October 16, 2025 • 24 mins
What happens to innovation, team dynamics, and trust in organizations when a significant portion of employees are emotionally fragile, risk-averse, and struggle with interpersonal interactions?
In this episode of the Delighted Customers podcast, I dive into the profound impact of generational shifts on workplace culture, leadership, and customer experience. Drawing insight from the best-selling book, The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, my guest Charlie Green and I explore how Gen Z—shaped by overprotective parenting, the rise of social media, and the isolating effects of Covid—are changing the future of professional services firms and beyond. The implications are not just for the workplace, but for entire industries that rely on innovation, adaptability, and trustworthiness from their teams.
You need to listen to this episode because Charlie Green is not just an expert on trust—he literally wrote the book on it! As the co-author of The Trusted Advisor and founder of Trusted Advisor Associates, Charlie brings unparalleled authority and hands-on experience to the discussion. If you’re responsible for hiring, leading, or influencing teams in any organization, Charlie offers the data, the anecdotes, and the actionable advice you need to spot warning signs and respond effectively.
Here are three questions Charlie answers during our conversation:
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What are the biggest risks facing organizations as Gen Z moves into leadership roles?
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How can managers recognize and respond to "emotional fragility" and risk-aversion in their teams?
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What practical strategies can leaders use to build trust, resilience, and effective collaboration in a hybrid, post-pandemic world?
Don't miss this timely episode! Listen and subscribe to the Delighted Customers podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify—plus, it's available on all your favorite podcast platforms.
Meet Charlie Green
Charlie Green is the co-author of The Trusted Advisor and author of Trust-Based Selling. As founder of Trusted Advisor Associates, Charlie has trained, coached, and consulted with thousands of professionals in global firms like Accenture, McKinsey, and the Big Four. His expertise centers on the mechanics of trust, trustworthiness, and how deep human connection drives the best business outcomes. With decades of experience and a powerful network, Charlie is a sought-after advisor, webinar host, and keynote speaker, especially on topics of leadership and organizational culture. Charlie holds credentials in consulting and business development, and he’s committed to helping leaders at every level create more resilient, responsive, and trustworthy organizations. Connect with Charlie on LinkedIn here.
Show Notes & References
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Trusted Advisor Associates: https://trustedadvisor.com
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Charlie Green's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charliegreen/
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Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone (book reference)
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Contact Charlie Green: cgreen@trustedadvisor.com
Subscribe, listen, and let me know what resonates!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I am so excited to have on the Delighted Customers
podcast back on the show, the co
author of the Trusted Advisor, the author of Trust
Based Selling, my friend, mentor and
colleague, Charlie Green. Thanks, Mark. It's a pleasure to be back here.
It's always fun when we get together. I have so much respect
(00:22):
for your body of work and tapping into something that
I think isn't talked about enough, which is this whole idea of trust,
Trustworthiness, what it is, why it's so important.
Society these days is so fixated on the next advance
in technology. Yes. And the next shiny object. And
you're talking about something very basic
(00:45):
that makes everything work. Yep. There you go. We can hang up the phone
now. We're good. That covers it. In previous
episodes, you and I have broken down the trust equation. I encourage people to go
back and listen to. I'll include the link to that, those shows
in the show notes. And I would also add
that Charlie founded Trusted Advisor
(01:07):
Associates, where he and I met and I had the opportunity to work on his
team and get certified. And that organization still exists,
doesn't it, Charlie? Oh, yes, absolutely. Yep. Doing. Doing well.
And. And so today I want to talk about something
you and I have talked about offline but
haven't talked about on the show, and that is centered around
(01:31):
a book that triggered our interest in having this conversation,
which is the Anxious Generation. So could you share
with our audience about what the book is, what it's about, and
why it's important today? Yeah. Good. The title's the
Anxious Generation. It's been on top of the New York Times nonfiction
bestseller list for the better part of a year. I think Jonathan Haidt, that's
(01:53):
spelled H A I D T is the author. I know him
somewhat. We're not friends, but we're better than acquaintances. He's very
bright. He's written several other books which are excellent in advance of this
one. He's a very good writer, a very good storyteller, and a very
solid researcher. Super credentials. He's currently at NYU Stern
School of Business. And the premise of the book,
(02:16):
it goes into a lot of detail, all of which is interesting, but the basic
premise is people born. I'm going to forget now
between, I think, 95 and 2005 or
somewhere in that time, roughly Gen Z, you know, would. Would be accurate enough.
People born in that time period have had
an interesting life in the following three respects. Number one,
(02:38):
he argues, and he's written previously, that that particular group of people was
done badly by their parents who were overprotective. Parenting
grew into, you know, prevent anything. Don't let the kid fall, don't let them skin
their knee, don't let them play outside alone, don't let them walk to the bus
stop alone. And that had predictable broad emotional
social consequence. The then as they grew into preteens and teens.
