Amanda Schneider - Work for What's Next (Part 2)

If your workplace culture feels tense, fragile, or weirdly stuck, it might not be a motivation problem at all. It might be a communication and unlearning problem and it shows up fastest in the gap between Gen Z, millennials, and the leaders still running on yesterday’s playbook. Sara Best sits down with Amanda Schneider, author of Work for What’s Next, in Part 2 of her TBC interview to talk about why culture is failing and what it takes to rebuild trust and performance without turning the workplace into a battle of generations.

• Click HERE for Part 1 of Amanda's episode on TBC
• Click HERE for Amanda's Book, Work for What's Next: Why Workplace Culture is Failing and How the Next Generation Can Fix it
• Click HERE for Amanda's TedX presentation
• Click HERE for Amanda's LinkedIn profile
• Click HERE for the Design Nerds Anonymous episode with Mark McCrindle

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Transcript

Welcome Back And Sponsor

Sara Best 0:12

Hey friends in The Bosshole Transformation Nation. Welcome back to part two of our episode interviewing Amanda Schneider. Focus on her book, Work for What's Next, Why Workplace Culture is Failing, and How the Next Generation Can Fix It. I hope you were able to listen to part one, and you were riveted because part two is even better. So let's dig in.

Announcer 0:40

The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode.

Bridging The Generational Gap

Amanda Schneider 1:03

What we see though is a lot of millennials in Gen Z either aren't ready or they don't feel ready or some combination of both. We need to get that wisdom that is leaving at an unprecedented rate talking to these people that aren't ready or don't feel ready, you know, whether they recognize they have an issue or not. How do we bridge those gaps and get these people with fundamentally different operating systems talking to one another?

Sara Best 1:25

Yeah.

Amanda Schneider 1:25

That's where the book focuses and really try to give you a lot of structures, frameworks, and literally tactical things to try to figure out what works for your organization and what doesn't. And I think where a lot of organizations are getting this wrong is they think it can happen at off-site. They think we can, you know, do this thing and have an event. It's it's going to be a lot more like a diet and exercise plan.

Sara Best 1:48

Well, and I think that brings to mind this question then. What do we do if there the appetite or maybe appetite isn't the word, but the endurance? Like what if what if people in my generation, which is Gen X and Boomers and others don't want to or aren't willing to build the muscles needed to do this work?

Amanda Schneider 2:11

I mean, I I just I think it's a choice. You know, in parenting, we have hard consequences. And I think, you know, leadership is probably gonna have to learn some lessons the hard way. I was just recently speaking at a conference, and the audience was largely um of a single gender, of a single ethnicity, um, of a single age group. And you can probably guess all of those things um by what I'm saying. And we got to the end of the presentation. If you've read any of the book, you know that it's really presenting the kind of the Gen Z point of view as a fresh lens on a new way to work at uh look at things. And um a person in the audience said at the very end, he said, uh, this sounds like you are, you know, telling us how to think like them. Um, who's teaching them the way things are done? And I looked at him um and I said, Well, are you short of ideas of what to teach the youngest intermits? And he said, Absolutely not. And I said, Well, are they hearing you? And he said, No. And I said, Well, there's your problem. So you can have all the ideas in the world, but if people aren't hearing you, then we have a communication problem. So and it's a great friend of mine, Mojia Kinde, uh, full credit to her. My favorite quote that I've heard is, Do you want to be right or do you want to make change?

Sara Best 3:36

Yeah.

Amanda Schneider 3:36

So I think to any leaders that think that they don't have to change, like you can be right, you may be right. Well done. But you're gonna choose the consequences if you want to make change or if you just want to be right.

Choosing Change Over Being Right

Sara Best 3:49

That's so powerful. I know that uh many of us human beings, uh we're unaware that we live this way, but we we live in this sort of to me consciousness. Uh Jim Dethmer talks about this in in his work, uh, the the 15 commitments of conscious leadership. But when you're in a to me state, you are technically below the line, activated, triggered, committed to being right, you know, having a posture, if you will, and and unknowingly organizing all your facts and everything that you view and see to support that posture. And I think that is probably more people than I would hope. There's a lot of us that are working hard to be in by me consciousness. In other words, at choice, the choice you're describing here. And I just think this is such an important message and opportunity for our listeners. I tend to, I have a story in my head that says many of our listeners are people that have to deal with boss holes and that and they're just, you know, hungry for ideas and thoughts. And maybe it's a little encouraging to say I'm not the only one. But if there are leaders out there who are really listening to this, could they appreciate and understand that there is a choice? Like you are responsible for the choice, and maybe they need a little encouragement. You know what? It doesn't maybe feel like you have what it takes. And instead of admitting that or being worried about that, you maybe posture and say, this isn't the right thing to do, and I'm the boss and this is the way it's gonna be. But no, you really do have you are capable of so much more than you know. And that choice, that ability to put your pride and ego aside, to get off it, you know, that to to recognize that analog is ridiculously out of date, but it's all we know how to do, uh, and that there is a better and different way. Wow. I mean, I think that's so cool. And it's this day and age where if you don't do that, I don't think you're gonna survive. Your organization may have some success, but it's not sustainable. But the empathy, the psychological safety that we have to create to be that learning organization, to be in the space of what can we create? If you're not willing to do what you need to do to build it, I would say maybe hit the road now. Okay, that's pretty sharp, but what are your thoughts?

