Resonance Episode: Leading Across Generational Differences

In this episode, Steve, Randy and Mike explore the complexities of generational differences, particularly focusing on how technology and AI are shaping the perspectives and expectations of younger generations. They discuss the impact of these changes on communication, creativity, and the workplace, emphasizing the need for leaders to adapt to these evolving dynamics. The conversation highlights the importance of understanding the unique values and experiences of each generation, from Baby Boomers to Gen Z and beyond, and how these factors influence work culture and relationships. In this conversation, the speakers explore the evolution of social dynamics among youth, particularly focusing on prom culture, the shift in dating norms, and the impact of technology on communication. They discuss how safety in numbers has become a prevalent theme in social interactions, especially among younger generations who are more comfortable in group settings. The conversation also delves into the concept of disintermediation in banking, highlighting how younger individuals are redefining traditional banking practices. Finally, they emphasize the importance of understanding generational differences in leadership and communication.

 Takeaways

Generational differences are profound and impact communication.

Younger generations prioritize meaning and purpose in work.

Technology has drastically changed how generations interact.

AI is reshaping creativity and job landscapes.

Leaders must understand and adapt to generational dynamics.

Each generation has distinct values shaped by their experiences.

The expectations of work are evolving with new technologies.

Creativity is rooted in human experience, not AI output.

Generational perspectives influence workplace engagement.

Understanding these differences is crucial for effective leadership. Prom culture has shifted from couples to group dynamics.

Safety in numbers influences social interactions today.

Younger generations may struggle with one-on-one communication.

Group settings provide comfort and reduce vulnerability.

Disintermediation is changing the banking landscape.

Younger individuals prefer tech-driven financial solutions.

Asynchronous expectations shape modern consumer behavior.

Leaders must adapt to diverse communication styles.

Generational diversity can be a source of strength or conflict.

Understanding youth culture is essential for effective leadership.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Generational Differences

02:56 Understanding Generational Perspectives

07:09 The Impact of Technology on Generations

09:50 AI and Its Influence on Creativity

19:59 The Future of Work and Generational Dynamics

25:59 The Evolution of Prom Culture

27:45 Safety in Numbers: Social Dynamics Today

30:02 Generational Differences in Communication

33:21 The Shift in Dating Norms

36:13 Disintermediation: The Changing Landscape of Banking

41:12 The Asynchronous Economy: Meeting Modern Expectations

44:18 Navigating Generational Diversity in Leadership

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is Resonance, the podcast with leaders that unpacks the power of song, stylist, and strategy.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

We believe the great leadership begins with deep listening, not just to others, but to the still small voice within.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

It's not just about being a successful leader, it's about being soulfully aligned as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

In a world moving fast, resonance invites you to pause and reconnect with purpose, people, and possibilities.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

We'll dive into some cool stories, celebrate with friends, and dig deep into the music too. Cause song has a way of staying with words it cannot alone.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

So whether you're leading a business, a team, or just trying to lead your own life with more meaning, this is Resonance. Resonance, resonance.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Hey everybody, welcome to Resonance, the podcast. This is the podcast where we have the courage and the hubris to jump into ridiculous topics that we're only barely qualified to talk about. We're talking about things like character and values and depth and dimension and humanity and all of that kind of stuff. With me, of course, is the one and only Steve Azar, amazing artist, an amazing human being, philanthropist, generally cool guy, hell of a cook. And the last one really carries a lot of weight with me. And then also Steve uh is is bookshelfed by Mike, the monk guy, Ferrell, written 117 books at this point, as far as I know. Yeah. He's a very prolific guy. But an amazing guy, and he brings this Benedictine perspective that what Azar and I have not yet found a topic that is not relevant to the Benedictine perspective, which is pretty amazing. So we think that's pretty cool. And me, I'm Randy Harrington, and uh just kind of an academic flunky.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

