Episode 5: How do organizations truly engage all generations in the workforce, when they all want something different?

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to this episode of Steps to Change, the podcast where we explore learning and development topics, organizational behavior change, and practical ways to inspire people to act differently. On this episode, we're discussing the question, how can we effectively engage a multi generational workforce? Joining us on this episode is Stephen Golden. How are you, Stephen?

Speaker B: Hi, Alan. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. Uh, to be honest, I'm a little nervous. Can you believe it? This is my first podcast. I'm nervous, but I'm also excited. Um, and you know what? When I get nervous and excited, I tend to speak quickly. How are you doing today, Alan?

Speaker A: I'm doing very well, thank you, Steven. And I hope that we can calm those nerves and just have a really good organic conversation today, because I really value your insight into the subject today, uh, and the chances that I've had to get to partner with you. But for the listeners out there, tell us a little bit more about your background and your experience. So why we're having you join us today, of course.

Speaker B: So, as you mentioned, my name is Stephen golden, uh, and amongst other things, I'm the former global head of DEI for YouTube, uh, which is a part of Google and Alphabet. So I may sometimes use those names, YouTube, Google and Alphabet interchangeably during this podcast. Um, so I worked at, uh, Google and YouTube in the people operations space for around seven years. Uh, but prior to that, I was at the investment bank Goldman Sachs, uh, for over 20 years, where I worked initially in technology on financial surveillance systems, like trying to catch people doing insider trading and more. And then I worked in compliance. So I actually related a lot to your last podcast episode on ethics and compliance. That really resonated with me. And then finally, I was in human capital management. Uh, I worked for Goldman in the U.S. europe, and ultimately led DEI for them in Asia Pacific. But people tell me I'm more interesting than just the companies that I've worked for. So I'm also a husband, I'm a son, I'm a dog dad. Uh, I used to work on the Grill at McDonald's. Uh, I've run a television station. I've been a music journalist, I acted on stage for 10 years. I've been a film critic, a theater critic, and actually hosted a live TV show. So this is my first podcast. I have some experience in speaking to audiences. Uh, and I'm hoping that's going to all help with my podcast debut.

Speaker A: I'm. I'm sure it will. And wow, what a storied career. And I do love the fact that people are more than just the jobs that they have. Right, well, let's get into the topic today. Right, so we are here to discuss, you know, how do we start to engage a multi generational workforce. Um, we know that this topic is, you know, has been around for a little while now. It's really hot topic and I think there's so many different ideas about, you know, how we most effectively, you know, support the different generations in the workforce, how we engage them, uh, from a different generational perspective. We recently partnered together at an event in San Francisco where you shared some really interesting insight into ways of thinking about, uh, the different generations, uh, within the workforce. So, you know, do you want to go over that with the listeners here today? Because I thought that was a really valuable way to think about it.

Speaker B: Great question, Alan. So I can actually, I want to take us back a little bit. I recall in the early 2000s, uh, I know I'm hating myself a little bit with that, but I'm okay with that. Um, I was working at Goldman Sachs. We were um, planning for the millennial generation to start entering the workforce. Goldman had commissioned its own studies on, um, what this workforce might be looking for and how we can best prepare and adapt our workplace. Uh, by the way, we did this all again as we started to prepare for Gen Z to enter the workplace. Now I think the initial research happened over a period of years and by the time it got to me, it was summarized in one of those charts or tables which you can often see in research around generations where it shows you kind of generation by generation and what they might care about or what they're looking for in the workforce. Now personally, I'm Gen X and I can recall that when I first saw some of the outputs of the study, I went to my generation because I kind of wanted to see what are they saying about me?

Speaker A: Right, yeah. What's my stuff?

