EntreLeadership - How to Avoid the Quiet Firing Trend with Kacy Maxwell and Dr. Tim Elmore

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Join us as our host, George Kamel, talks with Kacy Maxwell, the executive director of marketing for EntreLeadership. Kacy shares his thoughts on quiet firing and why it’s something leaders should never do. Later, George chats with Dr. Tim Elmore, a bestselling author and the founder and CEO of Growing Leaders. Tim encourages leaders to rise above generational stereotypes and lead well. You’ll learn: •      How to know if you’re being quiet fired •      How Gen Z’s work mindset compares to baby boomers’ •      How expectations lead to conflict at work •      How to earn the respect of other generations Sign up for The EntreLeadership Podcast takeaways—a weekly email where you’ll get three tangible takeaways and a tactical action step related to that week's episode: https://bit.ly/podcast-takeaways Support our sponsors: •      Hite Digital: https://bit.ly/HiteDigital •      NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre •      Trainual: https://bit.ly/TrainualEntre •      BELAY: https://bit.ly/351P9AE Links mentioned in this episode: •      The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast •      Give us your feedback by leaving a voicemail at 844.944.1070 or emailing [e-mail] •      Register for EntreLeadership Summit: http://bit.ly/30Ucjrg •      Growing Leaders’ website: http://bit.ly/3UtE7JA •      A New Kind of Diversity by Dr. Tim Elmore: https://amzn.to/3fPrlGk •      Listen to Smart Money Happy Hour: https://apple.co/3NT6ZIN Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •      EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries •      EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •      Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 •      Advisory Groups: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipAdvisoryGroups •      Executive Coaching: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipExecutiveCoaching •      Workshops: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipWorkshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere with the Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices: https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode, we dig into the latest buzzword around quiet quitting, quiet firing. What is it and are you guilty of it as a leader? Welcome to the Entree Leadership Podcast from the Ramsey Network where we help you learn the proven principles for winning as a business leader. I'm your host, George Camel, and each week here on the podcast, I sit down with some of the best leadership minds out there to help you grow yourself, your team, and your profits. I want to say a quick thanks to all of you who have been leaving us voicemails with your feedback on the these new segments we've been trying out, some of you really like it. I just want to let you guys know. I think it's great. And some of you, not so much.

I have to say, I thought I was going to like it, and I actually did not. But either way, we appreciate that feedback, so please, please keep it coming. Our first segment on the show today is a teaching segment with our friend Casey Maxwell, Executive Director of Marketing for Entree Leadership. What's up, Casey? How you doing? Good to have you back. Great to be here.

So we've talked about quiet quitting a lot on this show lately, and this is really just employee disengagement. It's not new, but there's an increasing amount of employees who are kind of falling into this category. And one of the main reasons, as we point out, really stems from poor leadership. And with that, there's a new term called quiet firing, which is the leader's side of kind of this passive aggressive way of approaching this. So how would you describe quiet firing? Yeah, so it's definitely a rebrand. It's a rebrand. of something that has been happening for a long time. And because it's associated with quiet quitting, they kind of gave it the quiet name. So quiet. So quiet quitting is when an employee does the bare minimum to not get fired.

Well, this quiet firing is on the leader's side. So it is doing the bare minimum to support a team member with the hopes that they're actually going to leave. So this is when, if you think about a boss, and I want to call them a boss, because people who quiet fire are not leaders. A boss intentionally does things to make people's lives not great at work so that hopefully they make the decision to quit.

So this has been around for a long time. And the best example comes from a movie that came out a long, long time ago, 1999, right? That was a long time ago. Office space. And we still talk about that. And yes, it's an old movie. But one of the reasons that that still gets talked about is because it highlighted so many of the negative things. in culture and in corporate culture

that really made people hate working in those environments. And the sad thing is, most of those things are still happening today. And one of those is quiet firing. So if you remember the character Milton... Oh, epic character. He was the guy who loved the stapler.

