Synthetic Generational Relationships

How to talk to Millennials and GenZers about our shared future.

Generation Rivalry

One of the most divisive aspects of our contemporary culture of simulation is the scapegoating of younger generations.

Every week someone is complains to me about Millennials and GenZers, often called Zoomers. The assessment that people offer is similar to the assessment that they have about organizations. They don’t recognize how things happened so that they had something to complain about. They do not realize that we are responsible for creating the structures and social conditions that produce the problems that we face.

In our hyper-organized world, there are no grand mistakes like a global viral pandemic or hyper-inflated economy. If those crises are mistakes, then the people in charge should have been removed for incompetence. But they weren’t.

This is how mimetic rivalry works. You blame the victims for following your leadership. Every major crisis is a product of their leadership. There are no errors of judgment on their part. Everything is purposeful and intentional. And if we ask questions, we get scapegoted as the problem

This is the background to the criticism that I hear about Millennials and Zoomers. The criticism is a diversion in the best spirit of the Spectacle of the Real. It diverts attention from the Boomer and GenX generations who are responsible for creating the conditions of conflict and crisis.

The Millennials and Zoomers are our children. They turned out exactly how we raised them. It is time to change our relationships to them.

Talk Among New Friends

I am at the stage in my life where almost all my meaningful conversations are with people younger than me. Not just a little bit younger, but a lot younger.

The other day I was writing at a Starbucks near where I live. I go there because I can focus. I would go to a local coffee shop, but I know too many people there. It isn’t a work environment, but a social one.

I’m sitting there writing and a young woman comes in and sits down a couple of seats away. I can tell she is a college student. Probably two hours later, as I prepare to leave, I lean over and ask, “Getting any work done?” She smiles, says Yes, and then asks, “What about you?”

Take note.

She engaged in real conversation with me who is old enough to be her grandfather.

I asked her about her college program and her goals for the future. I tell her about what I do. I tell her that I was writing a Substack column on leadership. I give her the address. I say to her, “Read a little bit and email me what you think. I respect what you have to say.” A conversation is started. I know that for her my Substack is a low priority for a college student. All I want is to initiate a conversation.

The next day, I’m at a Start Up High Country event. It is an organization that supports entrepreneurs. While there, I have this great conversation with two guys in their early 30s. One has started a co-working space in our town that is a few blocks from where my home is. I need to try it out. The other guy has just gone to work for a graphics art company. We talk about our community, what it needs, and how we could start our own little start-up event at the co-working space.

I very much enjoy talking with young men and women in their 20s and 30s. Most of them are not interested in talking about abstract concepts. They want to talk about doing stuff. I find that many people my age and younger by 20-30 years would rather talk about ideas. The ideas are cultural abstractions that are basically diversions from addressing what we can actually do to make our community better. They always have ideas about what others should do. They are not going to follow their advice.

We are in a transitional time where talk doesn’t lead anywhere. The action that should happen is missing. It is easy to focus on abstractions because it simulates responsibility without actually taking responsibility to solve problems. In effect, we have kicked the can of crisis down the street for the Millennial and GenZ generations to pick up and solve.

Discovering Concrete Reality

When I began my consulting practice, I’d have conversations with people about doing a project. They would ask me questions upfront about my program and fee scale. Their perception was that consultants offered a more-of-less, one-size-fits-all solution to a need. Unless the problem is a technical one, that solution functions as an abstraction that people can talk about. In retrospect, I came to realize that in many of my projects, the product was simply achieving clarity about where the organization was currently. Problems were never really solved.

When I am asked about my consulting work, I tell them that I customized my service to the need of the client. The reaction is often an annoyed look on their face. They are looking for a product. I’m not offering a product. I’m offering something more valuable. Change. Impact. Progress.

I came to realize that there is a mimetic rivalry present in the relationship between the client and the service provider. Who is in charge? The client or the provider? The problem in negotiating a consulting relationship from this perspective is that it is simply a transaction. They pay me. I provide the service. They get the product.