Speaker B: Right, yeah, exactly. And so I actually remember I had to look some of this up just to remember it, but, but I remembered that the things that they said about Gen X in the workplace, they said that we were financially responsible and I agreed with that and I felt good about that. Great check. Um, they said that we can adapt easily to new technologies, which sounded like me, that was perfect. And they said we were self reliant, which I think was also true. So I thought actually this research is off to a great start because they understand me and my generation really well. So I was impressed and I thought, okay, let me move on. So let me look at, um, let's talk about the later version, Gen Z. And they said, gen Z, we're looking for stability in the workforce. And I thought, actually, that's true for me too. That's great, that's easy. They said that Gen Z preferred flexible working hours. Um, and actually my generation were looking for that too. And then they said we preferred a diverse workplace. I thought, wait, now this is starting to sound a lot like my generation as well. Am I really Gen Z? And I just didn't realize it. And so of course I looked at the baby boomers and I looked at the millennials and you know what? A lot of the bullets that they had in there described me too. And then I thought, well, maybe I'm just special. Or a lot of the general generational research. Um, though it's useful, I find it's often like horoscopes in a newspaper, or at least I don't even know if those concepts still exist, but they did at the time. Or fortunes in a fortune cookie. Some things when you read them, they actually seem to be applicable to everyone or to many people. And it all depends on how we apply that in our head. But it doesn't mean that all the generations are the same. It doesn't mean that this research isn't useful. It just means that you can't just take it exactly as it is and say, great, for this generation, I'll do this, for that generation, I'll do that. It's a lot more nuanced and details. Um, and I do often find that research is useful. But companies, you need to often go deeper than just kind of what you see in a table. For, for example, one of the things I mentioned was flexible, uh, working hours. But that actually might mean different things to different people or different generations. Right. Is that flexibility needed for child care? Uh, could it be for elder care? Could it be for maybe a side hustle that I have or a hobby that I have? Maybe I want to study more or do further learning or get a higher education degree? So the flexible working hour concept actually applies to multiple generations, but it may actually apply differently in the way companies may need to have it enabled, might be different. And I think it raises a really interesting question just using that particular example, um, can a company ultimately give flexibility to everyone? And if not, what's the criteria to determine who gets it or when they get it or who gets priority? The generations don't even apply the same all across the world. So a lot of times the way, at least, uh, I guess social scientists who define these generations it's often based on things that are happening within, changes that are happening within society, or norms that are happening within society. And those may vary country by country. I can specifically recall a time, and this may even still be true, where in India each generation was defined by almost a five year period because the, the rate of change was so rapid there. But these are the challenges companies face when they have to think about, about how do they apply all these things.

Speaker A: So you know, I want to, I want to drill down a little bit more into that, Steven. So, you know, thinking about, you know, building on this idea of understanding what each generation needs, but actually taking a step back as an organization and thinking, well, how do we start to apply this to our workforce so that it reaches those needs? Do you want to build on that and share some more there?

Speaker B: I actually, I almost want to broaden it out a little bit, if that's okay.

Speaker A: Yeah, go for it.

Speaker B: Share some research that I shared at the event you mentioned that I did with Steps in San Francisco, because I think this is all really interesting. So there was some research that came out this year, 2025, um, that I received recently from Goldman Sachs. When Goldman Sachs recently extrapolated the linear age trend that's been underway for the past 150 years, they actually believe the average person born today would live up to 110 years rather than the 80 years that we're kind of talking about globally at the moment.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And then here's another interesting tidbit to think about. Um, in addition to living longer, people are living healthier lives and they have longer what they call functional capacity. A recent IMF study using data of individuals aged 50 and above, including both physical and cognitive tests, they had a sample from 41 different countries, including developed and emerging economies. They found that on average, a person in the year 2022 who was 70 years old had uh, the same cognitive ability as a 53 year old in the year 2000. So we're talking only a two year difference. But already people who are 70 have the same age cognitive, uh, ability as 53 year old. And they found physically a person who was age 70 in 2022 had the same physical traits and abilities of a 56 year old in 2000. And the reason I kind of bring this up because to me what these collective studies talk about is, is that maybe today we're living in a workforce which maybe has three or four generations in the workplace, or if you're in India, even more than that, where the generations, um, are better defined. But soon we're going to actually be having six or maybe seven different generations in the workplace. And so for our listeners, your company and your leadership need to be prepared to manage across many generations, even across more than you do today. And having kind of a, uh, one size fits all approach or saying what worked for me when I was an analyst should work for analysts today. It's probably not going to work because you have to be able to handle or be open to a workforce that's across all these different generations.