(02:59):
This happened around the time of the invention of the iPhone and
in particular social media. And he's got all kinds of stats about how
emotional fragility, suicides,
depression went up considerably. And he tracks it down
to basically those two events in time. All the numbers have gone
wrong way, particularly among girls, although
(03:22):
almost as much among boys. And then that generation again, roughly Gen
Z started to go into business right around the time
Covid hit. So on top of the emotionally
dysfunctional life they had lived up until then, suddenly they're along with
the rest of the world cast into modes of isolation right at the time when
they're supposed to be getting, you know, accustomed to their lifelong careers and
(03:43):
entering business and so forth. Well, that generation, that group of people are
now entering a mid level in business. So I tend
to focus on professional services like the big four firm
firm consulting firms, Accenture, McKinsey, Lawy, that kind
of thing. Those are now roughly a quarter to a third, maybe a little more
of the total population of those firms. And if past this prologue, they're
(04:06):
90% of the future leadership of those firms. And
here's what those people are doing. I teach
every quarter or so I do a webinar for one of the big four and
I've noticed 40% of them don't come on camera. This is
for two, two hour long web sessions. They don't even come on
camera. And it's not the people in their 40s,
(04:28):
it's not the people in their, you know, in their late teens, it's
the people right smack in this generation. They're not stupid, they're very well
educated, they're very bright by all the things that we put emphasis on. That's not
the problem. The problem is they're emotionally fragile, they're risk averse,
they don't know how to interact with other human beings and the conventional
social things. How the heck are these firms going to manage
(04:50):
being led in the future if they not taking some significant
action to correct the horrendous stuff that's happened to this
new generation. So that's, I'm summarizing the book and I'm getting into
some of the stuff. That I'm interested in there you mentioned, what the heck are
Our leaders going to do? That's, that's a great question. I want to talk a
little bit about what you see as the potential risks for
(05:12):
businesses who not only hire from the big
four, but may have some people that fit this mold in their
own organization. It's just, I work with professional services, so
those are the ones I see. The same is true for banks. The same is
true for lots of organizations. This same age group is
moving in and you know the same issues in broad terms,
(05:34):
I just tend to focus on that category. So
I would imagine some of the risk of people who are emotionally
fragile, who are risk averse, who. Any organization
that's interested in growing needs.
Innovation needs people who
are capable of leading and influencing
(05:56):
and even sometimes persuading other people.
Absolutely. And that needs to happen by
someone who's trustworthy, or at least it's more likely and more
successful if it's done by someone who's considered
trustworthy by their peers, supervisors, and their other colleagues. Would
you agree? Yes, I would. I think it's even more basic than the trust stuff
(06:18):
though. It's. These are people who basically, basically didn't learn the lessons that are taught
in kindergarten. They didn't learn how to play nicely in the sandbox with other
people. So take innovation. Innovation is not a solo
act. It's a team act in many cases. Well, if you don't know how to
get along with people in a small group, there goes your innovation. If you
don't know how to interact with other people, there goes all the stuff about
(06:39):
influence and persuasion, team leading, all that stuff.
If you'd rather live life with your head buried in a
computer or your phone. And we've all seen groups of people, six, eight
people sitting at a dinner table. They're all looking at their phones. It isn't just
that generation. Hey, we're guilty of it too. But this particular
generation has been formed in its early adult
(07:00):
life by those kinds of. They don't know the difference. So in terms
of ramifications, Charlie, I'm in a group
of people, either on a committee or within the organization in a
cross functional meeting. And so what do I do? Do I take my
toys and go, go home or do I act out
and, and feel like someone has treated me
(07:22):
poorly? Yeah, well, I'm, we're gonna get, I'm,
I'm gonna move away from what little data I have and what little.
And I can't adequately do justice to Jonathan Haidt's book. But I
mean, let's just talk common sense here. If you're emotionally fragile, you've
been taught to be risk averse. Yeah. Then you're fearful, emotional. Well, if you're fearful,
it's either my fault, in which case I feel horrible about myself, in which case
(07:44):
I withdraw and become an alcoholic or something, or I blame other
people. It's their fault, never my fault. So you end up with people who
don't easily take responsibility and who are frightened by many
aspects of social interactions or other reality.
These are people who are naturally, I mean, it makes sense. Hesitant to reach out
to other people, hesitant to take interpersonal, emotional
(08:06):
risks and don't seek solace in the company of
other people, but rather by themselves, they don't know any better, they've never
seen anything any different. So yeah, that's not a good recipe
for lots of things. Yeah. And so in the world that the
lens that I look through is through the customer's lens as their
advocate, change is inevitable because customers
(08:29):
desires change all the time. And we need
to respond in a way it doesn't mean we had to.
