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Kevin Parker, CEO of Spokane Dutch Bros., says leading in the current business environment has become more complex because of the multiple generations involved.
| Linn ParishEarlier this month, the Journal of Business hosted Spokane Dutch Bros. CEO Kevin Parker for its most recent Elevating The Conversation podcast.
The Elevating The Conversation podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, and elsewhere. Search for it on any of those platforms or the Journal's website to hear the entire conversation, but for now, here are five takeaways—edited for space and clarity—from the episode, which runs just over 30 minutes.
1. Multiple generations in the workforce make leadership more complex. I think leading today is way more complicated than it was 15 years ago, because 15 years ago, there was really two generations in the workplace. Generations lasted longer back then than they do now, actually.
So there are five generations that are existing right now. There's a baby boomers that are born between 1947 and about 1965. That number varies a little bit. Gen X, which is my generation, was born around 1966 to about 1981. Millennials are from 1982 to about 1996, and Gen Z goes from 1997 until about 2010. And now we have alphas coming up.
Poet Mary Oliver says there's light and shadow to everything. The light is we have these beautifully diverse workforces throughout the country. The shadow is we have to become more sophisticated, because we have different groups of people that want different things.
2. Generation Z is different in the workplace than the generations that preceding it. Gen Z is a generation that has a lot of grit. They're willing to push through issues of anxiety and depression and so forth.
But they want to clear the ladder. They want to know if there's inward promotional opportunity. That's really huge for them.
And they want real-time feedback. They don't want it at a review, because they don't want feedback on something that happened four months ago. Because to them, it's almost offensive. They'd be like, "If you care about me, why did you not give me that feedback 90 days ago when I could have actually done something with it?" They like it direct, plain, and immediate.
Similarly, they don't like compliment sandwiches. If you call me in and say, "Hey, Kevin. Here's something you do real well. Here's something I want you to do better. And here's one other thing you do well." They don't want that. Just give them the meat. Don't give them the buns. They just want to know what is it they should be working on. They view it as, the employer has the keys to the kingdom, so when we give them feedback, we're giving them knowledge that unlocks gates down their path so they can keep moving forward.
3. Millennials have evolved in the workplace. You see an evolution in the millennial population.
By the way, generational scholars will say that there are multiple generations within one generation, so when I say millennials, I'm really talking about three to five sets of different millennials in there.
But in general, millennials have moved to become more financially focused. You see them purchasing more homes. When we have had this housing shortage in America for a long time, there's a lot of reasons for that. One of the blanket reasons is millennials started buying homes, and they weren't buying them earlier in their careers. They also value travel and experiences, so millennials are hunkering down and wanting a little more of a traditional career than what they did early on.
What we were talking about millennials 10 years ago is largely irrelevant to who they are now. They're older, and they're different.
4. Employees are looking beyond pay in many instances. They like to be compensated, but it's not the first priority. In fact, the last statistics I saw, it ranked around four or five.
When you reference Generation X, it would have been around one or two. We were taught to take the positions that paid the most regardless of how hard they were. Gen Z and millennials are much more holistic in their approach. Community is really important to them. Social impact is very important to them on what their company is doing.
I bet you that if you look back, you'll find when you interviewed candidates, they may ask what charitable causes the company is involved in. They want to know, and they want to make sure it's aligned with their own interests.
Another priority is they see a distinction between autonomy and independence. It's easy to confuse those terms, but those are very different terms to millennials. They like autonomy in that they like to be able to do what they do, but they don't want to do it alone.
In other words, the environment has become more important through the years, and that seems to transcend generations.
5. Respect in the workplace has become essential. Gallup just released a poll that says respect cannot be overemphasized right now in the workplace. People want to be respected.
I think respect and tone and the ability to wrestle over hard issues is really, really important. The core of our leadership team at Dutch Bros is five of us. I see them in the office every day, and we meet every Wednesday. We just get along so well, and I was asking our director of operations, Johnny, why he thinks we all get along so well. He said that whenever we have a big issue, we are all on a different page in the beginning, and we all are jockeying for our position. But the thing we do is we all listen to each other, and then those five independent ideas tend to coalesce into the best path.
We've developed this idea of it's more important to identify the truth than it is to be right. And somehow we do that. I think part of it is, in this little team, we tend not to take things personally. Not that we're perfect, but we tend to look at challenges and situations as, how do we get to the solution? I might have an opinion, but my opinion is very likely incomplete, but in a group, it can be more complete.
Your iPhone has 256 gigabytes of memory. Neuroscientists have been asking, what is a human mind in a gigabyte? At this moment, they've come to the idea that even some of the most intelligent people are at one gigabyte.
What that means is we can't rely on ourselves. We have to rely on people around us to help fill in the blanks, because we'll only get past one gigabyte if we're listening to each other.