#108: Gen Z at Work: Silence Is the Signal

Speaker A: Welcome to Stepsero. Modern work is a lot. Let's take it one conversation at a time. My guest today is Benoit Van Kauenberge, generational strategist and co founder of 20something. In this episode, we talk about why Gen Z silence at work is not lack of motivation, it's a signal why most leaders are missing it entirely and more. Let's get into it. Benoit, it's really good to see you. Thank you so much for making the time on the Stepsetto podcast.

Speaker B: Hello, Matteo, how are you? Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: I'm doing great. It's so fun to have you. Benoit, you help brands, leaders, HR teams, marketers build this bridge between Gen Z and their own world. And there is a lot, I believe, that Gen Z are telling us about the modern workplace and the future of work. And I thought to myself, who better than Benoit can help me with this? So here you are. We have 15, 20 minutes to explore the topic. And look, there is plenty of data available from Gallup, McKinsey, Deloitte about this gap, let's call it, between what Gen Z needs and the way we understand them or misunderstand them. And clearly there is a long way to go. But I'm hoping that with this conversation we can cover a little bit of ground to make people think in the right direction. There is a lot of material that you put out there. You publish quite a bit on 20something be. I found it very insightful. And there is specifically one article called the, uh, Gen Z reset where you say that silence is the biggest sign of trouble. Can we start with that? May I ask you to elaborate? Why is silence such a big signal?

Speaker B: Yes, Matteo, for answering this question, we have it put it back on context. The generation for those who are listening, it's important to Understand you have two newest generation Gen Z between 15 and 30 years old, and then the Alpha generation between 1 and 14 years old, more or less. They're absolutely another generation. If people who listening or watching this podcast thinking, yes, it's a new way of millennials. No, it isn't. It's absolutely another way of operation system. And why this operation system is totally different. And this is, it's because of the great shift. And what is the great shift? In 2010, the, the iPhone 4 came out and on the iPhone 4 there was a like button and a camera and speed Internet. And from that moment all the youngsters the communication skills way, how they communicated changed. Absolutely. And we can see it. You can find data, uh, easily. Uh, there's a book Anxious Generations. It's super interesting where you really see that the results in five years, youngsters changed the way of communication. Depression went up, believing in themselves go down. And the results of this, two things. First of all, the phone has been an experience blocker. That means that instead of going out, talking, playing, negotiating, you stayed home. And the screen and its phone has been an experience blocker in many, many things. But the result of this is that youngsters has another keyboard, another way of expression. I'm 50 years old soon and yeah, I've learn seducing by sloth dancing. I seduced by taking my responsibility to say, should I go to her or his and should I kiss him or her? Taking risks. Today, the risk of seducing is by phone. So the experience, well, my experience has been changed totally. So now if you compare this metaphor in way of communication, it's by emoji. And should I use this emoji or should I not? And if this person is not answering, in my case, I became red and I have to run. In their case, they stop the conversation and they move on, on a new one by scrolling. And this, yes, the silence is not silence anymore. Silence today is a way of expression and you have to understand the silence. And it's another way. It's a language. They have a lot of keyboards and silence is part of these keyboards.

Speaker A: You know, I can already hear some managers or people listening to this conversation, obviously belonging to previous generations, going, okay, but no, about silence may look like, uh, a good employee to most managers. They do their job, they're silent, they're not complaining, they're not loud. How do you break that illusion?

Speaker B: Yeah, you know, well, before bosses say, my door is open, if you have a question, come in and jump the question. Or, you know, in my case, when you were upset, you could see it on your face today. No, first of all, safety, feel safe is the new word in companies. People, youngsters, this generation has three selves. In our case before, it was just work self and your private self was home. And it was it and you went home. My name is Benoit. Benoit self at work and Benoit self private. Today this new generation has three selves. They have private self, work self and social self. And they come at work with the three selves. So at this moment, they scan the three selves of other people in the company. They, they check if the people where they work on it are the same people and they can trust. And the problem is trust is super difficult because I don't know if you have already heard today, Matteo the word cringe people youngsters are scared to dance on streets because they're scared that someone in the streets put it on the camera and will share it on social media. And this is a little bit the problem. The company, if I say something, they maybe will use it for me and my company. So they don't feel safe. And so they try to give the signals different way, not with words, but another different way. But the problem is their signals are not the same of the leader signals. So they say something by unverbal things, by attitudes mostly by silence or maybe by messages. But leaders don't understand this same kind of messages. And yes, they think these are quite, quite quitting. But in fact they already try to share some values or problems since a long time. But again it's another system or uh, another operations system and another keyboard. So they don't talk the same language. So the one thing he say nothing though I don't understand why he left the company. And the youngsters say, well, I say it already since a long time, but my boss don't understand me and don't see my, my complaints.