Sometimes it means we need to trash what we're offering today. But
sometimes it just means modifications and that means
internally that people need to work
cross functionally well right together. And the
(08:50):
status quo is not going to survive in a world that's
constantly changing. So you need people willing to bend, flex,
hear other advice that may not, that may make them feel
a bit uncomfortable. Yep, exactly. I think that sounds
exactly right to me. And what, what are like, would some of the
misconceptions that senior leaders have about this
(09:12):
category of employees or outside
consultants. Yeah, again, I can't react from broad data, just, you know,
anecdotes and perceptions. I think it's, it's very easy for folks of
our generation or my generation. I'll, I'll take the blame myself. You
know, what's left of the boomers? Ah, the kids. You know, the kids are screwed
up. It's not like it was back in the day. So it's easy to be
(09:33):
judgmental, look at all the silliness that's going on
or simply not notice it and say, wow, these kids are smart today.
You know, they know compute I could never do. They, they'd never hire me today.
These kids know stuff that I can't even imagine and we need to hire more
of them to get into AI or something like that. So I really
don't see. I mean I've started mentioning this topic around a few people and
(09:55):
it's people like, hadn't really thought about that before. And I think that's probably
true. They haven't thought about it before, so doesn't mean it's not
happening. It is happening, but I don't see a lot of structured thought
having been given to it. Yeah.
So what are some of the warning signs that one of them you mentioned, if
you see the camera turned off. Yeah, that one really sticks. That's what actually
(10:18):
provoked my thinking about this in the first place. This happened, you know, several
times. I noticed it was a consistent percentage and I thought, that's
weird. What's going on? That's one.
You know, I did speak with somebody the other day who's been in
college recruiting for about eight years for a large
professional services firm. And I asked her just kind of
(10:40):
open ended white space question, you know, what have you seen what's going on?
And the word she chose was fragility, which made a
lot of sense. These people, she said, they're fragile, they're easily
broken and they don't bend easily. They break easily. They don't have
a lot of resilience. They retreat fighters, flight, I suppose, mostly
flight. So you think about what does fragility do? It's the antithesis
(11:02):
of a resilient organization, of a proactive organization,
of one that tries new things, as you mentioned, doesn't
form friendships easily. I think she came up with a good word. Fragility
sums up quite a bit. And it's consistent with what Jonathan Haidt also talks
about. And so in practical terms, like if I'm
a leader, how might I notice people before we get
(11:25):
into what we can potentially do to support, drive success
in organizations like this, some strategies around that,
what do you think would be. I mean, obviously we talked about people not
showing up or putting their cameras on, but what might be some other
warning signs? Well, let's hear. You and I are brainstorming
a little bit. I don't have a whole lot of data, but I would think,
(11:46):
you know, you remember there was a book 20 years ago, Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone,
and he looked at sort of the depersonalization of society in
general. And his little indicator was you don't see bowling
leagues anymore like you used to. If people
still go bowling, they go alone rather than hanging out with the club. Well, there
are a lot of parallels in business. You know, there are
(12:08):
informal groupings and get togethers and mentor
teams and social activities and volunteers and
softball teams and, you know, keep an eye on how those things are doing. I
gotta think that they're probably under siege. In the past 10 years or
so Covid didn't help, particularly to the extent that people are still working remotely.
There's a lot of advantages to that, but there's some obvious disadvantages and that's one
(12:30):
of them. So I guess that's one set of indicators
and I think just become more observant of people's interactions.
On your group, on your team, are they comfortable challenging each
other or did they retreat into politeness and being offended?
You know, because if you can't get to the point where you can have a
robust dialogue with other people, again, you either retreat into,
(12:53):
you know, being hurt or watching so that nobody is offensive,
neither of which is good. You want to have relationships that can stand
up to, you know, dialogue and not take everything personally.
So I'm thinking that's some, something that managers can look out for.
Yeah, those are great, great tips. I think, you know, we live in a hybrid
world now where some employees work on site, some work remote, some
(13:16):
work in some sort of blend of the two. If you're in person,
I imagine there's a number of non verbal clues that you could be looking
for as a manager. Yeah, you know, even
as I was thinking about that example of people not coming on camera
five years ago, we were all saying, we were all bemoaning the fact that we're
just looking at zoom, a two dimensional electronic image, as opposed to being
(13:38):
in person, you know, with 3D and smell and touch and all
that. But even on zoom, I mean, you know, you can look at people, you
can look in the eye, you can see their facial expressions, but not if they're
not on camera. We give up a lot when that one goes out. So I
think it's possible to actually create semi
authentic connections even on zoom calls more than we would have
(14:00):
thought five years ago. Well, let's talk about, we talked about some of the risk,
we talked about some of the warning signs, things we could look out for, we
talked about maybe the why on how we got here. Let's
talk about some ways, some strategies that if you're a leader,
you could still run a successful organization and
incorporate people who grew up in this time period. What comes
(14:22):
to mind is some strategies. Well, the first thing comes to my mind is talk
about it, legitimize talking about it. You know, people are always flattered
when you talk about it. Hey, you guys here are all between, you know, 25
and 32 or whatever. What's it like? What's it like for you?
