# Bridging the generational divide

- **Episode:** [179](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/179.md) (2025-03-13)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** gen-z, generational-differences, workplace
- **Time:** 18:20–20:21 (start 1100s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/179?t=1100](https://truthliesandwork.com/179?t=1100)

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[18:20] Leanne Elliott: And do you think it's the same with, you say that there's with Gen Z, that Gen Z, there might be that element of this is all new, the world of work, not sure what is normal, what should be expected. Is that similar for millennials and Gen X who perhaps just normalized behaviors that are toxic, but really great leaders won't tolerate?
[18:41] Eric Stone: I mean, I think it's all about generational perspective training and learning about each generation and what they're about. And so I'll try to give an example that I hope answers this question is when millennials first came in, I was getting really challenged because, you know, for me, as I mentioned in the beginning, I was very much driven by opportunity and money, and I didn't mind checking in some long hours if that's what it took. And what the millennials were telling me and my team is that, well, time is a currency. And so being able to have, as I mentioned before, those culture carriers to tell me in the field of like, wait a sec, Eric, this doesn't work right now helped us design what we ended up calling a scheduling with precision exercise with all our management team, which were at that time heavy millennials. And so it was understanding perspectives, understanding what they were looking for, and trying to come up with a way to maybe if we schedule to our employee and customer needs, it might be a little bit easier to execute some of these things. But what's important for Gen Z today, and this is what's really important, is not going to be important in 5 years because they might begin to raise a family. They might start moving out on their own. And so sometimes there's a bit of a shift, which again is why you always have to have a really good presence or find ways to be omnipresent as a leader
[20:06] Leanne Elliott: A lot of your work talks about removing obstacles to people being able to do a great job. And I think you said something like adding is easy, but subtraction is smart in leadership. What What do you mean and why is it important for leaders to remove obstacles rather than add pressure?