His right? Stapler. Yes. Well, he basically gets quiet fired throughout the show. So in the film, the boss comes and the first thing they do is they move his cubicle

from a window view to the interior. and then they move him three more times, and then they start storing boxes in his cubicle, and then they eventually move him to the basement. I think they stopped paying him at one point, and it's not until the very end where they take away his prize possession of the red swingline stapler. And boy, was that a mistake. That was a mistake because what happens? He burns down the entire office building, which is terrible, right? But instead of firing him, they just kept making his life more and more uncomfortable. So this has been around for a long,

long time, but the reason we're talking about it now is it's happening more and more. We're seeing this in the Great Resignation. We just saw that there was a LinkedIn news poll that went out, and this wasn't something that we had 300 people respond to, right? This was something that had over 20,000 people respond to it. And 48% of people said that they've seen quiet firing in the office, and 35% say that they had it happened to them. So this is definitely not something new, but it is something that is contributing to the leadership crisis we have today. Well, I'm kind of glad there's a spotlight on it because I hope it creates a new trend of great leadership coming out of this because that's the only solution to what's happening.

And what you're describing here is just creating an unbearable workplace where there's a lot of poor leadership, a lot of spineless leadership, where people go, I'm just going to react to this in a passive-aggressive way because the employees being passive-aggressive, the team member. And so I'm not going to lean into it. I'm not going to coach. I'm not going to rise up and be decisive. I'm just going to give them mundane tasks and make their life miserable until I hope they just one day decide, I can't take it anymore. I'm going to leave on my own volition. This is a terrible way to live. It is the worst kind of leadership.

It's we call it spineless leadership. You said that. It's not taking responsibility for what a leader is supposed to do. And this can either be intentional or unintentional. There are things that happen like passing people over for promotions and not letting them know why, right? Never giving them a raise, cutting their hours. There are key things that people do intentionally to kind of signal, you don't have a future here. But there's also things that people do in an unintentional way that may be sending a message that they are being quiet fired. So this isn't always malicious. There's a lot of leaders out there who are going, oh, that's, I didn't realize I was doing that. Oh, gosh. Exactly. Exactly. And some of it is just because people get so busy, right? But you might

be sending some of these signals, like if you start missing one-on-ones, right? You cancel meetings that you're not able to attend, that the employee is setting up, or maybe you even just don't reply to emails. You're just unavailable. Whenever they start seeing that my leader is not available to me, it signals that my leader doesn't care about me. And so they are going to then disengage. And so that means they're either going to quiet quit or they're going to real quit. Yeah. And I mean, if this was a marriage, it would be like quiet divorcing. If you just kept canceling date nights, you never connected with your spouse, everything was always more important than them, it's going to lead to a destruction in the relationship. Exactly. And I think that's what we're seeing in the workplace across the board. And when a boss chooses to quiet fire someone versus actually fire someone on, what's the heart behind that? Why don't they just step up and go, I got to let this person go? Yeah. There's a lot of different reasons. And let me first say.

say there's never a valid reason to quiet fire someone. Like that is leadership at its worst. And any of the examples that I'll give as reasons why are not, hey, man, if that's me, I'll go ahead and do it. But some people feel that they're powerless, right? They feel like, oh, I can't actually fire this. That is somebody else's responsibility. So I just got to deal with this. Some people think, man, if I fire that person, then all of it's going to be on me. I'd rather have someone with a pulse. Or they think, you know, I just don't want to have a hard conversation. Most of the reasons when there is a disconnect between a leader and a team member is often that there's some sort of issue. Maybe that person has a really bad attitude.

Maybe they're doing something that is disruptive to the team or maybe they're just not performing. Well, the role of the leader is to bring that person in and have a hard conversation. But nobody likes doing that. Hard conversations are called hard conversations for a reason because they're difficult and they're not. fun. And so people think, well, I could have this, or I could just disengage and maybe the problem will solve itself. And we are 100% against that in any sort of the way. Yeah. So what is the solution here? Obviously, I've heard you, you know, mentioned the term, coach them up or coach them out. And so there's a way to do this where it's not this passive aggressive, but it's also not just,

I'm going to fire them today because of what's happening. What is the right way to approach this. How do we do this at Ramsey? Yeah. Well, first of all, you need to be a leader, right? That is the first thing that you need to do. When you signed up for leadership, you didn't just sign up to get a fancy title and a great office. You signed up to be a steward of a team and a steward of team members. And so it is your responsibility to understand what is going on with your team and address it. So if somebody is not performing where they should be or they are disrupting the team, you need to have those people come in and have a hard conversation with them. And then in that, you've got to establish expectations.

