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KP Unpacked
KP Unpacked explores the biggest ideas in AEC, AI, and innovation—unpacking the trends, technology, discussions, and strategies shaping the built environment and beyond.
KP Unpacked
Gen Z vs. The Old Playbook
Are Gen Z professionals really unambitious, entitled, and disconnected—or just playing by a different set of rules? In this bold episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy and Jeff Echols break down the generational clash transforming AEC firms, sparked by this LinkedIn post from KP.
They cover:
- Why “pay your dues” thinking no longer works
- How Gen Z’s ambition is faster and bigger
- What real relationships look like in a remote-first world
- Why merit > networking for this generation
- How inauthenticity kills trust instantly
This isn’t just a culture chat—it’s a blueprint for modern leadership.
🧠 Insights from KP & Jeff
- Boomers and Gen X often confuse different values with lack of ambition.
- Gen Z sees through performative workplace behavior and calls out inefficiency.
- Innovation doesn’t come from doing things “the way we’ve always done them.”
- Leadership must adapt to more frequent check-ins and faster execution cycles.
- Legacy systems and tenure-based promotions feel rigged to younger professionals.
This is the number one podcast in AEC.
Let’s unpack.
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Hey, welcome back to KP Unpacked. My name is Jeff Eccles. I am the head of our mastermind program here at KP ReadyCo. I also host an awful lot of podcasts and videos, many of which include our CEO and founder, KP Ready. This is KP Unpacked. Glad you're here, Hi KP.
Speaker 2:Hey, how's it going.
Speaker 1:It is going well. Sometimes I stumble over that introduction because we have so many versions, so many different people that we're bringing in. We're expanding the reach and expanding the format of this podcast, so it is still at its heart. It's you and I unpacking your LinkedIn posts, but there's a lot, a lot of other offerings out there as well. So always glad when we get to sit down and uh and get together and unpack, have a little bit of fun unpacking some of your LinkedIn posts here.
Speaker 2:Well, if LinkedIn can't be fun, why do we do it?
Speaker 1:Isn't that? Isn't that the official company tagline of LinkedIn?
Speaker 2:Can't have fun on LinkedIn. Linkedin. What are you going to do? Do TikTok?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think Bill Gates came up with that. If you can't have fun on LinkedIn or saving the world, I don't know. For those of you that are new around here, welcome, kp and I get together every week and we take one of his LinkedIn posts, like I said, and we literally go through it and I get to ask hey, kp, what were you thinking when you posted that on LinkedIn? What was the inspiration for that? So if you're not following KP Ready on LinkedIn, you should be. You can't connect with him. He has maxed out his connections there on LinkedIn, but you can follow him. Just look up KP, the letter K, the letter P, ready, r, e, d, d, y, and you'll find him there. Uh, he posts two or three times a week or not. Two or three times a week, two or three times a day, sometimes two or three times an hour, you know I? So I don't know. I've never told you this, kp, but I had to turn off my notifications on LinkedIn because you started posting so often that I just hear like this continual ding on my computer and it's just like KP, kp, kp. So I've turned those notifications off.
Speaker 1:But if you're following KP, two or three times a day. Generally he posts something. It's all his insights. We were talking before we hit record. He's been traveling a lot. He's been speaking a lot. We've got advisory clients all over the country. We've got a research team that's deep into new research. We just launched the integrated owners forum, which I'm sure we'll touch on briefly here as we talk. So a lot of what KP talks about or writes about on LinkedIn are the insights he gains, the conversations that he's having. You know they're the experiences of a CEO and founder flying around the country and working with the leaders of innovation across AEC. So you should follow him there, but you're home today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm home, you know. You know it's interesting. People always ask, like, how do you write to him, like, how do you do all this stuff? I'm like I spend so much time with other people. You know. I don't know that all of my thoughts are original thought. A lot of it is just really the engagement I have with people and the conversations we have. And, honestly, some of it's like the stuff they say to me on the side like hey, you know, I would never tell my boss this, but you know, and CEOs come to me and say hey, I would never tell my employees, but and so I'm able to like kind of synthesize all that and push it back out there. And I think you know lately you know not that I really look at the metrics of LinkedIn. I. You know sometimes I feel like I'm talking into an abyss, but lately I've had posts where I've had more comments than I've had reactions which
Speaker 2:tells me when I'm saying something and, like I said, none of all my stuff is original thought. It's highly like curated content in many ways. I mean God forbid like if I sat in a room by myself and all I did was share you my original thoughts. It'd probably get flagged by LinkedIn. But these are like you know, it's a curation and synthesizing other people's ideas and thoughts right so, but if you want the thoughts where I'm sitting by myself, catch me on reddit. However, um, it's, it's very interesting. I think the reason I get more comments than reactions is because I've picked up something by through all these conversations that resonates with a lot more people than I thought.
Speaker 1:Sure yeah, yeah or it doesn't resonate right.
Speaker 2:They're pissed off at me.
Speaker 1:Right, right. Well I mean, but when it comes to engagement, that's also effective. Just to be clear if you are an employee and you tell KP hey, I would never tell my boss this he's not going to call you out on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:No, he's not going to call you out and tag you, right, he, he, he anonymizes the, the content there, he anonymizes the con, the, the comments. So so you're safe. It's a safe place when you talk to KP about that. Yeah, and you know to your point about the comments versus reactions, et cetera. I mean that's for those that haven't figured this out yet. I mean, we've been recording this podcast for over a year now, or this version of the podcast for over a year. We go through this every week, right, and say, okay, well, you know what has been interesting to people, what are they commenting on, what are they sharing, etc.
