10 Ways to Hack Gen X Brains
Gen X employees want autonomy, direct feedback, and results over face time. Skip the emails unless you read them fast. They keep work separate from their personal life and won't pretend otherwise.
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There are 10 different things that you can do in terms of working with Gen X people that'll just blow their mind. So Gen X is this generation of people that right now are born between 1965 and 1980. So that makes them about 40 to 60. And the interesting thing about Gen X is they grew up at a really weird time and they've turned out to be kind of weird people. As a member of this generation, I can tell you that there are 10 different things that you can do in terms of working with Gen X people that'll just blow their mind and blow your mind too in terms of presenting great opportunities to work better with them. Number 1, Gen X loves to hear the phrases "do it your way" and "don't sweat the rules." Gen X is the kids that grew up as latchkey kids. Many grew up in divorced single-parent homes, so they were forced to be self-reliant and unsupervised from early on, and they want independence to get it done their way. Just leave them alone, tell them what the mission is, get them excited, and then just let them do it their way. They'll figure it out. Number 2, If you want your Gen X colleagues to love you, send them well-written emails. Nothing will drive a Gen X person more nuts than getting written communication that doesn't have proper grammar or has misspellings, improper capitalization, all that kind of stuff. It's super important, and Gen X will love you. They'll think you're super smart because you write clearly, well-written, proper grammar, proper punctuation emails or written communication. Gen X grew up with email, and they were the first generation to grow up that way, but they were also one that grew up before SMS or apps or any of the other things, or emojis even. Here's the third one you could use: acknowledge Generation X's emails quickly. Gen X grew up in a time when you really couldn't trust that your messages would get through to the other side. At best, you were sending something via the mail and you didn't even know if it got there. Fax machines were unreliable, and phones, well, you still had them connected to cords back when they were growing up. So the best thing you can do when they email you or they communicate is say, "I got this," and it helps so much for them to feel like you're going to be on their team and they could depend upon you. Gen X cares so much about mission and results. They don't care about seniority or how hard you tried or how many hours you were in the office. All that matters is getting the job done. And you'll hear Gen X say things like, if someone gets the job done in half the time, that's just fine with them, because in the end, they grew up a lot of times on their own and self-reliant, and they want to just make sure things happen the way they're supposed to so they can move on and get things accomplished. Gen X really wants to have a balanced life. So if you have an employee that's a Gen X person, you want to talk to them in this language. How do you have a balanced life? How do you live and balance work and play and giving back and all those kind of things?
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But Gen X is unique because they want to be seen as individuals. And so you have to talk to them that way, bond with them that way, talk to them like they're individual people, not like they're members of of a team or part of a tribe, and they'll appreciate you immensely by doing so. Number 7, if you are working with Gen X, be direct with Gen X. For generations like millennials who are the generation younger than Gen X, this is difficult.
Millennials love to soften things. They often want to hear feedback in a way that isn't very direct. What Gen X will tell you is, give me the data and just tell me how it is.
Get straight to the point.
They will love you if you're just direct with them.
Number 8, just acknowledge that Generation X exists. Generation X is the smallest generation between the baby boomers and the millennials, so they feel forgotten. They're only 20% of the population. Even though they're forgotten, they feel like they're the people in your org getting stuff done, and that's what Gen X is great about. They keep their head down, they make stuff happen, and they just keep moving. So just acknowledge they exist. Don't take them for granted, and understand that Gen X people in your organization are wonderful contributors to what you're doing. Number 9, Gen X will be pessimistic. We will sound like a bunch of downers. We grew up in the '80s and the late '70s when the economy of the United States wasn't doing super good. And all of that comes together to show that despite the Boomers or Millennials growing up in ages of abundance, when there were lots of hope and optimism and money floating around the economy, Gen X grew up at a time when things weren't that great. So understand that and expect Gen X to look at everything as a glass half full situation. Number 10, Gen X is weird about work-life balance. The weirdest thing to a Gen X person is to take their work friends and turn those things into real friends. That's very different from other generations, right? Where Boomers were very much about integrating their entire social life around what they did. Millennials bring their whole self to work and make friends with everybody. But Gen X is going to feel weird about both of those things. They have their work friends, they have their school friends, they have their home friends, they have their gym friends, and those are all separate. And oftentimes they kept very different from each other. So be okay when Gen X treats your work work social events a little weird because they want to see their work life and their home life separated from each other. So that's it. Those are my 10 hacks on how to work well with Gen X. If you enjoyed this, please comment below, tell me what you think. Do you disagree with any of these? And if you enjoyed it a lot, don't forget to click that subscribe button. And, uh, thanks for being here.
