I am from the Sony Walkman Generation, more commonly known as Gen X. It’s a label for people born between 1965 and 1980, of which I fit. According to Indeed, four common characteristics of Gen Xers are Independent, we are self-sufficient, resourceful and individualistic, second we seek a healthy work-life balance, third we are informal we adapt to change and value an informal environment last we are technologically adept. Gen Xers grew up in during the transition from analog to digital technology.
And in 1982, I reached the panacea of analog technology, I got my first Walkman. Nothing a sarcastic child needs more than a visual and physical way to tune out their parents. Using my allowance money, I purchased a cassette from the band Rush, my favorite at the time. The album was Moving Pictures and the first song started with a single lone guitar chord then the drum slowly pounded out a tantric rhythm.
My mother was scolding me for leaving my wet clothes on the floor or not scraping my dishes, but all I could hear was Geddy Lee, the lead singer, gearing up his falsetto vocals. All my mother could hear was me
A Modern-day warrior
Mean, mean stride
Today’s Tom Sawyer
Mean, mean pride
My mother didn’t get me. My father didn’t get me. Geddy Lee gets me! I tuned them out with the ease of pressing the play button. I never considered how offensive it must have been to my parents to have me standing in front of them in the kitchen, oblivious to what they were saying because
Though his mind is not for rent
Don’t put him down as arrogant
His reserve, a quiet defense
Riding out the day’s events
I must have been obnoxious and offensive, and I didn’t really appreciate what I was doing until it happened to me, not by my children, but by an audience member of a speech I gave last month.
(Music) Welcome to Swimming in the Flood; a podcast where develop the resilient leader’s mindset by navigating difficult currents in business. My name is Trent Theroux.
I was in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada’s capital at the Shaw Center for a three-day conference aimed towards financial professionals. These were my peeps. I was performing on the event’s final day in a breakout room that held around 600. The conference drew over 4,000 people from throughout the vast tundra.
My talk was about leadership and resilience. The event organizer wanted one of my standard deliveries for the 45-minute breakout session. This was my first live international audience. I’ve delivered virtually into Canada before but being live added a whole level of excitement for me and probably a whole level of nervousness as well.
The Canadians laughed where they were supposed to laugh and raised their hands when asked and listened intently to the message and the lesson I was delivering. All the Canadians listened except one. One stood out from the crowd. He was in the 7th or 8th row and wearing a huge set of headphones during the entire speech. The audacity, right? I took some level of offense that this youngster, this Gen Zed as their called thought it was cool to listen to music while I was talking.
I watched the Gen Zed closely. His body swayed to the music. He wasn’t listening to Rush. No, this rhythm was slower like a Justin Bieber love song. This 20ish year old was in my audience listening to Justin Bieber and I’m trying to sh—act together while he’s swaying to the music.
My mind refocuses on the message. My delivery gets tighter. I’m delivering a sensitive story which requires me to modulate my voice more. The audience is with me entirely. I feel like a snake charmer. My words are moving the audience back and forth…except for the kid in the 7th row! His head is moving and I’m thinking that he’s not listening to Justin Bieber. Please God. Please God do not let it be Celine Dion. Do not let that 7th row punk be listening to Celine Dion. If he’s listening to Celine, I swear that the poutine is going to hit the fan!
The last ten minutes went great. I had a strong closing story. The audience laughed and cheered throughout and offered me a standing ovation as I left the stage. The crowd was pumped, and I was pumped and the Gen Zed in the 7th row clapped…albeit a little less enthusiastically.
I am now going to give you my unscientific, non-peer reviewed, resilient leader theory on addressing a someone from a different generation. Are you ready? Got your pencils out? Here’s it is. Don’t Rush to Judgment. You heard it. Don’t Rush to Judgment.
A little while after I got off the stage, the event organizer was giving me praise about my performance and how the audience favorably responded to her on their way out of the convention hall. She wanted to know how I felt about the performance and the event in general.
The visual of the person who tuned me out was still in my head and for some reason it was exceptionally irksome. I broke character and explained my frustration to the event organizer. “There was a young man in the 7th or 8th row who was wearing headphones for the entire speech and it bothered me.” She replied. “That’s Derek. He approached me before the first day’s event.”
I’m glad we got that settled. It was Derek. Derek who talked to the organizer yesterday. She continued, “Derek has a hearing problem. He loses sounds in cavernous areas. He has an app on his phone that can pick up sounds, conversations, speeches and plays them onto his headphones.”
Can you imagine how big I felt when I heard that? About the size of the audio wave hitting your ear right now. I had no appreciation for him. Later, I learned a little about Gen Z. In a Stanford news article, scholar Roberta Katz wrote that Gen Z are pragmatic and value direct communication, authenticity and relevance. They value self-care. I had someone in my audience who had a genuine interest in the message I was delivering, and I made a mental mockery of it.
I rushed to a judgment and arrived at the wrong conclusion. I suspect that happens quite often as we interact with different generations. We become comfortable with people of our generation, our music, our television shows. It’s challenging to find common ground with people outside our generation. Even harder, is to understand how people from different generations think. This is not a lesson about “don’t trust people over 30” or “the young people know nothing today.” Each generation has its qualities and attributes that we, individually, must learn to adapt ourselves to rather than expect everyone to rush in an accommodate us. Unless they are rushing in to Tom Sawyer and that is freakin’ awesome. I don’t care what generation you’re from.
Folks, thank you for listening to Swimming in the Flood. Resilient leaders face challenging currents, and it is tough navigating, but with one tack or another we can get there together.