Speaker 1:So we, we do try to unpack, unpack the uh posts that are really resonating with, with, um, uh, with the aec world right, it is the ones that they are the ones that the people are talking about, and today's is no different. We selected this one because it's a mix, it's got a lot of comments, it also has a number of shares, and so there's a lot going on with it. Also, because you talk about the future and it's a generational discussion. If you will and as I read it, people will will um will hear you know where you're coming from on it. As a dad of two Gen Zs, I'm also a dad of two Gen Zs. So, um, this is this will get interesting because you and I both have a lot of experience in the realm of these younger people and also the way that they show up and the way that others think about, maybe generationally, in the workplace. So I think this is going to be a fun one to unpack. We may ruffle some feathers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also think, jeff, it's important to note too like you run our Emerging Innovation Leaders group which is mostly Gen Zs right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Mostly Gen.
Speaker 1:Zs.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think we're hanging out with the Gen Zs. Enough that it's not just our opinion, it's not just like you know. Oh, we're making this stuff up, these are conversations we're having.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good point. You know, I mentioned in the opening, as I always do, that I head up our mastermind program here at KP ReadyCo and and we have mastermind groups for innovation leaders. So directors of innovation, chief innovation officers, folks like that. Innovation leaders. So directors of innovation, chief innovation officers, folks like that construction technology leaders same sort, but maybe focus more on how are they implementing the technology to the boots on the ground. And then we also have our early and mid-career professionals and I always that, to be honest, that's one of my favorite groups, because most of the people that are participating in that group share a commonality in their stories to you and I right, you're educated and worked as a civil engineer. I am educated and worked as an architect. Neither one of us are doing that now. We've taken these nontraditional routes, if you will, and many of the folks if not all of them in our early and mid-career group are doing the exact same thing, and some of them say, hey, I want to be that innovation leader, I want to be that construction tech leader or whatever's next. So reach out if you want to know, if you're listening to this or watching this on YouTube, if you want to know more. Just reach out to me on LinkedIn let's just say it that way or go to our website and click on mastermind groups and you can learn more about the groups.
Speaker 1:And the one, I guess, that will be most specifically related to what we talk about today, is the Early and Mid-Career AEC Professionals Group. That's good. I'm glad you brought that up. So you posted about Gen Z, and your post goes like this I'm going to read, I'm going to read the first part of it and then we'll unpack the observations as we go, because this one is a little bit longer than than many of them that you do that, you do post. So it's. It goes like this the future is Gen Z. I post about AI and robotics. However, it doesn't mean that I don't understand that humans are the biggest part of the AEC industry.
Speaker 1:Yesterday I was in a round table talking about the construction workforce of the future. The few millennials in the room sighed with relief that the discussion moved to how challenging the Gen Zs are and not focused on them, the millennials. So they got a little bit of relief right. Kp goes on to say I guess they are out of the crosshairs now from us Gen X, which is KP and I, and those boomers which don't call us boomers, we're not boomers, kp says. I happen to be the dad of two Gen Zs, as am I, and through our Emerging Innovation Leader Program, which we talked about a minute ago, I meet many more.
Speaker 1:As a rule, every generation thinks the next generation is lazy and terrible. That's consistent. However, I think good and bad is not the right rubric. Every generation is just different than the last. Every generation has a mixed bag of levels of work, ethic, etc. Ie, every generation has the same percentage of lazy, no good doers as the last. What makes a generation different is their life experiences that shape them. So here are a few observations and we'll we'll unpack those observations as we go. There are four. If you find this post over on LinkedIn, uh, again, follow KP. Kp, the letter K, the letter P ready, r-e-d-d-y. Um. So we'll unpack the uh, the four observations that you have here. You ready to jump into that or you want to preface anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's roll.
Speaker 1:All right, your first observation is a quote. All of these are quotes. These are things that people say about Gen Z. I feel like a Gen X, a Gen Z and a boomer walk into a bar.
Speaker 2:It seems like this is the setup and the Gen Xs pick up the tab.
Speaker 1:I think that's right. No, I'm not going to go there on boomers, never mind. Okay, the first observation before I get in trouble they don't want to pay their dues. All right, why is that important? When does this come up? Why does it come up? What do you think about? They don't want to pay their dues.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think you know our industry is such an apprentice industry, right Like if you're on the sub and trade side, you are literally called an apprentice and you go through the stages and if you're an architect, you go through as an intern architect, right? Or you're an eit or an fe I guess what they call it right now, right like it's evolving, yeah right.
Speaker 2:So so these are all like highly apprentice oriented businesses. So for, like the old guy managers or gal managers, there's this idea that, like you got to pay your dues right, you got to be an apprentice or an intern, and if you're maybe an architect, you got to draw door details, like just grind on stuff, right, and it's somehow like that's being productive. And you know the way I look at some of that stuff. I said I said Just because that was your pay, your dues moment doesn't mean it applies to the next generation. And if we're going to sit there and like make them waste their time and be highly uninspired by the work they do because that's the way we did it Right, there's plenty of ways to get people engaged to unquote, pay their dues and learn the things and and whatnot. That that it's wrong, right, that it's wrong. And and I think that's one of those things where you know all the different things, whether it's being having this attitude towards your boss, this reverence.