I don’t work that way. I want to know why they think they need help. I am going to ask questions. I am going to ask all five of the Five Questions That Every One Must Ask at the beginning of the process.

I ask them because I want to clarify what the problem is. The client comes to me with a perception of what their problem is. The Five Questions provides me a way to determine from our initial conversation whether the problem is a lack of clarity, poor relationships, or a broken organizational structure. These are the patterns of behavior that make up the three dimensions of leadership of the Circle of Impact.

Visions are Abstract, Problems are Concrete

When I first began my business, my ten-year-old son was asked about what I do. My son said, “Dad talks people into having problems and offers to fix them.” Of course, that always gets a laugh. But, it is also true. I want to know what the real problem is. I want a concrete description. I don’t want business-speak. I don’t want abstractions.

What I have learned is that smart people are really good at using abstractions to dissemble. They are concealing their real feelings. They want to deflect attention away from their perceived vulnerabilities. In some cases, they are willing to invest in a project that they will never act on so that the weakness in their leadership never gets exposed. In those cases, the consultant becomes the scapegoat.

Several years ago, I transitioned from being a founding member of a non-profit board to its executive director. Basically, we were a fundraising operation. We supported ministries across our state. We put a funds campaign together. The board approved. It was a modest campaign of $900,000. Our first donation was $500,000. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Not so fast. When I asked board members for the names of people in their networks to ask for contributions, none of them responded. Not only did they not give me any names, but none of them individually donated to the campaign. As you can probably guess, it wasn’t long before I was fired. I was the scapegoat for the board’s lack of diligence in fulfilling their responsibility. They like “the idea” of raising money as long as it didn’t require them to “donate money.”

This is why the relationship between Abstractions and Concrete action is important to understand. This is why we need to Synthesize this relationship so that we take responsibility for acting on the ideas that we claim to be important to us.

The Missing Link Between Abstractions and Action

My library is filled with books on leadership that were recommended to me as inspiring and transformational. My reading of them points to a real problem with of the lack of practicality, and even worse the lack of understanding of how leadership functions in systems. I have basically stopped reading books on leadership. I am certain that the authors mean well. But like ourselves, and the Millennials and Zoomers, they are products of education and social conditioning that functions within the Spectacle of the Real.

A lot of leadership books are filled with lovely inspirational abstractions. They are largely worthless because they assume that feeling good is motivation for change. Feeling frustrated and being afraid of failing is far better motivation. Even fear or failure is not enough to find the link between abstractions and concrete reality.

There is another kind of leadership book that is filled with ideas that are so complicated and convoluted that it is hard to know what the person is trying to convey. Are they trying to impress us with their intellect? Or, are they not willing to let an editor touch their precious text? When I read a high-concept (read intellectual) book or article, I am looking for the author to paint me a picture of what that idea looks like in real life. If they can’t do that, they do not understand how to transition from abstraction to concrete action.

Concrete Reality is The Anti-Simulation

The transition we are in begs for concrete solutions.

I had a conversation today with a colleague who I haven’t seen or talked to in twenty years. We were talking about how to develop leadership with young people in local communities. He described a group that he works with. He said that they have had great success.

My response was to describe the concrete reality of what I see. I tried to make the point that the problem with these successful programs is that they are designed to operate within the organizational structures left over from the 20th century. No one wants to change those structures, even if they don’t work anymore. They don’t want to change them because it is easy to package improvement programs that sell because they have always sold well.

Most of your leadership programs in organizations and communities are programs for promoting abstractive leadership systems. They develop some skills, make people feel good as leaders, and nothing really changes. You have to ask the question about impact.

What is impact? It is a change that matters. A change that makes a difference.

Is that program from your go-to consultant having an impact that makes a difference that matters? If not, it isn’t his fault. It is yours because he is providing what you are saying you want.

