“Hey, I’m told I am a ‘Snowflake.’ What’s your label?”
“Oh, am an ‘Iceberg,’ thanks for asking. Nice to meet you!”
We worked hard to dismantle stereotypes about race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.
But it is still somehow ok to stereotype someone based on their generation.
The practice is particularly visible today in how managers (Generation X and older) view and treat individuals from Generation Z (born after 1997).
It is a bad habit — one that reveals more about those promulgating the stereotype than it does about those being typecast.
A Lose-Lose Situation
GenZers are sometimes described as “Snowflakes” — more willing to place boundaries on their time, energy, and spirit. In the pejorative that renders them entitled and unmotivated.
Their openness to discussing feelings, personal challenges, and aspirations puts them at risk of being labeled as overly emotional and unable to engage with opposing opinions or or accept criticism with grace.
GenZers’ main antagonists at home and at work are GenXers (born between 1965 and 1997) — the “Iceberg” children of “Boomers” (born between 1945 and 1965).
GenXers were trained to keep feelings and opinions under the waterline and present as hyper-capable and in control of their destinies.
As a result, GenX Icebergs may be less willing and equipped to address negative emotions or mental health challenges (perhaps due to an aversion to feelings of vulnerability). They may melt down or freeze up instead.
Interestingly, Icebergs criticize Snowflakes for the things the former were denied or denied themselves, such as seeking work-life balance, expressing preferences, admitting mental health issues, or acknowledging and combatting the negative impact of growth at all costs — be it economic or professional.
Instead, we should work together to build better organizations.
This confrontation between older generations and GenZ is not driven uniquely by fear or differences in emotional regulation: stereotypes propagated by older generations also reflect biological factors and the energy allocation choices people make in real-time. Simplifying information and forming judgments is a strength but also a great limitation of human cognition.
Here we examine why we are tempted by the “cognitive shortcut” that is stereotyping, how it impacts us all at work, and what it means for mental health and well-being.
A Self-Reflection helps us identify when we engage in stereotypes and an Appendix focuses on communication styles.
I Complain, Therefore, I Matter
In theory, most of us agree that stereotyping is ineffective for building trusting, open, and respectful relationships in the workplace. So why do we do it? And we complain for a whole host of reasons:
- Complaining makes us feel superior to those we complain about (fluffing our egos because we could, of course, do things so much better). This type of complaint is particularly attractive when we are under stress and less confident in ourselves.
- Lamenting the failure of the new generations enables us to bond with others who are also complaining (providing connection and status, which can lead to a tribalistic “us” vs. “them” dynamic and a notion that the “other” would be so much better if only they listened to “us”).
- Accusing others of not doing their part or undermining our authority allows us to vent and assign responsibility for poor outcomes to others.
Complaints and oversimplifications are not neutral—they come from an internal place of discomfort. GenXers may feel disheartened by a rapidly changing world and even a bit jealous of the accommodations being provided around workplace flexibility. They might also fear GenZers equipped with advanced social media skills, a penchant for driving social change, and (apparently) boundless energy.
A Bad Rap?
When others complain about us, it can hurt our feelings, damage our reputations, and demoralize us — or perhaps even worse, lead us to accept lower expectations of ourselves. If less is assumed of our character and abilities, why should we rise to the occasion?
Time is of the essence if we hope to stem losses from stereotyping. With about four million GenZers entering the labor force each year for the next decade, businesses must develop more appreciative and objective approaches for harnessing the talents of GenZers and avoid dismissing GenZers because they are “entitled” or “unmotivated.”1
Regretfully, in April 2023, ResumeBuilder.com surveyed 1,344 managers and business leaders, finding that 74% believe GenZ is more challenging to work with than other generations. Even worse, 60% of managers consider GenZers “generally unprepared for the workplace.” In fact, a 2024 survey reveals that 31% of hiring managers surveyed admitted a preference for hiring older workers.