Speaker 2:Oh like chief engineer or the chief or the partner, like this reverence that maybe they just don't care about. And I think one of the things you know we look at I'm just looking at the post like why do we want them to? You know how far back are we going to go? Yeah, right, oh no, here's some slide rules.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, here's some vellum, yeah, here's a calculator Like how, yeah, right, like here's some vellum, yeah, here's here's a calculate like how far back do we want to take them? And I think one of the things I've seen um where this is becoming more and more effective I was talking to our friend dr sam chandon yeah, um love sam about about his class.
Speaker 2:You know, because I'll pop into his class and teach every, you know, once a month or every couple months. Um, and he was telling me, like from the academic world, you know, when you were in college, an open book test was hard because that mean, that mean you actually it wasn't about recall of information, you actually had to know how to apply it. So he was telling me his class, which is one of his data classes, the final project used to be like framework out, a software product to execute on some data process, and he's like so that was about all they could fit in. He's like now, with AI, though, I'm making them actually build it.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't mean you can't be performance oriented and all that, but I think this idea of you know, pay your dues, doing what I did when I was your age, is not the right method. There's other ways to do it and I think what it? You know what? I think the Gen Z's look at that like why am I doing this? Like what? This is not productive right.
Speaker 1:This is not productive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah we're. We're jumping in right on top of one of my hot button issues, um, whether I look at it from the academic standpoint, because I teach in the undergrad and graduate level, um, or I look at it from the profession side, um, and then again, for those of you that don't know, my background is architecture, kp's background is engineering. So I've got a lot to say about the profession of architecture and that idea. Right, because I had to, they have to pay their dues, because I had to pay my dues. First of all, you know, one of the things I would say is I truly believe that one of the most dangerous statements that we have in our society is because this is the way we've always done it, right, that doesn't. That doesn't align in any way with with innovation, by the way. So this is the way we've always done. It is very, very dangerous. This protection of status quo is dangerous. It's not moving us forward.
Speaker 1:And if you insist in, they have to pay their dues, because I paid my dues, that's toxic and that's abusive. Right, you were in a toxic environment. You were in an abusive environment. So why do you pass that down to the next generation, the millennials, the Zs and so on, just because and it is absolutely still there, oh well, they need to be pulling all-nighters?
Speaker 1:No, they don't need to be pulling all-nighters, right, they need to be working smart, they need to be learning tools, they need to be developing critical thinking and need to be understanding, you know, developing critical thinking and all these things that are valuable going forward, and they need to develop a healthy lifestyle. You know we need, we need a, a, in a way, a better generation than we were when we were coming up. And to your point, I mean I and I think I've, I think I've told this story as we've recorded before I did my internship while my classmates, many of my classmates and this will date me, obviously but while many of my classmates were using AutoCAD when we did our internships it was probably like AutoCAD 4 or something.
Speaker 1:Back then when we did our internships, it was probably like AutoCAD 4 or something. Back then I found a job at a firm here in Indianapolis, where I live, where there were two architecture partners and there was an interior design partner. All three of them went to IIT in Chicago, so Illinois Institute of Technology, which they've just rebranded, I think. I think it's Illinois Tech now, maybe something like that. The two architecture partners had Mies van der Rohe as a professor, literally Mies van der Rohe, right. And so when I learned that, I'm like, okay, I knew these guys were old, but they must be like 150 years old, right, they had Mies van der Rohe as a professor. I know that I was hired because I walked in the door understanding how to turn their one computer on.
Speaker 1:They didn't know they were using pencils. In some cases. We worked on projects where we had original drawings on linen. It was ink on linen. Do we want to do that today? Because if we kept the same thinking, we'd still be using ink on linen or papyrus or something I don't know Right, why? Why would we do that? We don't? We talk about innovation here all the time. We need to innovate in our thinking in terms of you know how our students should learn, how our interns, or whatever their titles are, how they should be trained and what their abilities are. And it's going to be different they're going to, they're going to be more advanced in some areas than we are, which I think is important for us to to accept.
Speaker 2:Right and I think it's like you know what are the fundamentals right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like am I supposed to be hand calculating everything? Like you know? Like how far back do you want to go on this stuff?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I think there's also there's a weird generation psychological thing that goes on I think gen z is very smart and they want to move very fast, right, and when their boss or leadership is in their 40s or 50s, they are at a point in their career where they're just like cool, calm, calm, it's all dialed in. They're not moving fast, they're not trying to move fast. And so this young kid shows up and they want to move. You know, they want to be a vice president in five years. So if I had someone that was 22 years old show up to my desk and say, hey, I love working here, I want to be a vice president in 25 years, my reaction was like, why not 24 years? Why not by the time you're 24? Why are you going to wait till you're 25? Like, how do we do this right and then let them run right. And I think instead there's this weird, because I'm still running pretty fast even though I'm older.
