Brad Eather (00:01.216)
Hello and welcome to the Selling's Creative Podcast, a podcast exploring creativity's role in sales, leadership and business. I'm your host, Brad Eather a digital communication strategist helping businesses and sales teams take that leap into the digital frontier. I think we can all agree that the world's gone a little bit mad. AI is on the rise, access to information has never been easier. Convenience has never been more convenient and yet somehow
many of us feel more time poor than ever. If you're over the age of 30, chances are you've probably felt a longing for simpler times when life just felt easier. But here's the thing, that fast paced, always on, overwhelming world that we're adjusting to, that's the only world many of our younger colleagues have ever known. And yet we're still trying to onboard them into workplaces that are nowhere near caught up with the realities of the world.
So when we drop someone raised in this hyper-connected environment into a multi-generational workplace, it's no wonder things start to clash. The way we communicate is different. The way we manage our time is different. The way we access and share knowledge is different. So I guess the real question is, what are we going to do about it? Well, that's exactly what we're going to be exploring today. My next guest is the founder of the Praxis Collective and leading voice in generational intelligence.
With over 15 years of experience in the corporate communication sector, she spent years unpacking what makes Gen Z tick and how workplaces and leaders can better engage, lead and learn from them to drive stronger business outcomes. So please welcome to the show, Katie Iles. Welcome.
Katie Iles (01:51.64)
Thank you for having me, Brad.
Brad Eather (01:54.358)
Well, I'm really excited about today's chat, all about Gen Z. So I wanted to start off with something really broad and just ask you, what are we going to do about Gen Z?
Katie Iles (02:05.39)
How do you solve a problem like Maria? If you're not a musical fan, that comment will make no sense to you. What are we going to do about Gen Z? What are we going to do about Gen Z? Do you know what I think? I think that we have pathologized an entire generation. And I think it's not so much what are we going to do about Gen Z as what are we going to do about being human? What are we going to do about organizational infrastructure?
how are we going to scaffold wellbeing and contribution and create an environment where universal thriving, flourishing is inevitable rather than a byproduct if we manage to jag just the right setup and the right circumstances at the right time. So in terms of what are we gonna do about Gen Z, I think we're going to...
stop with the simple lazy stereotypes if I may be so bold and actually allow ourselves to consider that they maybe are not so much the problem as they are the feedback loop. They're not so much a problem that needs to be solved so much as they are a I suppose a lightning rod or a catalyst that's going in inviting us.
into smarter, more human, more empathic, more future fit leadership is what I think.
Brad Eather (03:38.422)
Yeah, great. And you mentioned stereotypes and that's something that I wanted to dig into because I think maybe the first step in all of this is actually addressing some of those stereotypes. So what are some of the things that you hear most often and how would you challenge them?
Katie Iles (03:56.654)
I want to ask you that question. What are you here?
Brad Eather (04:01.344)
Well, I think the stereotype that Gen Z is lazy is certainly one. The stereotype that their priorities are maybe not necessarily on work, but more fit for themselves. Maybe struggling with resilience and just getting on with things. So how would we go about, what would you say to challenge those things?
Katie Iles (04:28.418)
Yeah, no, you're three for three, as well. It's an interesting one. I would add to that Gen Z is entitled. That's a huge one. I would add to that Gen Z can't hack it, which I always say, well, what does hacking it look like? What are we asking them to hack? And why is it important to us that they hack it? Which usually gets me one of these looks like, what, what? So I think...
I think a few things. think what we need to just be aware of is that we were all young once. So sometimes this isn't necessarily a generational pathology or a generational trait so much as it's just they're 20, you know, they're still learning. They're not, they don't have the same benefit of 10 to 15 to 20 plus years in a workforce and the benefit of maturity and learning from mistakes. And so I think, yeah, we need to remember
what it was like when we were young and an understanding that you know I mean our frontal lobes aren't fully formed before the age of 25 you know so what expectations are we you know bringing and placing upon Gen Z and are they fair and reasonable?
Similarly, I think that with the resilience piece, I think there's actually a lot of truth in that, but not for the reasons that we often think. I think that it is more to do with how they have been formed and shaped. And I think that that is vastly different. Like you mentioned before, you yearn for the simpler times, but genz that have only known this.
This is all that they know. so, you know, it's like we've put the technology in their hands. We've put them in this melting pot. We've put them in this like a tea bag to be steeped like a bone broth and then go, my goodness, they're always on their phones. my goodness. You know, they're always connected, but they don't know how to communicate. Blah. Like we've created the monster, you know? So I think that some self-reflection from the older generations is really important because, you know,
Katie Iles (06:36.386)
they didn't raise themselves, you know. So I think that that's important, but I think the resilience piece is an interesting one because it could just be age and stage, but there's also the fact that they've grown up in this kind of what I would call poly crisis. So you think that they have had.
digital connectivity from an incredibly young age, which means that for better or worse, and I think the research would show worse, they've been exposed to information and paradigms and methods of communicating which have involved
you know, access to economic instability, they've had access to news and information or hypersexualized information that they're just not ready to process. They were universally traumatized by so many things that they that previous generations would never have had the chance to be exposed to in the same way. Like you think about how, you know, World War One and World War Two would have played out. You would have heard about it on the radio if you were lucky or on the newspaper or via telegrams.
So the speed at which information was communicated and who had access to that information is vastly different. So, you know, and then we can talk about video games and we can talk about all of that sort of thing. But I think that, you know, you think about climate anxiety, you think about trust collapse, you think about...
the pandemic, you think about their access to information, pornography, the whole thing, and they're freaking out because their brains aren't able to process it, nor should they have to have had to have been. mental health, whilst often weaponized, you know, like they're very quick to tell you.
Katie Iles (08:21.14)
very, very self aware, I find Gen Z, but they're not necessarily able to self manage within that awareness or self regulate even. they're like, I'm experiencing a lot of anxiety and I'm like, okay. And so they're like, what? And I'm going, okay, you're feeling anxious today or have you diagnosed yourself with
an anxiety disorder because we're talking about two different things because experiencing anxiety is different to having an anxiety disorder which you are not qualified to diagnose yourself with. So my question to you darling is what do you do now? It's that next question you know to kind of go you don't get a note to get out of PE because you're stressed out and some of that again is just age related but I think there's just so many different things in place so the entitlement we often say Gen Z's come into the workplace
and they want to sit at the table. You know, they want to have a voice. They want to progress quickly and you'll often lose Gen Zs if they can't see, I suppose, a career advancement path or a capacity building path that's sponsored by the employer. And I have a lot of Gen Xs and Gen Ys who'll say to me, mate, they don't want to put in a day of hard work, but they want a promotion. And I'm going, okay.