What does impact look like?

I told my friend about a project that I did that I have written about in many ways before. The simple story was a happy corporate business stopped being that way because of a new executive leadership team controlled all the decision-making. They lasted twenty years until they did something unethical and were let go. New CEO comes in. For the first four months, he says nothing about his plans. He spends time getting to know people. Everyone is skittish because they expected him to be like the other guys. I am hired by the new CEO to develop a values statement that will define the company. The group that I am working with, at the last hour of the project, produces a values statement that they all like. The CEO comes in. Sees five different values statements without knowing how the team voted. He chooses the one that they did. The emotion that went through the room was unlike anything that I had ever seen. They knew then that they were going to be okay. Two years later, after a company-wide engagement campaign, and a middle-manager development program to apply the values, the company was recognized as one of the most trustworthy companies in the nation.

Values were not abstractions. They have a concrete reality behind them that the team wanted for the company. The values weren’t boilerplate marketing jingles. They were not sweet little sayings to make people feel good. No! Not at all.

The values were operationalized through training and managerial support. The employees of the company were trained to solve problems, communicate more broadly, and performed their job at a higher level every day. I keep telling this story because it never happened anywhere else that I have ever worked. The reason is that people adapt to the social and organizational structure that exists.

Here is the real abstract/concrete problem with organizational change. The manager or CEO hears a new idea at a conference about how to improve the operation of their business. The company hires a consultant to design a way to inject the idea into the operation of the organization. It fails because the idea was always an abstraction, and will always remain an abstraction. Instead, what is needed is awareness.

Awareness takes the idea and develops a picture of what it is like in action. Then the organization adapts to that picture over time. Small changes. Incrementally initiated allows for the concrete reality of the organization to change in a healthy manner. This is the preferred route unless there is a crisis that requires intervention.

Talking To Young People

I want to shift the context back to relationships with young people. I hear older people, meaning 40 and older, complaining about young men and women in their teens, 20s, and 30s being inconsistent, unable to commit, and too often just leaving. We have to understand that they are the product of our leadership. They are the product of educational institutions that live off abstractions, not reality. These young people are not prepared for the future to come because older people are not prepared for the future to come either. None of us are prepared for a post-consumerist future.

We need to synthesize the worlds of abstractions and concrete reality. We need to stop thinking that our grand eloquent talk matters. Instead, we need to change.

I saw this same problem forty-plus years ago. The gap between our words and deeds then was treated as an ethical problem. Today, that same gap is a multi-layer problem exacerbated by a culture of simulation that seeks to replace reality with the virtual. It is the heart of the Circle of Impact. Here’s a way to get at this.

A Plan for Engagement

Assume that everything you say in a work context is either an abstraction or a platitude. I am including in that list all your talk about numbers. They are just as much an abstraction as words can be. Try this. After every statement, ask:

What should change because of this idea?

Before you go any further, decide what initiative should you take to create that change.

If you are not asking the change question, then your performance as a leader is inadequate. Everyone may love you because you make them feel good. But at the same time, they may intuitively know that the company is underperforming, even if it is growing.

As for what to do with young people in your life.

First of all, treat them with respect, patience, and kindness. Listen to them. Seek to understand their situation.

Second, be very clear about your expectations for them. Set them high, but not so high that they have no incentive to try harder.

Remember you are seeking to overcome decades of social conditioning for entitlement.

Third, understand that you are not going to change an entire generational cohort overnight.

In fact, you may go through a 300% turnover in staff over a period of years, like my friend did because they are the product of social media, their parents, and the education system.

Fourth, train them beyond the requirements of the job.

Think of this as your contribution to making your community a better place in the future.

Fifth, talk with them on a personal level. Let the relationship be one of mutual mentoring.

This is how a Synthetic relationship can be established. It is a mixture of many things. If that is too complicated for you, then you now understand that your own education and social conditioning have been inadequate. It is time for all of us to grow up.