Speaker A: Uh, that is some really fascinating insight in terms of how we are the cognitive abilities as we age and lasting much longer, so we're able to show up to work from longer periods of times. People are working for longer periods of time. You know, there's businesses and organizations that we work with right now trying to solve for, you know, we've got five generations in the workplace, but you've just posited that we could have six or seven. So there you go. There's an even bigger, you know, challenge to solve for which is just going

Speaker B: to keep getting harder. And, but that's also exciting, right? I think especially for people who work in the people space or the HR space. We engage with these challenges. We, we uh, sometimes probably wish we had fewer challenges, but, but it is part of our job. It's part of the excitement and thinking about how do we plan, plan a workforce, a workplace rather than a work for a workforce across those different generations. That's exciting.

Speaker A: Yeah, really exciting. How have you come across ways to, uh, support a multi generational workforce that maybe things that have gone really well and maybe things that you haven't gone so well that we could learn from things that you might have done that maybe you thought, oh, did that, should we have done that?

Speaker B: Okay, well, I have to think about whether or not I have stories I can tell when things don't go right. But you know, let me put you

Speaker A: a little on the spot.

Speaker B: Let me give you some, I'll call it some general advice first and then talk about some specific examples or initiatives from my past companies that I think might be useful for uh, people to consider. So three pieces of advice that, just kind of generic advice, but I think it's useful. A lot of times we're confronted with different work styles and what I find is a lot of times we, we freeze. When that happens, we, you know, as a, as a manager or a team member or as a leader, you don't know what to do. You don't want to do the wrong thing. So we kind of Freezing, we freeze. But freezing is not usually the best response or at least not as a long term thing. It's okay as a short term one. And recognizing that sometimes our emotional responses to different ways of working, um, feels at odds to us and that's kind of what gets us to do that. It doesn't mean, by the way, that you have to jump into action, but you can't get paralyzed. So really training your teams or your leadership to think about how not to freeze and in the moment and how to move forward, I think that's, you know, kind of generic piece of advice, number one. Uh, number two, I find is, is a lot of times we are asked or, or it's part of our, our leadership training to build long term plans. So trying to figure out what's my, I'll call it five to ten year plan. Often talking about five to ten years plans feels like a long way away. And so we're often asked to do that and that's great. But the rate of change, um, the dynamicism of our working environments means that five to ten year plans don't always work. Often by year two, you need to change them. So while it's okay to come up with long term plans, I think it's really important that HR and leaders are really focusing on how they strengthen their change muscles. So how do they then take that five year plan and be comfortable changing it in two years and in three years time? And then I'd say maybe my third generic piece of advice, um, is that to say something, uh, rather than being silent. And I'll kind of give a little context on that. Sometimes, um, employees from multiple generations, they want to hear from leadership, they want to know what that five year plan is, they want to know what our strategy is. Sometimes I find some leaders keep that close to their chest because they know they're going to change something and they don't want to seem like they're not committed to something. So rather than tell you the plan, I'm going to hold onto it. It's going to be my secret folder, but I'm just going to give you little bits and pieces along the way. That doesn't work. Silence doesn't help actually. And maybe, maybe this is a stereotype. But I say people, especially from the newer generations, they want to be involved in that decision making. They want to hear the plan, they want to be involved in setting that plan too. So as a leader, you need to be ready to say something, you need to do it authentically, you need to do it promptly And I think, I think that's really important.

