Welcome to Sunday!
A snarky friend of ours once held up her left hand at a party, her index finger touching her thumb, forming a circle. She said, “Richard, this is the loop…” She then took her other hand and pointed her index finger out into space, far away from her left hand saying, “…and this is you…” implying I was FAR out of the loop. We all had a good laugh, but the point was made…whatever the comment was, I was out of that loop.
While this mildly entertaining insult occurred many years ago, a recent interaction at work reminded me of the story. My team and I were trying to pick a symbol or image to portray our team. We were going through a bit of rebranding and were trying to decide what image to use to symbolize our new identity.
Partly as a joke, I picked the action figure of “Mr. Bill” from Saturday Night Live fame. For those not familiar, Mr. Bill was a spoof on the claymation figures so prevalent on children’s television programming shows in the 1970’s (an example can be found HERE ). Created by one of the SNL writers, Walter Williams, and making his first appearance on the show in 1976, Mr. Bill was the unlikely clay figure subjected to all sorts from insults from his nemesis, “Sluggo” or the deceptively pleasant, “Mr. Hands.” When Sluggo would appear on screen, Mr. Bill would often plea to Mr. Hands, “he’s going to be mean to me” to which Mr. Hands would reassure him of no impending violence only to then see Mr. Bill’s clay body smashed in one form or another. It was a cultural phenomenon that my friends and I thought hilarious.
Problem was, Mr. Bill was a kind of “inside joke” for those of us lucky enough to witness the antics. We would talk about it at school and imitate Mr. Bill’s falsetto voice and slapstick humor.
However, as I was explaining why I chose Mr. Bill for our rebranding to a much younger co-worker, he simply asked, “who’s Mr. Bill?” I was taken aback as I assumed everyone had heard about Mr. Bill. But his question pointed me to a revelation about the barriers between generations in the workplace.
As I was explaining the pop culture reference from nearly 2 generations earlier, it dawned on me that we usually think of younger generations having the “inside joke” on the older folks in the office: they don’t know the latest tech trend (think TikTok) or seen the post from the newest social media influencer. But here, the roles were reversed. It was the younger generation who had missed the pop culture reference and been left “out of the loop.”
Precautions for leaders (of any generation):
While “inside jokes” can be great team builders and help create a unique and powerful identity for the team, they are, by definition, exclusionary. As leaders, we have to be aware of how we yield this “team branding” or how we manage the inside jokes our team may have, especially as new members join the team. No one likes to feel left out or that they are the ones on the outside of an inside joke. As leaders, we have to realize these interactions can be powerful tools to build strong teams and identities, but you have to be careful how and when to use them.
As leaders, we also have to be aware of our own biases and how they create barriers between us and our team. We also have to stay tuned in to how these barriers can be thrown up between members of our teams. This is especially true if you have a multi-generational team. As leaders, we have to be on the lookout for behaviors that might exclude certain members of the team or that create barriers to more effective interactions between team members. No matter what our age or our generation, there will be people on our teams who are from different groups and we need to be aware in order to be inclusive.
I hope you make it a great and inclusive week! See you next Sunday.