These blind spots are costly for GenZers at a formative point in their careers. Being judged by generalities rather than for who they are is demoralizing — it is particularly damaging because they are seeking a form of belonging and purpose at work that is lacking in currently lacking both community and society. This passion can rapidly turn to pathos.
The Cost of Acting Fast, Not Thinking at All
When stereotypes are propagated repeatedly, there’s an actual cost to both the individual and the organization: both parties disengage, and the damage is generally permanent.
For organizations and colleagues, this means missing out on GenZers’ distinctive attributes: early-career over-index in creativity, risk-taking, and a willingness to challenge conventional wisdom — important in the contemporary and diverse marketplace.
While the cost may not be immediately apparent, avoiding meaningful interactions with GenZers limits a company’s connection to an emerging segment of customers. For the first time, 60% of 18-year-olds checked the “two or more races” box on the 2020 US Census.
GenZers were raised in a digital world and were immersed from a very young age in many social and economic changes expected to persist for decades. GenZers offer businesses a unique and essential perspective that can fuel business innovation, adaptability, and longevity.
Additionally, GenZers’ commitment to social causes balances concern for profit with solving some of the most intractable challenges of our times. The four and sometimes five generations already at work created these very problems.
Considering Instead the Differences Within
Successful collaboration requires an appreciation for how others feel at an individual level and consistent behaviors that demonstrate mutual understanding across generations. In healthy organizations, colleagues develop trusting and empathetic relationships to achieve common goals.
Diversity works when individuals can express their thoughts, feelings, and the full spectrum of their personality and creativity — and managers must make a conscious effort to cultivate such environments. But when individuals are seen through the lens of a stereotype, all of these things remain below the waterline—both from the perspective of what the stereotyping employer sees and from what the GenZer is willing (and feels comfortable) to share and contribute in the workplace.
This raises an important question: is the GenZ persona a viable indicator of who an individual is and how they should be treated?
This is a testable hypothesis.
Hogan, a leading personality assessment company, evaluated this question. Using more than 1.5 million volunteer assessment takers from 2001 to 2018 — aged 18–75, 34% female and 65% male — Hogan tested three factors that potentially impacted the assessment responses: age, generation, and the year the assessment was taken. Responses were to questions related to interpersonal skills, behavior under stress, motivations, values, and preferences.
Hogan’s analysis resoundingly rejects the hypothesis that knowing generational cohort membership is of any real value. According to the study, birth cohort or generation effects explain 1–2% of response variation, age effects explain 5–10%, and time-period effects explain 2–5%.
Bottom line: Individual effects explain the vast majority of variability in the assessment scores. Therefore, general generational cohort information offers negligible information for determining core values, motivations, interests, and relational traits. Using statistical terms, anchoring perceptions, and treating GenZers as stereotypes rather than individuals results in a Type 2 error: accepting the hypothesis when it is not true.
This does not mean that we deny that members of various generations grew up in different historical, social, and technological times. As a result, each generation gravitates around norms, goals, accepted ways to interact and show respect, and attitudes toward privacy and authority.
These factors will impact what each generation considers to be stressors and expectations, which managers should consider to enhance well-being and maximize contribution (especially regarding communication, expectations, approach to mental health, and feedback) (see Appendix).
Getting Off the Path of Least Resistance
Every human being lives with a “body budget.” This budget is relatively fixed, although eating and sleeping well can expand it.
According to Lisa Feldman Barrett, a renowned neuroscientist, and author of How Emotions Are Made, the realities of our body budget impact how we think and behave: our brain “expands its predictive repertoire to include anything that might impact your body budget to meet your body’s metabolic demands.”
Our brain is designed to manage our finite body budget, and usually, on a typical day, this means taking various shortcuts. When choosing between allocating our energy to our organs or engaging in deep thought, the former usually wins out.
While most will agree that stereotyping is a bad habit, it can serve an important biological purpose for all of us — it conserves energy. Stereotypes offer us a tempting opportunity for cognitive ease or, put more pejoratively, for “laziness.” Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning author, called this “the law of least effort.”