Give people a chance to articulate. I mean, that's the Basis of talk
therapy. Right. And it works to some extent. Plus, people like being
(14:43):
paid attention to organize conversations, individual or group.
That's certainly one. Stories and vignettes, video clips.
These are old, tried and true techniques of training, and they work
reasonably well. I know in my stuff, I use video. We have great
conversations about watching two people interact. One thing I notice,
even among this generation, I'll show them a sort of good tape and
(15:06):
a really good tape of an interaction between two parties. And
I'll ask them, thumbs up or down, people, get ready. Was the second one better
or worse than the first one? Every single one of them will say they're
better, and they're right, it was better. But think about that. None of these
people are trained sociologists or psychologists. They're all
accountants and consultants. Right? But they all have that gut feel that was better.
(15:29):
And so I point that out. You realize you did pick up something in
kindergarten. You all have human gut feelings. We've been around for
millennia, hundreds of thousands of years, and these instincts are
base and basic and very finely tuned,
and you didn't miss out on that. You still have it within you to recognize
good and not good. So let's talk about why it was
(15:51):
good, what did it, what made that better. And then you can get into
micro behaviors or intentions or wherever you go, but at least
you're talking about it with people. Charlie, what do you say to the person
who says, well, I'm just really. I tested. I'm an
introvert, and I just want to come in, really just do my job. I have
a very independent job. Very. Yeah, I just need to run numbers
(16:13):
or run data or collect data. And I don't. I don't really
enjoy interacting with other people. Yeah, well, I can personally relate
to that. I've actually been kind of an introvert, and I always need to gin
up a lot of energy to get out and interact with people. But, I mean,
a couple answers. Number one, sorry, that's not life. That's not your job. Get used
to it. Deal with it, you know, and at the same time, you need to
(16:34):
be sympathetic and say, yeah, it does suck, I get you. But we
need some of this and some of that. Let's make sure we come up with
some ways that give you reconstituting time, give you
a chance to build up your juices. But you also need to get out there
and interact with other people. So I guess, you know,
recognition that you're not alone, it's not a bad feeling.
(16:55):
But also reality is not going to conform itself to you wanting to
cubbyhole yourself all day long either. Yeah, I think there's,
you know, from my experience, there's always a tie back to the corporate values that
are stated. Usually there's. There's something like teamwork or
integrity or alignment or something like that where
first of all, people aren't. If they were solopreneurs, they'd be solopreneurs. So
(17:18):
then you get to do whatever you want and you take the risks associated with.
True. But if you get hired by an organization, you're part of it. By
definition, you're part of a team unless they say you're not. There are, I guess,
some very specialized jobs where you're not. For the most part, you're part of a
team. I mean, you know, the joke is even Tiger woods had a coach, you
know. Right. And all the, all the pros have.
(17:39):
Have coaches in almost every sport now. And yeah, you're
part of a team. And that has certain inferences to
it. Right? Yeah, I think that's. That's an important part of the answer.
You're right. I mean, a business is a form of social organization,
among other things, and, you know, emphasis on social. But it's also true,
and I don't know where this fits in the dialogue. People who give in to
(18:01):
you. It introversion, but who live
that and become isolated are statistically in the broader society more
at risk of suicide, less likely to get married, less likely to have all
kinds of downfalls, health, et cetera. So there's that outside the work
context as well. Some people don't react to that. Well, some do.
What do you see, Charlie, you mentioned the span of
(18:24):
years that encompasses this generation. What do you see in the generation
following that generation? Well, I'll give you. I'll give you another. I
do some webinars also with a group of college kids who
are 19 and 20. And I see the opposite. I mean,
those ones I do on a Saturday morning, and every one of them, 100% of
them show up on camera. They may be in their pajamas, the cat may be
(18:46):
walking on the keyboard, they may be spilling coffee. They got their slippers on. They
don't care. They're okay with it. So I find that sort of optimistic.
Good. We want to encourage more of that among your older brothers and sisters.
So, yeah, they've got their own issues. I think with a
lot of the tech stuff can be awfully introverting. And we live in
a society which for decades now has overemphasized the role of
(19:09):
technology and data and empirical and behavior and
gotten away from kind of the human stuff. They also seem to know how to
have a good time and they're not afraid of getting on camera, so I'm
optimistic about that. Interesting conversation. Always love talking to
you. And likewise, the anxious generation.
And the author's name is Hit. Hit. What's his first name? Jonathan.
(19:30):
Jonathan Haidt. H A I D, T Hyt. Okay,
fascinating. We'll put the link to that book in the show notes and
invite Jonathan to come on the show anytime he'd like. Good luck. I reached out
to him the other day and I know him, and I said, I'd love to
chat with you for 15 minutes. His three handlers and PR people got back to
me and said, he's awfully busy. All right, Tell him I said hi. He
(19:51):
is busy. He's got, you know, he's all over network television and cable and
everything. But still a good book. Yeah, yeah.
