Not the Thumbs Up!
I learned the other day that Holly thought I was upset that her boyfriend parked in our lot on the day they went out to lunch together. Sure, we have finite spots, but it wasn’t a big deal, so I asked her why she thought that.
“Because when I told you in Slack that he was doing that, you responded with a thumbs up.”
An aside here about the thumbs up. I love the thumbs up. I think it’s a universally positive and reassuring gesture. In fact, one of my favorite cities in the world is Sao Paulo, Brazil, because when you’re driving there and you do something nice for someone, you get a thumbs up (and if you do something nasty, you get a thumbs down, which I also find delightful).
But apparently my view of the thumbs up is outdated!
So I looked into the matter and learned that Gen Z views the thumbs up as “actively hostile” and an unsettling “passive aggressive dig” and that it’s rude to respond with one. Which is why Holly thought I was pissed. Then I thought about all of the people and things I had recently responded to with a thumbs up. One of those was a bunch of illustrations that SarahBethGDub had just finished and sent me for this whatever it is.
“Hey,” I slacked. “Holly just let me know that the thumbs up is a rude passive-aggressive dig. I didn’t mean it that way. I liked all of the drawings a lot.”
“No problem,” Sarah slacked back. “I’ve learned to translate it in my head.”
But then I found out that if I didn’t put an exclamation point (!) at the end of “I liked all of the drawings a lot” that Gen Z would view that as being a sarcastic comment.
WTF?!
Back when I wrote about seven reasons to sell, I heard back from an intermediary (shoutout Grant) who said that “by far the most common reason [business] owners want out is they can’t deal with younger generations” and find them exhausting. I hadn’t heard that as much and thought it was an overstatement at the time, but perhaps it’s true.
It’s important to say here that I don’t find Holly exhausting LOL!! (If I end a sentence with LOL and multiple exclamation points I’m told that means it’s heartfelt and genuine.) But I will say that generational differences are real and if not explored in good faith together can be impediments to the growth and development of an organization. (And they certainly shouldn’t be the catalyst to you selling your business.)
Our friend Steve Cockram says that if you are going to lead an organization that employs members of Gen Z, then you need to become a leader that people want to follow. That means appreciating the contributions of others, apologizing when you need to, and appropriately supporting and challenging in order to get the best out of your team. Of course, that’s good advice no matter who you find yourself leading, but it will only become more important as Gen Z takes on more and more senior roles in the workforce.
That said, I don’t think I can ditch the thumbs up, but perhaps I can add a few more exclamation points to my emails LOL!!
– Tim