Speaker A: I mean, you and I did not have a camera following us around 24 7, right?

Speaker B: That's true.

Speaker A: It's interesting you, you touch on psychological safety because I feel, I don't know how you feel about that, but we've been talking about psychological safety for a while now. Everyone knows or should know, I believe what it means or has an idea of, uh, psychological safety. And it's something that you see written everywhere. But I know that you reference this quite a bit in your blog, in your work and you even cite a McKinsey paper. It's uh, called Psychological Safety and the Fearless Organization. It basically says only 45% of employees feel safe enough to speak up at work. Uh-huh. You also say that in a way we act when it's too late. We are met with silence. We are used to noise signals, loud signals. What does it say you think about our current workplaces that an exit is basically safer than speaking up.

Speaker B: I will come back on the way of communication. You know, even a relationship. We have learned to fight for relationships. They when they have a problem and they communicate on screen, they mostly people leave the conversation, leave the WhatsApp group or leave the boyfriend or girlfriend by just by that because it's an easy way. They have not learned what we have learned. Social skill, watching on the eyes see that this person doesn't understand what I mean. Whatever. So the signals are different, but they have another. They Have a superpower, this generation, a power that we don't have. Well, I don't have it is they scan super well. They come in the room, they see the company, they see the key words. You know, in some companies, you come in and you see welcome. And you see this is our value. This is our vision. This is our vision. And they read it. But if they come in a meeting room and they feel that what is, um, on the front of the walls is. Is false or is just fake, if they see that the leader is not a real leader because he is like manipulating or whatever or his way of leading is not what. What the company said, say that he is or she is, then we have an issue and there's a problem. And their parents has fight for years to stay in the companies, but on the end, they have seen the parents be fired. And they say, I don't do the same. I don't want to fight. For years today, promise has been broken by companies. You know, before there was really values in companies. We believe in you, blah, blah, blah. Today, companies has broken their promises. And we see it on Covid. We see the last, uh, last years. And the choice that they have made is, okay, there are the rules, but the rules in two directions. It's for me as well. So you have the rules of breaking the rules when you want. I do the same. If, uh, when I see that this is not matching with myself, with my values, I leave it. I don't want to spend so many years and fighting for it when I don't believe and trust on it. And it's the same in relationship. Matteo, you know, your parents, they stayed together or. My parents stayed together for years. And you still knew that they. There's a problem relationships. They have seen it in their relationship as well. My parents were unlucky, unhappy. I don't want to be unhappy like that. I don't want to stay 20 years with somebody when I definitely know that I don't like her or him. And they rethink about work, but they rethink about love, about sexuality, about religion. And when I talk about operation system that has changed, it's not only the operation system that changed in work. The operation system of life has changed. And today our operation system M for leaders is a little bit like a Nokia 3 3, 10. You know, the Nokia where you play Snake. But they're already in iPhone. And we see the iPhone. Like we have seen the iPhone before. Like, no, that's not really a phone. It will never work. But finally the iPhone has went four years later. So if we not reinvigorate our system, the results will be the same as Nokia in 2003.

Speaker A: You know, it's clear that look, you know this better than anyone. We, we say there's a, uh, lack of motivation, lack of drive, laziness. We understand by now that the silence that we are met with is withdrawal from a system that they consider obsolete, that doesn't have their best interests at heart. And there's now different non negotiables, right? Transparency, clarity are uh, obviously a non negotiable. You touch on for example the conversation that we are having about AI, that leaders are having about AI. I mean these days it was everywhere. We have seen these high caliber people being booed on campuses while talking about AI.