Speaker A: You know, you talked about the freeze moment. Um, you know, if some, you know, there's a way of working or a request or something comes in that maybe isn't necessarily aligned with that manager's kind of the way that they typically do things or like to work. Um, you know, often in um, programming that we run at steps, you know, we, you know, as the listeners know, we use drama, uh, to bring that learning to life. And one of those examples, um, that's been coming up more and more is around how um, communication shows up in the workplace now and specifically around the use of phones and making phone calls and speaking on the phone. And so it gets a lot of laughs. But it is actually a really, there's so much conversation that happens around it. So just to paint a picture of this, there will be someone from the younger generation, typically the Gen Z character, who will be, who will receive a phone call from a senior leader in the business and they don't answer it. And somebody else in the scene remarks, aren't you going to pick that up? That's a senior leader. And the character says, oh no, I don't do the phone. I'll get back to them via email. Right. And the senior leaders in the room, they kind of put their heads in their hand. But then the younger generation that the participants that are walking it go yeah, that's absolutely right. And, and I think what's really interesting about that is there is definitely different ways of working from the generation. So I think we do need to acknowledge that. So. Right. That's important to recognize. But then going back to one of the original points you made around the drivers, um, behind those different ways of doing things that show up in the generations, then we can explore that in the programming and start to have more robust conversations. Right. So we give agency to the Gen Z character to see. Well, you know what, I'm not great on the phone and actually I know that that person's going to want a lot of responses from me and I'm not going to be able to do that as best I can just off the cuff on the phone. So I'll get the message and I'll write a really detailed email back whereas the senior leaders going like, I can't work that way. I just need you to take a bit of a download and so then we can start to broker away within the workplace. Well, how can you come together with these two bits of knowledge? Right. And I share that with you because one of the things Instead of freezing. I think one of the overarching themes of all the examples you've just shared, uh, even with the leadership talking about the five year plan, is the word flexible. Right. I think with all the multi generational content that we talk about, flexibility is key within all of these things. Not necessarily where you have to completely forego the way you run your business, but be flexible like the tree in the wind. Right. It's going to bend, it's going to blow back and forth, but it's not going to break. But that flexibility, I think is going to stand people in a really strong, A strong position.

Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, Alan, you say we laugh in the training when that comes up. We laugh because we recognize it, we're uncomfortable with it because we don't know what to do. And that's why training like that is important, so that we start having that conversation and managers and leaders and team members figure out what should I do in that certain circumstance. And I personally, I resonate in the sense that, you know, when I was, um, uh, I'll say maybe even 10 years ago, like I lived on my BlackBerry, even when I was on vacation, I knew if a leader sent me an email, I had kind of a ten minute response window. Um, even though I was on vacation. And because of that training, I'm sure at some point I expected that of people who worked for me. And that's actually, I would say, not fair to expect ever, even 10 years ago, but even less so now. And unless you're having that open dialogue with your team member about what those expectations are and how do we manage them, how do we change and how do we come to some sort of agreement so at least we know what to expect and when to expect it. It doesn't mean we never take phone calls or we always take phone calls, but figuring out that negotiation to figure out what that is with each team member and how that works and then how the entire team dynamic works together to make that work.

Speaker A: And I think just to add to that point, one of the things that people start to realize when you dig a little deeper in this multi generational conversation that we're having is it really comes down to conversation with your teams. Right. Because we are all human beings and we will, as you say, we'll read the horoscope, we'll read the bucket of information and we'll suddenly start to create our biases around, we'll make those biases true. But actually when you start to have the conversation, you're challenging those preconceived notions, you're challenging those stereotypes and we start to realize maybe we're not so different, um, at the end of it. And then that way you start to kind of, you know, shake off the shackles, if you will, of all this stuff.

