What Happened
A recent Fortune article argues that Gen Z workers are not uniquely bad at professional communication. Instead, the real problem is that companies have never clearly defined their own expectations. Organizations assume employees will absorb unwritten rules through osmosis, then blame younger workers when those invisible standards go unmet. The fault, the argument goes, sits squarely with leadership.
The Communication Angle
Is Gen Z struggling to communicate, or are they simply refusing to guess at rules nobody wrote down?
The answer is the second one, and blaming the generation is a failure of diagnosis. When a company cannot articulate its own norms, it has a communication breakdown at the structural level. That breakdown does not start with the newest employees. It starts at the top, every single time.
Here is the specific problem: most workplace communication expectations are transmitted through imitation, not instruction. Senior employees watched their managers, copied the behavior, and called it "professionalism." Then they handed that invisible rulebook to the next generation and wondered why nobody could read it. Gen Z is not less capable of learning norms. They are less willing to pretend that vague cultural expectations are the same as clear standards. That is not a flaw. That is actually reasonable.
What organizations need to do is explicit norm-setting. That means stating the rule directly, in plain language, with a reason attached. Not "we expect professional communication" but "in this company, we respond to internal emails within 24 hours because our clients depend on fast coordination." The reason is not optional. Without it, the rule feels arbitrary, and arbitrary rules get ignored. Every generation ignores arbitrary rules. Gen Z just says so out loud.
The other failure is feedback delivery. When a younger employee violates an unspoken norm, most managers respond with vague disappointment rather than a direct correction. They say things like "I just expected more awareness" instead of "your message to the client needed a greeting and a clear ask. Here is what that looks like." Vague feedback teaches nothing. It just creates anxiety and resentment. If you want someone to change behavior, you have to name the behavior, name the standard, and show the gap between them. That is not complicated. It is just rarely done.
Companies that have fixed this problem did one thing differently: they treated onboarding as a communication course, not an orientation checklist. They told new hires exactly what good communication looked like in their specific environment, gave examples, and created space to ask questions without penalty. The result was not a more compliant workforce. It was a more effective one.
This is exactly the kind of scenario I break down in Say It Right Every Time. The chapter on setting communication standards gives you a framework for translating assumed cultural rules into language that actually transfers from one person to the next. If you manage people, that chapter is the most practical thing you will read this year.
Never Be Lost
for Words Again
Get word‑for‑word scripts for the conversations that shape your life, from job interviews and negotiations to difficult talks with family and partners, so you always know exactly what to say and how to say it.
Never Be Lost
for Words Again
Get word‑for‑word scripts for the conversations that shape your life, from job interviews and negotiations to difficult talks with family and partners, so you always know exactly what to say and how to say it.
Key Takeaway
This week, write down three communication norms your team operates by and share them explicitly in your next team meeting. Do not assume everyone already knows. State the norm, state the reason, and invite questions. That single move will do more for your team's communication than any workshop you could schedule.