You're a machine.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

So today we're going to be talking about. I know everybody in our listening audience is deeply concerned about my living situation. And guess what? The kids have moved out of the house. They're now into their own house. The uh the two dogs are gone. The two-year-old is now happily in her new home, and it is fantastic. You have survived, and you look you don't look any older. Any older. It was it was a thing. It was a thing. Now, I will tell you that there's, of course, as you can imagine, there are dynamics, you know, with your son-in-law and your daughter, and her daughter, and the dogs, and all that's all. But the thing that really kind of triggered me as much as anything had nothing to do with the fact that they were family. It had to do that they were different ages. It turns out that my daughter thinks about the world in a completely different way than I do, and I'm finding it to be a ridiculous way to think. And then I look at her daughter, who's now two, and I had the was sitting and reflecting on what in the world is her world going to be like as I watch her already deeply understanding a phone, understanding FaceTime, understanding that media can happen anywhere. You know, I mean her sensibilities are completely different. So today we're gonna be talking about generational differences, and what we're gonna try to do is get past just the headlines about, oh, well, Gen A, you know, Gen Z, they're different. Yeah, they really are. And these are the these are the kids that are coming into power right now, and that's where we're gonna jump in. So, my first question to you guys is have you ever experienced talking to a younger person and then walking away going, what just happened?

SPEAKER_02 3:36

All the time. I I I unfortunately these days have to walk on eggshells with my kids because they all uh think for themselves. My middle son, the doctor, says he doesn't have time to deal with politics and all that. I don't still have time. You know, I got I'm studying and I'm trying to learn, I'm trying to be the best doctor I can be. And so he's sort of neutral in the thing, which I'm really happy about. Because nor do I have time to be on when he is on on his phone or his tablet, besides doing what he's supposed to be doing, he's uh he's into you know, he's a big ESPN sports guy.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Uh and like, but the one thing we differ is he loves LeBron and I love Michael. And would that would be our perspective of the greatest basketball player ever. And uh he can't quite accept it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

I would like to hear that debate.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

That would be a good debate to hear. He's he's he's got a he's got a great argument, but it still doesn't hold water to me. It just doesn't hold. But with that said, um, he's pretty neutral, irrespective of other people's decisions, especially his dad and mom. But now the book ends, oldest son Strach and my daughter Cecilia are very, very opinionated. And uh if you you can I I sometimes on purpose can just crank them. You know, I just throw a little they don't know I'm doing it, but then it ends up coming back to haunt me because it doesn't stop. They let me have it. And so it's it's interesting from a perspective of where they they were raised by us, right? Right. But there's all these influences in the world, the colleges they went to, the people they've been they hung around, and obviously at some point, the teachers that taught them, at some point they start to have their own viewpoint. They've seen all of all these viewpoints, including ours. And you gotta respect the fact that they have a mind of their own and they they're committed to that. So we've we've the only arguments we've ever had are if I say something that was not viewed politically incorrect when I was a kid or growing up, but is now. And we had those same opinions to my mom and dad, but we feared them. We would never question what my mom and dad said that was politically incorrect. That was not a discussion they would have with us or else. There is no so for us, there's no or else. Is we're and I think that has a lot to do with how they feel comfortable about opening up with us and also criticizing us or saying you can't do that. And uh so that I think that that's sort of the biggest difference in the way that we were raised versus the way we raised. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Mike, what about you?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah, I mean, you know, I've got three stepkids and and they're all very, very different, have very different perspectives than you know, than I have. And then I've got, you know, four grandkids. And, you know, I was just with my eight-year-old grandson yesterday having a conversation with him. And like you said, Randy, sometimes they say things and you just kind of say, wow, where did that come from? You know, and now fortunately, you know, those grandkids have been uh pretty much sheltered from technology. They don't get a lot of access to, and I really credit my stepdaughters, both of them with the kids, that really have limited their access to technology. Even the eight-year-old has has very limited access to he doesn't have his own phone yet, he doesn't have any of that stuff, and some of his classmates do, you know. But I think it it is, there's no question. And and as we think about this generational aspect, and I'll kind of make the turn now into that as from a leadership perspective, it's that generational aspect now that I think is really impacting organizations and and businesses, because you've got, and sometimes, sometimes it's the leader that's the young person, and it's the workers that aren't that are the the older folks, or vice versa. But those generational dynamics, I think, are so important. And even if you look at one thing that I find really interesting is if you look at Gallup's engagement polls that they do all of the time, and especially if you break it down into age groups, those younger age groups are not nearly as concerned about pay and benefits and all those kinds of things as they are about finding meaning and purpose in their work and connecting it to the business or the organization that they work for. It's a very different shift that we're seeing in organizations today. And you see, and hear leaders talking a lot about purpose, which is important because a lot of people today are disengaged because they're not able to connect that purpose with the the work that they're doing. And so I think it's uh certainly a shift in organizational philosophy over the last several years, but also certainly a shift because of the generational differences in you know people in the work world today. So, and and I'll kick it over to you, Randy, because I know you've done a lot of thinking on this one.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Well, I've got I've I've got a number of clients right now that are really interested in all of this because they're they're trying to do five and ten-year views of the future, and they're coming to the realization that right now, for example, Gen Z, and Gen Z, I want to say, I wrote it down. Uh Gen Z, they were born 1995 to 2012. And so Gen Z are just now coming in to the workforce. They're showing up, and Gen Z are largely responsible for all the short form TikTok kind of things out there. This is their, this is what they brought to the table. So they they grew up with the internet, but they were the first to really have the internet, you know, all the time. They've never not had the internet. Now, Gen A, they've never not had AI. So generate that that out that generation is going to be coming up with AI. And there's a huge difference in the technology landscape between AI or no AI, or internet or no internet. These were both dramatic. So within these two generations, we're seeing the emergence of probably some of the most significant technology changes in the history of humanity in a period of about 20 years. Yeah. And so it is shaking how people learn, how they understand, what they value, how they build community. I mean, every single aspect of socialization in life is being shaken up by these technologies, and the kids are already reacting to these changes. And what does that look like? It looks like their expectations about what work is are completely different.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