Speaker B: I guess one of the things that I noticed uh, at Google and YouTube, um, recently when I was there was that often, um, companies leadership comes from the same generation or from similar generations and many of their expectations or the decisions that they make are based on the experiences that have influenced them. Um, and so using Google as the example, I think probably the leadership teams I was working with were probably predominantly Generation X, but our workforce at the time spanned from baby boomers to Gen Z. I should use this word Google, call their workforce Googlers. So if I use that word, that's I'm talking about people who work at Google. Uh, and we at Google were hearing actually the voices of many of our Gen Y and Gen Z Googlers. Um, many of them were quite outspoken, which was wonderful, we love that. But, um, we weren't hearing as much from our baby boomers. Um, and so one of the things Google did is they or Googlers did. More specifically, they created an erg, um, an employee resource group which they called the Greyglers, um, based on the fact that some of them had gray hair. Um, it was a name, I should say, that was loved and hated, um, but it's the name they gave themselves.

Speaker A: Actually.

Speaker B: I often find that with ergs, no one's ever really happy with the names, but they keep evolving them and changing them. So the erg was of course open to everyone, but it focused on the needs of the older employee community. And amongst other things, uh, the Greglers became a really useful resource and advisory group when Google was setting or changing our HR policies or benefits. Um, and also at YouTube, we worked with the Greglers when thinking about YouTube content policies and enforcement of those policies because we wanted to make sure we were hearing the voices of that generation. Um, and I think though some people now categorize TikTok as maybe the younger generation's video sharing platform. Um, and they see YouTube as the older generations. But actually I feel YouTube managed, manages and managed to be something for everyone. And the fact that they have 2 billion plus active users to me proves this. But one of the ways they were able to achieve this was specifically by hearing the voices of multiple generations. Um, and I love thinking of it more generally. I love when companies create councils or advisory groups that really span the diversity of their employees or of their customers. Um, in this case, spanning generations. Um, and those councils for YouTube became a useful advisory board to run ideas by. And as I referenced earlier, that can relate to HR policies and benefits, but also the specific business needs and requirements of your company.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I just have a couple of questions about that because I think, um, you used a really practical example there of how an organization like YouTube, uh, stays relevant, uh, because it's listening to all of the voices, the different generations that have representation. There's. But I guess I would be really curious about, um, that leadership team because you talked about that leadership cohort often being from the same generation. Um, what were they doing? What were the behaviors and the mindsets and the leadership skills they were showing that really allowed them to take on the advice from the different generations. Because I feel like there's probably some organizations out there, some erg groups who might be listening to this to go, yeah, we do do that, but our leaders just don't listen to us. So, like, what are some of the things that, you know, we're showing up in that leadership space that really helped make this stuff work?

