Niagara region of Ontario. So, cheers to you, Charlotte. Hmm. I think I'd like your iced tea just as much though. Be good. All right. Okay, so every great conversation starts with a question. So let's start it with this. Why must I, this is a question to you, Charlotte. Why must I tune in and translate and ultimately speak their language, whoever they are? That's the question.

Why is this important to you and what's got you so fired up about this idea, Charlotte?

[00:02:00] Well, there's a big shift going on in the workforce today and it's kind of snuck up on us in my opinion, uh, because just a few months ago, we got to the point where the generation Z, which are the younger 20 something workers in today's environment. Outnumber baby boomers in the workforce. And not only that, but the millennials who are more that thirties and 40 early forties group are the biggest group of workers in the workforce today.

So if you combine those 20, 30, and early 40 year olds, they far outnumber anybody older than them, but yet most of the people that are running companies, that own companies that are executives and companies. Are in those older generations. So you're gonna have a lot of conflict coming up with just the numbers alone.

Yeah, I think, by the way, I feel very pointed out right now. I think you're talking about me, Charlotte.

Well, us, us.

Yeah. Uh, so I'll say me. I'll say me. You look like you're in the 40 something. I'm in the almost 60 something, but maybe not I. Here's the question though. [00:03:00] So this snuck up on us. Do you think that we really were that unaware that this was gonna happen?

Or do we, do you think we just turned a blind eye and thought, ah, we'll figure it out when we get there? Is that sort of what we did?

Well, I think it's a combination. If you work backwards over the last five years, everybody knows what happened five years ago, and so there was at least a two year shutdown. Some areas of some countries was a little bit longer than that, and so if you think of the youngest workers in their twenties today.

Those were the people who were stuck at home doing their college work or sometimes high school work, and they honestly didn't even have the opportunity to develop some of those skills. Well, we kind of missed the last five years before that the millennials were the youngest generation, and most of what we heard, sadly, was just bad stereotypes about.

The habits that people didn't like or why they, you know, how they were different. implying that they weren't good. so I think we just [00:04:00] kind of lost the combination of those two things. It's easy to point a finger at somebody when they're different than you, but not realizing that those folks are gonna end up running businesses and, and things in the world, within a short period of time.

Absolutely. You know what I love about this conversation and, and when you and I first chatted this framework that you have around being an intergenerational translator yourself, but teaching this idea, it's very fascinating to me because I. As I thought about it, I think one of the challenges that I have is that, you know, I've done a lot of work in foreign countries.

You know, I've worked in Africa, I've worked in India, I've worked in European countries. I've worked in Latin America. And of course, when I go to these places, and English is not the primary language, I know that the first thing I need to do if I'm gonna be an effective communicator is I better hire a really, really great translator.

Or this is not gonna go well. And I've been in situations where I've worked with [00:05:00] translators where it's a little awkward where you have to sort of say a sentence and you wait, and then they translate. And of course, you know, they, they go on for two minutes. When you said something for a half a minute and you.

Don't know if you're communicating well, but you need them to bridge the gap. I've also been in places where I had a un translator actually, who worked for Dole, the, the company Dole, and I was doing some work for them, and that un translator actually translated on the fly, meaning I just and people had headsets and, and as I talked this person translated to, to Spanish, and I have no idea how she was able to do that, but I was critically aware that I needed a translator.

But I don't think I'm that astute when it comes to the work I do sometimes in North America. I, I don't think I need a translator, but you're telling me that's not quite the truth.

It's not, um, let's take your example and kind of switch, look at it a little bit different way. Um, switch the context on it as somebody wisely said to me recently. if [00:06:00] you go to one of these foreign countries and let's say Spanish is the, the native language there, sometimes you probably met people that speak some English.

Would that be correct?

that's correct.

So if you try to talk to those people, you're not gonna use your full vocabulary of the longest English words and the fanciest sentence structure and whatnot. You are going to try to get to their level to make sure they understand as much as they can. And that's kind of what this is like.

It's not necessarily speaking a completely different language, it's just let's take the words that we all use. Make sure we're using 'em in common. And of course there's a lot of inferences whenever you have words. Um, so they can mean the same thing. So I think it's more like taking somebody that speaks part of your language and just making sure you all are concentrating on both sides, that you're concentrating on getting the message across.