Charlie, let me. Let me. Let's land the plane with a question that I
like to ask my guests, which is, what delights you as a
customer? Great question. I didn't expect that coming. Let's see.
Sorry. That's okay. I like it
(20:14):
when there's some times when I don't want to interact personally at all.
I don't need to have a chat with the bank teller or. I'm not one
of those. Enjoys chatting up the Starbucks barista. Very
topical. Yeah. Based on today's topic. Oh, yes, right.
But. But there are a lot of times, even with, like, customer service
reps who say, how's your day going? And actually mean it, you know,
(20:35):
and you can. You can tell it in their voice. Those are little moments for
me. Those are little moments of delight. You connect just for a fraction with
another human being and it's not a gimmick. And they're not reading a script.
It feels genuine. That's. That delights me. Excellent. Well, that's great
sentiment and a lesson in there if you're in the CSR world.
Yeah, I think so.
(20:57):
Charlie, thank you so much for being a guest. If people want to get a
hold of you to reach out, what's the best way. Email is
c green. That's c g r e e
nrustedadvisor.com with an or at
the end. C green@trustedadvisor.com that's probably the best way. Or on
LinkedIn. Perfect. Charlie, thanks so much for being back on the show. Thank you, Mark.
(21:18):
Always a pleasure.
I am so excited to have on the Delighted Customers
podcast back on the show, the co
author of the Trusted Advisor, the author of Trust
Based Selling, my friend, mentor and
colleague, Charlie Green. Thanks, Mark. It's a pleasure to be back here.
It's always fun when we get together. I have so much respect
(00:22):
for your body of work and tapping into something that
I think isn't talked about enough, which is this whole idea of trust,
Trustworthiness, what it is, why it's so important.
Society these days is so fixated on the next advance
in technology. Yes. And the next shiny object. And
you're talking about something very basic
(00:45):
that makes everything work. Yep. There you go. We can hang up the phone
now. We're good. That covers it. In previous
episodes, you and I have broken down the trust equation. I encourage people to go
back and listen to. I'll include the link to that, those shows
in the show notes. And I would also add
that Charlie founded Trusted Advisor
(01:07):
Associates, where he and I met and I had the opportunity to work on his
team and get certified. And that organization still exists,
doesn't it, Charlie? Oh, yes, absolutely. Yep. Doing. Doing well.
And. And so today I want to talk about something
you and I have talked about offline but
haven't talked about on the show, and that is centered around
(01:31):
a book that triggered our interest in having this conversation,
which is the Anxious Generation. So could you share
with our audience about what the book is, what it's about, and
why it's important today? Yeah. Good. The title's the
Anxious Generation. It's been on top of the New York Times nonfiction
bestseller list for the better part of a year. I think Jonathan Haidt, that's
(01:53):
spelled H A I D T is the author. I know him
somewhat. We're not friends, but we're better than acquaintances. He's very
bright. He's written several other books which are excellent in advance of this
one. He's a very good writer, a very good storyteller, and a very
solid researcher. Super credentials. He's currently at NYU Stern
School of Business. And the premise of the book,
(02:16):
it goes into a lot of detail, all of which is interesting, but the basic
premise is people born. I'm going to forget now
between, I think, 95 and 2005 or
somewhere in that time, roughly Gen Z, you know, would. Would be accurate enough.
People born in that time period have had
an interesting life in the following three respects. Number one,
(02:38):
he argues, and he's written previously, that that particular group of people was
done badly by their parents who were overprotective. Parenting
grew into, you know, prevent anything. Don't let the kid fall, don't let them skin
their knee, don't let them play outside alone, don't let them walk to the bus
stop alone. And that had predictable broad emotional
social consequence. The then as they grew into preteens and teens.
(02:59):
This happened around the time of the invention of the iPhone and
in particular social media. And he's got all kinds of stats about how
emotional fragility, suicides,
depression went up considerably. And he tracks it down
to basically those two events in time. All the numbers have gone
wrong way, particularly among girls, although
(03:22):
almost as much among boys. And then that generation again, roughly Gen
Z started to go into business right around the time
Covid hit. So on top of the emotionally
dysfunctional life they had lived up until then, suddenly they're along with
the rest of the world cast into modes of isolation right at the time when
they're supposed to be getting, you know, accustomed to their lifelong careers and
(03:43):
entering business and so forth. Well, that generation, that group of people are
now entering a mid level in business. So I tend
to focus on professional services like the big four firm
firm consulting firms, Accenture, McKinsey, Lawy, that kind
of thing. Those are now roughly a quarter to a third, maybe a little more
of the total population of those firms. And if past this prologue, they're
(04:06):
90% of the future leadership of those firms. And
here's what those people are doing. I teach
every quarter or so I do a webinar for one of the big four and
I've noticed 40% of them don't come on camera. This is
for two, two hour long web sessions. They don't even come on
camera. And it's not the people in their 40s,
(04:28):
it's not the people in their, you know, in their late teens, it's
the people right smack in this generation. They're not stupid, they're very well
educated, they're very bright by all the things that we put emphasis on. That's not
the problem. The problem is they're emotionally fragile, they're risk averse,
they don't know how to interact with other human beings and the conventional
social things. How the heck are these firms going to manage
(04:50):
being led in the future if they not taking some significant
action to correct the horrendous stuff that's happened to this
new generation. So that's, I'm summarizing the book and I'm getting into
some of the stuff. That I'm interested in there you mentioned, what the heck are
Our leaders going to do? That's, that's a great question. I want to talk a
little bit about what you see as the potential risks for
(05:12):
businesses who not only hire from the big
four, but may have some people that fit this mold in their
own organization. It's just, I work with professional services, so
those are the ones I see. The same is true for banks. The same is
true for lots of organizations. This same age group is
moving in and you know the same issues in broad terms,
(05:34):
I just tend to focus on that category. So
I would imagine some of the risk of people who are emotionally
fragile, who are risk averse, who. Any organization
that's interested in growing needs.
