One of my favorite parts of academic life is “spreading the gospel” of good business and communications practices beyond the classroom. I recently got to spend some quality time with a group of managers from a regional manufacturing facility. While being some of the most fun and friendly people I’ve ever worked with, they pulled no punches when it came to their biggest workplace challenge: Communications. They described scenarios in which the newest hires, primarily Gen-Z-ers, would avoid interpersonal communications at any cost. This lack of ability or willingness to speak up had produced situations where employees would stand at a malfunctioning machine and say nothing. Production had literally come to a halt multiple times because young employees simply would not let someone know there was a problem. On a daily basis, I face Gen-Z in the safe confines of a college classroom, but such a phenomenon was something I had never considered. I had (naively) assumed that a strong organiz...