Yeah. So I'm interested to know like what led you to this, because you know, your expertise and your [00:07:00] knowledge and your business is built around this idea of, of communication, corporate communication, leadership, communication. But there's a very. Special way you're looking at this, so I'm interested to know what led you to this idea that companies and individuals need to be trained and understand intergenerational translation.

How, how did you wander your way into this sort of area? Because it's quite unique.

Well, even though my business itself is only a few years old, the history to get here is. Probably 35 years. Uh, when I first got out of college, I went to work for a very large corporation and I was by far the youngest in my current office. In that particular department, I felt what we now call imposter syndrome.

I was very intimidated by the people who were 5, 10, 15, 20 years older than me and I really felt like I didn't belong there. Well, I happened to discover a book that's been around for a little while called How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie written in the 1930s and I read it and it was still [00:08:00] really, really relevant even that many years later after it was published.

And so I started practicing it. I remember going to a, a work environment thing with my husband, with his um, company and the people he worked with. And I played a game that night and I tried to see. How many of those principles I could apply throughout the night. And so it was kind of a game.

And so, I started reading more. I started going to seminars. I started learning about temperaments. And over the years I became much more confident. I was still working with people a lot older than me, but I just felt like I could take the knowledge I had learned. Present it in a clear way and a confident way, and it just, I had more respect from the people around me anyway.

It just was really kind of a self-improvement deal that helped me. I carried that forward, uh, in my own personal life after that with any kind of people I interacted with, family, strangers, neighbors. But then I had three children and decided to [00:09:00] really focus on teaching them some of those people skills that I didn't learn.

I learned some when I was growing up, but not quite as thoroughly. So I really, really put that in invested time into to making them do hard things related to interacting with people. Flash forward. They're in their early adulthood in college, late high school, and they started doing some really cool things, not because of their genius capability, but because they felt comfortable talking to people of any age about a lot of different things.

And it kind of gave me the idea, well, if I. Have helped teach those people. They are also Gen Z population, which is in their twenties now, and I thought if I've helped three of them get into, well launch into the adult world and interact, well, maybe I could teach a few more. And it grew from there. And then I started doing research and found that there were studies that showed how much money companies were losing.

Because they were missing this, communication in [00:10:00] general, but then this new group of workers that have come in the last few years has just added a whole nother component, a whole nother variable.

That's fascinating. So, so when you, when you get a chance to speak to people within an organization, let's carve this up for a second. For the sake of the conversation, let's do what we're not supposed to do. Let's look at these people in singularity, these

groups. So. Is it harder to make a proposition or a, an argument to an older individual or a younger individual that this divide potentially 

Mm-hmm. I think it's kind of a well-known fact based on the publicity I see articles that I read, um, a lot of videos and, interviews of, of just how people look at the world, how different ages look at the world, and it's been like that forever. In other words, when we were teenagers. People looked at us and said, oh, look at those crazy ideas.

But I think the difference now is [00:11:00] everything is under magnifying glass and everything is intensified and everything happens faster in today's environment because of technology. And so, to answer your question, I think. The older, and this is a generalization, I think older workers that have been in the workforce for 25, 30, 40 years have a tendency to look at anybody that comes in doing things differently as, oh, well they need to change or they need to learn our system.

Um, so I think the younger people would actually probably be a little more responsive to it because they're. They're at the point they wanna learn how to in, to move their career forward. They want to learn how to, um, just take that next step in career development or personal development. And that's a priority of a lot of young workers.

They really are looking for personal development by their companies. I.

Yeah. No, and I, and I think that's really true and it's interesting that you make that observation that we all intuitively understand that there's this gap and we, you know, we might see [00:12:00] it as a responsibility of the other person to cross it. I think part of what I'm hearing you say is that ultimately.

If we all take a position regardless of our age, that it's our responsibility somehow to cross into the world, into the vocabulary, into the culture, or the subculture of another person. We probably all benefit if we meet somewhere in the middle on these things.

Absolutely, and that's true with people from different countries with gender, you know, different genders interacting and seeing things a certain way, or, um, people from different cultures, whatever it may be. I think it's pretty silly to expect somebody to completely change everything about their thoughts.

To agree with somebody, but you hit the key. If you meet in the middle and agree on common things and then are allowed to still have your differences, then that's where that unity comes in.

Yeah. You know, it's kind of funny 'cause I, when, when I was thinking about this conversation, I was thinking about how this plays out in my own life [00:13:00] and my own business. So uh, my daughter-in-law, so my son's wife, my daughter-in-law, she works in our business now and, uh. So there's times where we have this generational, uh, challenge regarding communication, and I would tell you I'm not always that great at translating the way I need to.