So a lot of the ways that we do this, we don't, if somebody does something wrong, we don't just say, okay, you're fired unless it's an egregious thing that, you know, there are a set of things that will lead to that. But most things, you just need to make that problem go away and make it better. So you say, okay, if it gets to this point, we need to have what we call a 90-day plan. So we're going to sit down, we're going to align, we both understand what the problem is, And we're going to say, okay, over the first 30, 60, and then 90 days, we've got a plan in place where we are going to resolve this issue. At 30 days, if you're seeing changes, go to 60.

If you're seeing continued changes, go to 90. And if you get to 90, then keep moving forward and hopefully resolve the issue. If you're not seeing that growth, then you have to step up and do the leadership thing of firing the team member. If that team member is not going to grow, if they're causing an issue on your team, you have the responsibility to either fix that or remove them from the team. That's a role of a leader. And nobody likes firing people. Nobody goes and fires somebody and then looks up and go, oh, that was fun.

Anybody else? Yeah, no, give it to me. I'll do it. Like, nobody likes that stuff. And our natural tendency is to avoid things we don't like. And so that's where this quiet firing is happening because a lot of people are just avoiding the tough situations instead of doing what leads. leaders are supposed to do. Yeah, one of the problem is if you don't do this, that kind of negativity

and dissension and toxicity will just spread amongst your team, amongst your culture, even amongst your leadership. Because if one leader is quiet firing, the other leaders go, okay, well, I guess this is an okay way to respond. Working for Casey, I might as well try it. And so we have to be proactive. The kind of takeaway I'm getting here is that if you feel like you're quiet firing and you aren't not willing to change, please get out of leadership. because the last thing we need is more toxic leaders in today's world. Right. First of all, you may be sending signals that you are quiet firing someone and you have no idea.

Think about your team. Is there anybody that you are intentionally not investing in? When you think of, oh, here is a new thing. Do you think of giving it to a certain set of employees and not these others? Well, think about the ones that you're not. Are you avoiding them? Are you not making time for them? are you not thinking about their future,

that is sending a signal to them that is going to make the situation worse. Plus, if somebody is that disruptive and that terrible for the team, everybody is seeing that person, and they're saying, this leader is allowing that to stay on this team. And they're not getting fired,

so, well, I'm not going to work hard. He's not going to fire me. I can do whatever I want. And so it is. It just spreads throughout the team. Well, Casey, I appreciate you breaking this down for us. Always fun having you on the podcast. Yeah, my pleasure. All right, folks, it's your turn to let us know if you like that segment or not. You can call and leave us a voicemail at 844-944-1070. If you'd rather email us, we've got a link to that email address in the show notes. Well, Casey, we are ramping up for Entree Leadership Summit, 2023. And I got to say, this lineup has already been absolute fire, but we just added Malcolm Gladwell to the mix. And that might make it rise to the top for my list.

been to quite a few of our summits, and this lineup might be the best one that we've ever had on the stage. Yeah, we got Dave Ramsey, Dr. Jordan Peterson, and so many more. So here's what this means for you. Get your tickets now because this event is going to sell out. Nashville, Tennessee, May 30th through June 2nd. You can learn more at entrell leadership.com slash summit. All right, so we've talked about quiet firing in this episode, which is tied to quiet quitting, and a lot of this tension stems from generational divides and a lot of unhealthy habits. And a lot of unhealthy the habits on both sides. So up next, as a leader, how do you rise above all of these generational stereotypes and lead well? We're going to talk about it coming up. All right, joining me now,

Dr. Tim Elmore, bestselling author and founder and CEO of growing leaders. His work grew out of 20 years serving alongside leadership legend John Maxwell, where he focused on leadership for the emerging generations. And at Entree leadership, our team spans the gamut from Gen Z all the way to boomers, And while diversity can be great, it can also pose some really unique challenges for your team dynamics. And guess who gets to deal with all those challenges? Leaders like you. So we are so excited to have Dr. Tim Elmore on with us today. How are you, Tim?

