Zconomy

I just finished reading Zconomy: How Gen Z Will Change the Future of Business - and What to Do About It by Jason Dorsey and Denise Villa, which Amazon describes as "The most complete and authoritative guide to Gen Z, describing how leaders must adapt their employment, sales and marketing, product, and growth strategies to attract and keep this important new generation of customers, employees and trendsetters."  I heard Dorsey speak at the annual meeting of the Children's Hospital Association meeting this past November.  He reported the findings of a number of workforce studies, including one specifically focused upon the different generations currently working in children's hospitals.  The meeting organizers were kind of enough to hand out free copies of his book, which he co-authored with his wife, Denise Villa, who is the Founder and current CEO of The Center for Generational Kinetics.  

Dorsey defines "generation" as "a group of people born about the same time and raised in about the same place."  As of 2023, there are five generations in the workforce - Traditionalists (also known as the "Silent Generation"), Baby Boomers, Generation X (Gen X), Millennials (also known as Generation Y), and Generation Z (Gen Z).  I've always found it difficult to compare and contrast the supposed differences in beliefs, attitudes, and motivations between the different generations.  I've even questioned whether researchers are making more of these supposed differences than truly exist.  However, after listening to Dorsey's talk and reading Zconomy, I have a new appreciation for the so-called 5 Generation workforce!

First, it's important to recognize that every generation has something unique to offer the workplace environment.  Second, as I mentioned in my post "Talkin' 'bout My Generation" last year, we should try to avoid using stereotypes to describe every individual who was born in a certain era.  Dorsey emphasizes that "generations are not a box."  Instead, he views generations as "powerful clues on where to start to faster understand, connect with, build trust, and drive influence with people of different ages."  Third, and perhaps most importantly, we are all affected by what was happening in the world around us during our formative years.  For example, individuals from my generation (Generation X) can remember watching television in black and white on just three channels, "hanging out" at the local shopping mall, using a handheld calculator for the first time, playing Pong, or listening to music on their Sony Walkman.  Contrast our experience with that of GenZers, i.e. those individuals born between 1997 and 2012.  These individuals have never known a world without smartphones, social media, and instant communication being a part of everyday life.  While the Challenger disaster, the end of the Cold War and fall of communism, Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and the Columbine shooting were defining moments for my generation, GenZers can't remember a world when the U.S. war on terror didn't exist, when same-sex marriages were not legal, or when the U.S. economy was not struggling.  The defining moment of their generation was the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dorsey also defines what he calls "cuspers" as those individuals who are born within three years of any generation's beginning or ending birth year.  "Cuspers" often (but not always) exhibit characteristics of the generation before or after.  Importantly, "cuspers" are "bridging generations" because they are more empathetic to the generations immediately before or after their own.  

While Millennials are currently the largest generation, Gen Z is the fastest growing generation in the U.S. workforce (the same is true for the children's hospital workforce).  That's important for several reasons.  First, Gen Z believes that a leader can most positively impact their professional lives by (1) believing in them (and trusting them), (2) inspiring them to grow, and (3) providing them with good advice.  In other words, Gen Z is motivated more by the intangibles than they are by fancy titles or trinkets.  Second, Gen Z is committed to social justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion.  More importantly, they expect their organizations and leaders to be committed to social justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion.  Gen Zers will demand that leaders treat everyone equally and fairly by providing them with equal access to opportunities and applying rules clearly and consistently across the board.  Third, Gen Z wants to work in organizations with a culture of respect, as demonstrated by flexibility (i.e. more control over their work schedule, the ability to work remotely, etc), work-life balance, and mutual respect and trust in leaders and co-workers.  Fourth, Gen Z wants stability.  As a group, they actually save their money for the future.

Overall, I thought Zconomy was a great read.  I do feel like I have a better understanding of Gen Z than before.  One of the last things that stuck with me from the lecture and the book was one of Dorsey's closing comments.  He said, "Every generation is equally important and equally valuable, but only if we give them the space to be themselves."

Happy Father's Day to All!

I wanted to wish all the fathers out there a Happy Father's Day with a post from the past:

A few years ago, I wrote down some of the leadership lessons that I have learned from my father (see Fatherly Leadership).  This year, in honor of Father's Day, I'd like to add to that list some of the leadership lessons that I have learned while being a father as well.

1. Silly (and corny) dad jokes are a thing. 

There's nothing like a corny dad joke to get a laugh at just the right time, even if it is just a sympathy laugh ("Oh, Dad...").  The fact that all four of adult children still laugh at my silly dad jokes tells me one thing - a child's love is unconditional and forever.  And that is one of the greatest gifts of being a father.  We should all repay that unconditional love right back to our children.

