#3 - Bridging the Generation Gap (Pt 2)
The Millenials Strike Back (a Millenial in-house lawyer speaks truth to her Gen X colleagues)
Last week I responded to Chris, who was concerned about the risks posed by cancel culture – what would happen if he or one of his team inadvertently made an offensive or off-colour comment?
Several readers wrote to me offline. Thanks for your comments - though I’d encourage you all in future to post your comments direct on Practical Counsel, so that others from the Practical Counsel Community can engage and discuss with you.
One of those who wrote in, Joanne, presented a clear-eyed analysis from the perspective of a Millenial (often defined someone born between 1980 and 1995). She posed a challenge to in-house leadership – to respond to the real needs of Gen Z (often defined as anyone born between the mid-1990s and the early-mid 2000s). Her email and my reply is below.
Enjoy reading, and please comment and contribute to the debate by posting direct on Practical Counsel. Also, please write in with your unique people issues to me (jonathan@middleburghassociates.com).
I unequivocally undertake never to reveal your identity and will change key details of your situation so as to preserve your confidentiality and anonymity (unless you don’t want this). I also undertake to write to you personally with my own thoughts and comments on your situation and am always happy to follow up with a call on Zoom or similar.
‘Dear Jonathan’ … and Jonathan’s Reply
Dear Jonathan,
What an interesting perspective from Chris last week. He seems to think he manages to create an ‘open inclusive culture’ from his perspective as a socially liberal Republican. (Is there even such a thing nowadays? – sitting here in the UK, I have my doubts).
I want Chris to know I’m sceptical. I was born in 1990, so am perhaps typical of the so-called Millenial generation. I work in a large legal department at one of the UK’s leading retail banks. What I see is ‘your’ generation mouthing bland platitudes, trying to get down with the kids, but not having a clue. And if you don’t get me or my generation, what hope have you got of understanding Gen Z?
If you really want to understand us, stop mouthing off behind our backs at how ‘woke’ you think we are, how you really don’t get us and how we’re ‘such hard work’. I’ve heard all of these fed back to me … or before we were working remotely , overheard them at the proverbial water cooler.
Jonathan, I wanted to put a different perspective.
Best wishes,
Joanne (she/her)
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Dear Joanne,
How refreshing to hear a different perspective. Thank you.
My primary thought is that those of us who are Gen X (born mid-1960s to mid-1980s) need to sit up and listen. I was born in 1967 and the working world has changed beyond recognition since I was a young lawyer.
I was reflecting the other day with my daughter and elderly mother on the changes that have taken place since I was at University. My daughter, who is 23 and who has just graduated from University, asked me how I applied to University and was genuinely interested when I explained that we used to make a paper application, by snail mail.
My daughter’s questions caused me to reflect that when I was myself at University we wrote our assignments by hand. None of us had computers (one classmate had a bulky PC and, boy, was that a huge novelty). When I started working in 1991 I acquired an early model laptop. It had a 20 MB hard drive and cost me close to $2,000 (in 1991 dollars).
So it’s hardly surprising that there’s a huge gulf of understanding between Chris and yourself. He and I grew up in a time where homosexuality had only recently been decriminalised and where casual racism was, sadly, the norm rather than the exception.
Millenials currently represent at least one-third of the workforce and the future is your future and the future of Gen Z-ers. But Gen X-ers still fill the majority of senior leadership roles.
Commenting on last week’s issue, Tapasi Sil wrote that she has found it helpful to “[r]ais[e] my filters and acknowledg[e] that there can be diverse views … and reactions of younger colleagues can be different to situations”. I know Tapasi well (she is GC of GE Renewable Energy in India) and she leads an incredibly diverse workforce in India.
Gen Z-ers / post-millenials are the most educated generation the world has ever seen. In 1990 in the UK, roughly 25% of post-18s went into tertiary education – University or similar. By 2010, the percentage had gone up to almost 40%. By 2019 the symbolic 50% mark had been reached for the first time, with 50.2% of people going into higher education. The figures were even higher for women, with 57% of women going to University.
There has been a similar trend in the other developed countries and access to education has expanded in the majority of developing countries too.
The availability of information via the internet can also not be overemphasised. The invention of the World Wide Web in 1989 (the year after I left University) caused a seismic shift in terms of the democratisation of knowledge and the availability of information – it’s hard for someone who hasn’t grown up with the internet to relate to a pre-internet world.
When I visited China with my brother in the late 1980s we got around with a mix of sign language and hopeful intent … our source of information was a copy of something called the Lonely Planet guide. It was pure luck as to whether we caught a train or ended up waiting hours or days for the next one.
When I visited China again with my son in 2019 we had train timetables at our fingertips via our web browser, used Google Translate to communicate with locals and tracked down recommended restaurants by reading reviews online and navigating the streets of Beijing via Google Maps.
In defence of us Gen X-ers, such as Chris, I’d ask you Millenails and Gen Z-ers to bear with us and to listen to us too. Raise your filters to us, if you can, and try to understand the gulf from our perspective.
The other factor that’s worth commenting on is the shift in social norms that’s happened between the 1980s and the 2020s.
I’ve adverted to that a bit above, by reference to the shifts in acceptance of diverse forms of sexuality and diversity more generally.
I’m not putting out a plea for tolerance of intolerance of any sort … but I do think that Millenials and Gen Z-ers need to have a bit of tolerance for those Gen X-ers who struggle to understand all of the nuances of the changes in social norms.
One of the elephants in the room is, of course, the hugely divisive area of trans rights. It’s such a minefield that I’m reluctant in a sense even to mention it (indeed one of Practical Counsel’s readers last week said that I was ‘brave’ to mention the area in last week’s issue).
