What business school taught me about connecting with teens

My day at Oxford’s Generational Success Lab

Photo by Alexis Brown on Unsplash

I spent Friday at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, as a guest in the Generational Success Lab: an elective course exploring connection, authenticity, and perspective through the lens of generational difference, created by Sharath Jeevan, founder of Intrinsic Labs. It’s no secret that workplaces today are struggling with different generational perspectives on some pretty major things: work-life balance, flexibility, what authenticity should look like, and what defines a healthy culture.

What struck me as a parent and author of a book on parenting was how what we aim to do with teens, and the methods that work well with them, overlap with what workplaces need to do to bridge the chasm between older and younger generations. Namely, they need to get connected. This requires:

• Listening. Really listening

• Offering feedback without judgement

• Giving some autonomy

• Focusing on growth and not just performance

To readers of The Disengaged Teen and my other writing, this will sound familiar. The number one thing teens say they want from adults is that we listen. They want feedback but without the judgement that feedback often comes wrapped in. They want a chance to make decisions, and to actually do things (other than schoolwork). They know performance matters, but they hate that it feels like that’s all that matters: they are more than the sum of their achievements.

The combination of listening, offering constructive feedback and true autonomy, unlocks motivation and can help to develop agency (which we define as the ability to set a meaningful goal and marshall the resources to reach it). With teens, that might mean getting through a tough set of exams, or recording an oral history in which they learn about someone’s past. Done well, this can feel important: it’s someone’s life story and the act of unearthing it requires offering one’s full attention.

At work it looks like employees showing initiative because they have been heard, they’ve been given some autonomy, and they have gotten feedback that indicates their bosses actually see them as whole humans and not cogs in a giant extractive machine.

So how do we create that connection with our teens?

Get connected by being interested

I spent most of a recent long walk talking to my 14-year-old about the dynamics among a few girls on a camping trip. I didn’t know some of the girls, nor did I have a burning interest in the drama that unfolded. But I listened with keen attention and offered pointed questions to show that I was engaged.

Restrain yourself from judgement (this can be hard, I know)

I did not say “why are you telling me this?” or “does this have anything to do with you?” I did not offer my opinion on the conflict itself, which as an adult seemed like No Big Deal, but clearly to them was a Very Big Deal. I trusted that in listening, the point would emerge and that, if it didn’t, listening itself would be the point.

Focus any feedback squarely on growth—less instructional, more invitational

The drama didn’t have much to do with my daughter. When she was done, I reflected back to her that it seemed like a tough situation that some people seemed to handle well, and others less so. I asked her opinion about how some of the girls reacted. I offered one idea which she seemed to think was garbage, so I let it go. But I know she heard it, and I am guessing she filed it away, because we were connected. The protective shield was down.

Intentional communication

At Saïd, we split into teams and worked on managing intergenerational conflict at a fictional law firm. We collectively defined excellence and explored channels for feedback. My daughter and I were not debating the merger of two massive tech companies. We were not arguing about bonus pools or billable hours. But we were building trust (connection) by my listening to her, authentically. I provided evidence that I will show up for her world, which means she may be willing to join me in mine.

Generations will always see things differently because the world around them keeps changing. To give some recent examples, mass remote work is less than five years old; our understanding of neurodiversity is developing rapidly; email, which for a while was the default method of workplace communication, is being replaced by other tools; and AI is upending work processes at an unprecedented rate.

Wisdom and experience may be useful, at times, but if they’re not received, they’re worthless. It takes intentionality and design to make sure older, more experienced people with power in a workplace are willing to, and have channels to, show up and truly listen to younger people, and vice versa. For parents there’s good news: you’ve got time at the dinner table, in the car or on a walk to connect with your teens, every day. Do that daily muscle-building, and you are not only being a good parent but also preparing them for an ever-shifting workplace that will always need good communicators.