Speaker 2:But a lot of folks at these firms are very comfortable. They're very comfortable, and so these young folks that want to move very quickly and execute a lot more, they hold them back and it's because they're afraid. They're afraid, right, they're afraid. They don't know that. They know kind of how to manage these people. So I think when you look at that right, that there's a foundational issue where there's just a conflict with the older generation and the Gen Zs and they don't want to hear about how they can, you know, doing it smarter. Some of the old folks think like, oh, you're just, you're just trying to shortcut, you're doing shortcuts Right.
Speaker 2:You got to learn the foundation, and so I think that's. That's just one of those things where I disagree with this idea that you know that they don't want to pay their dues. I just think the leadership's not raising the bar high enough and instead they're just putting those old, old ideas right, those old patterns of what it is into play.
Speaker 1:I guess, yeah, yeah, I mean, I think there's an aspect too right, there's, there's always, there's always the realities of the profession. There are fundamentals. Sure, right, I mean, we, we've got to learn to walk. You know there's. There are things that have to be done. However, things are changing so quickly and I understand you know where, where some people will probably a lot of people, you know, probably a lot of people that say that they need to pay their dues, they feel threatened. Yeah, it comes from a, comes from a place of fear. I get that, but we've got to get over that. We've got to get over it and and approach that in a in a different way. It's 2025.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, my, my dad did this thing. Like you can't learn how to drive unless you know how to drive a stick shift. Are we doing that to kids today?
Speaker 2:I think I might I mean, I mean, it's like yeah, maybe like what, you're gonna rent a car, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna be in a situation where I mean, how many stick shifts are out there? It's mostly like sports car, like it's by design. In fact, someone was telling me, like you know the best, if you get a stick shift, it's like the ultimate theft deterrent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know who told you that because, that person is building that car right or restoring that car.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We had that same conversation.
Speaker 2:But you know what I mean. So I think, anyway, I think this idea of pay your dues there's we all pay our dues every day right, that's not the thing. Paying your dues is learning. But I think, just trying to get people to go learn on a stick shift, what's the point?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I've got a friend. She's retired now. She's a longtime architect I think she's 73 years old this year says I always approached mentorship as a two-way street, in that I'm going to teach whoever it is my mentee, whoever it is that I'm mentoring, and I expect them to teach me, and I think that's a fantastic approach, right it's? You know what is a Gen Z that's working with me? What are they going to be able to teach me?
Speaker 2:a lot yeah, a lot, I think I agree, but I think that you know that two-way street, um, if leader, if, if leadership does not create an environment where that gen z can turn around when they're asked to do some mundane pay your dues tasks where they can't say, hey, why like, why am I doing it this way? I can have AI do it this way, this other way, right, and I can have it done in 15 minutes versus the eight hours, and so one of the things you know.
Speaker 2:So this all came from a conversation. I had all these CEOs of big construction companies with me and I was leading this round table and I was, like you know what that means to you as a leader. You better make more time to actually spend time with these Gen Zs, Because you don't get to say, like they don't come by your office and you say, hey, go do this task, knowing that it's going to take them two weeks and you don't have to deal with them again for two weeks. Instead, they're going to go away and do a task and they'll be back in two hours saying, hey, what's next? Right, next Right. So that's, that's like one of those things. Like you better make more time for these Gen Zs because they're moving quick and they're going to execute work faster. You don't just get to say like, go spend the next month drawing these details, I'll see you next month. You actually have to engage with them daily, if not hourly. They're on Slack or Teams with you. It's hourly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. So maybe they don't want to pay their dues. Maybe they don't need to pay their dues. The second observation that you included here in the LinkedIn post was they don't understand relationships. Is that true?
Speaker 2:No, they absolutely do. No, they absolutely do. I think that the one thing I think that they do understand about relationships is they have, um, plenty of relationships, but relationships doesn't mean, oh, we have to, like, go play golf and go do happy hour and talk about our kids, right, that that's not necessarily what's important, and that you know this idea, like you can't have a relationship without being face to face. It's not true. It's not true, right? And so I think that's one of those old, old idea in terms of constructs, because I see it, I'm sure you see, with I mean, my, my boys are very active with their friend group. They're have very deep relationships and, in fact, like, I think, like some of these text-based relationships, you cut through the BS, you actually learn about people in an accelerated way, more so than you know.
Speaker 2:I forgot, I had a call yesterday with a founder, and you know, when I do these founder calls, it's an interesting dynamic because I do publish and and all that. They show up to a call with me, very well equipped to know what I'm about. They already know me, right, I know nothing about them. So, generally, I'm like I start off the call with this simple thing. I'm like, hey, how can I help you? Because I assume they know everything about me right, which, if they're a, they probably should have done their homework and all those things right. So I'm like so how can I help you? And I had a reaction yesterday from a founder who was like wow, just jumping right into it, thought we could share our backgrounds and all. And I'm like you already know my background.
Speaker 1:I'm here as a resource Right.
Speaker 2:I'm here as a resource. Like I, you have 20 minutes dude. Like, do you want to like have this banter to get to know each other or do we want to get something done? And I think sometimes, especially you know our industry, where it's like, it's the relationship business, like you know what does that even mean? Right, first of all. But the idea that relationships can only be built, you know, I do value in person Our mastermind groups. We meet twice a month via Zoom and once a quarter in person. We see the value of that. But we know that our in-person is much more about feelings and getting notes. It's about having the beer together and all that stuff. But if we're doing it all in person, like, is that really that valuable or is that efficient? So I think this idea that they don't value relationships is wrong. I think it's the method in which they build relationships. Back to our first point everything is faster and people get very uncomfortable when things are moving faster than what they're accustomed to.