And part of it not only comes down to what's being said, but how are communicating. I personally 

am not a fan of text. 

Okay. Um, I don't prefer email for conversations and I surely don't like texts, partly because I got really fat, chubby fingers and man, oh man, that keyboard is still not fun for me I must snail.

Okay. So then I get these long texts from, uh, from Emily about things and we're working on stuff and, and I usually just like call me, like, I can't do it. But I also recognize that her preferred way of being communicated with actually is text. And it's a struggle for me because I actually believe that [00:14:00] that's inferior.

Somehow that's bad. It's not real. It's not good connection. All these things I've built up in my mind to tell me that my way is better, but in fact it's not about better or it's about different.

And I struggle with this every day to be honest.

Yeah. Well, and just to use your example, it's kind of interesting because you would quit. You would prefer a quick phone call, but let's say that you're calling her because that's your preferred, um. Mode of, of communication, and you're asking her to do two or three or four or five things for you.

If she has a written list in a text, she's more likely to complete those. The flip side of that is that, and that's true, a lot of the 20 and 30 year olds in the workforce do prefer text for a lot of different reasons. But on the flip side, if, and y'all don't have a lot, you're not in a large corporation, but if somebody texts a contract or a proposal to a customer, that's [00:15:00] totally inappropriate.

Unless the whole company says Yes, that's okay, because think of legal consequences if you know she. So you really have to define and come to an understanding of when each is appropriate, and maybe you do the calls to her. She understands that. But then you understand that it's important for her to text what she wants to respond or reply.

It's, it is definitely a give and take in trying to figure it out. So, so lemme ask when you go into a business and you wanna begin to help them and you're creating an environment, whether it's a workshop or you know, whether you're working with people over time and you're, you're sort of embedding yourself a little bit in their experience as it 

goes. If you were giving me some advice as to what are the best things, best practices for me to communicate? Better, let's say to a different or younger generation for me to translate what are the one or two things that I need to really understand?

well, that's part of the training I do is specific to managers to teach them how to [00:16:00] manage different generations of workers. And somebody might have six or eight people working for them. Some might be in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties. the first thing I encourage a manager type person to do as opposed to a coworker is to talk to your employee about how they like to communicate.

Some of them, like your example with Emily is maybe texting. And so maybe you as a courtesy to her, make more effort to do that. Now there might be situations where that's not appropriate and you have to say, okay, in our company we can't do it this certain way. Um, and also you can check about how you can be really clear.

On how to interact with you. One, one disconnect I hear, is about workers not knowing when to ask their managers for help, or not knowing to tell their managers that they've completed something, or vice versa. the manager got giving good instructions. So what I encourage is in that situation is you [00:17:00] come up with some guidelines that say, okay, this is what I expect you to do.

You know, check in with me once a week. On Mondays at whatever. but you come up with some expected rhythms of communication so that you're checking in with her. The way that keeps her humming along, but yet she's reporting to you if those are things that are important. So that'd be the first key. and then really just being open, um, just listening, learning, learning more.

And I know in a work situation there are a lot of questions you can't. Ask legally. Um, but getting to know your coworkers or your employees or your manager, would be another good thing is just learning a little bit about them as a person, and it's gonna help put things in context for you about maybe why they want to come in at eight 30 instead of eight, or, or whatever the situation is.

Yeah, and it's, it's so complex. 'cause you think about this, if we're talking about intergenerational translation, you also then layer on top of [00:18:00] this, you have cultural nuance. So you, you know, you have a person who's in their twenties. And let's say they were born and raised in the United States of America or Canada, or you have a person in their twenties maybe who was born in, uh, in Latin America and has migrated their way over the years.

And now as, a Canadian citizen or American citizen or working now in the country, they not only bring a generational difference, but a cultural nuance. And I guess. The same things apply there, understanding a little bit about people's culture, what the differences, and, and again, I've had so many experiences for myself again about misinterpretation when it comes to cultural things.

One time I was in, I was in Africa where I spent a lot of time and I was walking down the street with a friend that I made there, his name was Carlos. We did a lot of things together, a lot of work together. And one time we were walking down the street and Carlos done, grabbed my hand. While we were walking down the street, and I have to admit, it was a bit of a strange thing for me.