2.  No matter what you think of the next generation, they won't let you down.

I can't tell you how many times that I have heard an older adult tell someone from the next generation on down, "When I was your age..." (fill in the blank - it's usually something like "we had to walk to school through ankle-deep snow, up hill both ways" or something like that).  I've said it myself.  It's easy for older adults from Generation X to look at Millennials or Generation Z, shake their heads, and question whether the future is in good hands or not.  Preceding generations said the same thing about us!  I look at our children and have nothing but hope for the future.  I know we are in good hands.  I am proud of the individuals that each of our children have become.  They have never let me down, and I don't think their generation will ever let us down.

3.  Pride is forever.

As I look back over the years, some of the best moments as a father were sharing in the triumphs and successes of our children.  I vividly remember the day that each of them rode a bike for the first time without training wheels just as clearly as I remember the times that they graduated from pre-school, middle school, high school, and college.  But I also remember, with just as much pride and joy, how they each handled the failures and disappointments that came along the way as well.  Failure is a part of life - we can either dwell on our failures or move on and learn from them.  They used their failures as a learning moment, and they never let failure stop them from moving forward.  In a sense, I've learned and grown just as much from sharing in our children's experiences with success and failure as they have learned.

4.  Never stop learning.

As it turns out, you can teach an old dog new tricks.  Our children have taught me that there's no time like the present to learn something new.  I've watched them take up new hobbies or re-invigorate old ones.  You are never too old to learn something new.  Never stop learning.

5. Being a father is the best job I've ever had.

I am so thankful and lucky to be a father to these four adults.  Their words and actions continue to amaze and inspire me, and more importantly, they remind me that being a father is the best job that I've ever had.

Thank you to our four children - I am lucky to be your father.  And to my own father, you were the first man I ever met and the greatest man that I have ever known.  Thank you for being my Dad and showing me the way.

Happy Father's Day to all!

The keys to life...

If you've been paying close attention, you will have noticed that I've been making a lot of references to Admiral (retired) William McRaven lately.  Within the last few months, I've finished reading Admiral McRaven's books, all of which were fantastic!  All of his books discuss various topics on leadership, most of which Admiral McRaven learned while on active duty as a Navy SEAL and during his time as Chancellor at the University of Texas in Austin.  The book, Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations is part memoir and part leadership handbook, making it slightly different from his other books.  I came across one particular passage in this book, which I felt perfectly encapsulates the keys to living a good and successful life.  Admiral McRaven wrote, "I realized that life is actually pretty simple.  Help as many people as you can.  Make as many friends as you can. Work as hard as you can.  And, no matter what happens, never quit!"  It's great advice, and I can't think of a better way of stating it.

Here are Admiral McRaven's keys to a successful life:

1. Help as many people as you can.

2. Make as many friends as you can.

3. Work as hard as you can.

4. No matter what happens, never quit!

His is a simple, yet elegant, formula!

Clutch

I recently came across a great article in USA Today by Staff Writer Josh Peter on Indiana Pacer's star player Tyrese Haliburton ("Tyrese Haliburton NBA Postseason heroics renew debate: Does 'clutch' play exist?").  The Pacers (my favorite professional basketball team growing up) are currently playing the Oklahoma City Thunder for the NBA championship.  The Thunder are the clear favorites to win, making the Pacers the underdogs (see my recent post "There's no need to fear..." for what it means to be an underdog).  They are playing much better than anyone expected, and most experts didn't think that they would actually be playing in the NBA Finals.    And now, they are leading the series two games to one!  With just a few exceptions, Haliburton has been outstanding throughout the play-offs, and his "clutch" shooting has been a big reason why they are playing for the championships.

Peter asked the question, "Does 'clutch' play even exist?"  It's an age-old debate that has actually been studied extensively.  The quick answer is that there is probably no such thing as "clutch performance", where athletes excel under pressure.  The cognitive psychologist and author Dan Ariely wrote an article for Huffington Post several years ago ("The irrational side of corporate bonuses"), in which his team conducted a series of experiments (covered in greater detail in his 2011 book, The Upside of Irrationality) to answer this question.  Ariely collaborated with Racheli Barkan and former Duke University men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski ("Coach K").  They asked a group of professional basketball coaches to identify "clutch players" in the NBA (most of the coaches agreed about who was and who was not a "clutch player").  They next watched and analyzed game footage from twenty of the most crucial games in an actual NBA season ("most crucial" was defined as a game that ended with a point difference of 3 points or less).  They analyzed how many points the "clutch player" scored in the last 5 minutes of the first half of each game, when the pressure to perform was relatively low.  They compared each player's points in the last 5 minutes of the first half with the number of points scored in the final 5 minutes of the game, when the pressure to perform was much higher.  They also analyzed "non-clutch" players as a control.