Speaker 1:Right, right, yeah, I mean it's, and we can attribute this to Gen Z, certainly, but it's nothing new. I've been doing this talk called commodity, as this commodity does, since I don't know, 2016 or something like that, and I I structure all of my talks in in series of stories, so here's a story and here's a story. Here's a story, and one of the stories in commodity is this commodity does is about relationships and the idea it's it's that that version of the talk is really about business development and the the. It's a cautionary tale about the fact that relying too heavily on relationships for business development oh, we've been doing the work for that university for 25 years, or whatever it is that the BD people are saying that is very, very dangerous.
Speaker 1:That's what's going to get you caught out. Right, that's what's going to get you caught out. So, um, to your point, relationships and I guess, again, this is the way we've always done it, right Relationships are different. Now we have to understand that, that. You know, we have an entire generation of um, of young people that spent a couple of years not going to school.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. Wherever they were high school, college, you know, middle school wherever they were, the world is very, very different from them, and they didn't stop relating to people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know what it is. I think part of it too is the filter right In some of these in-person slow, you know, moving slow, I mean sorry, people are full of right, like. So in person you're like oh hey, how's it going? Oh yeah, great to meet you. How are the kids like all that stuff that warming up. Some people are very authentic about it, but for a lot of people it's a lot of bs. It's this morning I just got off of, I had a board call and we're talking about use of AI, like, like most things right.
Speaker 2:And one of the other investors on that I'm on the board with. He said that he was talking to one of his portfolio companies and everybody thinks using AI for like outbound, like the SDR stuff oh, you can scale your sales process. And he's like no, what we're finding out is that's actually not good. That should be very human oriented. It's the BDR Like. Once the customer says I'm interested, they're using AI to manage that sales process and they're saying it's much more effective than human. Because people think salespeople are full of shit and the AI is.
Speaker 2:You know salespeople will say like, hey, it's my job to get you to the right resources to get your questions answered. But in the middle of that is probably a bunch of BS and maybe like some embellishment about the product capabilities and its features and its availability and all the things right. And what they're saying is the AI doesn't lie and it doesn't know how to schmooze you and if your goal, once you've decided you want the product and if your goal is to understand, like further depth of fit, the AI is actually better capable. It's closing more business than the humans because the buyers, who are humans, are like this thing's not gonna schmooze me, like oh, how's the weather? Oh, tough loss that week. You know, for your favorite team Insert team name here Like they're not doing any of that. It's just like well, how does your product work in? Well, here's three examples of similar customers. It's all just facts, right, and I thought that was pretty fascinating that people would rather work with an ai through the sales process because they don't want to be led a lot.
Speaker 2:I mean a federal line of bullshit so I think the gen z's are a little bit like that they're. They're like you know, and I'll tell you my boys, you know I go out and talk to a lot of people and give these talks and every once in a while they come along with me and, um, you know, sometimes they'll say things like oh, that guy really nice guy. Dad, I like that guy. And then there's another person and they're like dad, that guy's, he's no good, he's no good. And it's their instinct is because the guy's full of shit and this other guy was authentic and they can kind of see it. Right, they don't. They see beyond all the nonsense. And you know I used to joke around with them. You know you go to these like chamber of commerce meetings. There's always a guy that comes up to you. Oh hey, my name's Steven. Double handshake, double handshake guy. Never trust double handshake guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's interesting. So when your boys point that out to you, oh, this, this guy's really great. That guy's a is fake, fake you know, however they say it, do you ever? Are you ever? Is your reaction ever? Oh wow, that's not how I read that person I wish I could take them everywhere with me.
Speaker 2:I would waste, you know. You know they'll. They'll like that, you know, because I get real big on time wasters. People just want to talk and never do anything, yeah, and they're very quick at pointing out the time wasters. And I wish I could have them around with me all the time because I'm. Because, you know, the problem is like when you're engaging with the human one, they had the benefit advantage, point right, they're watching yes, yeah, they're watching right when I'm trying to be intentional with the person, i'm'm like this.
Speaker 2:I'm right in front of their face. I'm not like reading their body language and all that stuff. Right, they're reading all of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They're sizing people up and I think because they have, I think this is a generation that has a very interesting filter. You know, it's an era where people are spear phishing you online like they're very suspicious because they've grown up in a digital first suspicious environment. Like when have you ever heard about a gen z getting scammed out of their money?
Speaker 1:well, no, no, no, I got it. That's bs. That's a different episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's made up right like, no like. Oh yeah, the irs texted me like whatever, right like, whereas, like the boomers and the gen x is my fault for some of that stuff. So I think I think, they're, I think, suspicion.
Speaker 1:You know, maybe they're paranoid, suspicious, maybe that's what it is, but I think they have a better filter with some of that stuff yeah, well, I I also wonder and this is, this is probably a, a curiosity for a different episode um, we could get somebody else on here to to help us with this. But I also wonder if, if there isn't a higher level of emotional intelligence with, with the gen z?
