MQUP

Generation Why: How Boomers Can Lead and Learn from Millennials and Gen Z

by Karl Moore

McGill Queen’s University Press/2023

Reviewed by Asheesh Advani

April 30, 2023

As Gen Z and younger millennials enter the workforce, older generations are scrambling to understand their younger colleagues’ ways of work. Whether you’re managing younger employees or working on teams that span several generations, Karl Moore’s Generation Why shares valuable lessons and leadership advice for unlocking potential. Moore is a prominent business school professor at McGill with a global mindset, having taught at Oxford University after a corporate career with IBM and other multinationals. He is also recognized in the Canadian public sphere for the CEO Series, a radio show for which he has interviewed hundreds of chief executives, columns about leadership for Forbes and The Globe and Mail, and recognition as a credible leadership expert on the Thinkers50 Leadership list.

In Generation Why, Moore turns his attention to the leadership implications of working with younger workers. After conducting hundreds of interviews with Gen Z and younger millennials—as well as with their older managers and senior executives—in North America, Iceland, the UK and Japan, Moore is able to share two key insights into younger workers: 1) that their top priority is for their work to have meaning and impact, and 2) that they’re determined to bring their full, honest, authentic selves to work, smashing the work/life boundary that previous generations have erected.

We find this at Junior Achievement Worldwide (JA), too, as we guide and mentor millions of young people each year to be ready for the future of work. In Canada, we operate as JA Canada, serving over 200,000 young people annually, representing just part of a global footprint that delivers over 15 million student learning experiences each year in 115 countries. Karl Moore’s book resonated with me on multiple levels: as a father of twin Gen Z boys, as a leader and manager of teams comprised of millennials/Zers, and in my role as CEO of JA Worldwide. On teams that I’ve led, I have had to modify my own management style to work more effectively with younger generations and found myself taking notes as I read the book. During my travels with JA Worldwide, I meet with some of the most achievement-oriented and ambitious young people around the world, who are eager to make their mark. By and large, most of these young people believe passionately that companies can—and should—be a vehicle for good by employing ethical and sustainable practices addressing pressing global and local issues, and modeling inclusive and effective leadership.

Generation Why offers a plethora of ideas for working with Gen Z and younger millennials. Here’s a sampling:

• Power listening: Gen Z wants to be heard, be involved, and be part of the solution. They want to learn from you, of course, but they’re not willing to hear only your anecdotes and advice; they also want their ideas to be heard. “As listeners,” Moore writes, “executives must not only listen but listen actively by being open, putting aside their own biases, and empathizing with others.” He goes on to describe a full range of active listening skills, from recognizing verbal and non-verbal cues and actively responding with appropriate cues to summarizing main points and not pre-empting potential answers. In Generation Why, Moore shares pointers for becoming a power listener, which is bound to impact all your relationships, not just the ones with younger workers.
• Reverse mentoring: Young millennials and Gen Zers do not tend to be loyal to an organization, which makes their retention a challenge. One solution? Reverse mentoring, in which junior employees teach skills to senior ones. Topics might include how to find customers on TikTok, how to customize a new platform, how to increase sustainability practices in the workplace, or how a social trend might affect the organization. Gen Zers grew up in a digital, sustainable age and have plenty to teach older generations, in spite of their youth and relative inexperience. This idea helps younger employees see the long-term benefits of staying with one company while also building social-networking ties. Making time in my schedule to have a reverse mentoring experience is now on my to-do list.
• Stop/Keep/Start Doing: Moore advocates for the use of this action-oriented framework, in which senior staff asks the following questions of Gen Z: What should I stop doing? What should I keep doing? What should I start going? As a father of twin Gen Z boys, I can personally attest to the effectiveness of this approach to interacting with younger generations, who cringe about creating annual resolutions or goals lists but are happy with the quick and clear forms of feedback that come from the stop/keep/start doing framework. We do it annually instead of New Year’s Resolutions in our family. In a workplace setting, it is similarly helpful for younger workers to deliver and receive structured feedback that can have immediate impact.

Generation Why does overlook a few realities that I’ve seen through my work with JA students. The first is that the book, while intended for a global audience (and had its data drawn from international audiences), makes North-Americentric references throughout—for example, to the luxurious lifestyle of Baby Boomers and references of gun violence in schools, issues that may not relate to someone, say, in Eastern Europe, India, or Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, it’s late in the book before millennials/Zers are asked to make any accommodation in the workplace for their older colleagues. There is no doubt that every workplace will benefit from the cultural changes younger workers are ushering in. But Gen Z doesn’t expect older generations to fully accommodate their needs. As I interact with Gen Z staff and recent graduates alike, I find them both willing and excited to adjust their behaviors and mindset to match the workplace—as long as the workplace is ethical, sustainable, and respectful. The book could take a more balanced view on who accommodates whom on this intergenerational journey.

Throughout Moore’s book, he refers to Gen Z and millennials connected as a single group: millennials/Zers or simply the younger generation. Toward the end of the book in the tenth chapter, Moore starts to unpack the differences between millennials and Gen Z. I found this to be one of the most interesting chapters, highlighting that Gen Z has not lived in a world without Facebook and Google, without school shootings, and other watershed events that differentiate their reality from that of Millennials. Higher levels of digital savviness; job security needs; and comfort with diversity, equity, and inclusion are dimensions in which Gen Z starts to look different from millennials. Waiting until the end of the book to draw out these differences is a missed opportunity. I found myself wishing that some of the advice and lessons for managers and leaders throughout the book could have differentiated between Gen Z and Millennials rather than treating them as a single group. Bringing out the best from a 22-year-old colleague and 35-year-old colleague might require different approaches from a leader, and I found myself wanting to know the differences after reading this chapter.

All in all, Generation Why is an excellent book with concrete lessons for leaders and managers. Moore’s conversational style and anecdotes from his experiences at McGill, Oxford, and IBM make the book enjoyable to read and summarize his research in an accessible way.

A Canadian living in Boston, Asheesh Advani is President and CEO of JA Worldwide, one of the largest NGOs in the world that prepares young people for employment and entrepreneurship. JA Worldwide was nominated for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize and is listed as one of the ten most impactful NGOs in the world in annual rankings.