I was like, I don't, this isn't comfortable. I don't know what's going on here. And as soon as he [00:19:00] could feel me, he was quite astute. As soon as he could feel me recoiling, 'cause he obviously could feel it, he said, oh, I'm so sorry Tim, I offended you. I didn't mean to, you've probably misinterpreted my gesture.

And I said, yes, Carlos, actually I maybe have. And he said to me, well, he said, Tim, look around. You know, again, this is where we're just not in tune. I mean, I'm, I'm not that smart. Some days I wasn't at tune to what was happening. He said, look around on the street. He said, do you notice something about Who's holding hands walking down the street? And I noticed, all of a sudden it was all men holding hands with men, women not holding, holding hands with women. And he said, in our culture, in my culture, in Mozambique, in Mozambique, he said, men walk hand in hand because we're brothers.

oh, 

And so, uh, again,

it's this, you've got this translation that happens on a generational thing, but then you've got cultural nuance.  

And I've been the victim, frankly, of being inattentive to [00:20:00] my environment in, in lots of places in including that example being, 'cause as soon as he said that, and I looked around and I said, yeah, actually, and I've been going there for years. So it just wasn't. Something that was in my psyche. So the lesson I'm learning from that, and I'm not really good at it yet clearly with my experience with Emily, but being more attentive to what's going on and what are the cultural and social and generational norms, which is, which again, we've gotta become a little bit more astute students of that I suppose.

Yes, and I'm not saying that every person that starts working at a company should come in with their own rules of when they work and what they do and that kind of thing. There are definitely some standards of somebody has to meet certain criteria to actually complete the job and get paid for the job.

However. Again, back to the timing thing. , and I, I, I couldn't give you statistics about this, but in general, I think younger workers tend to prefer to come in a little bit later and maybe stay up a little later, at least based on my 20 something children [00:21:00] and not I. Numbers of people, but my children that are 20 something.

Um, I just realized what that sounded like. Um, and so if you ask, you know, if you've got a younger worker that tends to come in later than the norm, there's nothing wrong with having a conversation and say, Hey, let's talk about these work hours. You know, technically we don't have. You know, flex hours or whatever the fancy word is.

But let's talk about why you tend to come in, you know, closer to nine o'clock when most people are here at eight o'clock and they may not realize they're doing that. And or they may say, well, I'm just a little more productive. And, and if you can work with it, work with it. You know, if it's a manufacturing job and somebody has to be there running a, a machine, that's different.

But, um, again, flexibility while still doing, getting the job done, 

Yeah. 

I think is a big thing.

No, it makes sense. And again, if you're listening in, I always say you're listening in for a reason. So you can apply this anywhere. I mean, if you're in a business, you can apply it there. If think about [00:22:00] your community, if you're involved in a community group or something that where you have intergenerational interplay, where you have multicultural interplay.

And again, ask yourself, are you waiting for someone else to bridge the gap between you and them? Are you. do you jump the gap to them? Do you cross over that Rubicon River and say, Hey, let me meet you where you're at and try to figure out how to communicate? My strong encouragement to you would be to do that because the better we get at this, particularly whether it's in our businesses and our communities, we're gonna be stronger for it because the reality is, is that we need multiple perspective on the complexity of the problems.

That we have to manage these days in our business, in our world, in our society, we need all the good thinking of every generation along the way. And so the skillset and the encouragement that Charlotte's giving me today in you today is strategically important. And so again, you figure out where to apply it, but ask yourself the question, is it possible that some of the misunderstandings that you [00:23:00] have.

You're actually a little bit more responsible for them than you'd like to admit every once in a while. And, and that's where I wanna take the conversation next. When you start talking to somebody about this and you know, they maybe have a sort of a cognitive understanding. Yeah, I could see there's a gap, but when it really starts to hit them and they recognize that maybe there's some things that they're not doing, is this something that you find that they can quickly start?

Adapting to new behavior, or do you find that it, it's a struggle for them? Uh, where like, what's your experience been in Charlotte with people on trying to make these changes?

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, and when I've given presentations that cover a lot of material in a short period of time, usually I tell the people, listen to these ideas. Don't try to apply them all at once. Okay, one or two that you know you need to work on or that you can tell you could really improve in an area and work on it.

You know, take some notes on some future things and three months or [00:24:00] six months down the road, if you think, you know, I've really got a good handle on this, asking questions of people or listening, well, then you go, okay, listen. Look at some of these other things I could consider more. Um, so no, it's not a quick fix kind of thing, but in everything in life, the more you practice, the more natural it's gonna become.