That's how it's perceived, but I'm saying what if they just don't want to do grunt work? You know, I was like, oh, we all have to do grunt work. I'm like, you know, I'm not saying that they shouldn't do it. I'm just saying maybe they're not energized by that. But the difference between your generation and a Gen Z is that a Gen Z has grown up only ever having a voice.
They've been able to broadcast themselves via YouTube, via Twitter now, via Instagram, via, you know, they've only ever known a world where they've been able to contribute. They've only ever known a world of experience on demand. They've only ever known a world of instant frictionless gratification. And so suddenly you're asking them to wait or to get in line or to sit down and shut up young person. You don't know what you're talking about, which frankly I received when I was a cadet journalist, I was literally told
Katie Iles (10:29.73)
to sit down, shut up and wait to photocopy something. And I was at the time, I hated it. was just, it was disgraceful. But back then you weren't able to say that's disgraceful and that's really disrespectful and no, we need to, you know, so now Gen Z ends up going, well, this isn't meaningful work. Like I can't figure out why you're asking, why should I have to do this? You know?
And again, it's not to say that they shouldn't do it, but I think the way that we scaffold them into the workplace has to begin with understanding what their expectations of work are, because they are fundamentally different to previous generations. I feel like I've forgotten the question that you've asked me and off on my Call me back.
Brad Eather (11:08.694)
Well, I think, I think, I think something that you, something that you touched on there, was the idea of remembering that they're just 20, right? And I think that maybe this is part of the issue is that when people remember themselves at 20, the world was very different. And so trying to put yourself into a 20 year olds position, it's not, it's for the first time ever. It's not the same.
as putting yourself in the position of a 20 year old in the past. And I suppose one way to maybe understand what it felt like to be 20 and then maybe the, the injecting the behaviors that we all have now, putting ourselves on the phone and, and spending an hour on Instagram every night, you know, they are behaviors that broadly everybody's doing now.
but we're contextualing that into a 20 year old's mind. And I think maybe that's the disconnect in between remembering what we were like as 20, but more remembering that feeling, those anxieties about the social pressures, those kinds of things. And then trying to imagine ourselves if we had access to these tools.
Katie Iles (12:14.85)
Yeah.
Katie Iles (12:29.998)
Yeah. Well, I think what we see is that Gen Z spend 75 % of their time communicating digitally. So their most practiced form and method of communication is digital. Whereas for a Gen Y like myself or a Gen X, that's not how we were formed. what we need to, I think, really build an appreciation of is formative
Brad Eather (12:39.21)
Mm-hmm.
Katie Iles (12:57.088)
experiences. So how each different generation has been formed and shaped. Now it's an inexact science, but there are trend lines and there are cultural moments and normative experiences that have had an influence on the way that we experience the world and therefore the way that the world experiences us in terms of the way that we, you know, we live, we relate, we consume, we socialise the way that we engage with politics, even down to things like patriotism.
you know, it all depends on how you've been formed and shaped. And so what I think is that we've got this generation who's an anathema because they are unprecedented in history, which frankly you could argue about any generation, but the digital piece has really thrown us for a loop because of its insidious, real pervasive impact. But if you consider
So say you've got a 20 year old graduate coming into your workplace or into your, I don't know, your onboarding into your program and their normative experience is to communicate digitally three quarters of the time. And then suddenly we've made assumptions. So the Gen Z has made the assumption that that's normal and the Gen X who's leading them has made the assumption that the Gen Z knows that this is how we do things and this is how we communicate around here. So case in point, I was talking to an ABC producer when I was
being interviewed for a thing. And she was saying how she'd nearly lost an interview with a really senior Australian politician because their Gen Z intern had sent a text message to this Gen X producer to say, just letting you know the office called and they have to move.
the time or something. Now the Gen Z didn't call the producer because she knew the producer was in a meeting and didn't want to be rude or disrupt the meeting. So being a typical Gen Z, she fired off a text message and was like, cool, I'm out. Then the Gen X, because she's a good Gen X and we don't look at our phone when we're at work, I put the phone in the drawer, and she didn't think to check her phone because she thought her assumption was that if it was that important, which it was, the Gen Z would either come and find her in person or call her and that
Katie Iles (15:11.728)
was a worthwhile interruption. And I find that such a helpful way of viewing it because both of them were acting in line with their formation. And so the gap then, the solving for X, we've got Gen X here and the Gen Z here, and we've got the problem here. This is how we've made assumptions.
And this is how we've failed to communicate effectively and manage expectations. So it's an interesting one in that sense. But I think that if you're practiced in communicating digitally.
then it's not that you are any less capable of communicating verbally or in person. It's just that you are less practiced. so Gen Z are coming into the workplace with essentially just a different set of soft skills. I don't really like the term soft skills, but it's what I mean, right? But they just need different coaching.
because they've come into the workplace, they'll probably be able to write you a code that'll accelerate your profit margin by a zillion percent, but they might not know that they should probably put on their big girl pants and have a conversation from time to time, because it's not instinctual for them, because it's not what they've practiced.
Brad Eather (16:24.544)
So, cause I find that really interesting. The way that I view communications, right? There's asynchronous communications where you have a piece of media where if I want to go and access information, I can go and do that. Then we've got the communications gap that we're talking about here where we have a fundamental difference in how we approach actually one to one communications. And the way that I see it,
from a Gen X, Gen Y perspective is that we've grown up with email. Like email's been the primary way that we've communicated and emails have always been important, right? And everybody will experience this now, but email's becoming less and less important. Email's being filled up with marketing and spam. It's becoming less and less important. But on the same time, Gen X, Gen Y, they're probably...
struggling to keep up with the fact that now we're getting teens messages, we're getting slack messages, we've got telephone calls, we're getting text messages. That is really overwhelming for Gen X Gen Y because you don't know where to look. The reality I feel for Gen Z is that they just look like it's as simple as that. So I don't know if this, if just to sort of go back to that communication gap and I hope this is
helpful to people listening. But the way that I view it is structuring any communications plan as important, not so important and informal. say for example, I use WhatsApp very frequently for informal communications. I'm not expecting any reply whatsoever. There is no expectation on the other person to respond to me at all.
It is just an open forum, informal email I reserve for very important things and spam, unfortunately. but then other channels, you know, like I, I feel like what's happening is a telephone call could be seen as important to a Gen X, Gen Y, but, Gen Z's may be going for other touch points. I feel like I'd love your input here.
Brad Eather (18:51.072)
from a workplace perspective, how do you structure those communication channels so that we can align different workforces and just set the expectations?