Amanda Schneider 6:14

What

Unlearning Old Rules To Innovate

Amanda Schneider 6:15

are your thoughts? Uh I I mean, I agree with you. I think what's happening is is the people with those mindsets are going to be outmoded. They may already be, they just don't know it yet. So, you know, I I I would say Deb Golden wrote the foreword to the book. Deb is the chief innovation officer at Deloitte.

Sara Best 6:32

Yes.

Amanda Schneider 6:33

Uh runs a massive, massive business unit. And one of my favorite lines in there is, you know, innovation it rarely solves because of lack of new ideas, but rather the inability to let go of the old ones. And and I think that that is a really powerful message. If you watch her TEDx talk, it's all around kind of rethinking and unlearning, which I think is one of the most challenging things to do. And actually, when she interviewed me to write the foreword, the the the hardest question anyone has ever asked me in any of these interviews was what is one of these rules that you are struggling, Amanda, to let go of? It was like, oh, geez, there's a lot of them. There's a lot of them because it's really hard when you've grown up with certain norms to recognize that maybe this isn't normal or it doesn't have to be. And and we could let go of that. And and I can't tell you how many, you know, texts I got from early reviewers that were like, this really pisses me off. And here's the 10 reasons why this pisses me off. But as I get past it, I kind of want that too, you know. Um and so, so I think, you know, what my hope for this book is we did in 2020, we did um a lot of um research on behalf of the black community for the interior design industry, which was really important with everything going on with George Floyd and what was happening at

How To Reach Stuck Leaders

Amanda Schneider 7:52

that moment. Yes. Um, for you know, the interior design industry has uh historically just existed in a very monochromatic sphere, if you will.

Sara Best 8:02

Sure.

Amanda Schneider 8:02

And one of the most impactful moments from that research was we have to stop calling it DEI because when you put it in conference room D and you call it DEI, um, the people that most need to hear it don't show up. Um you have to put it on the main stage and you have to make it sound universal appealing, or the people that need to hear it most won't show up. And I think that that is, you know, like this but different. I don't want to compare it to that because it's, you know, there's there's a lot of emotions there that that I'm still learning about because they're not my lived experience. Sure. But in the same way, we have to get this message in front of leaders that need to hear it the most. And our, you know, this is what we do at Think Lab at at my company is is we often say that line from my big fat Greek wedding, um, uh, be the neck that turns the head. Yes. Um, so this is uh it's a it's a scene in my big fat Greek wedding where um, you know, the mother is trying to convince the father of something and she says the man, he is the head of the household, but the woman, she is the neck and the neck can turn the head. Um I think when I walk into rooms like the one at the conference that I was describing, if I was to wag my finger and give everyone the checklist of what they need to do to fix this problem, I don't think they would do it.

Sara Best 9:17

Right.

Amanda Schneider 9:17

But if we can set up the tension, you know, and I often start my talks with a game of would you rather, you know, like one of my favorite ones to start with is would you rather jump ahead 10 years or go back to the way things were 10 years ago. And most people, the majority of people pick jump ahead 10 years. Then we get them talking about their challenges with Gen Z. And they're like, this is awful, that's awful, everything is awful, right? So okay, you want to jump ahead 10 years, but this isn't good right now. How do we fix that gap? That's an example of being the neck that turns the head and we show them some data and some research that could help them move from here to here, but they still have to be the one to make the choices to do the work.

