My friend and repeat guest Darren Isom is down to speak some truth. In this fun episode, we talk about the generational and cultural shifts in the workplace as Boomers retire and millennials are taking up the mantle of leadership. We discuss the challenge of Gen X’ers being the sandwich generation, how we’re not setting BIPOC leaders up for success and why tights are not pants.
This episode is perfect for anyone who has felt confounded and whipsawed by the rapidly changing norms and shifting expectations of the workplace at the nexus of generational, cultural, racial, political and pandemic shifts. TL:DR: I’m tired, y’all and maybe you are too.
Don’t miss the opportunity to connect with Darren on LinkedIn and check out his podcast, “Dreaming in Color,” for more inspiring conversations.
Listen to Darren’s Podcast: Dreaming in Color
Connect with Darren Isom on LinkedIn
“The easiest way to disrupt a broken narrative is to create one and tell one that is more compelling and more beautiful.” – Darren
Episode Transcript
RHEA 0:07
Welcome to nonprofit low down I’m your host Rhea Wong thanks to the listener Rhea Wong with you once again with nonprofit low down. Today, I have a friend and repeat guest, Darren Isom, partner at Bridgestan. And we’re gonna talk about Gen X managers, Gen Z staff. What is a poor, nonprofit leader to do? Darren, welcome to the show again.
DARREN 0:30
Hello, hello. It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.
RHEA 0:33
Yeah, I love it. Oh, and by the way, since we last spoke, you are now a podcast host yourself. You want to talk a little bit about your show?
DARREN 0:39
I am a podcaster. Myself, how about that I’m following your wonderful lead. So I’m leading this series, dreamy and color where I get to talk with super cool leaders of color and nonprofit social sector space, and give them an opportunity to talk about what their vision of the future looks like, and how they leverage their life experiences to live into that vision. So it’s been a great opportunity for me to talk with some super cool folks. I joke all the time that the conversations are absolutely wonderful, what people can not hear. And the conversations and luckily is recorded in a way that they can erase all of my laughing because I’m laughing through all of the shows people are funny.
DARREN 1:14
They’re wonderful storytellers. And I think there’s something just really beautiful about seeing folks that have been called to do this work. And bring gives me a great sense of healing. The world is an absolute mess. We have some really talented people, our squad is deep and strong. And knowing that these folks are working on all these critical issues has been really reaffirming. For me, it’s been healing for me. And the concert has been wonderful. So hopefully you get to learn from those and get to potentially contribute to them at some point as well.
RHEA 1:43
I love that so much. And I’ll make sure to put all of the information about that in the show notes for folks who want to listen in which you should, it is awesome. I’ve been listening along. And actually, I want to tap into some of your guests. So it was always fun. Okay, friend, let’s pivot. Because I can talk about all the things I think, how many hours do we have in a day. But we last spoke, and we hit upon talking about Gen X and Gen Z and some of the generational challenges. And in particular, you mentioned some of the concerns that you’re seeing around these nonprofit leaders, particularly folks of color being hired up into these leadership roles, but then not being set up for success. So I just wind you up, let you go.
DARREN 2:26
No, and feel free to jump in. Because I could just ramble on about this forever. And I’m sure I would be a fairly incoherent ramble. So please check me if I’m going off in a way that doesn’t make sense. I think it’s important to offer just a great deal of context with this conversation as well. And so I’m just gonna put myself out there and I’m 40 some three my age up here except every game so I can do this, but 46 and you don’t look a day over 30 Telling a complete liar. But I appreciate
DARREN 2:53
Your advice and your tip. But the end. So about two years ago, I joke with my husband who’s 61 That 44 was the first year that I sell gold. And clearly 44 is not all my husband 61 which is not old. My mother is in her late 60s, which is not all my husband’s mother is 91. That is all right. But 44 was the first year that until 44 embarrassingly, I always thought of someone who was an adult is being either about my age, or just getting out of college. And 44 Embarrassing. That was the first time I looked up and realized a 34 year old is well out of college, definitely an adult and not my age.