I’m not going to get into the details of the debate – I am absolutely no expert. All I want to say here is that I’d urge Millenials and Gen Z-ers to be a little patient with Gen X-ers who ‘don’t get it’.
The pace of the debate is often dizzying for us (I’m not just speaking personally but echoing what I hear from many of my contemporaries). Those of us who have kids know that they are steeped in these issues, learning about them formally at school (in a way we never did) and reading about them constantly on their social media feeds.
Take the time, if you can, to educate us. Be tolerant of our lack of understanding. And give us a bit of latitude, if you can to make mistakes. It will make for so much more of a tolerant environment if you are able to do so.
So I get your scepticism, Joanne. And for what it’s worth I share your view that many leaders of my generation mouth meaningless platitudes while dissing the next generation for being ‘woke’. We need to do better, for sure.
But try to be tolerant of us.
It’s a cliché but you’ll be the past generation before too long. You’ll be painfully aware yourself (my twenty something kids are – they have a fifteen year old sibling) that your social media platforms aren’t the same as those ten years younger than you. And that what you read, watch, consume, isn’t what those a few years younger than you do.
I wrote last week that I intended to draft a policy to deal with some of these issues and I very much intend to do so. Once I put it out I’d so love for you, Joanne, and your contemporaries to have input to that policy. Another reader wrote in to tell me that I’ve set myself quite a challenge – and I’d agree!
Please write in, readers, with your thoughts and comments. I genuinely don’t know what I’ll be writing about next week. It will depend on what you write to me about. I provisionally intend to write something about active listening and what this really means. I hate to say it, but lawyers aren’t always the best listeners. And I speak as an ex-lawyer myself.
As always, I will anonymise your observations / issues and preserve confidentiality and write to you individually in response to any scenario that I use in Practical Counsel.
I encourage members of the Practical Counsel community to write in to me at jonathan@middleburghassociates.com with other people problems and issues that are currently concerning you, or that are issues that come up for you regularly. I’d love, for example, to hear your issues around hybrid working and how to keep your team motivated in the hybrid working environment; and your take on the current war for talent.
Have a great weekend, all!
GC Expert’s Insight of the Week
David Moskowitz is a former Deputy General Counsel and EVP of Wells Fargo where he led the Legal Department’s Consumer Lending Division. He also served Wells Fargo as Head of Government Relations & Public Policy.
Dear Jonathan,
Practical Counsel looks like it’s off to a very promising start. Congratulations!
I enjoyed reading the interesting discussion about the differences between Millenial lawyers and Gen X lawyers.
As the father of two Gen X sons (one of whom is in-house counsel at a financial institution), I have learned that the generations have contrasting personal values and priorities.
For my own generation, the so-called Baby Boomers, an in-house legal career included a near-constant focus on “factoids” about corporate politics, compensation, and development. Career-pathing was a lesser focus, especially for lawyers of my generation who were content to develop an expertise and stick with it.
By contrast, as a leader and manager of Gen X lawyers, I found it more helpful to focus on the importance of leisure and free time to the development of a well-rounded and healthy person. I also found it valuable to emphasise how the organisation (and I) could help with their long-term career-pathing. Gen X-ers are less likely to remain in the same jobs for their entire careers. They are comfortable with more frequent lateral or diagonal career changes. That means it is more important than ever to have career conversations with Gen X-ers, with greater specificity and focus / certainty around promotions, expanded responsibilities, and diversified experiences.
Retention is easier when you lead a team that knows you support their success. For Gen X lawyers providing a high level of support is mission-critical and the well-developed leader / manager will provide that support and encouragement.
Best wishes for Practical Counsel’s success and growth!
David Moskowitz
Key Takeaways
1. The needs of Millenial, Gen X and Gen Z in-house lawyers are very different.
2. A well-developed in-house leader / manager will be attuned to those different needs – and deploy different strategies in managing Gen X lawyers to those used managing Millenial lawyers.
3. As a rule of thumb, Gen X lawyers’ concerns include alignment and congruence between their values and those of the organisation, obtaining and maintaining a healthy work/life balance and life-long career pathing (which is likely to span roles in multiple organisations).
4. Well-developed in-house leaders / managers require highly developed listening skills – and developed emotional intelligence (especially empathy). (I will write more about these skills in future issues of Practical Counsel).
5. Gen X in-house lawyers also need to learn how to manage the different needs of their Millenial line managers and other colleagues. (I will be writing more about effective ‘upwards’ management in future issues).
6. As a Gen X in-house lawyer be tolerant and patient, if you can, with and of your Millenial colleagues. They grew up in a ‘different’ world to you and grew up seeing the world (including the world of work) through a different lens or lenses.
And Now …
Contribute to the debate and write in with your comments and observations. Also write to Jonathan with any other people issues you face as an in-house lawyer.
Jonathan can be reached by email at jonathan@middleburghassociates.com
A note for you picky lawyers; and a plea for tolerance
I am a British lawyer by background and went to both school and University in the UK. So my English is British English. I have taken a conscious decision to write this newsletter in British English, but to try to avoid phrases that aren’t common outside the UK. Sometimes, though, I’ll use a phrase that isn’t commonly used outside the UK, without realising that it is a Britishism.
My plea is for you to tolerate the British spellings and grammar and the occasional Britishism. And to focus on the substance of the newsletter rather than the occasional (to you) annoying turn of phrase, bit of grammar of unorthodox spelling.
Thank you and best wishes,
Jonathan Middleburgh