When we meet new people, our brain uses concepts to “make sensory signals meaningful, explaining where they come from, what they refer to in the world, and how to act on them.” We construct how we experience the world with “constant, rapid, automatic categorization performed constantly by the brain to explain the sensory input we encounter. We use concepts in our brain to categorize the continuous inputs.”2
So, in at least one sense, stereotyping is an evolutionary adaptation to energy management. But in the modern era, where energy conservation is less of a concern, stereotyping becomes less useful and leads to long-term sub-optimal outcomes in business and across society.
Breaking the Ice
Let’s consider a GenX manager meeting with a 25-year-old GenZ employee. While interacting, they are sure to observe certain traits in each other. When they do, their minds automatically sort those responses and actions into categories based on personal experiences up to that moment. Based on these categorizations, their minds rapidly judge the best way to respond to and interact with each other.
It requires far less effort if we have a predetermined opinion of a person based on a stereotype and react with rote responses. But if we are a little more thoughtful and override the stereotype, interactions such as the one above change dramatically.
The prefrontal cortex performs the heavy lifting in this “more involved” process, which, according to neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky, “consume[s] mammoth amounts of energy.” When the cognitive load is too great and cognitive reserves are depleted (as often happens during a workday), this task becomes far more difficult. Sliding into stereotyping and rote responses becomes more likely.
In other words, cognitive reappraisal is a key to more meaningful interactions across generational divides. It entails taking a step back and viewing any provoking event objectively, suspending stereotypes, and seeing the “whole person” not only in the context of their age but also everything we know (or could learn post-event with a little effort) about a person.
Positive responses tend to snowball — but so do negative ones, often at higher velocity. Are we willing to stop a negative track and start over? Or do we have a tendency (once things are going badly) to encourage an avalanche of negative feelings? In other words, it’s not just what we receive but also what we send. Are we being dismissive or arbitrary in our responses? We burn through human capital at work when we run on cognitive fumes.
Playing Tennis Instead of Darts
Ideal interchanges are less like darts (scoring points) and more like tennis (a dynamic interchange). Taking a shortcut and quickly placing a person in the GenZ box (and throwing GenZ stereotype ‘darts’) is tempting because being dismissive takes far less effort.
A game of “mental tennis” is far more unpredictable but also creates active engagement in both parties — which can solve short-term problems more dynamically and create long-term relationships built on trust and mutual respect — and respective skill and perspective building.
By choosing to engage more fully, we free ourselves to discover who that person is, how they might best fit into our organization, and how their talents and interests (both inside and outside of work) can be leveraged to both fully engage their creativity and create long-term and valued employees. We also become more aware of our own stereotyping proclivities (see Self-Reflection).
Practicing Appreciative Inquiry
“Appreciative inquiry” is a conceptual framework leaders can use to focus less on what needs to be fixed and more on an individual's and an organization's core strengths.
While “Icebergs” and “Snowflakes” may appear distinct in preferences, manner, or attention span, all generations share a common humanity. Differences in aspirations and affect should be respected, and similarities should not be dismissed out of hand. Sometimes, those differences, if fully embraced, can be a source of great strength, creativity, and profitability for an organization—and also for society.
By Executive Leadership Coach David Ehrenthal & Carin-Isabel Knoop (author of Compassionate Management of Mental Health in the Modern Workplace). Authors are grateful to Matthew V Hanson for his contributions.
Self-Reflection: Questions to deepen our understanding of our patterns and cognitive shortcuts
1. Do you catch yourself relying on stereotypes or labels when interacting with colleagues from different generations? Why do you think that is, and what does it say about your ongoing frustrations at work?
2. How can you challenge and overcome your biases and those of others?
3. Recall an instance of intergenerational misunderstanding at home or work. What could the parties have done differently to avoid that conflict?
4. Remember a time you felt that you were being stereotyped. How did that make you feel? Why did it happen? Were the stereotypes overcome? Or did they control the entire interaction? What part did you play in that situation? Did you fight the stereotype, or did you give in?