Speaker 2:you know, as a rule that's a, that's a huge broad brush stereotype, certainly, but I wonder if that's not the case yeah, I think because they've dealt with a volume of relationships right, playing call of duty with the group you know like strangers, right speaking of emotional intelligence right, they've dealt with so many strangers, like high volume of strangers, and so I think they have some suspicion about people online and people in the text, and so I think they're just better at finding these.
Speaker 2:You know the people that are not. I mean, they're just better at finding the people that are not authentic. I think I mean, think about dating environments right, they're using dating apps and all that. So they have to quickly swipe left, swipe right, figure out besides, like stats, dating apps and all that. So they have to quickly swipe left, swipe right, figure out besides like stats and looks and all that. I think they know how to like, suss out like fake profiles or people that are being unauthentic. That's not their real picture, right, like I? Just, I just think there's a speed at which they've operated it. They've had to figure out, like, how do I get to real people?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, that, that that is interesting. I think we, uh, maybe we'll, uh, we will have some of our early and mids on to uh to go deeper into that. That's that's really interesting. The third observation you made in the post was or this is a quote that you've heard, I guess um, they aren't ambitious, and you say, say this is not true, so let's talk about that.
Speaker 2:I think the opposite is true. I think with every generation, you'll have people that are lazy and take that aside, right. But I believe this generation, the ones that are ambitious, are extremely ambitious and whether it's materialistically or saving the world, like whatever, their mission is right. And I'm not going to judge someone that's like 22 that wants to have a Ferrari right. When I was 22, I just my ambition was like, maybe I can get a BMW one day, right. That was like the high watermark, right.
Speaker 2:These kids are like Ducati and Rolex and Patek Philly, I mean TikTok the ones that I believe are ambitious millionaire is not good enough, millionaire is not good enough. That's not how they think the exposure level that they have to the material. Or if their mission is bigger, like save the planet, get rid of a four, you know, have affordable housing, they're not thinking like, oh, I'm going to volunteer down the block at my community center, so. So I think it's because of the environment we work in. Right there, they had the entire world as a market, whereas maybe we grew up more like, oh, we have our city as a market, right. That they're the ones that are ambitious, I think, are very ambitious and I think it's very um so.
Speaker 2:so I was in this group of folks and I'm not trying to make fun of people, it's just more like what I observed, right, these guys were saying, like I had my son come work for my construction company and he didn't want to like use a shovel. But I'm like, of course he didn't. And then I was like, um, and I was like really, so what is like? Yeah, and he was like I want to become a vice president. How do I become a vice president? Right, like on day one he was like what are you talking about kid? Like, we've been here for 20. And he's like and so then he quit. The kid quit. His dad's not a family business, but his dad worked there. And he said like, and I was like why do you think he quit? He's like well, he just didn't have it. I'm like.
Speaker 2:Or he looked around at all the vice presidents and said, oh, these guys have been here for 25 years. I don't know that. I want to invest 25 years of my life to be them. They put in 25 years. They're driving around in a dinged up pickup truck. They're on their third marriage. They're 40 pounds overweight. Is that what I want to do when I grow up? No, so leadership is really. I mean, and I think this is where this quickness of the Gen Z they look around and say, oh, I don't want to be any of those people. What am I doing here? I want to move on, and so I think the ones that are ambitious are very ambitious yeah, I sat on a panel discussion a while back.
Speaker 1:Um, that was not. It was not all together different than what we're talking about here. The focus was the difference between. It was called the. What was it? It was the idea that the boomers are aging out. And you know, we've seen this in the news like suddenly, somehow all the boomers are going to retire on the same day at some point, you know, and there'll be this huge knowledge or experience gap between the boomers and the millennials or the Zs or whoever.
Speaker 1:And there was somebody on the panel that was going in on all of these and, more right, all of these observations that you're making and more. And you know they're not ambitious. They want all this vacation and blah, blah, blah. One thing after another, after another, after another, and I, you know all all these things that we've been talking about, and we taught them that they could save the world. We taught them that they could do this or say no to this or do this, and so what is? What exactly did we expect? And when you, when you bring someone out to the construction site and say, you know, you've got to start here with this shovel, and they look around and they see the VP. You know wherever they are in the office, or you know somewhere doing something differently. What do we expect that they're going to see Now? Are we going to force them to use the shovel, or are we going to turn them loose and say, okay, figure out how to get get to the VP before you're 25, like?
Speaker 1:you were talking about before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. Look, I am ambitious and I was ambitious when I was that age. But I think my scope of what that looked like we didn't have the Jeff Bezos's and Elon Musk's we didn't have that right. Bezos's and Elon Musk's, we didn't have that Right. That I think the richest guy at that time when I was like building my first startup, it was Bill Gates and Michael Jordan.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right and by comparison a hundred million dollars. Nothing, right, like you know, and that was back then, right Right. I remember like there was like this thing, like you know, it's not even worth Bill Gates of $3,000 dropped out of his pocket. It's not worth his time to turn around and go pick it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's like what is that Like a free loan loss? Is it like a half a million or a million?
Speaker 1:right now, Like you know, it's not worth the time to pick it up Right and so I think, I mean, I think that that's what they grew up in, yeah, and you know, to be clear, I'm not discounting the learning process, right? Somebody has to use the shovel today. I mean, maybe we replace that with robots or whatever, but but we, there is a need for the vice president to understand what the people that they're leading do and what they go through and all of that. However, there's this idea of ambition that and as we keep saying over and over speed.