Katie Iles (19:02.86)
Yeah. Well, I think you've just named it. You set the expectations because I think, you know, one of the great myths of communication is that it has occurred in the first place, you know, and I think that, it's, it's all well and good. mean, whatever productivity tool, like whether it's Basecamp, whether it's WhatsApp, whether it's, know, whatever your organization uses, it's almost immaterial because the fundamental piece, regardless of any generation is does everyone understand?
how we need them to communicate and what timely communication looks like and how to triage said communication. that and have I made assumptions that I'm later going to hold over the head of somebody who's maybe not. mean, so, so for example, one of the things I love doing is if I'm doing a workshop or I'm doing some consulting, I'm doing a keynote is to put up panel.
up on stage with one representative from each generation and just get them to ask each other questions. It's often hilarious but it's always, always incredibly revealing. So because the younger generation, so Gen Y and Gen Z are like another meeting that could have been an email, you know, whereas the boomers and the exes tend to be
you know, like, why can't they just come into the office and why don't they, know, and I need them, you know, it's, it's, didn't, sent them an email, but they never replied. And then they're like, no, I did reply, but I replied on Slack. And so then you have this like before, and this kind of undercurrent of sort of tension and everyone's frustrated with each other, but it's such an easy solve. It's just that what we've assumed is that the what is familiar to us is empirically better. And so
I think regardless of whether you're a gen Z or you're a boomer or you're a builder, whatever generation you are, doesn't matter. What matters is that you've taken a minute to self-reflect and go, have I asked the right questions to get the right information at the right time? What have I assumed?
Katie Iles (21:08.564)
and how could that potentially create a weakness? So I don't see that so much as a generational problem. think everyone's gonna have their tendency, like the thing that they default to. And when we're under pressure, you you'll see all the behavioral science and all the sociology that will show that when we are under pressure, we default to what's most familiar because we slip down into security and survival mode. And so we're trying to cut out noise and go all signal. you know, we'll go, we'll default to what we know.
But what we know and what's familiar to us and what our default is, is not necessarily the same as someone else's. And that's not even necessarily generational. So I think that, I think that for a lot of leaders and a lot of C-suite members, and I think a lot of people who are in senior positions, what they think their job is, is actually either not their job at all or a very small part of their job.
because really what needs to happen is that they need to be these almost cultural interpreters. They need to be almost sherpas, if you will, helping people, you know, build scaffolding that's going to create an environment where success is inevitable or at least highly likely, regardless of how old you are, regardless of how long you've been in the workforce, regardless. And I think what we want is for people to just get it and hack it.
and move on and just, you know, or part down or know your place or, know, whatever it might be, but we actually haven't understood that this cultural moment, I mean, you mentioned it yourself, it's draining us. It's so fast. It's constantly on. We're constantly on. We're scheduled.
to within an inch of our lives. And we've all got different expectations. And for many people, we're just fighting to keep our head above water a lot of the time. Even if we're not, we feel like we are. Like we'll say, I've got no time, I've got no time. But we've spent two hours, I don't know, watching Jack Reacher and, I think we're all a bit self-important sometimes. I'm so busy in my eye, yeah.
Brad Eather (23:05.258)
Something. Yeah, yeah.
Katie Iles (23:16.492)
You know, so I think, think there's a bit of that going on. And I think that, that, that this cultural moment has different complexity and it is also meant for the first time in history, we've got five generations in the workplace and that requires a different playbook, a different skillset. And I think that we're just assuming that people are going to jump on board with us and we haven't actually stopped to A reflect B do a little review.
and then go, huh, what adjustments need to be made to ensure that everyone's able to flourish in this environment?
Brad Eather (23:49.504)
So you mentioned playbooks and I, I suppose what you're alluding to there is the fact that a lot of businesses are still operating on, playbooks that were developed pre-internet pretty much. So how, how, how do you find these outdated systems like clashing with values of the gen of gen Z's and the realities that are coming into the workplace?
Katie Iles (24:17.923)
Yeah.
Brad Eather (24:18.446)
How do we manage them? How do we improve them? How do we actually put, how do we conceptualize a new way of working when we're sort of like the, it's the old, you can't teach an old dog new tricks kind of thing. But how do we leverage emerging talent to take us into that new, that new playbook, so to speak.
Katie Iles (24:46.222)
Yeah, that's a big question. What I would say is if we take a step back and we look at some of the stats and some of the research, like even if you just looked at Gallup's 2025 state of the workplace report, right? And we can see that trust collapse is rough.
Brad Eather (24:50.005)
Hahaha
Katie Iles (25:12.166)
And we've got what I would call a coherence collapse. In other words, we don't, it doesn't make sense to people. What people are saying, what people are doing, the expectations versus the reward versus, you know, so, and then you introduce AI and then you introduce economic downturn, then you introduce, then you introduce, then you introduce, and this phenomenally nuanced, rapidly changing and evolving.
dynamic. So it's really challenging to manage. So I think off the bat, the leadership consultant in me wants to just say, if you lead anyone, any team, please know that you do not need to be a two legged silver bullet because you cannot be that and no one should expect you to be so not having all the answers and feeling like you're out of your depth doesn't mean you're bad at your job.
It just means we need to be smarter and a little bit more, I suppose, agile in the way that we solve problems now. And so I think because I have so many leaders that will say to me like, I used to think I knew what I was doing. just don't want I'm just exhausted because.
They've got like say Gen Z coming in with this fundamentally different expectation of work and they're like, feel like Gen Z they need me to be their therapist, they need me to be their mom, their dad, their coach, their friend. And they're just like, bro, I just want to do my job and go home to my family. You know, like I didn't sign up for this because for a lot of Gen X's who are now in C-suite positions or senior leadership positions, they've waited a long time to get them because a lot of boomers hung on for a really long time. And now they finally got their chance, except for the playbook that they're familiar with.
doesn't work like you were saying. Okay so what do we do? We actually need to...
Katie Iles (26:57.432)
But no part of our cultural moment is going to make that easy. So you have to understand why it matters and make those changes. So all that to say, I think that we need to appreciate that trust is the number one currency for a Gen Z. So all the research will show and I'm happy to send some stuff through that you can put in your show notes if that helps around.
leadership currency like if they because they are fundamentally relational it's really bizarre they are the most collaborative naturally collaborative generation that we've seen that we've been able to I suppose observe they are relational by nature they're very tribal and and that's been facilitated by this hyper connectivity that they experience that doesn't mean that the quality of relationships is good I mean you could have 3,000 followers but you know you're a mile wide and an inch deep which is why they're all lonely because genz are
also say that they're the loneliest generation percentage wise. They feel lonely often or all of the time, more than half of them. And then you want to talk about how when they feel anxious, more than half the time you do a gender split on that female Gen Zs are far more anxious more of the time. So you know, we've got all these different dynamics, these baseline dynamics and but the difference is that they'll name it. They're very free to say I experienced this, I feel like this, I need help with this or you should is often you know,
So basically what I think we've got is a coherence collapse when systems and signals and stories don't align in the workplace and Gen Z's can smell BS a mile away. Which is interesting because I think often times like my kids are 9 and 11 and I feel like how is it possible that you making me feel like I'm an idiot?
like I'm so much smart, like empirically, I am so much smarter than you. But they're just, they're just a different breed. Like I freaking love it. But sometimes I'm like, shut up.