Innovation needs people who
are capable of leading and influencing
(05:56):
and even sometimes persuading other people.
Absolutely. And that needs to happen by
someone who's trustworthy, or at least it's more likely and more
successful if it's done by someone who's considered
trustworthy by their peers, supervisors, and their other colleagues. Would
you agree? Yes, I would. I think it's even more basic than the trust stuff
(06:18):
though. It's. These are people who basically, basically didn't learn the lessons that are taught
in kindergarten. They didn't learn how to play nicely in the sandbox with other
people. So take innovation. Innovation is not a solo
act. It's a team act in many cases. Well, if you don't know how to
get along with people in a small group, there goes your innovation. If you
don't know how to interact with other people, there goes all the stuff about
(06:39):
influence and persuasion, team leading, all that stuff.
If you'd rather live life with your head buried in a
computer or your phone. And we've all seen groups of people, six, eight
people sitting at a dinner table. They're all looking at their phones. It isn't just
that generation. Hey, we're guilty of it too. But this particular
generation has been formed in its early adult
(07:00):
life by those kinds of. They don't know the difference. So in terms
of ramifications, Charlie, I'm in a group
of people, either on a committee or within the organization in a
cross functional meeting. And so what do I do? Do I take my
toys and go, go home or do I act out
and, and feel like someone has treated me
(07:22):
poorly? Yeah, well, I'm, we're gonna get, I'm,
I'm gonna move away from what little data I have and what little.
And I can't adequately do justice to Jonathan Haidt's book. But I
mean, let's just talk common sense here. If you're emotionally fragile, you've
been taught to be risk averse. Yeah. Then you're fearful, emotional. Well, if you're fearful,
it's either my fault, in which case I feel horrible about myself, in which case
(07:44):
I withdraw and become an alcoholic or something, or I blame other
people. It's their fault, never my fault. So you end up with people who
don't easily take responsibility and who are frightened by many
aspects of social interactions or other reality.
These are people who are naturally, I mean, it makes sense. Hesitant to reach out
to other people, hesitant to take interpersonal, emotional
(08:06):
risks and don't seek solace in the company of
other people, but rather by themselves, they don't know any better, they've never
seen anything any different. So yeah, that's not a good recipe
for lots of things. Yeah. And so in the world that the
lens that I look through is through the customer's lens as their
advocate, change is inevitable because customers
(08:29):
desires change all the time. And we need
to respond in a way it doesn't mean we had to.
Sometimes it means we need to trash what we're offering today. But
sometimes it just means modifications and that means
internally that people need to work
cross functionally well right together. And the
(08:50):
status quo is not going to survive in a world that's
constantly changing. So you need people willing to bend, flex,
hear other advice that may not, that may make them feel
a bit uncomfortable. Yep, exactly. I think that sounds
exactly right to me. And what, what are like, would some of the
misconceptions that senior leaders have about this
(09:12):
category of employees or outside
consultants. Yeah, again, I can't react from broad data, just, you know,
anecdotes and perceptions. I think it's, it's very easy for folks of
our generation or my generation. I'll, I'll take the blame myself. You
know, what's left of the boomers? Ah, the kids. You know, the kids are screwed
up. It's not like it was back in the day. So it's easy to be
(09:33):
judgmental, look at all the silliness that's going on
or simply not notice it and say, wow, these kids are smart today.
You know, they know compute I could never do. They, they'd never hire me today.
These kids know stuff that I can't even imagine and we need to hire more
of them to get into AI or something like that. So I really
don't see. I mean I've started mentioning this topic around a few people and
(09:55):
it's people like, hadn't really thought about that before. And I think that's probably
true. They haven't thought about it before, so doesn't mean it's not
happening. It is happening, but I don't see a lot of structured thought
having been given to it. Yeah.
So what are some of the warning signs that one of them you mentioned, if
you see the camera turned off. Yeah, that one really sticks. That's what actually
(10:18):
provoked my thinking about this in the first place. This happened, you know, several
times. I noticed it was a consistent percentage and I thought, that's
weird. What's going on? That's one.