Speaker 1:that is just downright impressive on a generational level 100%. All right, so we'll wrap this up. The fourth observation that you made in this post it started out the future is Gen Z. The fourth observation you made was meritocracy in quotes. This generation has been built on gamification. Explain that one to me so.
Speaker 2:So I think, like, in order to win at call of duty, you just got to be good, right, you got to be good, you got to be better than the other guys online. They're not better because they're, they have the right last name or they're born into the right family, or they have some leg up. Um, you're on the leaderboard because you're better than everyone else, right? That's how most sports, that's what they grew up in Formula One, unless you're Lance Stroll, whose dad's a billionaire and he gets to drive an F1 car outside of him. Everybody else earned it, right. But I think one of the things that happens in our industry specifically but I think one of the things that happens in our industry specifically it's not meritocracy, right, it is your dad knows somebody, your uncle works at a construction company and gets you a job at a trade. These are like family businesses, right.
Speaker 2:There's a grandson working in a big GC who doesn't deserve to be there, right, working in a big GC who doesn't deserve to be there, right. But they're there because they have the right genetic outcome, right. And a lot of this goes back to that, like relationship stuff. Or you get promoted because your boss likes you. You know what do we do? We do these 360 degree reviews, which are just popularity assessments.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right Popularity assessments. I think for the Gen Z that have grown up with gamification and leaderboard, they want to know how am I mathematically being measured and how do I win? Once again, this is for the ambitious. We know there's lazy kids in every generation. But don't tell me like, oh, go impress this person and if you do that you know you might be on the list for a partner. Oh, you better go play golf with Steve, better get him to like you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, and there's so much of that and I think for this generation they just can't be bothered with that. Just tell me what the goalposts are, right, and don't make me go to come to your dumb happy hour or some charity event that you're like making it. Don't make me buy Girl Scout cookies from your kid, like I mean all these things right, they don't care about that. Like, just show me how I'm scored, give the scoreboard and you know what. I'm either gonna win or I'm gonna go play for a different team. Right? I'm gonna either win or go play for. You know when we had mark to share with the early career folks, right?
Speaker 2:right and mark said hey, his biggest transition from being a you know, an elite athlete working for a winning, playing for a winning team, and going into corporate America was in sports. It's meritocracy. You put up the numbers or you get traded. Nobody says like, but he's such a nice guy, oh, he's been around for 20 years, he's been here for so long, never happens. Oh, we went to college, no sports. You put up your numbers, get traded or retire. And I think this is a generation that thinks the same way and they're confounded by this idea that be buddies with your boss and go to their stuff and laugh at their jokes and all that stuff. I think there's a total disinterest there. They think it's rigged, um, and so I. So I do think, with every generation I think you have, gen z is very meritocracy oriented, but I think that there's also like some contrast. I think you also have a lot of kids in gen z that are highly entitled yes, yeah, they are very entitled, like the ones that are very ambitious and very meritocracy oriented.
Speaker 2:The opposite of that is there's a segment of them that are very entitled and do believe because they grew up in the right family and the right went to. The right thing about this went to the right college I went. I went to harvard gsd. I believe. Well, you know what. You know how many unentitled people go to harvard gsd?
Speaker 1:very few yeah, well, and I think I think somewhere there in the middle too, is reality right because the, the meritocracy focused gen z's or you know, from any generation, but we're speaking specifically about Gen Z right now they, they also don't get to operate in a vacuum, right, as you said, aec world is is still right, there's, it's, there's relationships, and there's there's relationships in terms of family and network and everything else, and so they will have that focus, that meritocracy focus, which I think will drive them and help them achieve. And I think one of the things that they still have to figure out is how to navigate around the reality of what you were just describing. It's. We, we've got the folks that that are coming out, that are incredibly entitled, and we also have have the. You have to. You know it's who you know right, it's not what you know to. You know that's still a thing and probably will be for a long time, but, um, so, as as much as that, that focus is there.
Speaker 2:You know they don't, they don't get to operate in quite that, uh, that binary, a, um, an environment yeah, I mean that's fair, right, there's there's a transitional phase that they have to like, stomach through, but I I do think also that, um, the decisioning around will I stay in? Well, I mean, there was a post I put up a couple weeks ago that said employees with tenure. I've been at this company for 25 years. What does that mean? That either means that that person is not that ambitious or that company believes in mediocrity, right. Right, like, if the person's really that good, you move on to a better team. Right, being the number one player in minor league for 25 years is not a badge of honor, right, like, maybe you weren't playing at a higher level or maybe they expect it. You know.
Speaker 2:So this and I think this generation understands this they're like why would you stay at a single company for 25 years? And what people will tell you is the reason you stay there is you get comfortable, you understand how it works, you don't have to work as hard in figuring out things. You understand the patterns really well and you can show up and get your job done with. You know, and I think a lot of people that have that tenure at companies, it's because they have amazing hobbies outside.
Speaker 1:Maybe there might be a couple of other possibilities in there, but I don't know to your point. I mean, I remember this when, when I was, when I was looking for a job, uh, I get probably from my internship you know that.