Katie Iles (29:00.226)
think that that feeling like when you've got some precocious Gen Z rolls into your thing is like, hey, here's 10 things that we could be optimizing by tomorrow and I want to blah, blah, blah. And you just say, you know, and you're a bit tired and a bit crusty and a bit whatever. And you're just like, I had to wait a really long time for this. So I think that we then need to see that Gen Zs have different expectations that there is.
a massive trust piece and that's not just for Gen Z's but it's particularly for Gen Z's because but all of their training and all of their immersion in digital and essentially in the algorithm and creating algorithms has actually wired their brains like Jonathan Haidt who's the author of the Anxious Generation talks about this so there's cognitive science so there's a journal called Nature Human Behavior so generations raised in high stimuli
environments, so digital environments where basically all your senses are hyped up more of the time, they've got greater sensitivity to signal noise gaps. like Gen Z's natural, I suppose, capacity to respond to what they would perceive as ambient threat or what their brain perceives as ambient threat, it's almost like there's this hypervigilance within their sort of social cortex, so their amygdala
is absolutely like it's humming. It's working overtime. They're looking for threats. They look, can I trust this? Can I not trust this? Like my kids can spot an AI generated image at 20 paces, you know, that's AI. And I'm like, is it? She just looks like she's had really good Botox. I don't know. Like, and so I think they're used to code switching. They're used to meta messaging. They're used to algorithmic filtering. So they, their brains are seeking coherence.
Then you, because that's their natural state that they've been primed for based on the digital world that they've been immersed in. Now let's add in poly crisis, where they're seeing institutional collapse, trust collapse, cynicism and disillusionment, climate anxiety, which then is going to lead to purpose drift and what's the point and yada yada. And then we look at loneliness and the social indicators and it's just, we're off to the races. We are off to the races.
Brad Eather (31:24.558)
I think at a really big macro level, those things that you just referred to as polycrisis in terms of these big issues happening in the world, they are the same problems that governments are dealing with on a societal level that we as small businesses are trying to deal with in the workplace. There is no longer just the
linear information that we can grab internally and put into place within an employee, but people are constantly getting information from other sources. And I think when you were talking about the algorithms and a Gen Z walking into the workplace, all excited and knowing more.
maybe casting your eye back to what it felt like to be 20, feeling overly energized and wanting to make a difference, wanting to make an impact. But then what you really need to understand is how they've developed with an algorithm. They've not been drip fed from, they've not been drip fed information from a single source.
So that kid who's hyper into business, he's going to belong to a click or group or his algorithm is going to be full of information that's business related getting, and he's going to be soaking all that up. So when he does rock up into the business and he does charge in with a million ideas,
that feeling of that precociousness almost like I've got a million and one ideas on the smartest guy in the room. Maybe it's the fact that the perception is that he's yeah, maybe a bit full of braggadocio and stuff like that. But really all he's trying to say is I know these things and I want to contribute. Is that fair to say?
Brad Eather (33:33.3)
I mean, it's such a complex issue. Your expertise and my expertise overlap in a very odd. Well, it's, it's not odd, but it's, it's kind of, it's kind of the natural meeting point really understanding how people, actually integrate with these things, the understanding it through the lens of an entire generation is calm, plex and something that I'd like you to
Katie Iles (33:45.998)
It's magic.
Brad Eather (34:03.67)
maybe give you a two cents on, but.
Something that I always come back to is an old saying. It's like you're, it's not, it's not what you know, it's who you know and those social dynamics. Yeah. But what I think is prevalent right now is, and, this is the subliminal under the surface thing, but you don't have, necessarily access to unless you ask the right questions.
Katie Iles (34:18.382)
We are from Adelaide, Brad. Never has it been truer.
Brad Eather (34:36.864)
But everybody is spending time with people online. They're not, they don't have a relationship with them, but they are influenced and they do get information from certain people. And within the same office, those people that are influencing the minds of people that are in the same office every single day are radically different. And that's a blessing and a curse.
In the old framework or the old playbook that we're talking about, it's an absolute curse. In the new playbook, it can be an absolute blessing, but you need to understand what's happening and understand what people's individual interests are and lean into them to bring that into your workplace and actually lean on
Lean in on these individual expertise that people just are naturally bringing into the workplace by osmosis because they are interested in different things. I'd love to love to hear what your reflections on that. Yeah.
Katie Iles (35:42.67)
Yep. My reflections are that if you look at, I suppose, behavioural science and how we've an anthropological, I suppose, insight, you'll see that humans flourish the most. We build a flow state.
in environments of what we call mutual interdependence. When we are all different parts, it's like when people build those stone structures out of the individual stones and it doesn't make any sense that it's holding together. But each part is supporting the part which makes the entire structure sound. But when you look at it, you're like, how does that exist? And it's the principle of mutual interdependence where we've understood that I play one part.
I am not the part again, which brings me back to my, you're a CEO or a senior leader, a C-suite member, you don't need to be the guy. It's impossible. No one can be the guy. So stop trying to do it. Okay. Build a team, lean on the unique gifting, carosome.
perspective, worldview, experience of all of the people that are available to you because that's how you'll get the best outcomes. So I think in an environment where, for example, you you've got the kid who's hyper into business and he's spent from year nine through all the way through uni, he's done commerce, he's done whatever, business marketing management, yada yada, he's rolled into your workplace full of ideas, precocious, ready to go, just like every other 20 year old.
What he needs is scaffolding, what he needs is coaching and what he needs is empathy. In the same way that the Thai and Gen X who's got three kids who need to be ferried to different extracurricular stuff and they've you know and they've got
Katie Iles (37:46.304)
a promotion and so they're at quite a senior level so there's a lot of pressure on them and so they're busy, they're time poor, they perceive themselves as time poor and they've had to wait a long time for their promotion, they've worked really hard, they've come through in the age where you don't take sick leave, absolutely not, that's disgraceful you know, mental health days, excuse me what, you don't leave until the job's finished, blah blah blah blah blah. So the expectation is that you know your work is your life.
