The Intergenerational Advantage — Four Articles on Culture, Communication, and the Future
Week 3 of Liam Polonijo's four-part series, The Intergenerational Advantage. Liam turns the lens on his own generation — what actually shaped Gen Z, what we bring to work, and where we're still growing.
Respectfully, It's Been a Lot
Article 3 of 4
By Liam Polonijo
What shaped Gen Z, what we bring, and where we are still growing
Gen Z grew up in a world moving at extraordinary speed. Social media was part of our childhood, with smartphones becoming extensions of our daily lives when we were still so young.
Then came political polarization, climate concerns, economic instability, housing uncertainty, artificial intelligence, remote education, job market disruption, and a global pandemic during some of our most formative years.
Many of us experienced multiple "once-in-a-lifetime" events before turning 25. We entered a job market where AI is cutting out entire workforces and decades-old systems are changing in the blink of an eye.
Respectfully, it has been a lot.
This does not mean Gen Z has faced more hardship than every generation before us — every generation has inherited serious challenges. But these issues have developed inside an environment of constant connectivity and extraordinary uncertainty. And naturally... that environment shaped us.
Gen Z tends to be comfortable with technology, ready to question old perspectives, and willing to adapt quickly to unexpected situations. Many of us value transparency, authenticity, flexibility, and meaningful work.
We often want to understand not just what we're doing, but why — and we want the chance to contribute, experiment, and solve problems without being closely managed at every step. That's sometimes mistaken for wanting less responsibility.
Usually it's the opposite: we want ownership, and proof that our ideas matter. It's also why many of us measure productivity differently. Where long hours once visibly signaled loyalty, we're more likely to ask whether time spent is really the best measure of value — not to work less, but to work more intentionally.
At the same time, every generation has growing edges. For Gen Z, ours tend to show up in communication, teamwork, and building professional relationships over time — many of us came up through digital communication, and the pandemic disrupted the in-person practice other generations used to build those muscles.
But these are learnable skills, and learning them still greatly matters. Gen Z can benefit from the resilience, patience, long-term thinking, relationship-building, and pattern recognition of older generations. Older generations can benefit from Gen Z's adaptability, digital fluency, openness, and willingness to question assumptions.
Neither side has all the answers.
The best question is not, "How do we get Gen Z to work more like everyone else?"
A better question is:
How can every generation contribute what it does best while continuing to learn from one another?
In the final article, we will look at what that kind of learning can actually look like inside an organization.