Speaker B: One of the things that I thought some leaders at Google and YouTube did, did well, and at Goldman Sachs as well was using, um, reverse mentoring as a way of getting advice or hearing the voices from, from different populations. And, and for both Google and Goldman, the, the reverse mentoring could be from all different kinds of diversity or different ways that, that the, that the employees were different from the leaders. But I'll talk about it specifically. Ah, so it could be for things like gender or race or sexual orientation, but it also worked intergenerationally. And so I find that as leaders become better connected with the more junior staff or the older staff as well, they tend to get a lot more candid feedback and insight into what those generations are looking for and why. But they need to. You're opening up those paths for them to share their voices, their needs, their concerns, and you want to make sure that they feel like their voices are heard. Um, employee surveys, by the way, is another way to do that. But more and more I'm finding that employees don't feel like survey feedback is necessarily being heard or considered. Um, whereas with advisory groups or reverse mentoring, they feel like they're more likely to be heard. And I think obviously it's important that leaders are hearing them and then thinking about how do they adapt and change based on what they're hearing.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. And that really just speaks to the need that the more we get to know our people, the more that we can solve for a lot of these challenges. We can really, uh, get to the heart of the matter of what it is, um, uh, that we're trying to learn from each other. Um, really great advice there. Take us along this journey some more. Stephen, what's the next piece of advice you want to jump into?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think one thing that all companies need to consider today is what's going to be the impact of AI on our workforce. If I could talk about that a bit. Because in addition to whatever may be happening in our economies, probably the biggest thing that's going to impact the workforce, I think anyway, is AI, uh, artificial intelligence, or even more generally technical automation, which has been happening for a while, but the pace of that is rapidly increasing. Uh, when I think about many of the leaders that I've worked with, they often get their initial training through being an analyst or an associate. Probably over time they build skills, they build knowledge, uh, and relationships that set them up to be good leaders in the industry in the future. But today, more and more we can use automation like AI to do the work, uh, that used to be done by the more junior people. So we have to think about as companies, how do we develop the leaders of tomorrow if they aren't getting the experiences of today? While I'm discussing AI, I've seen firsthand the benefits and the challenges in training systems to make decisions. I've also seen how easy it is to bring bias into AI and machine learning. So I would say that if your company is going beyond simple automation and you're looking to train systems to make decisions, it's important that you're also looking at how to best mitigate and prevent potential bias in algorithms or in machine learning to ensure fair and equitable outcomes. I think with my DEI history, I thought that was an important point to make. Sure. But I think more generally, if you try and extrapolate what additional impact AI might have and automation might have across generations in your work workplace, I'd say some employees might trust automation more than they trust individuals, because often automation can be more precise. Right. But then some people might trust individuals more than, uh, they do tools, because no AI tools can be 100% accurate, by the way. The same is true for humans as well. So companies have to develop that hybrid model like human and AI or human and technology to figure out how that works.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think there's a couple of things to pick up on that. Ah, the first one is that, um, you mentioned the point that the more entry level roles or the more junior Roles are being taken over by AI. And so if we aren't developing those skills through human interaction to develop those leaders of the next generation and through the business, what are we missing? We don't know yet and we will only find out now. Time. But in our work at Steps, um, one of the things that we believe is that you have to develop leadership skills. Right? So a lot of times what we find in our um, consulting with clients is they might come to us and say, oh, our managers need to get better at ah, how to either give feedback or how to develop high performing teams or what have you. Um, and we then discover that, and this is true, I think across all sectors that we work in that most people that are really good at their function or their role get pushed into management but they're not necessarily given the people skills. And so that's going to show up even more if people are learning from, you know, AI models. Um, and um, you know, those systems which, you know, I'm not saying those are a negative thing, but if we can't develop those people skills, then how are we going to build that trust and then eventually build those leadership skills, um, for the future?

Speaker B: I do think that um, that that a lot of companies we kind of rely on what maybe I'll call traditional career paths. Right? We hire, we hire people maybe from college or university. We encourage them to stay at the company, do different jobs so that they learn the business, develop those skills and then as you say hopefully develop people skills as well in order to become better managers and leaders. We kind of see them rise through the ranks. And of course some people might change jobs or change companies. That's normal. And lateral hiring is often a key way for companies to bring in new uh, experienced talent and perhaps skills that they don't have or they don't have enough of. Um, but I'd like to encourage your listeners here to also think about, I guess I'll call them less traditional career paths. And I think one of the initiatives I worked on at Goldman, um, that I was really proud of was a program we had called the Returnship program. But essentially it was like a multi month internship or work experience for people who had been out of the industry for many years. Uh, my teams ran the uh, returnship program in Hong Kong, Singapore and India. And what we found is that there was this wide wealth of talent of people who had taken career breaks but they couldn't find a way back. Uh, and yet they had great skills and experiences. Um, today we have people in what they call the sandwich generation who have both childcare and elder care responsibilities. Um, and then we have, I'll call it younger people who don't want a traditional linear career path. They want to take a gap year, they want to travel, they want to do a side hustle and turn that side hustle into a full time business. But then maybe they want to come back into the company or into a new company. So I think moving forward, companies really need to think about how do we make it easiest for employees to come in from different paths, um, from different work experiences. From different experiences and ultimately being open to many generations and experiences coming into your company and making your workforce stronger. And I think that there's a whole multi generational lens to that that's so fascinating. And companies, they aren't really thinking about that, um, as much as they probably should be. And I think that's a big opportunity for companies.