Whereas a Gen Z's expectation is that they want to create a life that involves work but is not comprised solely of work. And they have the agency now and they have been practised in communicating that. So then we need to appreciate that critical analysis
is a skill that often needs to be developed. It's like you can end up in echo chambers. We're all in an echo chamber one way or another. Like the algorithm is evil. Also help, potentially very helpful when it comes to the shopping that I enjoy doing and raccoon memes, which I also enjoy. But I think, you know, there's these parasocial relationships that we develop, which create a false sense of trust. And so, you know, I think we need to be really careful that we are all developing skills of critical analysis.
because we can't trust the source necessarily and that's the difference you know we didn't have armies of Russian and Chinese bots telling the algorithm what to tell us we didn't have that 40 years ago and so that's a that's a little wild card that we're having to deal with so then we've got a situation where
The old playbook's not working, so leaders and managers feel like they're either failing at their job or they're dissatisfied in their job because they're not being able to get the outcomes that they think they should be able to get. So then the key is how good are we at creating vision and communicating vision? In other words, how do I help people make meaning?
Katie Iles (39:47.854)
and find purpose in connecting the dots, finding coherence between what I'm asking them to do, what they're doing, how that's recognised and how we've connected that to.
oh and here's the outcome, here's the impact of that piece of work. And that's an interesting one because the sort of entropy, the speed is just so fast. It's like, oh great, next, oh great, next, oh great, next, oh don't have time for that now, yep, great, nah, oh we'll get Sally to organise a lunch later down the track, yep, anyway, back to the thing, you know, and it's just like, oh. So what I think is that we've actually got.
generation in Gen Z coming into the workplace who are actually showing us how toxic, how fragile, how brittle, how insecure, how dehumanized so much of our organizational culture is. Now those are strong words, like those are strong words but I stand by them because you know insecurity doesn't lead anyone to make great decisions.
Brad Eather (40:38.218)
Yeah.
Katie Iles (40:47.522)
doesn't give us agility. If we're fighting for our corner, if we're feeling defensive or threatened, and then if you're an older worker and you've got AI and Gen Z, I mean, that's a one-two punch. Come on, man. Like, so I think we have to understand as leaders, like the crucial role that empathy and relationship in the workplace has, is go slow to go fast because trust is so, so imperative. And then we've got to understand
and build our skills in how we communicate vision and purpose and help people connect the dots in that regard. And we need to then move because a lot of the older generations we've come from that top-down hierarchical, you I'm the boss, you do what I say, I give you money, everyone's happy. But now it's this messy sort of Venn diagram set up.
But it's actually great because it forces us to stop thinking with such legends in our own lunchbox and go, what could I learn from this 20 year old? And for this 20 year old, it's what could I learn from this 50 year old? And if we have an environment where there's almost a, and again, this will sound a bit woo woo, but like there's a reverence piece. It's like I've come in my posture is fundamentally human, which means it's going to be fundamentally.
observing of your value simply because you exist as another human. You are not a commodity to me, you are not a means to an end, you are a person. And I think so many workplaces that have commodified well-being, I've got to tick those boxes so people don't bloody complain, blah, blah, blah. And I think also we need to do more work around strengths-based leadership. So I think the Working Genius by Pat Lencioni is a really helpful one because it enables you to see
where people are most likely to add value and at what stage of the workflow they can add value and then you scaffold them according to their age and stage level of experience and development and you can get better outcomes and more agility that way.
Brad Eather (42:50.484)
You mentioned some strong words and I agree. And I mean, this is an incredibly complex topic to talk about. but I think, I'm just riffing here, but maybe the old playbook in terms of the employee experience suggests that time spent at the desk equals productivity. Whereas now
placing the onus on the individual to get the job done because we don't have enough time and people need to allow themselves the time when they're in the emotional state to get it done. That's a fundamental shift from time in a chair to you being, we're leaving you with the responsibility to be responsible for the output of your work.
And we need it done within this timeframe and you need to get this done and you need to get that done. But it's within your own timeframe. And I feel like that as well as leadership change, there's something that you talked about the idea that you talked about the hierarchical approach where leadership, you were talking about when people have spent a lot of time waiting for this leadership role and it's finally come and leadership of the past was
Delegating tasks to people you do this you do that you do that during this shift leaderships now changed to What you've described as the scaffolding which is actually providing the scaffolding or the direction towards What we all want to achieve these
Katie Iles (44:34.158)
Scattering is so helpful because it's what is placed around a building that's under construction. So it doesn't require the end product to be fully realised. It makes it safe for everyone engaging with that structure while it's being developed. Carry on Brad, sorry.
Brad Eather (44:39.094)
Hmm.
Brad Eather (44:50.772)
Yeah, cause well, cause like, this is something that I deal with, like it's the old world and the new world coming together. And one thing it all meets at the same place. But one thing that I find is the attitude towards social media in the workplace. You've got people that
completely disengage with it and say it's useless. What are you talking about? And then you've got the other people who are embracing a new approach and leading it into the future. Because at the end of the day, social media is one public communications platform that we're all communicating through. And I think that that's kind of like, we're just constantly popping up with
different moments of friction between the old world and the new world at every stage. And I guarantee you out there that if you are having, please tell me if I'm wrong, but my assumptions would be that if you're heavily ingrained in the old world playbook, you are not going to be retaining younger staff for very long. And whether or not
you're accepting responsibility for that or pushing blame somewhere else is entirely up to you to decide. But the end of the day is that your workplace is going to be getting older and older and older, and you are going to be struggling to retain younger people because you are not aligning with the world that is reality at the end of the day. This isn't going anywhere. It's long.
overdue that argument that social media is just a fad. In fact, now we bring AI into the picture. And I think that AI is actually, I mean, there's so many different things. COVID, everybody got on camera, started doing business online. Three years later, we get AI. And those are two fundamental things that have changed the way that we do business that have forced action.
Brad Eather (47:04.414)
And we're in a moment of hyper volatility where I feel like, we talk about the loss of jobs a lot. Well, I think a lot of the loss of jobs are going to be because the loss there's going to be businesses that are no longer around. That's the reality of the situation. I think the business, if you're in a business that's adopting these tools and moving forward, I'd say that your job probably.
a lot safer than if you're in a business that is not adopting them at all and the whole thing collapses overnight. So I don't know, it's a little bit off the topic of Gen Z, but at all what I'm trying to say is that all of these moving factors and the experience of Gen Z and the experience, I think it's important to realize that the experience of Gen Z is no different to the experience that we're having.
that we have.
So we just need to understand it, embrace the cultural change that's coming in and lean on them for new ideas and build that scaffolding like you're talking about. And maybe for leadership, maybe this is way to think about it. But as you said, a scaffolding is not a finished project. You just need to build the first scaffold so that they can understand how they can provide you value.
and then you can make the next decision.