DARREN 3:35
Four year olds when he was living in New York dodging falling buildings on September 11, I was definitely an adult, that’s two solid decades, younger than I am. And so it was the first time I realized that there were definitely other generations of adults.
RHEA 3:49
Darren I gotta tell you, I, when I looked at it, I realized that I was the adult in the room. It was like, Oh, my God, how did that outfit and how scary for everyone involved with when you’re adults? The secret is like, no one knows what they’re doing. That’s the big secret, everyone. We’re all just making it up as we go. Anyway, go along. Yes.
DARREN 4:09
Can you see it play out within a professional context. And also in a personal context, like I told you remember being the child at family functions, and your parents were like the adults, and then there were grandparents lying around. And now you go home, and it’s your parents and the grandparents and you’re starting to lose them. Some of us are lucky enough to still have grandparents but they’re definitely off in a corner somewhere. And then their kids running around and these kids aren’t grown kids anymore. They’re like they’re almost grown themselves.
RHEA 4:36
Oh my gosh, wait, Darren, can I pause you there recently went to the breakthrough gala that organization that you and I Yeah. I knew them as 12 year olds, they’re 23 they’re drinking wine. They’re working for Goldman Sachs. I was like, what? Wait, wait, I couldn’t borrow. Then you’re like, Well, you know,
DARREN 4:52
I’m in Boston for work and I’m having dinner tonight. With my best friend from college. The guy that I met the first day when I arrived in the dorms of hour, This is a random guy for South Carolina. We I was coming in from New Orleans, none of us had new anybody has dropped us off. It was like good luck. And we’ve been friends ever since. I’m having dinner tonight with his daughter who’s a freshman at Harvard. Right? What? Like this is the plan child with record, no accident. See, right. This is Mary, after grad school child was cool as adult. Right. and wonderful. He was this wonderful being glad. And so I think that the context there is that you realize that you’re aging and the role that you’re playing in the work itself. I think what I’m also realizing very clearly, is that you grew up, and you were formed in a very specific context from a work perspective and from a world perspective. And so another example of that, like hits close to home for me is that I’m out in California and my brothers in Atlanta, my sister in Charlotte.
DARREN 5:48
And we were home about a year or so ago in New Orleans and from New Orleans, like seventh generation was native like I was going in rural since forever. 1791. And we were home for a trip to New Orleans. And my mother’s so proud of her. Well, the city’s time. And Grace is doing really well, economically. It’s bounced back amazingly, since Katrina, which seems like a long time ago as well. And I think that also means that it’s it looks different. And so my mother wants us to brag about the city. Because she wants solid come home. It’s all good mothers too. And my sister I look up we’re lucky in the city looks great, but it is so white and wrong spills whiter than any bras I’ve ever known before.
DARREN 6:20
And my mother says that skipping a beat. Yes, it now feels like the city I grew up in. And it’s I mean, it’s like jarring because I grew up in an 80% black and white because all the white people left in a moment we’re gonna see that was like 50%, black, maybe 45%. And this is obviously a very vibrant and present black community, but it was not the majority of the city. And the perfect example of that is that we all know the Knights What is this neighborhood that was affected by Katrina, this black neighborhood, working class black neighborhood generational black wealth that was there a worthless perspective. We also started roping britches was the black girl disagreed of a school in the Ninth Ward.
DARREN 6:56
It was a black girl segregating an all white school in the all white neighborhood that was the ninth ward in the 60s. My mother is the same age as mortgages. Right? And so she has a very different perspective on the world and the place. And I never realized how much my 20 years left once I was 17. But how that period really formed her perspective on space and place that sits with me, that may shift and how other people may grow up places where those things are shifted as well. Like we joke is Gen Xers. Or we’ve seen all these cities, gentrified, right, or I call it I don’t like these words, gentrify, call it suburbanization because basically America was white folks coming from the suburbs and living in cities like never lived in cities before I don’t know was how cities function and screaming about noises love to the city.