Non-clutch players scored more or less the same number of points in the final 5 minutes of each half.  However, the clutch players scored a lot more points in the final 5 minutes of the game versus the last 5 minutes of the first half.  On the surface, those results seem consistent with "clutch play".  However, when they looked further, they found that these clutch players took a lot more shots during the final 5 minutes of the game compared to the last 5 minutes of the first half.  In other words, they didn't actually improve their ability to score, they simply had more opportunities to do so!

One study doesn't prove anything, particularly one that hasn't been published and subject to the peer review process.  However, Ariely's and Barkan's findings are consistent with other published studies in both professional basketball (see "Home certus in professional basketball?" and "Performance when it counts?"), FIFA World Cup football (soccer) (see "Nerves of steel? Stress, work performance and elite athletes"), and major league baseball (see "Clutch hitting revisited").  The next logical question is whether these findings translate to business and medicine.  "Clutch performance" in sports is one thing, but how do leaders outside of sports work under pressure?  Is there such a thing as "clutch performance" in the business world?

I suspect that what's true for professional athletes is true for the rest of us.  There's probably no such thing as "clutch performance" for leaders, at least on a consistent basis.  For a related topic ("choking under pressure"), please see two of my posts in the past on the inverted U hypothesis and one of my all-time favorite Ted Lasso quotes, "Be a gold fish!"

I'd love to hear your opinion on this, so feel free to leave a comment!

Solitude

Last year around this time, I talked about the need for leaders to take time for themselves and read, think, and reflect about what it means to be a leader and what they need to further grow and develop as a leader.  I named the post "Fortress of Solitude", which referred to my childhood hero, Superman's place to relax, recharge, and reflect (see this great video clip from the 1978 Superman movie starring the late Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando, and Gene Hackman).

Thomas Edison once said that "the best thinking has been done in solitude."  The Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho (who wrote, The Alchemist) said, "If you are never alone, you cannot know yourself."  Finally, the Belgian writer May Sarton contrasted solitude with loneliness (which I also posted about in "The Loneliness Epidemic" and "Ubuntu") and said, "Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self."  In other words, solitude is not loneliness and is probably a necessity for all of us at least periodically.

I suspect that Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins knew a thing or two about solitude.  Recall that Collins flew the Apollo 11 command module Columbia around the moon thirty times in 1969 while his two crewmates Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.  During each orbit around the moon, Collins would lose radio contact with Earth for approximately 48 minutes, while he traveled on the dark side of the moon.  Collins never felt lonely though.  He wrote in the mission log, "not since Adam has any human known such solitude."  Rather than loneliness, he described his feelings during these 48 minutes as "awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation."  

Collins admitted to himself, "I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life."  During his time on the far side of the moon, he famously wrote down, "If a count were taken, the score would be three-billion-plus-two over on the other side of the moon, and one-plus-God-knows-what on this side."

Astronaut Michael Collins took this photo of fellow Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin returning from the surface of the moon in the lunar module, Eagle.  With the Earth behind the Eagle, Collins is the only human in the world not in this image!

As leaders, we may never experience the degree of solitude that Michael Collins experienced during the Apollo 11 mission.  However, what's important to recognize is that despite being the only human on the dark side of the moon, Collins didn't feel lonely.  Again, he described his feeling as "awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation."  Just imagine what even a small amount of solitude can do for us!  

The Enlightenment era poet Alexander Pope wrote in his Ode on Solitude, "Happy the man and blest, who can unconcernedly find hours, days, and years slide soft away, in health of body, peace of mind, quiet by day, sound sleep by night; study and ease, together mixed; sweet recreation; and innocence, which most does please, with meditation."

Nurses are once again the most trusted profession in America...

Gallup released the results of their annual Honesty and Ethics of Professions survey this past January, and once again nursing ranked as the most trusted profession in America.  The poll was conducted December 2-18, 2024 and asked U.S. adults which professions that they thought were the most honest and ethical.  Three out of four Americans consider nurses highly honest and ethical (76%), making nurses once again the most trusted profession.  As I've mentioned in previous posts (see "Annual Gallup survey on honesty and ethics among professionals" and "Nurses are first...again!"), nurses have earned the highest rating every year since Gallup added them to their annual survey in 1999, except for one year, when firefighters were rated highest in the 2001 survey in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.  