Katie Iles (48:38.134)
Yeah, yeah and I think there's another piece in this as well that I think one of the key shifts we've seen across social research is the the lack of access to or engagement with what we would call the third space. So you've got home, you've got work and you've got
what so maybe that was scouts maybe that was a church group maybe that was a footy club or something like that it's a space where it's not family and it's not commercial but that you express yourself you find relationship that you engage with and so as our
trust has eroded and we've had institutional collapse. We've also seen a reduced engagement with third spaces that were traditionally, you know, like the men's shed or the rotary club or whatnot. And some of that's to do with pace of life and discretionary time. Some of that's to do with trust collapse and cynicism and, you know,
institutions rightly being put under the microscope and held to account. But what that's meant then is that Gen Z has come of age in a time where they haven't had access to those third spaces. And so they look to work to meet more than just financial needs, they look to work as their third space. That's why they want work to be highly relational. That's why they want work to be highly meaningful. That's what they want, why they want work to satisfy a whole range of needs that go far beyond financial. So like most Gen Zs would
are on the record, like 64 % of them are on the record saying that they would take a pay cut if the work aligned more with their values. That they would take a pay cut if it gave them the flexibility that they wanted to pursue other interests. Whereas, you know, I spoke to a lawyer who told me that she would never hire another Gen Z because they didn't have a work ethic. And
Katie Iles (50:42.762)
She said, had a Gen Z ask if they could leave work half an hour earlier because they had an early soccer game and they weren't going to be able to get her to our town in time. But, you know, she'd do the work that night. And I just was like, that was it for me. And I'm like.
Yes, what a diabolical request of your employee to want to engage in physical fitness rather than sitting at a computer. Just like no, no, you don't understand the client is king. You don't ever leave until the work's done. And I'm like, how many hours you work last week? She goes, about 90. And I was like, that must have been fun for you. You know, and so I think there's all these sorts of things. Now, you were talking about what were you talking about? Please.
Brad Eather (51:16.854)
Can I just jump in there one sec? What you're talking about there, in a previous episode, I interviewed a happiness researcher called Declan Edwards, who from an organisational perspective, that exact argument flipped it around and said, the client is not king, the client, the employee is king. Employee wellbeing leads to better client outcomes. So I just wanted to put that in there because that was a really strong argument that he made.
check that out if you're listening along.
Katie Iles (51:50.446)
think that's so important because I think it's what social contract I think there are broken social contracts that are in the mix now and I think the Gen Z's are going nah that's not for me I don't want that I don't think it's that they don't want to work hard I think it's that they want to work hard
for work that means something to them. I think that they are wildly altruistic and they want their contribution to make a difference. I think they wanna be valued in the workplace. I think they wanna be respected in the workplace, but I don't think that's different to any other generation. It's just that they've got a voice and they'll say it. And you're just a bit like, oh, but you have to be the shit kicker and be happy, whatever.
And just suck it up because that's what we had to do, you know, don't take your sick leave Can't believe you do sick leave, know jazz a buck up get stronger. Just go well They're like no, thanks didn't seem to work very well for you guys. I don't want that, you know So, you know, yeah, so all that to say with What was the thing that you were talking about just before? Sorry, this my brain is spinning with all the things that we're talking about because I'm so jazzed about it
Brad Eather (52:55.112)
Yeah, I'll be completely honest. I've forgotten as well. What are we talking about?
Katie Iles (53:00.174)
I think it was great.
Brad Eather (53:02.921)
Yeah,
Brad Eather (53:06.934)
can't remember. We were talking about the...
Katie Iles (53:08.43)
That's why they're placed with marks.
Brad Eather (53:17.982)
Not sure. But I'll lead...
Katie Iles (53:19.008)
It was the people who are not willing to change to keep pace with the cultural model.
Brad Eather (53:24.51)
Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Iles (53:26.1)
Right. And so, and so what I think in that is that, you're right. And so those those, the fragility and the brittleness of those kinds of organizations, they'll get overrun. And that's just the way of things. And it's really sad. It's a little bit like what Amazon represented to the traditional marketplace. It was, you know, it was great on for some levels, for some people's great for the consumer, but terrible for a lot of others. But
What's that bookstore in America is I'm gonna say Brookstones. I'm gonna get it wrong Barnes and Noble Barnes and Noble
Barnes and Noble, they revolutionized and they're still going strong because they've created a customer experience that is compelling. not trying to compete with Amazon in the same way, but what they've done is they've introduced a human experience, which is not, they've introduced a third space. They've made their business a third space, which is now compelling to people of all generations, but particularly Gen Zs who love books, who are driving, like Booktop is like,
phenomenal in how it's driving sales. And that's not to say that kids and other generations loved books any less, it's just how they've got outlets to express that. And so I think so often, I think a lot of the work that needs doing to reduce the friction across generations in workplaces is self-reflection. And it's actually to have organisations that are smart enough to go, it is okay, in fact it is
Brad Eather (54:26.816)
Mmm.
Katie Iles (54:54.986)
imperative, almost have a duty for do share a responsibility if I'm going to go real ham on it and go, I need to understand the assumptions that I'm making. I need to understand the true experience of my employees. And I need to understand
I think I mentioned assumptions, the true experience, I need to build empathy and I need to educate myself on how these different generations have been formed and shaped and how that then influences the way they engage with the world and vice versa. Because if I can do that and then I can take that knowledge and you know we call it triangulation in the best sense, not in the narcissistic sense, where we can go this is this person's reality, this is the cultural moment, this is what we're asking of them, how do we then take all of this and move the needle?
And so I think that there is a massive opportunity for workplaces to rehumanize because I think a lot of what Gen Zs are rejecting, aka the broken social contract, which says unless I'm slogging myself 80 hours a week at the law firm, I'll never make partner. they're like, ew, I don't want to make partner if that's what it's going to mean. I want to play sport and travel. I, you know, I, you know, like I, man, it's...
It's just so everyone has different expectations and everyone defaults under pressure to what is familiar to them and everyone is busy and self-important and wrapped up in their own echo chambers. None of this encourages us to be human. It encourages entitlement across the generations and it encourages us to pathologize or to stereotype the other.
Brad Eather (56:19.062)
Mm.
Katie Iles (56:40.838)
for whatever reason, because that's easier for us because it doesn't require me to change, it doesn't require leadership from me. And so I think that there's a huge piece of work, huge opportunity for the workplace to rehumanize and understand natural neurobiological flow states, mutual interdependence, to look at strength-based leadership rather than, you've been here for 20 years, therefore I'll listen to you, even though that's probably...
you're probably missing a whole bunch of other really important insight from younger workers or different genders or whatever it happens to be. I think that we've got to as leaders and people of a certain age, like the midlife crisis, you're a little bit before your midlife crisis, Brad. But let me tell you, it's coming for you. And I think that when you hit about 40, particularly if you're a woman, society starts to interact with you differently.