And um, I just say that about all of these things.

Yeah. No, it's, it's a fascinating conversation and so as you look at this and how it sort of plays out, and when you get an opportunity to have these engagements, I wanna take this now to gender translation for a

second. Uh, and I wanna, I wanna ask this question and maybe there's no difference. Again, I might have a bias in my belief about this, but do you think that men or women are generally better at this or more intuitive about the need for this? Or do you 

Mm-hmm. 

see a difference from a gender perspective?

Well, if you look at just, it's stereotypes, but stereotypes come from some truth. [00:25:00] Usually, in general, women are more relational than men. Um, you know, if you have a couple women sit down, they're gonna have, normally, they're gonna have, a quicker, deeper, more in depth, more comprehensive conversation than a couple of men.

But at the same time. Men can sometimes be pretty task oriented. So, and I'm, I kind of tend toward that task oriented, give me a challenge and I'm gonna tackle it. You know, give me, let me find out something that I could be doing better. And especially leaders if they've, if they're that more ambitious type, they might be more.

Interested in actually implementing it to get results, meaning the things that the company can run better and there's some measurable things. Um, so it's kind of, if you have a leader that owns a company, if they're serious about making changes, they might be a quicker adapter of this because it's gonna affect a [00:26:00] bottom line.

If you just in general have a group of people, the women are probably gonna be a little more intuitive. to these relationships.

Okay. No, and that's helpful. And again, I, it is stereotypical, but there's usually some under, as you said, there's an underlying truth there, so, so I'm thinking about something as we talk and it's just sort of coming to me in the moment. It could be totally erroneous, could be wrong. I. Could be interesting.

We'll see. But I'm thinking about this. If I'm own a company and I've got a group of, uh, emerging leaders, let's

say, and I have a choice to make about who I'm gonna sort of take, wanna take to the next level. I'm getting to the sense that one of the things I might be looking at. In addition to the skill sets required, the hard skills required and the general soft skills required for success, as a leader, 

I might actually be adding something to the mix of saying, how good is this person?

Intuitively, a generational translation.

Because if I'm promoting someone and I'm bringing them into a stream [00:27:00] where I'm growing them into, let's say our management stream or a leadership stream, and I'm typically bringing people in who are intuitively not great at understanding generational translation, I'm probably creating a systemic problem.

But in fact, if, if all things were equal and I had an opportunity, I should be looking for this. innate skill or learn skill as a criteria or a benefit for actual promotion of an individual because we're expanding their influence across the organization. Would you agree with that proposition?

I would agree with that, and I would also say that it would be important to. Really focus somewhat on those entry level youngest employees because if you were talking about systemic problems, if you get a group of young, like fresh outta college or within the few years and they don't naturally have a tendency toward this, if you don't do anything to try to improve it, [00:28:00] some they're gonna be the same way.

Um, so yes, I believe that it's good to identify people that are quicker learners or that maybe already have some of these skills, but I don't think you do it at the expense of omitting the people that really need some help on basic skills.

So it makes sense. So you want, we should be, we should be, in addition to the other kind of training we do in organization, we really ought to be looked at communication training that tucks into this idea of intergenerational communication. Sounds very solid to

me. Here's another question. If I'm. A leader and I'm putting together a cross-functional team.

I'm now also thinking that maybe it shouldn't just be a cross-functional team, it should be a cross generational team. Maybe that's part of seeding this. This interaction is not only looking at cross-function, departmental or discipline, but actually looking at cross-generational project work to try to enhance this, uh, whole thing.

That might be another way I could approach

Mm-hmm. Um, yes. And that [00:29:00] right there ties directly into some of the direct, ROI or savings, cost savings. Things that I'm hearing and reading about now is that companies are losing their knowledge base. So they've got people in that, you know, gen X, baby boomers, whatnot. Ready to retire, they leave the company.

And those people that are so valuable with their head knowledge and their, understanding of how the company works, have not invested or poured that into younger workers. If you form a, an intergenerational team or cross-generational team, like you said. It makes it easier for those more experienced workers to pour or pass down that knowledge into the younger workers in a more natural way, as opposed to just pulling somebody and saying, oh, I'm supposed to teach you all of this.

Um, but that right there would, directly impact that problem of losing knowledge.

No, I, I love it. It's a great conversation. And I do wanna point out something about, my, just my connection [00:30:00] with you, Charlotte. I mean, obviously we connected first on LinkedIn and we were introduced by somebody that, that we had connection with this grand world of LinkedIn. 