Speaker B: It's really, there's a paradox with AI. This generation is the first generation that really use AI easily more easy than other ones. Prompts are easy. But in another way there's the first generation who really not trust AI. People are scared about AI. I think we are in an antebellum. I think we use AI and we overuse AI like a little bit wokism, you know, fighting too. They go too far. And we will go back. I think today brands will come back on pr, on trust, on real people, on humanity. Previous generation was looking for how to work and how to communicate better on digital. This generation is looking how to communicate real again, better. So they learn. Now we in the past learned the digital language. They are coming back and try to learn the human language, our language. So uh, AI will be used. But I think because they've scanned so well, they identify directly when it's true, transparent and real. And we all generation, may I say that we use AI and overuse AI, but we will lose the battle because we will scan what is real and what is not real. And even already if you really write your article, if you put your really human insights in it, you will reference better than if you copy paste something that has been written by AI. And this is what youngsters already do, uh, in real time, they scan and they see, okay, is this brand, is this people really talking to me. So if you are leader and you use ChatGPT or another one to write your speech, to write your emails and you think it's real, Audi will not see that. No, they will scan it. No, put your balls and try to write. We can help AI help. AI can prepare you, AI can prepare your speech, AI can be a coach of you. But don't copy paste. Absolutely not. Because they are better than everyone to scan.

Speaker A: I can totally see that. I see it as a bit of a pendulum. You know, it's swinging way too far in one direction. It will come back even stronger. Right. It makes, it makes a lot of sense. We're heading towards the end of the conversation. Let's take another maybe minute or more or two or whatever that is. I'm curious. You have tons of experience in this field so there's a lot I could ask. But what or who taught you the most about the younger generations?

Speaker B: Well, I think one advice, I think I'm still an intern in life. I try to work with a maximum of youngsters. I live in Barcelona and co living with five youngsters that change every three years in 20 something. We worked only with youngsters and we work with the reverse mentoring. So the person that where I learned the most are the youngsters. I uh, would say when leaders say how should I start? What should I do? Should I do marketing research? I say start first of all to scan your own company. You have already youngsters in your team. Take them, give them project, listen to them and put your, your CEO or C level by sight and be an internship in their life. That's the first thing. Secondly, uh, I do a lot of um, safari living and working and by seeing like going out with them, eating with them, talking with them and try really understand and, and not judging people because you know, I understand from leaders that it's difficult. You know, I'm coming from a work hard, play hard generation. I have to fight for to be the person that I am. And it's very frustrated when you see youngsters arriving with an iPhone newer than yours when they leave at five, when they have a work life balance, a really work life balance, you know, and they fly and you see them, oh, this weekend I'm in Riga. They took a flight for not. Their life looks so easy and it's frustrating. And the first thing, the first reaction that we have is oh, uh, they don't understand and we hope they are suffering as much as we suffered, but they are suffering a lot. They're suffering differently. And I think the more you go, you dive deeper in their life and try to really understand how easier and mostly all the secrets are there because you as a leader, you know your company, you know your context, you know your category, but you don't know their targets. And if you understand their insight, if you observate, if you transform their observation and opportunities, then magic happens and then it's much more easier for you to Be an, To be an innovator, to be, to see, to have a vision on the future. Because you mix their observation, their insight with your knowledge. And it's really, I think there is where magic happens. So I would say, to answer, I don't know, Matteo, if this is an answer of your question, but for me, the youngsters themselves are for me. The leaders of tomorrow are for me the secrets of my success. I would say if I can talk

Speaker A: about success, it's a great answer. Bernouard, thank you so much. You're writing a book, uh, or you actually finished writing a book? The Gen Z Shift. Where can we find it? When will it be out? What should we watch out for?

Speaker B: Well, it will be out in September for sure. Amazon, you go. It's the easiest way. You go to Amazon, you can book, uh, you can take it on the website, the gen zchef.com you can check it as well. Probably will come out after and in spring in different languages. I have still, I'm still talking with different editors, but yeah, go to the website, the gen zchef.com. you find all the information. You can write me, of course, if you have any questions. And this book is, is. I think this book is really for leaders. People think, uh, it's a Gen Z book. No, it's not a Gen Z book. And this is maybe a spoiler, but the Gen Z Shift is a Horse of Troy. We use Gen Z just, we said, oh, this is the reasons why we have to change. I think the Gen Z is the iPhone. It's the iPhone that made all the brands changing. You know, when iPhone came, all the other phones said, okay, we have absolutely changed. So the iPhone of the Horse of Troy, uh, is the Gen Z. And they will make us changing because we have no other solution.

Speaker A: I look forward to reading that. Benoit, thank you so much for making the time and I hope we can do this again in the future.

Speaker B: I hope so too. Thank you, Matteo, for uh, having me today. I was very happy to share this moment with you.