And I think if you're over the age of 40 and you know, you're looking at AI and disruption and tech this and emerging generations that you can start to feel a bit insecure, which means you can start to be territorial and you can start to be defensive and you can start to allow that insecurity to, know, I suppose make you smaller and
But we can make it seem as though that everyone else is the problem because we're the experienced ones and we're the boss and da da da da. And I think that there is a real legitimate crisis of identity, purpose, meaning, contribution because older workers, I'm going to say older, 40 and over, are having to find themselves in a space that they never anticipated.
and so, but the pressure's on, you know, and so I think that so much of friction in the workplace, so much of attrition can be solved by building trust, by building coherence, and by building workplaces that are empathic. And I don't mean woo woo let's all hold hands and sit around and sing kumbaya, I mean like let's understand the human experience and what helps us to thrive.
Katie Iles (58:59.912)
and do what we can to, you know, respect that. And, and we think, but we've got to, you know, move faster, break things, Elon Musk, yada, yada, yada. And I'm going, all that the last 50 years has done post industrial revolution has made people's value commensurate to what they produce, not who they are.
And that's not to say we shouldn't work hard and have ambition and produce. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that the reason that we have a mental health crisis and a relationship crisis and we've got divorce rates the way that they are and we've got, you know, polarization and we've got disillusionment and all of this is because we have over time fundamentally gotten step by step by step by step further away from mutual interdependence and what it really means to be fully alive as a human.
And, you know, I say this to lawyers and to C-suite members and they look at me like I'm a psychopath and I'm going and then I'll go, okay, that's fine. We'll keep doing it your way. And you'll call me in in a couple of years when you've got a fundamental cultural collapse and you won't place and we'll see what we can do then. But it's an interesting time. But I think that Gen Z is the feedback loop.
And I think that they are revealing to us broken social contracts and fragility in the workplace that we've just accepted, but they've now got the agency and the voice to say, actually, I think it could look different. And I've got an idea about that. so I think it's kind of cool because it forces us to eat our humble pie and adopt a posture of curiosity and humility, which I think is what two of the qualities that make the best leaders universal.
Brad Eather (01:00:45.426)
It's, it's, it's funny. Like when you're talking, like this is the paradox of this whole thing. You've talked about going slow to move fast. And the paradox is that the world is moving at such a pace that it's telling us that we need results now, now, now. But what you're talking about is, is, definitely a long-term play.
looking inwards and building empathy within a workforce. How do you calculate a return on investment on that? These are the questions that businesses are asking because it's not a sprint to the finish. It's not a one and done. This is something that is a scaffolding approach, something that is continuously building, I suppose. Yeah.
Katie Iles (01:01:23.544)
Mm.
Katie Iles (01:01:37.71)
It's an operating system upgrade, isn't it? Like, you know, cause we've got, we've got the behind the scenes code that produces what we see, right? And if what's being produced isn't aligned with, you know, our commercial priority or our culture priority, whatever, then we've got to make an adjustment to the operating system. And, and so I think when you look at attrition, when you look at
I suppose hybrid work and the way people are engaging with the workplace. I think anyone who has kids just loves flexible work because suddenly you're not freaking out about after school care quite so much and how you're to get kids to soccer and yada, yada, which will soon be your reality Bradley. But I think that, you know, it just requires us to build our capacity as leaders and to
go, well, this upgrade, this operating system on my phone gets upgraded all the time. And so I think what happens is when the work becomes hard and when the work feels insurmountable is when we haven't built that agility and those feedback loops into our frameworks of every day. I think that Australians are terrible at both giving and receiving feedback. And I think that, I think that
Brad Eather (01:03:00.182)
Tall, tall poppy syndrome,
Katie Iles (01:03:02.242)
Paul Poppy syndrome, like man, my brother-in-law is American, which is obviously disappointing, but, no, he's a legend. But, you know, they just moved out from LA and he's just like, what is wrong with you people? And we're all like, what are you talking about, idiot? You know, cause he's just like, and it's like having someone hold up a mirror to you and go, my gosh, we are awful sometimes.
We're the best of times the worst of times that's people in a nutshell, but I think that that the trick is to go as a leader I need to be able to accurately culturally I need to be a diagnostician. I need to be somebody who has Empathy in my leadership so that and that can only come from actually understanding people because I think a lot of the time we we interpret people, you know, we've got our
glasses on the way that we see the world and I will judge view and categorize you according to my own worldview and the further away I am from you the easier it is for me to do that but when I actually take the time to understand you and ask you three to five questions suddenly the way that I
hold space for you and the way that I respond to you, the posture that I adopt when it comes to you is fundamentally different because I've engaged with you not as a means to an end, not as a commodity, not as a profit this, not as a whatever that, but as a person. And when we do that, we...
Find our neurobiological flow state, which will naturally increase our wellbeing. And as your old mate, happiness researcher shows, you will get a fundamental uptick in productivity. Not because you've got the smartest this and the, you know, people and culture that, but because you have built into your operating system, you've held space for the human experience. You've rehumanized the way you've gone about work. And in order to do that, you're going to have to have funky conversations and adjust on the fly and be continually
Katie Iles (01:05:06.344)
that scaffolding and adjusting it where it's weak so that we can essentially build this freaking plane while we're flying it which feels like is what's happening at the moment. yeah there's a there's a lot there but I think that
The danger is that we will default to stereotypes or pathologizing pain rather than actually using it as a feedback loop that helps us to self-reflect and make adjustments. And the more that we do that, the more agility we will have, which makes change easier, which means change normative. So then suddenly when I have to start marketing myself on social media, Brad, I'm not going, well, know, this is ridiculous.
Brad Eather (01:05:42.345)
you
Brad Eather (01:05:46.938)
Cause I mean, to bring it back to sales, we haven't really talked about sales, but I think that there is a fundamental shift as well when it comes to not only empathizing internally with our stakeholders in within a business, but empathizing with our customers, that the, the nature of how we're communicating these days is actually meaning that we can relate to one another on a one-to-one basis.
I, this framework that I'm about to share would work internally as well. If you're trying to identify how to engage with someone around their worldview. And it's called the VIP framework. So it stands for values, identity and prize. And when I say VIP, this is a sales framework. it's,
It's a mo it's a motivation piece. How do I drive motivation for someone to have a discussion? But, values is essentially their, their ideology. What, what, what do they believe in? Like, they Christian? What kind of groups are they associated with? Like, say for example, it could be, it could be, you know, a community group or, or something like that identity.
is what they believe about themselves. So you can ask a simple question like, if I was going to put this internally is like, where, what, where did you go to union? How did you get to where you are now within there? There's a story about the identity and who they want to be, not necessarily who they are now, but who they want to be and prize prizes. Another motivator.
Katie Iles (01:07:34.776)
Mm-hmm.