DARREN 7:36
And but what happens when you’ve actually grown up? And those gentrified spaces, right? And your sense of DC is the you street and Shaw that I knew when I was in DC, and the night is, but a fully gentrified, DC, right? Where Shaw’s is old school, wealthy, black neighbor, me. So all these things bring perspectives and normalizations of narratives that shift across the work. And what we’re talking earlier, we were talking about, really the importance of honoring the generational shifts. I think that we’re having a huge generational shift within the workplace right now. And we’re seeing and I’m gonna be very candid here.
DARREN 8:14
We’re seeing baby boomers are finally stepping down. God bless them. I don’t know why they won’t work this hard for this long. But they’re finally stepping down from the wall and Ico because the Gen XOR. That it’s the millennials. So stepping into power, right? Like they’re the next generation of leaders within organizations themselves. And as a Gen X, imagine this baton being passed. And my job is just to make sure that petard has not dropped. I tried to hold up Assange annex does not want to be here. We really don’t want to be here. But we have to just the way the numbers work and the generational we have to work for some years and leadership roles. Right.
DARREN 8:46
And so we’re thinking about really how do we and also to generally think very differently. Let’s pause here because I think it’s really interesting. Do you think Gen X as a identity crisis? Like what’s it for Gen X or to do it’s record Gen X does not have identity crisis? GeneXus by completely fine. I think that genetics has done X has been overlooked for so long. We are so bad with being overlooked. We have no problems with that.
RHEA 9:10
Are we like the middle children of the generational family.
DARREN 9:14
With the middle child? I think they were the neighbor Shelton’s invited to dinner. And but I do think that generic couples are specific and an interesting spot in the sense that Gen X as a generation has always served at the will of another generation. Right? When we were young professionals, we served at the will a big wars. We were all groomed under baby boomers, but the baby boomers needed. Like we have a sense we’ve normalized it since leadership that comes to Baby Boomers. Right? We then are now in a space we’re actually serving at the will of millennials, and Gen Z folks. And what that means is that, interestingly enough, you work in spaces where their demands from a work perspective that are seemingly, yes, I guess they’re fine demands. I don’t think that generations like mappers realized how
DARREN 9:59
How much the workplace is shifted? And how sincerely we as Gen Xers have tried to shape workplaces that do not repeat the toxic work environments that we worked at. And so this is where you’ll hear people mumble about, let’s say Bridgespan. But in different places where you work consultant perspective, oh, the workspace feels toxic. And as ohana, you don’t know what toxic work environment, I got toxic for you. Right? This is so the opposite of toxic to some degree. But it’s all about perspectives. Right. And so I think that there’s something to be said about how do we both as a generation, acknowledge and celebrate the progress we’ve made from a leadership perspective from an organizational perspective, at the same time, realizing that we’re still on a path to developing a more critical, more engaged work environment.
RHEA 10:45
So just I want to pause here because I’m full disclosure, I am at the tail end of Gen X. I have feelings about the young people I think about Chuck Klosterman book about the 90s, where he says every generation feels that the generation that comes after them is lazier and softer. And he’s like, that’s a good thing. Because we’ve created the context and the conditions by which their worlds are actually easier. And so it would be a problem if they were harder than we were. So I was like, Okay, that’s a good perspective. But I want to talk here about an I’m just gonna say like data point of one, but I felt really confused by my younger staff, because I was like, I feel like you’re asking me to do all of these things.
RHEA 11:27
Therapist, mom, whatever, I’m your boss, like I, I cannot be responsible for your emotional well being. And yet I also feel like with this, there’s like a therapy, creep, therapy speak, creep into the workplace, like, I feel triggered, and I feel whatever and I’m just I can’t, I am here to be a boss, to you. And to tell you what to do. I am not here to be your mom or your therapist or all the things. So no question here is what is happening?
DARREN 11:54
What is happening so I can tell you my perspective, once again, and no one, right my perspective on things and what the perspective I’m sharing with you is I am sharing how to move through the current situation, right? And so we can have another conversation with cocktails about because it’s a lot it can feel like gaslighting to me, although like, I have never felt like a Republican more than in conversations with young new staff where like, I’m from New Orleans, I’m out in California. And But literally, sometimes the questions or requests and some people have very vivid examples having conversations with someone about an organizational dress code, right. And they were oh, what’s our organizational dress code does artificial dress code is very straightforward.