You know, I did speak with somebody the other day who's been in
college recruiting for about eight years for a large
professional services firm. And I asked her just kind of
(10:40):
open ended white space question, you know, what have you seen what's going on?
And the word she chose was fragility, which made a
lot of sense. These people, she said, they're fragile, they're easily
broken and they don't bend easily. They break easily. They don't have
a lot of resilience. They retreat fighters, flight, I suppose, mostly
flight. So you think about what does fragility do? It's the antithesis
(11:02):
of a resilient organization, of a proactive organization,
of one that tries new things, as you mentioned, doesn't
form friendships easily. I think she came up with a good word. Fragility
sums up quite a bit. And it's consistent with what Jonathan Haidt also talks
about. And so in practical terms, like if I'm
a leader, how might I notice people before we get
(11:25):
into what we can potentially do to support, drive success
in organizations like this, some strategies around that,
what do you think would be. I mean, obviously we talked about people not
showing up or putting their cameras on, but what might be some other
warning signs? Well, let's hear. You and I are brainstorming
a little bit. I don't have a whole lot of data, but I would think,
(11:46):
you know, you remember there was a book 20 years ago, Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone,
and he looked at sort of the depersonalization of society in
general. And his little indicator was you don't see bowling
leagues anymore like you used to. If people
still go bowling, they go alone rather than hanging out with the club. Well, there
are a lot of parallels in business. You know, there are
(12:08):
informal groupings and get togethers and mentor
teams and social activities and volunteers and
softball teams and, you know, keep an eye on how those things are doing. I
gotta think that they're probably under siege. In the past 10 years or
so Covid didn't help, particularly to the extent that people are still working remotely.
There's a lot of advantages to that, but there's some obvious disadvantages and that's one
(12:30):
of them. So I guess that's one set of indicators
and I think just become more observant of people's interactions.
On your group, on your team, are they comfortable challenging each
other or did they retreat into politeness and being offended?
You know, because if you can't get to the point where you can have a
robust dialogue with other people, again, you either retreat into,
(12:53):
you know, being hurt or watching so that nobody is offensive,
neither of which is good. You want to have relationships that can stand
up to, you know, dialogue and not take everything personally.
So I'm thinking that's some, something that managers can look out for.
Yeah, those are great, great tips. I think, you know, we live in a hybrid
world now where some employees work on site, some work remote, some
(13:16):
work in some sort of blend of the two. If you're in person,
I imagine there's a number of non verbal clues that you could be looking
for as a manager. Yeah, you know, even
as I was thinking about that example of people not coming on camera
five years ago, we were all saying, we were all bemoaning the fact that we're
just looking at zoom, a two dimensional electronic image, as opposed to being
(13:38):
in person, you know, with 3D and smell and touch and all
that. But even on zoom, I mean, you know, you can look at people, you
can look in the eye, you can see their facial expressions, but not if they're
not on camera. We give up a lot when that one goes out. So I
think it's possible to actually create semi
authentic connections even on zoom calls more than we would have
(14:00):
thought five years ago. Well, let's talk about, we talked about some of the risk,
we talked about some of the warning signs, things we could look out for, we
talked about maybe the why on how we got here. Let's
talk about some ways, some strategies that if you're a leader,
you could still run a successful organization and
incorporate people who grew up in this time period. What comes
(14:22):
to mind is some strategies. Well, the first thing comes to my mind is talk
about it, legitimize talking about it. You know, people are always flattered
when you talk about it. Hey, you guys here are all between, you know, 25
and 32 or whatever. What's it like? What's it like for you?
Give people a chance to articulate. I mean, that's the Basis of talk
therapy. Right. And it works to some extent. Plus, people like being
(14:43):
paid attention to organize conversations, individual or group.
That's certainly one. Stories and vignettes, video clips.
These are old, tried and true techniques of training, and they work
reasonably well. I know in my stuff, I use video. We have great
conversations about watching two people interact. One thing I notice,
even among this generation, I'll show them a sort of good tape and
(15:06):
a really good tape of an interaction between two parties. And
I'll ask them, thumbs up or down, people, get ready. Was the second one better
or worse than the first one? Every single one of them will say they're
better, and they're right, it was better. But think about that. None of these
people are trained sociologists or psychologists. They're all
accountants and consultants. Right? But they all have that gut feel that was better.