Brad Eather (01:07:43.072)
but that's sort of a reward, which isn't applicable so much internally. But applying the VIP framework is a great way to personify and identify and meet someone at their level. When we're talking about digital communications from a sales perspective, in a networking event, you have those conversations. You go, hey, where are from? Where do you work?
Katie Iles (01:08:03.438)
you
Brad Eather (01:08:10.07)
You don't have that opportunity to open up that free dialogue online. So what you need to do is you need to identify things. Where are their values? What, what can I read from the research that I have available that identifies something that I can presume with a likelihood of, with a good likelihood that I'm correct. what, how do they see themselves? What kind of things are they telling themselves about? What kind of things are they putting online about,
the groups and associations that they're involved in. And that's how you would open up a discussion to insert empathy into that discussion. Right. but yeah, I just, I just thought that that commonality was quite interesting, you know, talking about, humanizing the experience. feel like the world is all, is not about speaking to mass anymore. It's all about speaking to one to one individuals.
Katie Iles (01:08:47.554)
Yeah.
Katie Iles (01:08:57.07)
you
Katie Iles (01:09:01.198)
Yeah.
Brad Eather (01:09:08.778)
You're talking about trust. Trust is established differently as well these days.
Katie Iles (01:09:09.174)
Yeah. Yeah.
Katie Iles (01:09:15.998)
100%. And I think people can smell BS a mile off now, you know, and that's really who, one of my mates is Matt Jones, who was one of the founders of Four Pillars Gin. And um...
And he has an agency now called Think Story Experience and it's built around exactly what you're saying but it's basically the soft, what he would call the soft edges of your brand and the story of your brand because people now, like what you know, what you sell is far less important than the story that you're inviting people into.
Brad Eather (01:09:47.766)
Mm.
Katie Iles (01:09:49.502)
neuroscience will show that different parts of our brain, more of our brain lights up when we engage in a narrative than in almost any other thing. So when we're being read a story, we're engaging with a story, our brains like, so then the story that your brand is telling, and then to your point about engaging with the customer, like that's a second order understanding the second order belief system and the plausibility structures like what does somebody have to agree with as true?
in order for them to normalise or to prioritise X, Y or Z behaviour, choice, I don't know, whatever. And so, you know, so your, I suppose, skillset and capacity to do that.
is phenomenally important when it comes to sales because you know, it's far less about the product as it is about the person. Obviously, I mean, I'm not a sales guy. I mean, I'm literally coming to you going Bradley, I'm freaking out. How do I market myself? This is the weirdest. I can't do this. But I think the principle is you don't just act on what you believe, you act on what others believe you believe as well. And so this is all these different layers that come into it. So I would anyone selling first, second, third order belief systems, plausibility structures.
Brad Eather (01:10:42.592)
You
Katie Iles (01:11:01.848)
have all those reconciled against your target demographic and if that's Gen Z and whether or not that's you as a manager trying to retain them or attract them, recruit them, or whether you're trying to sell to them, you know, what matters to them, why does it matter, you know, and am I judging that or am I understanding that?
you know, am I interpreting that or I'm actually getting into the second order belief there so that I can create a more meaningful connection and actually solve a real pain point, right? Because isn't that just what business is? We've solved problems, you know, and in order to do that, I have to know not just what the problem is, but who's experiencing that problem. And then I have to test my assumptions about how somebody is experiencing that problem. And then, you know, and we go from there, but all of that
Brad Eather (01:11:34.39)
you
Katie Iles (01:11:50.956)
And we're putting this in a sales framework, fair and reasonable, but all of that requires me to understand the human experience and the human drivers of motivation and what happens in the brain when different things are in play and how access to digital has changed and shaped the way a Gen Z imbibes information and interacts with the world around them in the same way. So it's all about rehumanizing.
Brad Eather (01:11:58.038)
Mmm.
Brad Eather (01:12:15.723)
Yeah.
Katie Iles (01:12:16.078)
which is why you slice it. cannot any longer abdicate what I would call our human apprenticeship. And I think that the because we've done that and we've permissioned that in the name of profit or commercial viability or speed to market or whatnot. And that's fine for a bit until everyone, you know, great wakes up and is like, what is Jen said? Jen said doesn't want to do this anymore. Huh? Huh?
My playbook says they should want this because that, wait a second, that's where we are.
Brad Eather (01:12:45.322)
Yeah.
Well, I think we've come to the end of the discussion. So I'm going to ask you the one final question that I ask at the end of every podcast. And I'm interested to hear what your definition of creativity is, Katie.
Katie Iles (01:13:02.222)
I love this. I think creativity is what happens when we become fully alive. I'm convinced. I think that when we are awakened to our God given genius, our unique charism, our unique beauty, potential, and then we go...
in the overflow of that, the groundedness of that, in the energy that's created of not just that, but then how I see the world around me and the potential of the world around me. I just have to contribute, right? And that's not necessarily that I'm just writing a song or creating a piece of art, although how about it? Brilliant. I think it's when we become fully alive to our potential and therefore contribute.
not to be competitive, not to create a commercial advantage, but just because it's that beauty, truth and goodness that flows out of us. It's when you have that amazing innovation idea that's going to solve a real world problem. It's the guy who brings solar power to the thousands of islands in the Philippines that would otherwise be in dark, which is now revolutionizing the way an entire generation of children have access to education. There's a social justice piece there and it was because somebody was fully alive as a human and
took everything that they had and chose to make a contribution and I think that any time that and it's not performative I don't think it is I think it's genuinely if I was going to be really woo-woo about it I would say it's obedience to joy almost this is obedience to the visceral
reality of what it means to be alive and the sacredness of that and the overflow of that and I think the more that we can connect creativity not with the arts so much as being alive we I think will have some incredible innovations and pathways forward that are going to be a rising tide.
Brad Eather (01:15:02.486)
I love how a lot of this conversation has been driven around empathy and having empathy towards others in order to improve. And I think that your definition of creativity really lends itself to the discussion that we've had and drives home that piece in terms of just being more empathetic without the need to have a financial reward or something at the end, just being kind to humans.
leads to outcomes, creative or not, are just better for everyone, I suppose.
Katie Iles (01:15:39.404)
Absolutely, yeah. But love it, love what you're doing.
Brad Eather (01:15:41.568)
So Katie, if someone wants to get in touch, where's the best place to find you?
Katie Iles (01:15:48.59)
that's very kind. can find me at www.thepraxiscollective.com. I'm also on LinkedIn. And yeah, I'd love to have a chat if you want to talk about generational intelligence, workforce strategy, leadership, love to have a chat.
Brad Eather (01:16:07.67)
Awesome. Well, thank you very much for joining me on the Selling is Creative podcast. And thank you everybody else out there for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure you like and subscribe. And in the meantime, happy selling.