DARREN 12:39
There’s two principles business casual and dress the master formality of the ply, playground a jacket wear a jacket. If the client is wearing T shirts and flip flops, our rates are a bit too high and be walking around and T shirts and flip flops. I was just the Polo and running shoes. And the client was in the consultant or the associate consultant was asking from a an equity perspective is a BT Latin member of the group, right which I lead our affinity group on the ask What advise assist male or male presenting what to wear dress two o’clock meeting. And I was like, once again, our dress code is business casual, and dress the master formula, the client, I would suggest Glenda NCL are not forever 21 That’s just me as a gay guy giving you sort of oral advice, the dress code doesn’t really have any perspective on that.
DARREN 13:19
And the pushback was we don’t really feel as if this dress code encourages us to live into our gender identity and gives us full permission to do that. And this is where I realized it was such a complete shift. Because when I’m sitting around being like, I’m gonna tell you this, but you’re coming out of college where you just paid someone for four years to affirm your identity. You had a workspace where we painted look developed deliverables, and we want you to be affirmed in your identity to develop better deliverables, but we’re not in the identity affirming business. And as I’m saying, like, look, what kind of Republicans do I see?
RHEA 13:52
I know, Ben yet, it’s like I had to like, burn now that’s gonna like devolve, but like I had to explain to a staffer way. Tights were not appropriate as pants, like, and particularly on a day to that the board was coming into the office for a board meeting. I was like, I get this just I don’t know how to explain to you that tights are not pants.
DARREN 14:13
I don’t know. I do wonder though, how much of that is talked about what we’ve normalized as good management and good leadership is not the same for different generation. And how was requested of us may in some ways, trigger things that we should be talking about with our therapists. Right. So for me, genetics, my parents basically went to work and dropped me off and my grandparents were are watched Sesame Street. And Mr. Rogers, and my mother calls us all the time to figure it out. Figure it out, yourself generation. We had to figure all this stuff out on our own, you know, like your parents would offer. I wouldn’t call it advice. I wouldn’t call it guidance. They offered encouragement. Right? I’m sure you’ll figure it out. That’s my mother’s advice for everything. Oh, tough choices. Sleep on it. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. And but that’s it. We
DARREN 14:59
We became parents that were very directive, right? That were very hands on. And that, whereas we found power in ambiguity and space, this generation and I’m speaking in brushstrokes for the sake of conversation, obviously, because there are exceptions and every rule, right, they want to see things they need very, they need clarity, in a way that we’re not used to giving, and even feel gaslighted to give this, what do you mean? I don’t know, figure it out. There’s actually no, let’s stop and think about what is triggering, and to how that may in some ways, be a gift of this generation, because I think it forces us to codify how we think about things, and the work itself. And so that’s one when I think to do something around that piece.
DARREN 15:43
I do think there’s interestingly enough, and this is where I also feel gaslit particularly with something like the dress code, like asking as a queer person, how do we engage the dress code, you are talking to a partner that on any given client meeting, maybe wearing a captain, or a bow, like bull on bluffs. And so for you to be talking, asking me about, like the dress code in a way as if I’m like, pushing a problematic dress code is do you see read the room, right? And it’s very easy, it makes you feel like the man all of a sudden. And it also doesn’t recognize the fact that yes, our dress code has two tenants because lesbians and navies have fought this fight for you.
DARREN 16:25
The dress codes used to be extremely directed, right? Like women wore pantyhose and skirts and heels and even when pant suits. Right. And so you’re fighting where there’s no pain? Yeah, yeah, fight with us. No fight. Save your energy for real fight here. Okay, wait, so it’s a generation that really wants to engage and really wants to fight with fighting in the wrong way in mind. You ever gaslighting well?
RHEA 16:49
Oh, yeah, so many things that I also want to talk about, I’m just gonna say, turning into this the weaponization of race.