(15:29):
And so I point that out. You realize you did pick up something in
kindergarten. You all have human gut feelings. We've been around for
millennia, hundreds of thousands of years, and these instincts are
base and basic and very finely tuned,
and you didn't miss out on that. You still have it within you to recognize
good and not good. So let's talk about why it was
(15:51):
good, what did it, what made that better. And then you can get into
micro behaviors or intentions or wherever you go, but at least
you're talking about it with people. Charlie, what do you say to the person
who says, well, I'm just really. I tested. I'm an
introvert, and I just want to come in, really just do my job. I have
a very independent job. Very. Yeah, I just need to run numbers
(16:13):
or run data or collect data. And I don't. I don't really
enjoy interacting with other people. Yeah, well, I can personally relate
to that. I've actually been kind of an introvert, and I always need to gin
up a lot of energy to get out and interact with people. But, I mean,
a couple answers. Number one, sorry, that's not life. That's not your job. Get used
to it. Deal with it, you know, and at the same time, you need to
(16:34):
be sympathetic and say, yeah, it does suck, I get you. But we
need some of this and some of that. Let's make sure we come up with
some ways that give you reconstituting time, give you
a chance to build up your juices. But you also need to get out there
and interact with other people. So I guess, you know,
recognition that you're not alone, it's not a bad feeling.
(16:55):
But also reality is not going to conform itself to you wanting to
cubbyhole yourself all day long either. Yeah, I think there's,
you know, from my experience, there's always a tie back to the corporate values that
are stated. Usually there's. There's something like teamwork or
integrity or alignment or something like that where
first of all, people aren't. If they were solopreneurs, they'd be solopreneurs. So
(17:18):
then you get to do whatever you want and you take the risks associated with.
True. But if you get hired by an organization, you're part of it. By
definition, you're part of a team unless they say you're not. There are, I guess,
some very specialized jobs where you're not. For the most part, you're part of a
team. I mean, you know, the joke is even Tiger woods had a coach, you
know. Right. And all the, all the pros have.
(17:39):
Have coaches in almost every sport now. And yeah, you're
part of a team. And that has certain inferences to
it. Right? Yeah, I think that's. That's an important part of the answer.
You're right. I mean, a business is a form of social organization,
among other things, and, you know, emphasis on social. But it's also true,
and I don't know where this fits in the dialogue. People who give in to
(18:01):
you. It introversion, but who live
that and become isolated are statistically in the broader society more
at risk of suicide, less likely to get married, less likely to have all
kinds of downfalls, health, et cetera. So there's that outside the work
context as well. Some people don't react to that. Well, some do.
What do you see, Charlie, you mentioned the span of
(18:24):
years that encompasses this generation. What do you see in the generation
following that generation? Well, I'll give you. I'll give you another. I
do some webinars also with a group of college kids who
are 19 and 20. And I see the opposite. I mean,
those ones I do on a Saturday morning, and every one of them, 100% of
them show up on camera. They may be in their pajamas, the cat may be
(18:46):
walking on the keyboard, they may be spilling coffee. They got their slippers on. They
don't care. They're okay with it. So I find that sort of optimistic.
Good. We want to encourage more of that among your older brothers and sisters.
So, yeah, they've got their own issues. I think with a
lot of the tech stuff can be awfully introverting. And we live in
a society which for decades now has overemphasized the role of
(19:09):
technology and data and empirical and behavior and
gotten away from kind of the human stuff. They also seem to know how to
have a good time and they're not afraid of getting on camera, so I'm
optimistic about that. Interesting conversation. Always love talking to
you. And likewise, the anxious generation.
And the author's name is Hit. Hit. What's his first name? Jonathan.
(19:30):
Jonathan Haidt. H A I D, T Hyt. Okay,
fascinating. We'll put the link to that book in the show notes and
invite Jonathan to come on the show anytime he'd like. Good luck. I reached out
to him the other day and I know him, and I said, I'd love to
chat with you for 15 minutes. His three handlers and PR people got back to
me and said, he's awfully busy. All right, Tell him I said hi. He
(19:51):
is busy. He's got, you know, he's all over network television and cable and
everything. But still a good book. Yeah, yeah.
Charlie, let me. Let me. Let's land the plane with a question that I
like to ask my guests, which is, what delights you as a
customer? Great question. I didn't expect that coming. Let's see.
Sorry. That's okay. I like it
(20:14):
when there's some times when I don't want to interact personally at all.
I don't need to have a chat with the bank teller or. I'm not one
of those. Enjoys chatting up the Starbucks barista. Very
topical. Yeah. Based on today's topic. Oh, yes, right.
But. But there are a lot of times, even with, like, customer service
reps who say, how's your day going? And actually mean it, you know,
(20:35):
and you can. You can tell it in their voice. Those are little moments for
me. Those are little moments of delight. You connect just for a fraction with
another human being and it's not a gimmick. And they're not reading a script.
It feels genuine. That's. That delights me. Excellent. Well, that's great
sentiment and a lesson in there if you're in the CSR world.
Yeah, I think so.
(20:57):
Charlie, thank you so much for being a guest. If people want to get a
hold of you to reach out, what's the best way. Email is
c green. That's c g r e e
nrustedadvisor.com with an or at
the end. C green@trustedadvisor.com that's probably the best way. Or on
LinkedIn. Perfect. Charlie, thanks so much for being back on the show. Thank you, Mark.
(21:18):
Always a pleasure.
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