But I have to say, the one thing I loved about, you know, I get a lot of people saying, you should connect with, you know, and part of it is 'cause of what I do, part of it's 'cause I have a podcast. And, and so every once in a while I go to somebody's profile and I go, eh, I don't, I don't know, I don't think I really wanna connect with that person, but I will say something.

When I went to your profile and I saw that how you. Bravely introduced yourself to me as this intergenerational translator. It was so wonderfully And if people li who listen, know, I love the provocative, 

I thought it was such a powerful declaration and a bit risky because I think there's some people who might read that and go, I don't, I don't know what that is.

I don't get it.  

What I love about it is, is this is intuitively the, the center of your passion right now in, in what you want to be about. You [00:31:00] want to teach communication. Obviously you have great skills to do that, but you're believing that actually putting, putting your mark in this particular area is gonna be an a way that you can provide some really great impact to the community, to the businesses, to the people you work with.

And I have a lot of respect for that. She, I love

it. I love the fact that you, you self identify as this, this person who's gonna say, I'm gonna be part of helping people translate generation to generation. I just absolutely love it. So like, do you, at the end of the day, do you really see this as, do you see it as a vocation?

Do you see it as a calling? Do you see it as a side hustle? Do you see it as, I dunno the way to make a million dollars. I mean, Charlotte, why, why are you doing this?

Well, really my heart, I mean like, I guess the thing that really pulled me into the idea is my heart is for young professional workers, so [00:32:00] many of them in today's environment. Didn't have the opportunity to learn skills that will help them the rest of their adult lives. And it doesn't have to be exactly like somebody else grew up, but I just think so many in that 20 something and even early thirties just have missed opportunities.

For the social interaction, for the business interaction to learn those skills. So I started looking at it from that standpoint of, oh, I know I can relate to them. I know I can help them, I can teach them if they want to. But then I started looking at it how it affects so many people. And honestly, with even people our age that had to work at home for a couple of years, if they were used to, they were going back into offices after not working with somebody side by side or in the same room. Um, so that was another kind of a, um, a catalyst for me to get more involved and more involved. and honestly I would love to do it for free, but at the same [00:33:00] time, I have a business and it's, you know, I'm thinking I've got a skill I can share and, maybe make some money while I'm doing it too.

You know what, that's a great way of, looking at it. I really love that, Charlotte. And you know, and again, I just, as we talk, and if you're listening in, just think about it. It's just as simple as, you know. I speak Canadian, which is sometimes different. You speak American and sometimes different.

Um, but you know, if I spoke, uh, Chinese and you spoke, uh, uh, English, we would've a natural barrier and we would know immediately that if we were going to function together in an organization or a family or community group that. I, I would need to learn some English and you would need to learn some Chinese and you would need to learn some things about my culture.

I would need to learn some things about your culture. You know, if I was Indian, for instance, and this is an experience I had, this is where, you know, it's not just about language, it's about body language. I had done, some training in India. While ago, a number of years ago, and I had, there was several hundred people that [00:34:00] attended this training that I did, and I had a translator and I was doing this training and it was the worst experience of my life.

Charlotte. The whole time I'm on stage teaching and doing this training, people are clearly disagreeing with me. They are shaking their head no. It is. It's just freaking me out. I'm crawling in my skin. I've never experienced this ever in my life. I, I just want to get off the stage. Okay. So I, I finish, I try to get out real quick, and as I'm going out, all of a sudden, like crowd erupts and they're clapping, and I'm, and I'm like, I've such disconnect.

The person who had brought me in comes and says, oh, Tim, they love you. And I'm like. They don't love me. This is terrible. he, and the guy says to me, why can't you hear them? And I said, yeah, but the whole time they were shaking their head in disagreement. He said, oh, Tim, I'm so sorry. Didn't I tell you that when Indians are saying yes, they nod their [00:35:00] head, left to right, not backwards and forwards.

And I will tell you, I never forgot that experience because it was so disconcerting. Of course, we've got human language that needs to be translated. We got body language that needs to be translated. We got all this stuff, and God forbid that anybody have the experience that I had, that you're in a room of people that you think are utterly hating your.  

Every part of your being shaking their head no and disagreement of everything you're saying, when in fact they're in total agreement. But we have a translation problem. 

It relates to an interpretation problem.