DARREN 16:57
Oh my goodness, the weaponization of race. Let’s stop there for a second. So I do think we see across the sector. And I’m gonna be very candid from a racial perspective, I think that we see particularly within organizations that actually may not be the most diverse organizations, where organizations have made huge leaps, and cutting people of color, particularly black women, and leadership roles, right to Lee. And now we have junior staff, particularly white junior staff, hijacking movement language against their black manager. And this is like, what the? Are you talking to me about equity? And are you talking like what? Like, get Tumba gaslighting you just sit back and look, we excuse me? Right?
DARREN 17:45
What rabbit hole did I just fall through? But do your waitstaff person, I’ve seen this in organizations as junior waitstaff person asking why aren’t their lived experiences being appreciated? Well, first of all, what lived experiences like that, that internship in college only counts for so much? And also like your Are you discounting our lived experiences as folks of color, who are also in leadership roles as the professional like I also have, I’m a partner, not percent, but I was life experiences of some of that to like that when you’re talking about this mystery man behind the curtain, that that mystery man is me. And when and when you act as if that mystery man has some white guy like you’re racing me. You’re racing the and so your acts of equity are actually a fully ratio of people of color who have fought hard to be in leadership positions. You’re questioning leadership. Now, there’s a person of color and a leadership role. Right? It’s just white supremacy, showing up in a different way.
RHEA 18:46
I’m so glad you said I actually, when I was an ED, I had a young woman leave the organization. In her exit interview. She was like, I just really don’t. I can’t be in an organization where the executives are white. And I was like, Excuse me. I mean, I couldn’t. Yeah, and she didn’t see me. And I think as an Asian person in America, it’s interesting to try to carve out a space in a dialogue that it seems so black or white, and the assumptions that she made about me being Asian and like my adjacency to white anyway.
DARREN 19:24
The whole What about is that right? So you get it as an Asian person. You get a you’re black, but you’re gay. Right? And as a gay person, you have weight which we’ll hold on a second. What come again, you’re talking about black women in the space and you’re talking with a white woman. He says Yeah, but you’re a guy. And you’re like, okay, yes. And come on. Now we know why women’s didn’t look problematic, right, this whole issue. So let’s get it together here. So I think that there’s the What about ism but I think that the What about ism is basically a way of discounting who you are erasing who you are, and more importantly, forcing that person into the role like the critical world they shouldn’t necessarily be in something
DARREN 20:00
there’s that piece, I think there’s also a language around. So to two other points I want to drop, then we can have a full conversation, I think there is this push for, let me put it this way, we want to move towards a more equitable space, I think that we don’t quite have a sense of what that should look like. And as a result, we’re pushing on things that are tried mechanisms for equity within that necessarily where equity should live out. So I think that there’s you see it around the flattening of organizations, right, that people don’t like hierarchy, I totally get the idea of hierarchy being problematic, particularly when you have when the people at the top are pale male and steel, right? The way we’ve tried to navigate that is that by putting more people of color in leadership positions, and now that we actually have a goodwill color in leadership positions, we’re not giving them space to lead, right?
DARREN 24:45
Right, we have come into power critiquing, we have come into power falling out white supremacist institutions for what’s white supremacists? Are we give them space to not be anti something all the time to talk about what the anti world like, what’s the opposite of anti this? And what not the opposite of anti this, but what does that look like from a positive perspective? Like, what does it look like to be anti racist? And we were you’re still not using racism is your counter, right? What is the opposite of that? What is the liberated world look like? Yeah, and I love that. We’re all because I see all the time. And particularly within my podcasts, the easiest way to disrupt a broken narrative is to create one and sell one that is more compelling and more beautiful.
DARREN 25:40
And so what is that beautiful, compelling narrative that we’re telling, that drowns out the broken one in a way that we don’t even refer to it anymore? The new one. And I also just want to pause here, because I think to around the tendency to like, focus on the minutia, without seeing the big picture, like I’m thinking of a colleague of mine, who, as a white woman was like, What do I say, when my largely staff of color tells me that deadlines are white supremacist? I don’t know what you don’t know, you say that. This is one that this is actually you’re like, you’re gonna trigger me with that when this bowl, I was in a conversation with someone that I love actually argued for is on our podcast. And it was totally towards the end of the podcast.