I'm great, George. How about you? Doing so great. I've been a fan of your work for over a decade now. I've been following your work because I'm very passionate as well about how do we reach these newer generations. The culture has shifted even in the last few years, especially in the workplace. And so I thought it'll be fun to start with this. I'm going to give you a word and you tell me the generation that is connected to that word.

Can we do that? Okay. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Let's do it. Yeah. Stubborn. Boomers.

Snowflake. Ah, Gen Z. Jaded. Gen X. Ooh, that's a good one. All right. Lastly, narcissistic. Ah, that would be the millennial stereotype that they're so trying to get rid of.

Are you a millennial, George? I'm a millennial. Okay. Yeah. These stereotypes are real. Oh, my gosh, yes. And they do a disservice to us because we all know better. But, you know, we see one case study, one 22-year-old that isn't quite maybe ready for the workforce.

Ah, these bunch of snowflakes. And you know what I think, George, I think stereotypes are mental shortcuts that are just not helpful. So we need to get over that. That's so good. And you cover a lot of this in your new book, which just released. So tell us about that and the heart behind it. Yeah. Well, the book is called a new kind of diversity.

You know, we've been talking forever about ethnic diversity, gender diversity, income diversity. But I think generational diversity is a thing. And we all kind of know it, but we don't know how to talk about it. It's like an elephant in the room. We all know it's there, but we're not quite sure what to say. And so what I think we often default to is either the stereotype I just mentioned, or we just feel like the goal is to tolerate those millennials or tolerate those boomers.

and I just feel like we can make each generation a competitive advantage. So that's the subtitle of the book, how to make each generation your competitive advantage. So that's what I think we need to point toward, rather than let's endure each other. That's so good. And so much of your work is research-based. And while there are some opinions in there, it's all rooted in that research, which I absolutely love. And as you know, every generation has a different view of work. So quickly, cover some of the main differences to help us kind of wrap our minds around this. Well, the baby boomers of which I have a part of quickly accrued the reputation, we live to work. In fact, I think younger generations like Gen Z and millennials would go, I don't want to have that, you know, or I don't want to be that.

I don't want to be the proverbial workaholic. So very often in reaction to that, not all the time, but oftentimes it's I work to live. You know, it's my hobby or I want to find my passion. Didn't we tell a generation of kids, find your passion? and I'm not against that, but don't you think it's kind of in the middle somewhere? Some of your work you won't love, but much of your work you ought to love. So, yeah, I try to make sure that there's a sense of balance where the older generations are understanding those younger ones.

By the way, there's a phrase I use that has been so helpful to me in my own journey as a leader. Context explains conduct. Meaning, if I understand the backstory of millennials or Gen Z. Of course you would think that way. Look what happened as you grew up. You were shaped as wet cement during those years. So I think it's just helpful to get the backstory on anybody, ethnically or generationally.

And when we do that, we're just going to be better leaders. Well, yeah, and that creates empathy, which is severely lacking when we just make these judgment calls, and they go, oh, they're lazy. And we go, wait, what's behind that? And if you've ever been in a counseling session or a therapy session,

it always comes back to the context, your environment, how you grew up, with the relationship with your parents. And so it's important to look at those factors to see how we got here so that we can learn how to move forward. No doubt about it. In fact, just recently, I've been finding myself saying three words to leaders who have just been frustrated at younger generations. The three words are humility. We've got to approach each other with greater humility, where we speak as if we believe we're right, but we listen as if we believe we're wrong. That's been a game changer with my own adult children. So humility is key. Secondly, respect. I know that's an old

fashioned word. Thank you, Aretha Franklin, but we've got to respect that 22-year-old that's just coming in. Of course, they don't have 10 years of experience, but they bring fresh eyes. They bring a hacker mindset. They bring an entrepreneurial spirit. So that's my second word. My third word, George, is curiosity. If I can stay curious, I'll always be more open to the input of other generations. Those are soft skills, not hard skills, but if we can get them, we're just going to be a better leader. Humility, respect, and curiosity. Those are huge. And a lot of the times it seems like there's tension on all the sides. The younger generations, millennials and Gen Z, they're going, why are the boomers doing it? Why are they so resistant to change? And the boomers are going, no, this is the way it is. And so there's these generational tensions.

