Generation Why: How Boomers Can Lead and Learn from Millennials and Gen Z

by Karl Moore

Perhaps more than ever before, young people entering the workforce are searching for meaning and authenticity in their careers. This book helps managers understand the postmodern worldview held by generation Z and younger millennials, how it influences their behaviour at work, and how they want to be led in the workplace.Karl Moore takes a practical and down-to-earth approach to understanding what drives millennials and generation Z and how the education system they were brought up in has informed their worldview. Based on hundreds of interviews conducted with under-thirty-year-olds across Canada, the United States, Japan, Iceland, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, as well as interviews with executives to gain their perspectives on changing dynamics in the workplace, Generation Why provides a thorough study of these generations’ ideas about truth, hierarchy, and leadership.Focusing on listening, purpose, reverse mentoring, feedback, and how people relate to each other in the workplace, Generation Why provides the essential tools for effectively working with millennials and generation Z and unlocking their full professional potential.

216 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2023

Reviews

[Blair · Rating 1 out of 5]

“Generation Why” is a book about how Baby Boomers (“Boomers”) can lead and learn from Millennials and GenZ.

I really wasn’t impressed with this book. This started with the book’s premise, and continued throughout the entire work.

While parents and older workers can certainly learn from GenZ and Millennials, the reverse is also very true. Yet the author chose to write about how older workers must adapt to learn and lead from younger workers, rather than presenting a more complete picture where younger workers must adapt as well. In making this choice the author did a disservice to all parties involved.

I also didn’t find many of the author’s insights into what differentiates these young adults from their older colleagues to be very interesting. For example, there was no discussion on brain development which could explain where young and older workers have different skills. For example, young brains are better at absorbing new information while older brains being better at pattern recognition. And there was very little insight into how companies actually work with four generations under one roof. This type of study would have made the book much more valuable.

Finally, the author also argued almost exclusively from anecdotes and his own experience which limited the book’s persuasiveness. The back cover say that Karl Moore’s work was “based on hundreds of interviews conducted with under thirty-year-olds across the United States, Canada, Japan, Iceland, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere”. If this was true, then why were the vast majority of his quotes from Canadian sources and mostly sources in Quebec? What value of this is to others?

This was a disappointing book. It was tough to get through and at many times I wanted to give up.

[FellowBibliophile KvK · Rating 1 out of 5]

Insulting generalisations alleging that the younger generations need to be mollycoddled and breast-fed at the workplace. This would be news to young people like Gigi Dolin, Anna Jay, Laura Dennis Guillemete, Julia Hart, Tatum Paxley, Karmen Petrovic, Joshua Leakey, Max Verstappen, Dakota Meyer, Flo Groberg, Monica Lin Brown, and Leigh Ann Hester.

Also, uncritically accepts everything told to him by General Martin Dempsey, the same idiot who, although he had modern panzers far better than anything Kurt Meyer, Jochen Peiper, Rudolf von Ribbentrop and Heinz Macher had at Kharkov, completely failed to secure Baghdad.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched book for Multiple generations in the workplace. As a Boomer manager, it helped explain some things I wondered about working with Millenials and GenZ