DARREN 26:26
And so really, you know what it’s like when it’s Oh, someone says something like, like it’s fully engaged in that? Well, we got two minutes, right. And so I didn’t really get into the conversation. But he was talking about his team, talking about deadlines, being white supremacist, this idea of or even internalized capitalism. Right. And I was like, I wouldn’t you can capitalism way too much credit here, right? Being efficient, actually driving impact like that, that for us capitalists, right are respecting some degree of urgency in the work. And no one’s saying that you should be upset in emails at midnight, right? Some people need a response at 130. But it’s completely fine to have some sense of deadlines in the walk, because you have to keep the work moving. Right.
DARREN 27:07
And you have to respect other people’s time as well. We’re all working with time restraints, right. And so I think that we haven’t figured out how to negotiate that in a way that doesn’t force us back to the same old narratives that don’t really get at what we’re getting at. I think there’s an also some of us who just faster and more efficient than others, right? Like how do we respond to people of color, that are faster, more efficient, and quick thinkers? Right? It’s almost like the stop talking white, right? So it will roll back for a second, right? That’s just how I am. That’s how I navigate and so how do you, I want to respect what you bring into the conversation, but also how to respect what I bring to the conversation. And I recognize we had this all the time within the work itself.
DARREN 27:42
And the service is very proud extrovert, right? I think you want to be able to think about how do you respect folks that are extroverts and whatnot, as well as respect folks that are introverts and not let you know, this is another conversation, but not let that be the norm. So you definitely have to figure out how some folks may be rewarded more than others, and how do you Lapworth rewarding around other groups, but also let’s not punish people for those things, or call those things non equity or non bipoc things? Because it’s such like, we’re a diverse group of people with diverse needs and experiences. And so how do we actually live it’s that in a way that makes sense, and it’s powerful. And so with that, I think that the work does have to become quite personalized. Right.
DARREN 28:20
And we saw this I saw an organization where they were trying to figure out the work from home, the work in the office, so a lot going on, we’ll try to we are let’s stop for a moment to capture the moment that we’re in. We’re gonna do some bullshit right now. Just for the record. We live we had four years of a presidency that was at its best at the shrine. Right? That’s the most charitable word I can call it. This is a president that need Reagan seem like a saint. Right in it and I’m not gonna but anytime books are out here, romanticize romanticizing Reagan, who was basically the devil, right? If you’re out, romanticizing Reagan, you can imagine how bad the person followed by three years of COVID. And I don’t know what’s going on with COVID now, and then, honestly, I just was so fatigued. I thought all the rules I’ve had, like, I’m nginx itself by boosters, right?
DARREN 29:07
And then fall and then within Wira will, as civil rights movement will have really look back and realize that we had all symbols, alright, so but Right, yeah, 2021 where the narrative shifted tremendously. We haven’t given ourselves credit for the narrative shift. That happened, I think about within my work and Blanford be this idea of having a philanthropic rebellion that only funded people of color in 2019 was radical as hell. Red was out. It took so much work to push that through. Now, it’s like commonplace. The narrative has shifted. Right. This pushback, obviously, there’s always pushback was the mom always says If Florida is creating a law against it, the ship has sailed and we want to get first dossier gag. We’re also engaged with it like it’s over with and it’s I think that we’re living through a period of transition with a generational shift with the level of insert
DARREN 29:59
to end with a higher bar around what work and equity and happiness looks like. So it’s chaos. And I would add with the inclusion of media and the the fear of saying anything because he will be canceled. Yeah, on social media. So like we we haven’t even given our space, ourselves space to make mistakes. And I’m not making excuses. It’s at that point. And that meant earlier, I think that he’s around not having space to make mistakes, it’s krill. And you asked, like, how do you support millennial leaders, we have to give them safe spaces to feel. Because I know as a professional, that I grew the most with failures, right? It’s when something goes completely wrong, that you learn the most, and you learn what not to repeat, right?