I gotta say this. This is why you bring this up. Do you realize all of these incredible technological advances have had everything to do with communication our entire lives? How do we communicate better, right? Or how can we communicate at all? The phone, right? The radio, AM radio, uh, all of a sudden black and white TV, all of a sudden there's TV, all of a sudden the news is on the TV. Whatever. The point is, it's all in the name of communicating, but yet where we're heading is defeating the purpose of people building real relationships and communicating like they need to be communicating. Rather than hiding behind a screen and saying what the heck they want, they can't go face to face and deal with things. So are we circling the wagon here? And at what point does vinyl records come back? You know what I'm saying? I mean, that's the point. So we know that it can come back to a reasonable level. But this is interesting you're talking about that because AI now obviously is gonna take away a lot of jobs that we're used to seeing people have in our world, but it's also just imagine being a student at school.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

I mean, are you not gonna use AI?

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Yell, they're gonna use it.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Of course you're gonna use it. And I they think they should use it. But then the question is how and for what? And so it really changes. So is it now about memorizing dates, or is it about actually beginning to understand something or what have you? You know, so this is this is really can't stress enough how and this is what the smart leaders right now are trying to struggle with. They're saying, hmm. So if we take these people who have this expectation for short form media and integrated AI and all these other things, and now we look ahead 10 years. So let's say that I have Susan, and Susan right now is 25, and she is, you know, classic Gen Z. She's right in there, and she's just all about her TikTok and she's living her life and she's doing her thing. What is Susan going to be like in 10 years? And this is the important thing to understand is these orientations may be the way they initially orient to life, but then the life keeps on changing. And so we might reflect, for example, on how the greatest generation, my grandparents and somehow maybe my parents' grandparents somewhere in there, when we see them getting older, for example, what did they do? Right. Well, how many of them retired living in the same house with the same stuff? They never spent a dime, they didn't want anybody else to spin a dime because when were they formed? They were formed during the depression. And they were formed in times of massive scarcity. So that that value really hung on. Boomers, on the other hand, you know, I'm in that boomer generation, right at the edge of the cusp of the boomer generation. And we're all about you gotta work, my God, you gotta get it done, and you gotta achieve, and you gotta step up and you gotta board, and then you gotta just that was because that's what we did. That's all about winning success and so forth. And then the millennials, you know, they give zero craps about all of that. That doesn't, whatever. If I can find an easier way to do it, a lazier way to do that, that's the better way to do it, in my opinion. But anyway, so we see these generations. And so one of the other big ahas for leaders is unless you're running Chuck E. Cheese, and even if you are, you still have to cater to about five to six generations that are each distinct and each developing. So your customer base, your employee base is this car crash of all these generations with completely different understandings of what work success and professionalism look like. Welcome to your office.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Well, let's talk about let's talk about what you just brought up. Let's talk about uh you talk about uh the laziness of Jen, what? Which gen? The millennials.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Where am I where do I stand? You're probably uh you're probably in the boomer zone or early.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Oh, yeah, I would say you're early early millennial, late boomer. You're 61.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