How can we start to bridge the gap when your team that you work with spans those generations? Yeah. Well, there's a word I'm using for myself. I'll just speak out of my own failures right now. I'm using the word, I'm a mentor. So I'm both a mentor and an intern, even though I'm the founder of growing leaders, I know I've got a lot of insight to share, but I've got a lot of insight to learn. And if I approach every relationship, like for instance, Andrew is 30 years younger than me. He's one of our vice presidents. I learn from him every time I meet with him. And it's so fun, but I've got to check my ego at the door, you know, and be the intern for a while. So let me tell a quick story that I think your listeners might enjoy. Tony is a great illustration of why we need to do what we're talking about right now. Tony graduated from Ohio University, I think about a year or two ago. He had a part-time job in college working at a major brand retail paint store. And while he was at his part-time job, he started a TikTok account, started mixing paints and taking footage and so forth. Well, Tony went viral.

He got 1.4 million followers on TikTok and 37 million views. Well, he quickly thinks, oh, my gosh, we could monetize this, you know. So he quickly puts a slide deck together, approaches the executives there at the brand and says, hey, I've got an idea how we can reach another million people. Tony did not get one set of eyes to look at that slide deck, did not get one leader to listen to him. Tony did get something he didn't expect. He got fired. They actually let this young man go.

He was 21 years old. You know, kids today. You know, he's probably stealing the paint. He's probably doing this on company time. He's probably distracting the cops. You know how we older folk get. And so here's what happened. It's so interesting.

Tony left Ohio, went to Florida, now has two million followers, and he started his own paint store. Wow. There's probably a lot to the story who don't understand, but here's one thing I think I do understand. Those group, that group up there missed a great opportunity because they just didn't see that they could learn. They needed to be mentors and they weren't. So, yeah.

That's a great illustration. And, you know, they sit around the same boardrooms talking about our marketing is not working. We need to figure out the marketing. And Tony's over here crushing it with all these followers. And they're going, no, no, no, we need marketing. Yeah. They don't understand. And so part of that is a lack of.

understanding. In a way we do that here at Entree leadership and at Ramsey Solutions is through the disc assessment. We understand, hey, generations are generations, but people are people. We all just have different styles of work. Some people want to be more direct. Some people want to engage more with more interaction. And some people need all the details. And so it's such a helpful tool we found to understand our team to work better together, regardless of whether you're 20 or 60. No, you're absolutely right. In fact, let me just volley back and say, generations are only one category of how how we might approach things differently. There's the disc profile.

There's strengths. There's personalities. I think it's important for us, leaders, to really know our people. You've heard the phrase, I'm sure, you've got to read them before you lead them. And this is what this book is all about. It's screaming, read your people before you lead your people. So that's my hope as we accomplish something there. Well, a lot of these tensions lead to this kind of scenario.

As a leader, we either go, it's my way or the highway, and you can kick rocks and pound sand if you don't like it or I have to bend backwards for every single problem that comes my way to appease you there's got to be a balance here how do we know when to be flexible or when to be forceful i've actually got a chapter on that I believe people bring with them various expectations various assumptions and then various demands and i think leaders do well to now this is another emotional intelligence piece but I need to know is that an expectation or is that a hope that you bring, but you don't need it. It's just a hope. Or is that a demand? And I think sometimes, particularly in our polarized world today, people treat an expectation like a demand, and it really isn't.