Grade-school teachers ranked second (61% of U.S. adults rated them high or very high on honesty and ethics), while military officers, pharmacists, and medical doctors also earned high or very high trust from the majority of Americans.  It's important to note that the Gallup organization has measured honesty and ethics among the different professions since 1976.  While the list of professions included in the survey has changed over the years, the list has remained fairly consistent since 1999, which was the year that the nursing profession was first added to the list.

What's concerning is that the overall average of very high/high honest and ethics ratings among the most consistently surveyed group of professions has declined over the years, from a high of around 43% in 2001 to a low of 30% in 2024.  Even trust in the nursing profession has decreased by approximately 6 percentage points during this same period of time.  The trust decline in the professions mirrors that of the long-term decline in the general public's confidence and trust in U.S. institutions.  We are becoming a less trusting society as a whole (see a new report from earlier this month by the Pew Research Center on "American's Trust in One Another").

I want to save a discussion on the decline in trust, both for professions and for society in general, for another post.  Instead, to finish off today's post, I want to offer an explanation for why I think nursing remains the most trusted profession overall.  Perhaps most importantly, nurses spend a lot of time with patients and family members.  Because they spend so much of their day at the bedside, they have the opportunity to get to know their patients.  They are true advocates for their patients, and they are always there to answer questions or help interpret a doctor's instructions or care plans.  They also educate their patients and families about how to manage health conditions and promote health.  Nurses are often the first point of contact for patients (either in the hospital or clinic setting) and the face of healthcare in any health care setting.  Nurses' unwavering commitment to patient care, coupled with their compassionate nature and high ethical standards, makes them the most trusted profession every year! 

"There's no need to fear..."

"There's no need to fear, Underdog is here!"  Underdog was a cartoon superhero who appeared on Saturday morning television during the 1960's and 1970's.  Underdog was to Shoeshine Boy like Superman was to Clark Kent.  He used to appear whenever his love interest Sweet Polly Purebred was being victimized by such villains as Simon Bar Sinister or Riff Raff.  It was a great show that I remember watching when I was young.  

"Underdog" was probably a good name for a cartoon canine superhero.  The word "underdog" came into common use long before the cartoon first appeared.  The word actually started being used in the 19th century and referred to an actual dog who lost in a dogfight (dogfighting was hugely popular back then).  Since that time, it's been adopted in a broader sense to refer to any person or group who is expected to lose or fail in a competition.  Similarly, the phrase "dark horse" comes from the sport of horse racing and refers to a previously lesser-known person or team that emerges to prominence in a competition.  We now use the words "underdog", "dark horse", and "Cinderella Story" interchangeably.

Every year (except for maybe this past one), there seems to be an unheralded, low-seeded team (a "Cinderella") who surprises everyone by making a deep run during "March Madness", the annual NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament.  Television ratings for the tournament always increase when there's a "Cinderella Story" still playing.  America loves to root for the underdog or dark horse.  We love the rags to riches story.  We always root for David to beat Goliath.  We want to see Rocky Balboa knock-out Apollo Creed.  We cheer on Sea Biscuit to beat out War Admiral.  We love movies like "The Karate Kid" or "Cinderella Man" or "Miracle".  We can't help but smile (or even cry happy tears) whenever people like Susan Boyle or Jourdan Blue blow the judges away on shows like Britain's Got Talent or America's Got Talent. 

As Joseph Vandello, Nadav Goldschmied, and David Richards write in their research article "The Appeal of the Underdog", "Some of the most enduring figures in history, literature, mythology, religion, cinema, and sports are those who have faced daunting odds, were given little hope, or were expected to fail.  These figures have a great appeal, largely because of their status as underdogs."  But why?  If anything, research in the field of social psychology would predict that we would favor the expected winners versus the losers, the "top dogs" if you will.  Vandello, Goldschmied, and Richards found that support for a sports team or group does indeed increase when it is perceived to be the underdog.  Further, they found that our intrinsic desire to root for the underdog stems from our need for justice and fairness in competition.

I recently came across another blog post ("Why We Love Underdogs - And  What It Means for Leadership") which talked about how leaders can leverage this love affair with the underdog.  First, we need to remember that talent isn't always obvious at first.  We should look beyond traditional markers of success.  Second, rules should serve people, not control them.  As leaders, we should encourage risk-taking and challenge the status quo.  Third, consistent with the aforementioned study, people rally around fairness.  We should strive to foster a culture of trust, not fear.