What 61? Stop it. Yeah, yeah. Well no, uh I'm I'm 21. But besides that in my head, uh but you know what? The interesting, but look at music now with AI. We had our first number one song before Christmas that was all AI generated from the song up. Okay? Record, musicians, da da da da da da distribution, la la la. So you think about that and you think about how lazy that is. You're Gen X. We do. Yeah, I don't keep up with all these things. I don't, if somebody asks me my sign, I don't want to tell them. So, all right, so here's the thing. So let me just now that would be my kids would be upset about we should do one on that.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

We should do a what's your sign.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Yeah, we know what we can do. We can get my buddy Bill Ingball to be on our show. He made a pretty good living off of what's your sign. Yeah, he tells a story of wow. I think that'll be a great. I've had Bill on my radio.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Here's your sign. I remember that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Yeah, here's your sign. Right, right. He's a great guy, by the way, him and his wife Gail. Spent a lot of days, uh, charity golf events with him. We sort of gravitated toward each other, but we could get to that. But you know, you think about it, talking about lazy, talking about, you know, what about the art form behind that and the effort it takes to develop the craft of writing a song and and and the life it takes and and what you have to notice and and then be able to articulate it and get a pen and put it to paper and then put it to music, or in my case, it works in a lot of my friends' cases, all it all of it comes out at one time. But to me, there's a pride in that, and that when you finally start getting it right and people start to gravitate toward those songs, and then knowing how to record in the studio and how to make that record, that song grow up into a full-grown record that matters to people and impacts them. And now you can go to AI and have that done for you. I think that's awful. I just think it's awful.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

I don't know about you, but I've listened to a good bit of AI music and it wears me out really fast. Really?

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Why? Music.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

I will like it for about 16 bars. I'll go, ooh, this is good. Because most of the stuff I'm listening to is this weird blended stuff where it'll be something like Indian raga reggae. So they take Indian music and then they throw in reggae beats and the AI mixes it, and sure enough, it's interesting to hear. It's like, ooh, that's funky. Yeah. For about 16 bars. And then after a while, you start hearing the repetitiveness, repetitiveness of it, and then you realize it ain't really going anywhere. And so then I'm already starting to fade it out and turn it off. And so I think that these AI songs are to me like the candy aisle. It's the little bag of candy that's gonna taste good for a second, yeah, and then it's gonna go bad. It's like bad chewing gum. That's what it's like. That's right. The first two bites are great, and then after that, you want to spit it out. You got your gun. Yeah. Yeah. And so the reason is there's a guy that I'm working with, this dude, Kevin Bear, and he said something I like very much. He said, you know, really when you think about it, all AI is, is just churning of extant data, existing data. Everything that's gone into it has already been said and done by humans. And so he described AI output as exhaust fumes. And I thought that was a really good way to put it. It's just it's just the exhaust coming out of the back of the car. Wow. And it's already been processed, it's already, we've already known it. And it's just it's just repurposing it, regurgitating it in a different light.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Oh, you could make an Italian donut with pizza sauce on it. Well, I guess you could, but who cares?

SPEAKER_02 17:15

And who wants to know what you're missing the point though? First of all, growing up in the Mississippi Delta and Mississippi, the birthplace of America's music, you look at the music that was made that influenced the entire world. So go back to let's go back to the blues right now. To the Beatles, to the Beatles Invasion, to the Stones, to Eric Clapton, to everybody. Every popular musical genre, popular, has come from where I grew up. It is gone from that. There is no argument there. Somebody somewhere was influenced by something. So you could you imagine muddy waters being AI? I mean, it couldn't happen because those had to be painful things that could draw such emotion and offer so much hope. And that had to come from the human heart. It had to come from the human heart, from human pain, from suffering, from things not being fair at all. And being able to put it to music that people could feel good about, that is the greatest explosion of success to me that can possibly happen. And it's very ironic that such pain can bring such joy, right? So I just think that we're missing the point there. That scares me there. I see the the use of it. Like, okay, say uh this is the first time it's ever happened. I hadn't co-written in since 2011. And I just co-wrote my first song. I had this idea, and I felt like it was really good. And so I decided that we were gonna write it, and uh, and it was a great idea that I did. We did it via Zoom, and then my co-writer said, I'm gonna run this through AI. She sang it and played it, and so she played and we wrote it, but then she put it in an AI app, and it literally she told it what she wanted the music musicians to be, and da-da-da. And it comes out in a song in in a minute and a half. And you can go, oh no, I don't like that version, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna like that singer, I'm gonna do this. And you can just change interchange these things. And I gotta tell you, it was scary for me because it sounded really good. But I knew that I wrote the song, but I could see using it as help to see if it's not something. Like if this thing was to be, if was to grow up, you know, would that be could why are we are we we wasting our time on this? Maybe it could help you as a tool, but I could never in a million years agree with using that as a record, even after you wrote it. I can't imagine using that to further the song. I'm still a purist, and uh, but I get it. You know, and there's a lot of people that aren't capable of going to the studio and turning a song into anything worth listening to. And so I I just think that that's where we are now, and I think it's gonna affect a lot of jobs that people worked a whole lot of their lives to be good at, to be great at. And that's what concerns me the most in my business.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

