Patience Jones: Hello, and welcome to As Built, the podcast from Graphicmachine about architecture firms, buildings, and how both get built. I'm your co-host, Patience Jones. With me is Brian Jones, your other co-host. Today, we are talking about communicating across generations. Brian Jones, what do we mean by that?
Brian Jones: Well, that we probably want to do it, so-
Patience Jones: [laughs]
Brian Jones: - that's probably a good thing.
Patience Jones: I guess that we should preface that. If you're interested in communicating with people outside of your own generation, this episode is for you.
Brian Jones: This kind of got started as a result of a rental car experience recently.
Patience Jones: As all good things do.
Brian Jones: Always. I was subjected to listening to the radio, which I hadn't done in quite some time, and it got me thinking a little bit about a generational perspective on things. Historically, when radio was the primary means by which people listened to music or news in the car, then you stop the car, the news and radio continue. And, now, with modern streaming services, your music stops and picks right back up where it left off. And this really triggered a whole thought in my mind that there's kind of a before and after in our culture. There was a before when people had an expectation that things continued on without them, and that they either had to stay and observe and consume whatever they were listening to, or it would go on without them. And now, there's sort of an assumption that the world stops for you when you turn your automobile off or whatever your device is at that moment, and that really does set up a dynamic where we, as a culture, have different ways of thinking about our role in space and our role in the universe. It was kind of an interesting moment, from thinking about how that then trickles down to all kinds of ways that we communicate inside the workplace, inside a firm, and what our expectations might be.
Patience Jones: I like that. Those are very deep thoughts to have in a rental car.
Brian Jones: Well, there's no other kind to have in a rental car. [laughs]
Patience Jones: So this is not a commentary about what's right, what's wrong, like, "This generation is good, this generation is bad."
Brian Jones: Nope.
Patience Jones: That's not it. It's just about acknowledging the different ways that different generations perceive and process information. Because if you want to reach them, you're going to have to communicate in a way that they can receive and process.
Brian Jones: And also kind of acknowledging that the way that their default might be different than yours. That is something that's really helpful to also take into account.
Patience Jones: It doesn't make theirs wrong and yours right, it's just that they're different. And just like if you were communicating with somebody in a different language or with different cultural customs, there are different expectations, and the more you can be aware of those, the more you can kind of get out ahead of it and create messaging that resonates with them.
Brian Jones: Absolutely.
Patience Jones: So how does this difference impact the work environment?
Brian Jones: If you think about the way that a work environment unfolds, it might create, for people who are used to everything being always on and always ready for them, a little bit of an impatience problem. That could be true for people who have been using this from day one or people who have recently adopted it. It doesn't necessarily mean it is only unique to people who are younger. There's a big disconnect between, "I want this thing," versus having to go through a process to get it. It's an immediacy factor that can really trickle into the whole office experience.
Patience Jones: A really basic, basic example of this would be something like old-school firm communication is, "We're going to send out a memo about something that's changing." Maybe office hours used to be 9:00 to 5:00, now they're 8:00 to 5:00, and we're going to let everybody know by printing up a memo and leaving copies of that memo on people's chairs. Maybe we've moved beyond the paper memo, and now it's an email memo that's a PDF, and so the person has to open the PDF and process the PDF. Maybe email isn't their preferred channel of communication. Maybe they're expecting that if you have something that's that important, it gets communicated verbally, or it gets communicated through group messaging, or most of the above, all of the above. It doesn't make the paper memo wrong. It doesn't make the group messaging wrong. It's just about who needs to hear this message, who needs to be impacted by it, and how do you communicate in the way that's best for them?
Brian Jones: I think you're hitting on a big point that I want to underscore, which is that choice versus ‘there's only one broadcast’ method is really the big difference here. The choice means there are a plurality of communications tools that are out there, and recognizing that you can't just deliver it on one platform probably is probably a pretty important thing to note in calculus.
Patience Jones: I think there's the idea of standing on principle: we're not going to do this because we've never done it, and nobody has ever done this, and this isn't how we do things, versus practicality. “We don't communicate across 15 different social channels to our employees because we don't have the bandwidth to do that”: that's a perfectly reasonable thing. Or, “We don't mail notices to our employees about upcoming changes at the firm because that's prohibitively expensive.” Those things are perfectly good reasons not to do something. But refusing to embrace new channels or new ways of communicating just because this is how it's always been done is where it needs some work.
Brian Jones: Yes. It seems like, too, that this is where things can get tripped up a little bit in the implementation. There seems sometimes a topical view of how this might get applied, but it does actually go a little bit deeper in terms of how the everyday consumption of things would happen.
Patience Jones: Give me an example.
Brian Jones: You talked about how people like to communicate or where they expect to find things. That can trickle down into the way that work is done, not just communicating things that are announcements from the firm, but also the general practice of architecture. The way that a younger person on the team might expect to find information, that's an important thing to take note of because it could really be they're expecting that always-on, always-available information resource, as opposed to one thing that might have been said in a meeting. That can be something that can be hard to get your head around.
Patience Jones: And I think it's fair to say, but if it's not, jump right on in.
Brian Jones: Okay.
Patience Jones: I think it's fair to say that to the extent that architectural programs have practice classes, they are not covering this type of thing.
Brian Jones: Yeah. This is the, the squishy dimension in the office, where it's trying to find the system or systems that work best to reach the most people almost all the time.
Patience Jones: I think in their practice classes, they're being taught by somebody that's years ahead of them, some number of years, some multiplier of years. And what they're being taught is what that person knew, if and when they ever practiced. And that may not be taught at all. If it is, I think there's an assumption that that's not how things are done now anyway. So don't assume that when somebody gets to your architecture firm, that they're like, "Oh, yeah, I know exactly how to do this. I know how all the communication works."
Brian Jones: You're going up against somebody in their personal life, communicating with all their friends and their family members in a way that is familiar to them, and that's what they're bringing to the table. So assuming that there's the ability to make that leap is a pretty bad assumption.
Patience Jones: And setting people up for failure is not great. I mean, are you going to prove a point? I don't know, maybe, depending on what your point is, but you'll win the battle and lose the war. Give people the tools that they need. Meet them where they are. If you know that your staff are not going to look at your internal intranet for important information, don't make that the only place that you put the information. Don't put it there, and then when they don't have it, be like, "Ha ha ha, I told you so." It just doesn't engender good culture.
Brian Jones: No. So what are the big takeaways?
Patience Jones: Be adaptable. I know no one wants to hear that, but it really is important. Be adaptable. Be humble enough to appreciate that just because it's the way that you do it, it doesn't make it the objectively right way to do it, and the people that you started off working for had these same feelings when you started. So just be open to different paths to getting to the same kind of success.
Episode Resources
Connect with Brian Jones and Patience Jones:
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphicmachine/
