We recently had Gen Z Expert Daniel Day to our campus at Friends University for a visit. Daniel talked to numerous groups about his research on Gen Z, including our coaches. While he said many things that got me thinking, he made one statement I have been thinking about for days now and want to do about it. I think it is something coaches need to think about and understand when trying to motivate their athletes.
Before I get to the statement, let me set the stage on the main points of Daniel’s talk. To vastly oversimplify his complex topic…. Gen Z is addicted to their phones. No surprise that Nearly 98% of Generation Z own a smartphone. From my observation, it impacts the way they view the world…mostly in a negative way. Research has found that Gen Z’ers spend approximately eight hours of recreational time on their phone each day. This is outside of time required for work, school, etc.…. Their time on social media does not add substance or value to their lives…just disconnected facts. (paraphrased from Amusing Ourselves to Death as presented by Day)
Under that umbrella, Day made that statement that with Generation Z, their “conviction exceeds their commitment”. They want to tweet about things and do care deeply about a lot of causes but struggle to take a step beyond the social media statements. In fact, they often have an expectation that the adults and/or administration will act and they can just make statements. When Day was speaking to our groups, he was saying this in regard to Gen Z advocacy on social issues. However, I think it extends beyond that.
In our athletic world, we see a lot of social media statements about “grinding” and putting in the work to be successful. For me, if you spend the time to set up a camera, take the picture, make it look cool, and then post it.... you are probably not hard at work on your sport. However, you and I both know that it is the unique student-athlete that puts in the incredible amount of work to master their sport. I am not saying this with any data to back it or in judgement of (other than the big talk on social media…). In fact, it might actually be healthy as opposed to the single-minded focus it takes to be great.
There is a leadership question within this topic though of how do we get more commitment based on their convictions? Even further, how do we cultivate an environment where they have conviction and commitment about getting better and being committed to their team? I don’t have a great answer to this beyond developing better and deeper relationships. However, I am digging into it.
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