And you know, my work is gonna change.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah, I mean, I I think that I think you've got to look at it too. I and from a leader leadership perspective, we have to understand that we've got all these people across all of these different generational aspects, but ultimately, creativity comes from the soul, creativity comes from the heart, as as Steve knows better than anybody else. That creative aspect, I think, leaders have to figure out a way to allow that creativity in. Sure, you can use AI, but AI doesn't, AI creates output. It doesn't really use a creative process, it comes from the the heart and the soul. And so I think the, you know, and I look at it from a writing perspective. Uh, I'm in the process of trying to finish up this this fifth book. And as I look at it, it's a great tool for efficiency. It's a great tool to pull ideas that I've had in a variety of different places and help organize them. But ultimately, I still have to sit down and write it as it's coming from my heart and my soul. AI certainly allows me to organize it faster. It allows me to organize it in a fashion understanding because I put all of my stuff into it, understanding how I think and and how I organize things. But AI is never gonna replace that creative aspect that's coming from my heart and my soul. And I think from a leadership perspective, we have to understand that because we've got people from all different generations, some of them are gonna embrace it, some of them are gonna fight it like heck, but we can still utilize it as long as we've got guardrails put on. And that's that's my biggest fear with AI, is that those companies, those organizations, and I mean, all you've got to do right now is look at what's going on with Anthropic and the and the you know, Pentagon uh and the issues that are happening there. It's the guardrail aspect of it that scares the heck out of me. And making sure that organizations and leaders truly understand what it can and what it can't and shouldn't be used for, um, and then managing that across the divisions.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Isn't it interesting that this conversation

SPEAKER_00 22:00

started well obviously with perspective and and now we have not stopped talking about a i once the word once those two letters get I sent I sent our kids the other day I said I'm I'm done with I don't want to hear about AI I'd rather hear a e i a o e and a sometimes y and I forgot about this and Scratch goes what about a a and I went oh a yeah yeah but seriously uh it's interesting that this is gonna be a big part of what's gonna be disrupt things and advance things right yeah yeah and so that gives that gives these people a a very different set the the thing I'm finding interesting is when you start looking at the unintended consequences of of these generational core influences I was I went to get sushi with my wife uh the night before last it was fantastic it was a place in town we like very much and we went to it's the first time this year we've been uh kind of out we were living large and uh we went over there got us some sushi and as as we're I'm I'm eating my sushi my wife is sitting there looking at me and she goes turn around turn around real slow turn around real slow and I turned around real slow and I see probably four or five very beautiful women in very nice evening gowns going into a restaurant across the street. It was prom night that's what was going on. So the the parade of promsters was was going on and boy was that interesting to watch. Those dresses are something else holy smokes changed my changed my sushi experience I will tell you that but anyway I'm sitting there watching these things and then we started talking about the prom culture now I don't know about you but back in my day it was a big deal to ask somebody to the prom. It was like that was the central theme of the year at some level and then the prom ended up being who is with who with the prom to do what that doesn't happen at all now. If you're a standing couple you're already in a relationship then yeah it's okay for you to go as a couple but even they don't go as a couple they all go as a group a group and so it's a group of six eight ten people that go together and it could be seven women and three men it doesn't even have to balance out that's not the point you know and can you can you can you elaborate a little bit you're so right what is that where did that happen can you well I don't mean in a bad way I mean I'm I was always sort of felt reassured that the group was going together and they were going to be together.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

I couldn't as a parent but I do think that safety is a part of it. Yeah somebody that grew up I wanted to be with my date yeah so but why why what's happened there? Do you have wisdom Mike?