Speaker A: Yeah. And one of the things that stood out for me, um, as we start to make our way towards the end of the episode there, uh, Stephen, is um, with those people who maybe have taken a break either to raise a family or to go travel or whatever. We're hearing more of that. Then the experience they bring back in is not necessarily cross generational that could be learning for their generation. So we're actually making that. We're enriching each other within our generations and cross generations. So lots and lots of things to think about there. Um, I guess even, um, we could, gosh, this could go on for quite some time. I'm really energized by this conversation and just thinking about how we sort of wrap up the discussion, uh, and where we've got to, um, what would be your advice, uh, for organizations, some great words of wisdom, um, that you might have to get people uh, who are listening thinking like what can we do in our business to think about this stuff?

Speaker B: Yeah, I know it and I think a lot of these things I've said that I'm going to kind of recap because I think it's interesting. So we do have an aging workforce. They're living and working longer than before. They're very capable. We, our companies are going to have three, four, five or six generations in our workforce wanting and expecting different things in the workplace, bringing different work experiences as well. We have current leaders who are often from the same generation or generations who may or may not understand how to manage a diverse generational workforce. We have potential future leadership who may not be getting the same level of experience as our current leaders have. And so we have to figure out how do we help support both current and future leadership to develop the skills, expertise and relationships they need to be successful, but also to manage that multi generational workforce. Uh, I mentioned earlier, I don't think you can depend on charts or generational stereotypes as they work in some cases, but not in all of them. Um, and this is really where you need leaders who have developed skills, ah, soft skills like empathy and giving and getting feedback in ways that will resonate with your employees even when they may be from different generations than your leaders. Um, I've seen a lot of great training of course, like from online training to videos to classroom based. Um, there's so many ways to learn something new. But what I've noticed is that it's easy to be totally engaged in training and then forget to apply it. What we've learned and when we go back to our day to day routines. And it is one of the reasons that I love the way um, steps works because I find the type of training that you do really helps some of those skills to stick because you get some experience or real hand, uh, practice to figure out how that would work. At Goldman Sachs, we did work with steps to bring in this type of training to our employees and uh, emerging leaders and managers. Uh, we even had a full dei, uh and leadership training curriculum which I think is really important. It's just so important that our employees and our leaders get these type of skills. Uh, and ultimately, uh, while I know this is such a big topic, I would just recommend people be careful not to stereotype based on age of generations and really think about how do you develop those skills and those muscles and that change management that's going to be so important as we move forward.

Speaker A: Um, wonderful pieces of advice and lots of food for thought there, Steven. Um, yeah, absolutely. And I couldn't thank you enough for sharing uh, with the listeners all of that wonderful insight in this episode, episode. But that's about all the time we have left for uh, today. So, you know, thanks again Steven for joining us. It has been absolutely engaging and thought provoking discussion.

Speaker B: It's been my pleasure being here as well, Alan. Thank you.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I would have never known this as your first podcast. So you know, well done, well done. I hope it wasn't too nerve wracking. Um, are there, is there any way that you would like, if listeners are interested to connect with you, um, you know, on social media or other places if uh, you'd like to share or they could, they can reach out to us if they want to connect with you as well.

Speaker B: Yeah, they can find me on LinkedIn. That's probably the best approach.

Speaker A: Fantastic. All right, well, thank you, listeners, for joining us on this episode. Um, and if you'd like to know more about Steps and Steps to Change, make sure you visit our website, find us on LinkedIn, or sign up to our newsletter. All those links will be found in the show notes. If you're interested in how Steps could partner with you or your organization to support your needs, uh, send us an email or fill out one of the forms online at www.stepsdrama.com. is there a subject area you'd like to hear us explore? If so, reach out to us by email or on our socials and let us know. As always, thank you to our production team. We couldn't do this without you. I am your host, Alan Liedtke, and we look forward to you joining us on the next episode. But until next time, thank you. And remember, you too can see it, own it, change it, and live it.