DARREN 30:55
And we’ve created a culture where success comes from constant winning, right? I’ve done exact was supposed to do in the form the performance development, like a topic to get a promotion. Right. And I know that I’ve grown the most when I failed miserably. It was expected performance developer perspective, right? Like, we all joke like I still do spell check specifically for the Word template. Because I then like I’ve seen on a dock where I forgot that L. Right. And
DARREN 31:24
then logic didn’t catch it. Right. And certainly that is a small, silly example. But like, we all know, there are things that traumatize us. And so I think there’s something to be said about how do we get all the space to feel and we don’t have a culture that allows people to steal at that we also, we live in a eight man culture as well, from a social media perspective. And where there isn’t a shared that there’s there’s always with assets and growth areas, there’s some liabilities, I think that social media has given space for will find communities that they didn’t have before. And so you can be that gay black boy living in some small town in Arkansas.
DARREN 32:02
And you may not have friends in your neighborhood these days. I’m sure you do, right, because the world has changed there too. But but you can find someone across the country that’s in your community, you can normally there’s space for you to normalize who you are and with powerful. That said, there’s also space with that, for folks to normalize very abnormal and problematic ways of living. Because just because you can find some bananas person across the country who thinks that your unique box eight is normal, you can all of a sudden have a community around just really warped perspectives. And so we’re seeing particularly joked earlier about this growing up eugenics, that we should be called the Sesame Street generation. Because our parents sit us down in front of Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and we thought that was normal. We really we thought we were everybody. And wearing natural hair, and singing songs. That was shit was radical. That was radical. And so
DARREN 32:55
yeah, so we’ve normalized Centerbridge breakdown. That was a radical thing. Radical, normalized. Totally rubbish. Yeah. Yeah, we normalize that. So at some point, you look up and you’re like, Oh, my God, America is really not changing. You know, what’s going on around you like No, actually, you are the one living in a Truman Show. Yeah, you’re on what America has always done.
RHEA 33:15
And I just want to pause there too, because I think that there’s something in the I don’t want to make this into like millennial bashing. But there’s something about attributing being uncomfortable with being harmed. And that is not the same thing. There are points in my life that I was deeply uncomfortable. And that’s where they had the most growth, that’s when I was forced to be outside of my learning, only comes through discomfort. So how can we help them make that distinction of just because you’re uncomfortable does not mean you’re being harmed? Yeah, I joke all the time. This is we’re talking about having to put on a therapist hat anytime they aren’t putting on a therapist hat situations there.
RHEA 33:52
And as soon as a husband who is a trained therapist, right, but I think that very often when I’m talking with folks, both within organization and moreso, outside of I have to stop and ask them. Are you struggling with axial anxiety right now? Or are you struggling with onwy? Are you anxious? Are you warmed? Are you just bored? Or unsettled? There are differences there. It’s almost like when you go to a doctor’s office, and I like on a scale of one to 10, like where are you from pain perspective, right? And I’m always like, I don’t want to I’m not feeling any pain. There’s some people that are naturally adding to eat. They just feel like there’s a need, like everything, getting the stop and actually think about where they are, I think is really important because I think people need to have really be able to calibrate their levels of feelings around situations as well. I think it’s also and this is one that I really struggle with. Because I think that we as a generation has to be able to make it clear to folks that life is a series of making shit up. Right? We’re all making it up as we go along without erasing our wisdom
DARREN 35:00
and knowledge and skills that we have. Right? So I think we are just thinking up, we do have a bigger sack of tricks to pull from. In making it up, we’ve seen things, we’ve lived things. And so we’re all throwing stuff at a wall, we just have a whole bigger bag of spaghetti to direct the wall to see what sticks. And that’s a complicated because there’s a level of humility and saying, oh, no, I really don’t like what I’m doing it, I don’t know, what you do, intuitively, you have some sense of what you’re doing and how to navigate a situation you’re expertly skilled at being able to read the room, understand people understand their starting points, you’ve seen enough people that you know, have a very different set of started, once you understand how the person is processing the world, and you making it up with those pieces in mind, but your assessment skills are just stronger.
RHEA 35:41
And the pattern recognition is stronger, like just based on experience, like literally just being on the planet longer and seeing more of these sorts of situations happen. My my pattern recognition feels tell me it’s gonna go this way.