Speaker 1:I mentioned earlier, I interviewed with this guy. He was a sole practitioner and, uh, he didn't have any work but or or for me anyway, but um, but he told me a story of when he was young. He said, you know, I would work at a firm and he said, every every 12 to 24 months I would either quit or cause myself to be quit, or or or to be fired, right, somehow I would leave, right, and that was, and that that is that is so incredibly common. And back to that, that panel discussion or that round table I was talking about before. That was one of the criticisms that someone made of the younger generations, like no, that is not true that is not unique to a gen z or a millennial or whatever, because it was true.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm middle ish if I'm gonna think about what, what the actual years are for gen x, but I'm solidly gen x and that was absolutely the case for me and people that came before me as well. As in this industry, you move, you move, you move, you move to move up, to learn, to get, get the promotion, to get more money to whatever. And I think it's, I think it's a little bit different now. You know the way that you're describing it. You know it's part of that speed, it's part of that, that ambition, it's part of all these things that we've been talking about. I think there's still that same thread. I think it's maybe more intense now than it was.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean, look, my dad changed jobs every three to four years, but this was pre-internet. The way he changed jobs was he was working on a project and projects have multiple firms, and someone from another firm would say like hey, I really like what you've done on this project but you want to come work for me, or the owner right when he went to go work for owners.
Speaker 2:That's where you know. Oh, we love hiring your firm. We like working with you. Do you want to come work for us directly? You know, but he didn't have LinkedIn and recruiters like they have now.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know, it's just I mean.
Speaker 1:I think everything's faster. So, yeah, yeah, definitely faster. I think there's a greater intensity to a lot of it as well.
Speaker 2:My advice to the boomers and gen xers out there, stretch out. Stretch out. Well, because you got to move faster.
Speaker 1:Stretch it out stretch do yoga, do get mindful and drink lots of caffeine. That'll do it. As we're talking about this, kp and I have mentioned a number of things. We've mentioned mastermind groups. Kp mentioned the fact that our masterminds get together once a quarter in person. By the time this publishes, we're going to be right on the cusp of our second quarter. Got that right. Right, our second quarter in-person mastermind meetup. So it's our one-day mastermind event in Atlanta on May 20th. Everything that we talk about here on this podcast, our production team posts links in the show notes below. So if you want to know more about our one day mastermind event that's coming up in Atlanta or the one that's coming up in July you know our Q3 meetup just go to the show notes and you can find a link to go to the website and get more information about that. And, as we're talking about this, we will be probably by published date. We'll probably be about a week or two from the launch of Catalyst, which is our online network where we invite you into the conversation. It is the hub for our mastermind groups, for our incubator, for our integrated owners forum, for our advisory work, but it's also a community where you can join in conversations about innovation for the built environment. So check the show notes. I think by the time this publishes you'll be wait-listed to join Catalyst, but that information will be in the show notes wherever, whether you're listening to this or whether you're watching it on YouTube.
Speaker 1:So KP and I have been unpacking, as we do every time that we get together here. We've been unpacking one of his LinkedIn posts and it starts out like this the future is Gen Z. I post a lot about AI and robotics. However, is Gen Z. I post a lot about AI and robotics. However, it doesn't mean that I don't understand that humans are the biggest part of the AEC industry. Yesterday I was in a round table talking about the construction workforce of the future. The few millennials in the room sighed with relief as the discussion moved to how challenging the Gen Zs are and not focused on them, the millennials. I guess they are out of the crosshairs for now from us, gen X and those boomers.
Speaker 1:I'll leave the reading of the post there. You can go back. I read more of it earlier. You can go find it on LinkedIn. Follow KP. Just look for the letters K and then P and then ready R-E-D-D-Y, and you'll find two or three posts a day. Some of them are quite provocative, some of them are they're all. They're all observations from the travels of KP, from the conversations of KP. If you're a CEO and you say to KP hey, I would never tell my employees this. Or if you're an employee and you'd say to KP, hey, I'd never tell my boss this, he's not going to out you. Kp is a safe place for that conversation. So, but those are the inspiration for these posts. This has been a long unpacking but I think, an important one. I really do think that because, as you say, the future is Gen Z and I think we touched on four observations that we hear all the time, and I think it was. I think this was a really good one to unpack. So thanks for joining me, kp.
Speaker 2:Good to see you, Jeff.
Speaker 1:Yep, good to see you, and for all of you out there, thank you for joining us as uh kp. Um, what's the what's the ranking of this uh podcast we're number one man.
Speaker 1:We're the number one podcast in aec thanks for joining us, thanks for making this, as kp says, the number one podcast in aec and we'll be back again next week. And, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show here, we have more and more versions, more and more offerings of these Unpacked, where I'm talking with our research team on the research that they're doing. I talk with our mastermind members. I talk with my teammate Frank Lazzaro we do AI Unpacked. My teammate Frank Lazzaro, we do AI Unpacked AI and AEC. So there's more and more versions of the KP Unpacked podcast that we're rolling out all the time. We appreciate you listening, watching, commenting. Tell us what you want to know, tell us what you want us to talk about and, who knows, maybe your comment, maybe your question will become fodder for a future post from KP or a future discussion on one of these podcasts. So, thanks to all of you, thanks KP, and we'll see you again next week.
Speaker 2:All right Thanks everybody.