Hannah On Gen Z Support

Amanda Schneider 9:55

Hannah, let's bring you back into this conversation. I'm curious, as I talk about all this, I think one of the most interesting things um in our ongoing Gen Z research, the research from this year is we surveyed, we have um, so for us, it's looking at the interior design industry. And we have a dozen hand-selected Gen Zers that are part of our Gen Z cohort. And we have a dozen um leaders that are basically champions for those Gen Zers within their firms. So they, the champions say, these are the challenges for our firms, and then we brainstorm a Gen Z how to solve it. And the champions help them, you know, socialize those and integrate them. It's really getting these, you know, these dialogue going. We did a survey to kick off that work, and one of the most shocking things was we were asking something very industry specific about selecting product. And 70% of our Gen Z cohort said, uh, nothing I know at all. And that was shocking to the cohort. They were like, What were we smoking that day? We must have been having a really good day. I don't know. Um, but it was really shocking to the champions too, and I think highlights that sometimes Gen Z doesn't know what they don't know. As you hear me and your mom talking here, like what where does this strike you? Like, what shocks you about this conversation?

Hannah Best 11:06

Well, it's interesting, I feel like a lot of the conversations around generations that I'm involved in, they a lot of the time they highlight what Gen Z can do or can bring to kind of combat some of the beliefs that Gen Z is lazy or they they don't want to be imperfection or they don't want to work. Um so to me, I I get kind of lost in the sauce sometimes because the way I've experienced um Gen Z is that there's a need for a great deal of support when they get into the workplace. And I'm not sure if that stems from maybe just some part of our childhood growing up, some of those defining moments in our world in our history where political unrest, lots of things going on where there's just maybe a little bit of extra support needed or wanted. Um but I have heard on occasion that there's this kind of a pump the break at when I get there, when I get in the door, like I have the ability to put an impact or put a thumbprint on right away, which I think is a is a good thing. I want thoughts to be shared and for those thoughts of Gen Z to be listened to as well. But I don't often hear or have conversations where we get to hear from the other generations. Like it's mostly like Gen Z, what what do you think here or um what could we do different? But almost by asking that sometimes I feel like we missed the opportunity to learn from the older generation. I'm not sure if that thought came full circle, but I do think it's interesting. A lot of the conversations I've had center on Gen Z instead of maybe enlightening Gen Z in some ways. And I'm not sure if that's shown up in some of the research to what you've heard from Gen Z D as well, but that's what I what I've experienced so far.

Fast Change And The Mental Load

Amanda Schneider 12:51

I would say first and foremost, that means you work in a good place where they're trying to listen to you. But I would say, you know, if you find yourself in those conversations again, you know, go back to these business challenges. I think that starting with these business challenges is really, you know, a great point because we don't know what we know. Sometimes, you know, it's uh Donald Miller calls it the bias of knowledge, right? Like we we've just been living this life this this whole time. It's just the air that we breathe. And so this is why I like starting with those business challenges, because I think if we can name what those challenges are, it gives you maybe something that you can help solve. And, you know, I think that this is interesting to me because I was a new entrant to the workforce at one time. And and I didn't know what I didn't know, you know, but the difference for your generation is I think things weren't moving as fast as they are right now.

Sara Best 13:42

Yeah.

Amanda Schneider 13:42

And I think that that's a piece of what's so overwhelming. We've gone from a high friction, slow change time period to a low friction, high change. And I think that's what's got everybody worried is are we raising a generation with no grit that can't push through these problems? Like I think it's really that they don't uh everything feels like DEF CON 5, right? Like everything feel or DEF CON 1, I don't know my military terms, but whatever. Like super, super big emergency. Like everything is wrong. There's a great book called Factfulness, it's older book by who's got a German name, Hans somebody, um, that is really uh really interesting um because it talks about although we're feeling all of this panic right now, Hans Rosling. You know, we're feeling all of this panic. And I would say, even in our research, like we started a podcast when all those tariffs started. Like it was like chicken little sky is falling. What's gonna happen? Like with all these tariffs, you know, what is this gonna mean for our industry? You can imagine interior products, like it was a lot. Guess what? Everybody finished the year at or ahead. Now it was a lot of chaos in between, like raise prices, drop prices, like do this, do that, change this, change that. It was a lot of chaos. But in the end, it worked to be at or above. And guess what? For 2026, everyone's also projecting at or above where they were. And so I think, you know, remembering things are getting better and naming what those challenges are in a way that they feel solvable and not overwhelming because some of what is burning everybody out right now is this mental load of not

Why Struggle Is Worth It

Amanda Schneider 15:09

knowing.

Sara Best 15:09

So, Amanda, just have to ask you this is an amazing body of work. What does working for what's next personally mean to you?