But when I say, now, is that something you have to have? Because if it is, I probably should show you to the door. You're probably not going to fit well here because we're just not going to be able to do that. And you may deserve that. Here's my theory. And I say this in this book. Conflict expands based on the distance between expectations and reality. In other words, the wider that gap is, the more that conflict will take shape. So here's an example. If I tell my wife I'm going to be home at 7 for dinner and I get home at 7.10, not a big deal. They get home at 9.15, it's a big deal. That's a wider gap. Exactly. And it's not because my wife can't live without me for two hours. It's because I created an expectation. And I'm thinking this is a gigantic issue, particularly with Gen C and millennials and

Exeter's and boomers, all working together and maybe in silos because we just can't seem to figure each other out. You know, here at Entree Leadership, and you align with this in the book, we talk about, you know, it's good to be forceful when it comes to your values and your principles. Those we're not going to budge on. This is who we are. And if this is not for you, there's got to be another place out there that aligns with what you believe.

But when it comes to our processes, you know, when it comes to things that we're like, okay, we're not going to die on this hill. We can be flexible on this. that's the kind of filtering that I think creates great leadership. No doubt about it. In fact, that was very, very well put. You're right. And know your core that you just are going to die on that hill. And then when that's violated, you go, you know, this is just not going to work out. But on almost everything else, my gosh, the world is changing. That's an understatement. And I think we just need to be, especially as we age, open to say there might be a new way to reach

this goal that I didn't see, but Tony did, you know, that sort of thing. Well, we've seen this, you know, coming from the church world for decades now. As the older folk in the church, you know, they start to die off and the younger generations come. And there's that tension that's there of we want to do it this way and we have a different style. And it takes a long time. And the people that have won, both in the business world and the church world and the leadership world, they have run towards it and leaned into it instead of pushed against it. And so sad that they had to plant a new church instead of join an existing church. church. And I'm not saying church planning is bad. It's awesome. But so sad that they weren't welcomed in. So part of the research in this book is fascinating to me, George. Raymond Cattell was a British psychologist who published some research about 50 years ago. And he said, in your first 40 years, you mostly experience fluid intelligence. In your next 40, crystallize intelligence. Now, we have both, but it's mostly one or the other. Fluid intelligence is all about innovation,

adaptation, creativity, crystallizes mostly about I can summarize, I can crystallize, I can summarize, I can, you know, I can clarify, I can teach, that sort of thing. Don't we need both? We need the coach and the creator. And I think if we can find each other, now Gen Z becomes a competitive advantage rather than a wall. It's a bridge to the future. And I just absolutely believe we've got to do this or we're going to die. Yeah. Now, you mentioned, humility, respect, curiosity. I want to lean into the respect angle here because respect seems like something that has to be earned, especially with the older generations. And the younger generations have a hard time sometimes respecting the viewpoints that may seem staunch of an older generation.

So how can we all earn the respect? What's the right way to view this when there's different generations? It's a great question. And I don't know if it's got a simple, quick answer. But I do think by and large, we as humans operate like you just said. We have to earn that. However, I have noticed as a leader if I will lead with that to a 22-year-old, well, Cam is a 22-year-old person that just joined our team. I love Cam. Cam. Cam didn't bring much work experience with him. He graduated from the University of Michigan, smart, smart young man. But if I start in my relationship with respect for him as if he'd worked 20 years already, I now have built a bridge. And I tell a story that I actually told Cam, that I think lit him up. In the book, I talk about Maggie and Antonio. They worked at a retail store in a mall. Maggie was the hiring manager,

and Tony was a young team member she just hired. Well, she went through all of the policies in the interview process, one of which was no tattoos. Not that tattoos are evil, but she just said, you know, in our brand, we just think it's better not to have a tattoo as you wait on customers. Well, Antonio goes through the process, gets hired. he's a great team member, but about three weeks into his tenure, everybody sees his tattoo on his arm.

Well, understandably, Maggie's so frustrated, and she loses respect for this young man, so she meets with him and they have a, well, they have a come to Jesus meeting that didn't turn out too well. Because Maggie goes, Antonio, I talked to you about tattoos. How come you didn't get honest with me? Well, he thought she was questioning his very identity because tattoo was part of its very identity.

So I can't believe you're questioning my identity. This is part of who I am, blah, blah, blah. Well, they only reached a bridge instead of a wall three weeks later when they both decided, let's respect the other's point of view. Let's meet in front of our team, you know, after hours. And let's talk about this. And here's what I love, George. Both of them apologized to the team.