SPEAKER_01 24:44

You know I I I think that part of it is the fact that we have become so I'm looking for the word here I think so afraid to be one-on-one so sheltered or so protected not even protected but really we become kind of this person of one on social media and so it's not like we do we do so much stuff now not saying we I say that generation I think does so much stuff now online that it's that one-on-one communication conversation connection that doesn't happen and so in order for them to go out on a one-on-one date I don't think they're programmed for it yeah I don't think and this is just my opinion but I think it's there there is safety in numbers but it's not it's not safety from a perspective of being safe in a safe environment it's safety in that I don't have to talk to one person. I'm I'm I'm with a group and I can socialize with that group and it's this almost this communal aspect uh which of course the Benedictins would love but it's it's that communal aspect versus that one-on-one relationship I think I think a lot of those kids have lost the ability to create relationship because of everything that's happened in their world with social media and and all of that kind of stuff. And so I think it's the safety in numbers but it's the safety from a from a communication standpoint. And I certainly think and I can and I can make that shift over when we talk about leadership leaders need to understand this as well especially when they're working with or have these these individuals these younger individuals to be able to sit down and have a one-to-one conversation with one of those versus putting them in a group environment right on impact impacts communication. Right on yeah and a lot of times you're you're gonna have a heck of a time pulling any ideas out and yet it it's important to get that input. Benedict talks about making sure that we're getting input from both the young and the new monks and and sometimes they have the greatest insights but if we're not putting them in an environment where they can communicate we're expecting to get it one-to-one versus communicating in a group then I think that's a completely miss when it comes to the the leadership aspect because you're not getting that input because they're not comfortable giving it in that in that kind of setting.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

You feel like they've created this sort of shield and sort of the force be with them. Exactly and where where they feel like that you know with two of us we're vulnerable but with eight ten of us we make a a security blanket like a security blanket in a way.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

You know uh we were uh again wife and I were up in McMinnville right in the heart of Pinot Noir country here in lovely Oregon. All right and we were walking we had been there at a wine tasting and we were walking down the street and we saw a prom in full swing inside a big warehouse in downtown McMinnville that they had turned into a place and the windows were open and we were tacky but we stopped and went and looked through the windows you know just to see because the music is thumping you know and we wanted to see what was going on. So we peek in the windows and I would say there was 80 people on the dance floor and there were no two people dancing. Everybody was dancing they had formed some kind of a big circle and they were taking turns lip syncing to whoever the female artist was of the song I'm sure anybody else would know it, but I didn't recognize it. But they were belting it out and they were singing like their lives depended on it. They were having the time of their lives it was a beautiful moment. I teared up looking through the window I had hope for the future it was so much beauty in one spot it was like these people care about each other and they're in this moment of shared experience how fantastic is and so I think it was a better prom than mine because my prom, I was all hung up I I had the the great fortune of I went to the both of my proms with my wife we weren't married at the time but yeah yeah yeah we ended up being married later but you know I was all hung up on that. I was all hung up on her and the whole thing and do I don't want to be an idiot and do I have enough money to buy the dinner and I can't get something on my shoe. You know I was all into that. And I'm looking at these guys and it was like wow they're just literally having fun and all those other agendas I love that I love that.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

So that brings let's let's let's look at that point now for a second because that's beautiful. And that's what I saw with our kids and their friends not going on the dates rather than being with their group and so for people that we're bashing right now that that we feel like we're missing the boat of communication they seem to be pretty good in their group. Yeah and that's not that's not such a bad thing. So I don't necessarily disagree with that. I and I like I said as a parent and they're not getting drunk either they're not this is the other thing that's exactly right they're not doing that. Yeah they're not doing that. So I mean heck they go out and go get coffee together. I mean it's it's the most bizarre thing but but I do think you're right about that and I do feel comforted when I was when their kids were growing up I felt really comforted that there were a lot of them together. And so I can't lie about that but it's interesting they're communicating and they're communicating well but they're just doing it so different.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