Amanda Schneider 15:19

Yeah, I struggled with this question a little bit. I thought about it in advance. And I would say my short answer to that is that my struggles were worth it. Um, you know, I talked about kind of this slow change, high friction world that we're moving from to this fast change, low friction world. And I think that there's a lot of worry that we're raising a generation without grit. Yes. Um, there's a lot of worry because of all of this access and so many options, whether we're talking about, you know, marriage and what it's meaning for the dating world, or whether we're talking about loyalty and what it means for the corporate world. But I think really beautiful things come out of struggle. And I think that as I look at the message in this book, it was really born out of a lived experience that I had trying to navigate a work system as a working mother. And it was a shocking discovery to me to find that a lot of what Gen Z is asking for is so close to what I needed at that time. Again, going back to it's not lowering the bar, it's widening the door. I think a lot of our world is struggling to really rethink and unlearn, let go of some of these norms that they had. And I think that, you know, um what success would look like to me is if in 10 years some of these changes in the book that feel shocking right now are so normal that it feels like, well, no duh. You know, like like I hope that some of this is like like if you think back, like 20 years ago, like we could smoke in restaurants, right? Like that was normal. And now if you saw someone light up in a restaurant, it would be like crazy. Like, what are you doing? There was ashtrays on planes. Does anybody remember that? Like, you know, so my hope is, you know, maybe it's a decade, maybe it's 20 years from now. My hope is a lot of what's in this book seems really obvious in 10 years, but for now, it feels like maybe these challenges that I had were really worth it and and helped create a message now that people can can act on.

Hannah Best 17:18

If I can just add one thing that I'm so glad that's your answer to this question, um, that I think it's helpful for all generations, but especially for Gen Z when now that I'm thinking more about it, and the need to kind of have all the answers and get in the workplace and just assumingly to know that I'm supposed to know what to do. And I think about okay, we have AI, I can ask ChatGPT this, I should know, I should know this. But hearing you say that, I think it's powerful for all generations, but especially Gen Z to know that the heart is good and that when time passes and we struggle through, we find a way, and then we especially find a way when we do it together. So I'm I'm glad to share that with our audience. That's very powerful. Thank you.

Amanda Schneider 18:02

I I love that you picked up on that. And I think that that is, you know, an exciting thing about this book too is this empowerment message is, you know, like Hannah to you and all your generation, like what is hard? What what do you see that's wrong? And and how are you empowered to go about fixing it? You know, because I think that a lot of the beautiful things in life come from struggles. And I think that, you know, things may be moving faster and more frictionless than ever, but there are still things that are fixable.

Sara Best 18:31

Yes. I love that. One last question. Yeah.

Start The Culture Conversation

Sara Best 18:35

So for a boss who's listening, for a leader who's getting it, like, oh my gosh, you know, this is powerful. What's one thing they can do this week to start improving their culture?

Amanda Schneider 18:46

I mean, first of all, of course, invite them to buy the book. Yes, work for what's next, because there's so many ideas in there. It's really hard for me to just narrow it down to one. Um, but I will also say, like, just start the conversation with your team. I think everyone wants a great culture, but culture is the outcome, not the start. And I think that this empowerment issue, while it is a very loud Gen Z issue, what you will find is that, you know, it it's an issue for all generations, right? And you want your people engaged. We're seeing that statistically fall off, you know, two years in a row. We talked about that Gallup survey. It's concerning. And I think that the biggest place that you can start is start by opening the door to the dialogue, start by asking your team, maybe start a book club because there's so many ideas in here. I wish that I had a checklist to give you. And if you do everything in the book, your culture will be magically better. But unfortunately for everybody, it's gonna be diet and exercise and subscribing to the gym without working out there is not gonna fix it for you.

Sara Best 19:48

Yep. There's no Ozempic here. You gotta go do the reps. So good. Wow. We will make sure, Amanda, that people have a link to the book in our show notes, to your TEDx, uh, your TED talk, powerful TED talk. Um, and anything else that we need to make sure they know about you, anything that you've referenced here in the podcast, we'll make sure we link to that. Thank you so much for your insights and for this incredible body of work. And we cannot wait to see where all this goes.

Amanda Schneider 20:15

Wonderful. And thank you so much for including me in this multi-generational conversation. So, Sarah loved your vision and I loved your ideas too. So um, I hope that you guys can put these into practice within your organization too. So, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, thank you so much.

Sara Best 20:29

We'll see you next time on The Boss hole Chronicles.

Wrap Up And Share Your Story

Announcer 20:35

Thanks very much for checking out this episode of The Bosshole Chronicles. It was so good to have you here. And if you have your own bosshole story that you want to share with the Bosshole Transformation Nation, just reach out. You can email us at my story at the bossholechronicles.com. Again, my story at the bossholechronicles.com. We'll see you next time.