And so this is an example for me of how, again, this can happen in subtle ways. The differences of the way we look at things, the way that we interact with things, we can see it so differently and we can misinterpret

what people's real intentions are.

I'll give you a great example of a huge generational thing. 

And this is very much based on [00:36:00] the experience of my children, you know, interacting with them. Um, but I'm also hearing more and more stories about this being in the workforce is a younger person will say in their twenties or thirties, just think it's normal to have that phone in their hands or in their pocket all the time.

And they are. Again, this isn't a hundred percent of everybody, but in general, these younger folks will pull out their phone looking at it while you're talking to them and you say, um, I'm talking to you. And they go, oh yeah, I can hear you. I can hear you. You know, I've seen my own children. We're watching a movie together as a family and they're on their phone or, and so.

Now being a parent, I could say, okay, we're not gonna have cell phones at the table, at the dinner table or whatnot. But in a work environment, you just have to be sensitive to that. Um, there was a fellow I know of, I was interviewing some managers a couple of years [00:37:00] ago to get some data. For this. And he said that he invited a fellow to coffee that he had thought of.

Um, I think that he was in real estate, had thought about inviting this fellow to join him on his team. The fellow took so many calls during their coffee, like phone calls. He didn't even bring up the job opportunity. So, um, I mean, that's just one, there's several that I've heard. And so that right there to older workers.

Would probably come across as disrespectful to the younger workers. And again, these are broad brushstroke generalizations. It's no big deal. So it's kind of coming into understandings with that. If you have a company and 95% of the workers are under 40, that might not be a big deal. But if you've got that combination and people are in meetings and 

Yep. 

conferences together, then it's just something that needs to at least be addressed.

Yeah, it's, it, it is interesting and, and, and to your point, it's kind of, Hey, we're gonna trade stories back and forth right [00:38:00] now. is gonna be awesome. So I'll give you another example generationally with my grandchildren. So I have two grandchildren. I have an 8-year-old grandson and a 5-year-old granddaughter.

And 

a couple of years ago, my grandson was about six years old. They, we had them over, we were babysitting them. They were here, their parents were away. It was a Saturday morning. We were playing around in our living room and my wife's cell phone was on the table. My wife's cell phone rang, and what happened next was transformative to me.

My grandson picked up the phone, but instead of picking the phone and putting to his ear, he picked up the phone and looked at it dead on straight be. And as soon as he did that, I said to my wife, everything has changed. 

See, I see that phone as a glorified Star Trek phone. 

You know, cause it replaced my party line in my house when I 

was a kid. 

yes.

But he sees that primarily as a device that you interact with a person by video on. Clearly he [00:39:00] didn't put it to his ear. and I said to my wife, that's, that's a game changer. His view of this thing is fundamentally different than the way we view it. And I think, again, that's the opportunity we all have to understand.

It's not about right or wrong, it's about difference of experience and how do we come together for the purpose of we're doing. It's a great conversation, Charlotte. Thanks for having it with me. Now, before I let you go, this is the UNcommodified podcast. And 

so for me that means that I always wanna figure out, you know, what makes people Tick and what makes them unique. And so I'm interested to know when, when Charlotte, the Charlotte Berry, I'm gonna call you the Charlotte Berry, when the Charlotte Berry, 'cause there's only one unique Charlotte Berry. When the Charlotte Berry is walking into a room and you're bringing that thing that only Charlotte knows that unique expression of Charlotte for the positive benefit of others, 

Sure. 

what's Charlotte doing in that moment?

I'm always interested in that.

My hope is to anybody in that room to inspire them [00:40:00] to understand another person that's not like them better.

Hmm. 

Just to, to understand where they're coming from, maybe why they do the things they do, and to be more open to it.

Wow. That's good. I'm gonna let that sit where it is. That's a great, great provocation. Again, if you're listening in, you just hear what Charlotte says. Go and practice and bring the Charlotte to your area, but do it in your unique self. Again, Charlotte, thank you so much for the conversation. If you listen in, you listen in for a reason, do me a favor.

Let Charlotte and I know what you're doing with this conversation. DM me or email me@timatunmodified.com and let us know how you're unpacking this idea of intergenerational translation, of translation into the world that you wanna apply it in at work, at home, in the community, for the positive benefit of everybody around you.

'cause at the end of the day. If you are making the mistake of interpreting generational resistance as some form of rebellion against you, you are gonna miss the [00:41:00] mark every day, all day long. Thanks for listening in. Cheers.