I'm just it's it's cool.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

You know you talk about generational differences and I I just witnessed this a few weeks ago with my stepson's wedding you know out on the dance floor you've got these couples that have been married for 60 years dancing together and then you've got this group of you know 12 12 young people all dancing together and so you're seeing it across the broad spectrum and you're seeing how how they communicate you're seeing this beautiful lovely couple that have been married for 60 years dancing together and then you're seeing this group of 12 young people and they're just having a blast and they're dancing together too. And I think it's a great that's a great analogy when we think about it from a leadership perspective how are we creating an environment that takes care of them both yeah how are we creating a culture that takes care of them both because that's the the important leadership aspect of this whole thing is really understanding that we've got to give them both the space and we have to value what comes from that space. We have to really learn that some of them we're gonna want to communicate one-on-one with some of them we're gonna want to put them in a in a group setting but we have to be able to do it and that's the the delicate dance I think that a leader makes is how do I create the culture how do I create the ability that they're able to connect across those different spectrums can I can I there's another go ahead no go ahead I'll ask in a minute I got it I won't forget it.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

No that's all right I got a I got a rant I'll come back to it. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

No no um I'm gonna I think your rant's gonna be very important. I can't wait to hear it. But uh but my my question is do you think we scared our kids into the do you think we scared our kids and made them afraid to sort of be alone or be with one rather than like uh with everything that we found out in the world the times you know there was a lot of times we were growing up there were kidnappings or uh then you get into the Me Too movement and you get to all these things where people were left alone in a situation. Yeah and do you think that we were going like I always say head on a swivel head on a swivel right head on a swivel you know uh when they're in these big cities where they live and all this and all that and I'm going like do you think maybe that we scared them into feeling like they needed more than one or two or three or four smart I think they're really smart and they they're mitigating risk all the time. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Yeah so yeah but yeah I mean it's a good time. What's your rant?

SPEAKER_02 32:41

I'm ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Okay. So one of the other things that I'm seeing that's coming out of some of the data and some of the some of the work I'm in experiencing with with clients right now, I'm gonna my big pretentious word of the day is disintermediation. And uh disintermediation is a term often used in the financial services world where an organization is getting cut out. So hospitals right now are being disintermediated because insurance is changing the way it's paying and it's actually featuring different clinics that may be cheaper, faster, better okay hospitals. Real quick, real quick, you gotta so this idea of disintermediation basically says an organization can get cut out as as if you can imagine the the business railroad tracks move. Used to be that your town was the town that was hopping because the railroad tracks went right through it the railroad moves and everything goes south. That's all there is to it. So this is what disintermediation is so here's what's happening in the financial services world banks credit unions are being disintermediated by young people who don't even know what a bank does don't know why you need one. I'm going to pay you with my Venmo I'm going to cash my check with my other app they see banking as nothing more than a cluster of four distinct apps or whatever, right? Why would I need a bank? Makes no sense at all. And so this idea that bank products are getting sliced off and packaged as one-offs oh here's a loan app. Oh I need a car loan I'm gonna come here I'm gonna get my car loan app and they're gonna give me the loan and there I go and I'm getting my car loan app through the car loan people and that's all there is to it. I'm gonna get my credit card people through the credit card thing. Mostly probably Apple Pay or something like that. So banks are finally kind of going holy crap the data's coming back that now the the kids that they're saying do you do you you know which financial institutions are top of mind for you in this area and the kids are like whatever's on their phone they're US bank I saw one of those. Yeah I drove I drove by that sign. Yeah no idea really Randy are you telling me that brick and mortar are threatened in the banking world possibly I'm telling you that yes yes and it's not it's not imminent but it's it's probably inexorable. So it's what I mean by that is you we've still got 20 years branches are and people are right now really trying to figure out what the heck to do with branches, turning it into more of a place where you can have relationship and we can do counseling and all of that. And I think that's great if that actually works and works out. And we do see that one of the interesting things about particularly Gen X and Gen and millennials excuse me millennials really and even into Gen Z is if they use tech, they will also use the phone and they will also come see you in person. So they if you use tech, they use everything and they will expect everything. And so that was certainly true with millennials. So millennials will tell you that that having a branch near them is an important reason that they would make a banking choice even though they say they don't ever want to go to it. Right. But they want to have that feeling that if something goes sideways they can walk in the door and go talk to somebody. But the idea of picking up the phone and talking to somebody or going and talking to somebody is the last thing in the world they want to do. Yeah. And they would much rather do everything automatically they hate having to go to the app. They wish it just happened in the background occurred. Yeah. They don't want to deal with it or think about it. And so they're really thinking about money in an entirely different way than we thought about money.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Yeah no question about that. I mean I I look at my my bank I mean a year and a half ago they took all the tellers out so everything is an automated teller now you can't even are you kidding me that really isn't even yeah you can't even interact with a teller it's all a machine you know they got I think they got one branch manager and one you know loan person in the branch and that's it. Otherwise everybody else is gone it's all I love my I love my tellers at Guaranteed Bank. I'm not mine.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