DARREN 35:54
Maxing out our recognition skills are on point, particularly as people of color and people from marginalized groups have to be able to walk into a room and suss it out. That there’s a reason that black people can tell give leveling of your blackout. And try and see enter, don’t do this. Because if you’re not black, but if you go to a white restaurant, and you see another black person in there, you can very easily walk up to that black person and ask them what’s the black now. And they will tell you how many black people in that room, we’ve all done it. So I think that we’re able to see and also like are all skin poking canceled, you can tell if they’re if they’re your people as well.
DARREN 36:33
And so I think there we have a certain set of skills from assessment perspective that are true skills that we’ve gained intuitively. But art is being able to give people an ability to learn those skills, one, respect those skills, and then be able to unpack how you learn those skills in a way that doesn’t diminish the importance of those skills and doesn’t diminish the things that you develop from intuitive perspective. And so I think that you know why I, as we talked about this talk budget Z, as Gen X and Gen Z, millennials, there’s some stuff going on millennials, but hell and this modern Millennials are allies, because Gen Z, I really don’t it’s going on. And I think we all will just retire before they actually hit the marketplace. It also, yeah, it makes me realize, like, I’m gonna eat your account down. I’m trying to be out. Like,
DARREN 37:20
I’m not trying to be working at 85, like these baby boomers. Right. And so I think that it’s really a question of how do we, the answer from a managing Gen Z perspective is rely on millennials to manage them? Because they’re closer and closer and thinking, so how do we get done the management skills to deal with Gen Z, because my Gen X is definitely should not be doing it.
RHEA 37:41
I am with you. And it made me think that there might be something interesting, not that I’m asking you to enter this fray. But you know how, like, the skipping the generation often works that you have, like grandparents and grandchildren getting along much better than like the parents and the children. So I’m just wondering if there’s a world where we are able to codify the wisdom and the mentorship without, frankly, the headache, I like to say about my nieces and nephews, all the fun, none of the responsibility, like how do we get all the fun, but none of the responsibility when it comes to these Gen Z babies who need to get raised up?
DARREN 38:12
Yeah, yes, when I present, I also wonder how many of us that are gen X, technically who I don’t our parents were baby boomers. As black folks, I think so many of us were actually raised by our grandparents, who were a very different generation in a very different context. And so as a result, like we actually had almost an antiquated, in a good way, right? We have a very different way of seeing the world and respect in the world. And we also have an appreciation for older folks, is generational learning in a way that was not interpreted or learned by the current generation ends. But I think with all of this stuff, the answer becomes really trying to figure out what are the assets that people who are working with? And how do you honor those? How do you honor how you honor those assets in a way that they may be gaslighting at times.
DARREN 38:52
It is what they have to work with. And so we have to figure out, this is what’s in their cabinet. From my perspective, we cannot force them to cook from recipe. That way, they don’t even have the ingredients, what do they have, that they can work with, because we bout to be held. And particularly I think leaves of color. We have to think about success, not just within our generation, but generations to come. As we have to think about the long game and how we’re preparing people to exercise leadership in the long game. And yeah, so I think.
RHEA 39:25
That’s such a generous perspective, because I’m like, Ah, your house is on fire I’ve ever had to be out. Be involved. Don’t call me. Yeah, no, but I think that’s right. Darren, this has been so fun.
DARREN 39:35
I’m gonna do an invocation. But I’ll give you a benediction at this one. And this is one that I return to all the time as a reminder of my ancestral obligations as James Baldwin nothing is fixed. Nothing is fixed forever and forever is not fixed. Earth is always shifting the light is always changing the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born and we’re responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have the sea rises the light the hills, lovers can teach other children
DARREN 40:00
And to us, the moment we cease to hold each other the scene goal says and the light goes out. So through all of this in the triggering, we have to hold each other and we have to support each other in the work because that’s where the answer comes the live into it.
RHEA 40:12
Stop it and it’s gonna be a bumpy ride but thank you, Darren. This has been awesome as always a will make sure that your information about your podcast and about you are in the show notes. Always good to see you, my friend.
DARREN 40:23
Good to see you. Thanks for this is wonderful.
DARREN 40:26
Bye
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