5. If you are a GenXer, how might you adapt your communications when you engage with a GenZer? Would you like to see less of an avalanche of complaints and more stimulating and interactive snowball fights?
6. What strengths do your Gen Z employees bring to the table? Which of those strengths are you ignoring? And how can you leverage the ones you have heretofore dismissed?
7. What are your Gen Z employees' interests (both inside and outside of work)? Which do you share? Which of those interests are unfamiliar but might interest you if you tried them?
8. In a world where every employee wants to matter and have an impact, how can you make this true for GenZers in your organization?
Appendix: Suggestions for more impactful conversational styles
Baby Boomers (1946–1964) (20% of the workforce)
Cliché: Baby boomers tend to be focused on self-gratification in the workplace, so they tend to be workaholics who demand a lot; they place a high value on titles and status symbols while maintaining openness to team orientation and group involvement.
Providing feedback: They might be uncomfortable with conflict but value personal growth, so constructive feedback should be approached as a growth opportunity. They need more feedback than traditionalists. They have a greater need for control, so feedback should provide them with things to work on—that they can try to control.
Expressing concern/engaging in conversations about well-being:
- Acknowledge their value and watch your body language
- Speak in an open, direct style and avoid controlling or manipulating language. Expect and demand the same in return
- Answer questions thoroughly, and expect to be pressed for details
- Show flexibility
- Present options and use face-to-face
Generation X (1965–1980) (31% of the workforce)
Clichés: Gen X is techno-literate and favors fun, pragmatism, and informality. However, they were raised in the shadow of AIDS and the Cold War, so they are more skeptical, seek self-gratification, and desire recognition from both peers and society.
Providing feedback: They seem to be more motivated by how their actions contribute to the organization’s success; they appreciate constant learning and are, hence, more likely than older peers to ask for feedback. Absent feedback, they will tend to fill in the blanks and move to protect their personal position.
Expressing concern/engaging in conversations about well-being:
- Learn their language and use it
- Use straight talk, present the facts
- Make sure to listen and try to understand
- Ask for their feedback– you asking for THEIR feedback matters — especially if you act on that feedback
Millennials (Generation Y) (1981–1996) (36% of the workforce)
Clichés: Millennials tend to multitask, engage in more volunteering and outside activities, and are diversity-driven, globally aware, and communal. They want challenge and autonomy, tend to distrust hierarchy and power, and seek work-life balance to a great degree, often prioritizing self-care over power or position.
Feedback: In a socially networked world, feedback comes daily and in many forms. So, they tend to see and dispense feedback more than other generations. Without feedback, they are likely to assume that all is okay, and they seek to validate their value to an organization more than other generations.
Expressing concern/engaging in conversations about well-being:
- Don’t talk down to them
- Use humor if possible
- Reassure that you don’t take yourself too seriously
- Use email can be a place to start, but just to start
- Present options and various approaches
Generation Z (1997–2012) (13% of the workforce)
Clichés: GenZers are digital natives, socially conscious, and crave authenticity. They value digital communication and social activism and desire authenticity in their interactions. They like to make a difference but can feel despondent about politics and world affairs.
Feedback: They prefer open and honest communications, often through digital platforms, and appreciate creative expression and autonomy opportunities. Feedback has to jibe with what they know (and are constantly absorbing) about the world; in other words, BS never flies with GenZers — so if you provide feedback, make sure it is truthful, fact-driven, and impact-relevant.
Expressing concern/engaging in conversations about well-being:
- Embrace digital communication tools
- Be authentic and transparent
- Provide opportunities for creative expression and autonomy
- Use digital platforms for communication and feedback
Source: Adapted from John Quelch and Carin-Isabel Knoop, Compassionate Management of Mental Health in the Modern Workplace (Springer 2018), pp 64 and 65), Holly Green’s work, Generations@Work, More than a Minute / THE HUMAN FACTOR, Inc, 2011, and US Census Data.