Maggie said, we love Antonio. he's a great worker. We don't want to lose him, do we? No, we don't. We don't. Antonio, I'm so sorry, Maggie. I wasn't honest with you. And I am going to wear a long-sleeve shirt every single day that I work here and cover this up. And they got a standing ovation from the team. She had somehow met in the middle, but it was respect that was the bridge that, for them, at least, bridge that gap. I felt like Maggie was a great model of someone that was able to fudge a bit, but yet still not lose everything. You know, like everybody's getting a tattoo now because she let one go, you know, that sort of thing. I think that's how we need to lead. What's sad is that story is special because of how little respect we have and how few of those moments are happening in today's culture with, you know, on social media, if you don't agree with me, you're now evil because we don't have the same exact viewpoint. And I think that translates into the, into the workplace when everyone has to align with every single one of my beliefs. And what we find at Ramsey is that as long as we align on the values and the core stuff,

the little stuff doesn't matter as much. The same thing is with marriage. If we align on our beliefs about family and about money, then our likes and what kind of music and our hobbies, it doesn't matter that much. Absolutely. In fact, I was just with a major Fortune 500 company, and I found myself at the end saying something

that was just so simple, but I felt like it was the need of the hour. I said, we have so become a population of us and them, no more us and them how about just us and there was applause because i think if i realized oh my ohmg this is what we've done a nerve yeah yeah that's awesome so what do you think if we just didn't put labels on these generations you know would we still feel the differences and the different tensions or do you think if we remove the labels and we just see people as people and they inherently have value and we're just going to give them the benefit of the doubt and respect them. Do you think that's a contagious

effect that would happen in the workplace? Is that the solution? I tend to think so, but here's what I would add. I think we need to start with understanding the background or the backstory of each generation. So it's a little bit like to say that all Democrats think alike and all Republicans think alike, that's not true. But knowing the vein of which both, oh, I see what you might value, you know, there. So I feel like once I start with. understanding, Cam, my 22-year-old, at least what shaped him, what formed him growing up. Now I start with that understanding, then I get to, okay, now let's drop the labels. We're a team now. I'll be shortstop. You be first base. So I continually say throughout the book,

the goal is not to stereotype but to understand. The goal is not to stereotype, but to understand. So you're absolutely right. Eventually, we need to get to where people, let's get this job done. Well, your new book talks about the competitive advantage of this generational diversity. How can leaders grow their teams in that direction? How do they go this week and go, all right, this is the changes we're going to implement to start heading there? Yeah, great question. I think first and foremost, I would love to see organizations talk about this, this elephant in the room that we don't know how to talk, except with our own people who think like we do, talk like we do, vote like we do. We need to break out.

I call it ditch the niche. We need to ditch our niches. And there's a, the last chapter of the book, I talk about reverse mentoring. This has been a breakthrough for us at growing leaders. When I get with someone from a different generation, we swap stories. Everybody's got something in common with you if you just swap stories. And then I have a mentor hat on where I'm going to pour into CAM, my 22-year-old team member. Here's how to win at this organization. But then I put the intern hat on. There it is again. I put that learning hat on. And I say, Cam, talk about the latest app you just bought and how we might be able to use it at growing leaders or something like that. Cam has a wealth of information that I do not have. So I would just recommend to your listeners,

try reverse mentoring, match up older and younger generations, see if it doesn't just happen to build bridges instead of walls that you never realize you needed, but now you're able to cross over all the time and use it for the mission. That's a great way to put that humility, respect, and curiosity into action. Well, Dr. Tim, it's so great having you. Such a rich conversation. I wish we could go for hours on this. So great having you on the podcast.

Thanks for joining us today. Oh, it's my pleasure, George. Thanks for having me. All right. Hope you guys enjoy that conversation. Just a little plug here. All this talk about generations made me think of our new podcast. I'm hosting with my friend Rachel Cruz called Smart Money Happy Hour.

So go check that out on the Ramsey Network. or wherever you listen to podcasts. Now, if you enjoyed today's episode of this show, be sure to follow or subscribe and give us a five-star review. And also share this episode with your team, with your friends on social media, with people who need to hear it.

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