I love them I love them.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

I love them I mean I had a relationship with them I knew their kid I knew who their kids were and what they liked and all that kind of stuff and all of a sudden two days later they're gone.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Well that's that they're then there then that's the writing on the wall that's beyond the writing on the wall they're doing it so so Bill Gates talked about this in 1997 and basically he said that the inexorable thing that's going to happen is that businesses are going to become more and more asynchronous meaning that the customer is going to be the one who drives the terms and conditions of the transaction. So if I want to be able to buy my groceries at three o'clock in the morning I should be able to buy my freaking groceries at three o'clock in the morning and yes Mr. Kroger that means you need to stay open 24 hours a day and you need to staff it I don't know about y'all but I remember when the 24 hour grocery store happened that didn't happen before I mean that that was new right it closed at like what seven or eight o'clock right I mean isn't that amazing and nowadays it's like are you kidding me? What did you do? You know well that's what it was I remember in Oxford Mississippi Baptist churches protesting that that uh Kroger was going to go 24 hours. Sure. It's like there's the sin and wickedness man that's all marching around these old ladies with their signs, you know, who needs to be buying stuff at two and you must be doing bad things. Well you might be working night shifts is what turns out to be and other things like that. But yeah so this asynchronous piece is really where it's at so the kids now all believe I should be able to get what I want when I want it 24 hours a day seven days a week any place in the world yeah that's all there is to it.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

I'm worried about I'm worried about with apps especially in the financial side and you guys obviously Randy this is your sweet spot are you not concerned at all about the hacking I mean like come on I mean to me there's not enough security and we're sitting there cash putting our checks scanning them and go there it goes and money's going in. It just and there's all this fraud coming from even emails that you get and you go in and click on the link and you're done. I I feel like that we're we've left ourselves extremely vulnerable now. Yeah yeah and um I know that we've we've probably ran the course and maybe we can talk about the vulnerability in another episode of what happens next and how do you protect you know how do you protect fraud and generally talking about yeah vulnerability to fraud is is a big deal right all right but bring us home I'll take the dry I'll take that point here.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

So okay good the whole thing here is that what we don't want to say is you need to figure out what the heck is going on with Gen Z and Gen A and you need to understand them deeply. Well yeah you do but that's not the point. The point is that you need to be aware that each of these generational stripes is all they're changing too. So it's simply an awareness where you have to constantly be detecting and you can't be making the assumption that everybody is the same and most importantly that they don't have your same values. Nobody wants to two step with the 60 year old dance thing when when you're 26. It's just not going to happen. So it is this sense of openness and compassion but what we're seeing now is because people are living longer and working longer there's more and more generational stacking going on in the workplace. And that can be a great source of diversity or it can be a freaking nightmare. It depends on how you lead that situation.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

Yeah yeah yeah I love it. Well you get to check us out at resonanceleader.com uh where every you stream and you can see us live on I guess not live taped on YouTube but you can see us right now we see ourselves uh and also you can bring us in live so if you go to resonanceleader.com you can find out how to bring us in for how cool would that be yeah that'd be cool that'd be pretty cool it will be pretty cool and uh also uh you can tell that we really really get along this group and you never know you bring us in live you never know we may be at your house cooking for you that's what happened we don't know with this group it could lead one thing could lead to another anyway we appreciate you guys tuning in Mike got Barrell Randy Harrington the PhD both of these guys are fantastic authors uh they were both so knowledgeable and I gotta tell you personally I get a whole lot of out of this podcast uh and I'm grateful we get a lot out of your music works out just fine absolutely yep good trade off later everybody until next time see you later thanks for listening to resonance find us at resonanceleader dot com