Who Says You Have to Be Old to Be Wise?
There’s a narrative circulating that this younger generation “just doesn’t want to work like we did.” You hear it in boardrooms, at partner meetings, in frustrated conversations between colleagues. According to recent surveys, 44% of Gen Z workers say they put their own needs above those of their employers, and the older generation interprets this as laziness or entitlement.
But what if we’ve got it backwards? What if they’re not lazy—what if they’re wise?
I’ve spent decades in law firms and the corporate world, climbing the traditional ladder of billable hours and face time. Recently, I’ve witnessed a few moments that put a finer point on questioning everything about how we define “work ethic.”
The first time, counsel for the buyer wanted me to send to them all the data room documents—despite the fact that they were already shared in the cloud and easily accessible. They were suggesting that I print them and deliver them (note we haven’t had a printer in this decade). The senior partner, I suppose trying to follow the way it has always been done, scheduled a call with me and a younger associate to discuss how we’d accomplish this seemingly simple task. His alternative solution? Burn everything to a CD.
I was baffled. To me, it seemed so obvious that this was an unnecessarily inefficient approach to a simple problem. After a bit back and forth, the young associate quietly supported the solution I was suggesting: “I think we can just download the folders.” Somehow that was what the partner needed to hear to understand. Problem solved (without the need for a call in actuality) with a solution that was faster, cheaper, and more efficient than anything the experienced senior partner was suggesting.
Another example came from my oldest son, who’s in his mid-twenties and loves tech. When we would debate how to get things done, he would offer a quote that’s often attributed to Bill Gates: “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” (Though interestingly, I had to go check, but there’s actually no evidence Bill Gates ever said this, despite how perfectly it captures the programmer mindset.)
Whether Gates said it or not, the sentiment rings true. My son and his generation don’t see technology as a tool to enhance traditional work—or as we say at ADVOS—scale a broken model. They see it as a complete reimagining of what work should be. They grew up speaking the language of automation, efficiency, and leverage. To them, much of what we do as billable-hour professionals doesn’t just seem outdated—it defies logic.
And they’re right.
Think about it: we live in an age where AI can draft contracts, analyze deals, and conduct due diligence in minutes rather than hours. And don’t get me wrong, the wisdom that does come from experience is absolutely necessary to making sure the work that goes out the door is excellent. Yet we often pride ourselves on being “always available,” on the grind of manual processes that technology could handle better and faster, and doing it the way it has always been done. We mistake motion for progress, hours for value.
Experience and wisdom are absolutely essential to excellent work. But that wisdom isn’t developed through mindless drudgery—it’s honed through strategic thinking, complex problem-solving, and building client relationships. The real value comes from applying that experience to negotiation, creative solutions, and navigating the nuanced human elements that no algorithm can master.
Technology should free us up to focus on the human elements where experience really counts. Once the data has been analyzed or the process automated, how do we negotiate the best solution for our client? How do we optimize for the best outcomes? How do we read the room, build trust, and solve problems that require both technical knowledge and emotional intelligence? These are the skills that truly separate great professionals from mediocre ones, and they’re not learned by devoting more hours to tasks that machines can do better.
Deloitte’s latest survey of 23,000+ Gen Z and millennial workers shows these generations are focused on growth, learning, and pursuing balance between money, meaning, and well-being. They have high expectations and a passion for social impact, and they can be catalysts for change in building a future-proof workforce.
Maybe that’s not entitlement. Maybe that’s wisdom.
The younger generation isn’t rejecting work—they’re rejecting inefficiency disguised as work ethic. They’re not being lazy—they’re being logical. They understand that working smarter doesn’t mean working less; it means working better. It means focusing on outcomes rather than inputs, on value rather than volume.
They’re asking uncomfortable questions that we should have been asking all along: Why are we doing things this way? Is there a better way? What would happen if we optimized for results rather than hours?
In my field, I’ve watched and learned from those who embrace technology that can review contracts faster than any human ever could. I’ve seen automation produce better results and catch things that humans just couldn’t do. They’re not cutting corners—they’re eliminating unnecessary corners entirely.
The irony is that this approach to work isn’t new. Every major leap in human productivity has come from people who refused to accept “that’s how we’ve always done it” as a sufficient answer. The printing press, the assembly line, the personal computer, Excel—all of these innovations came from people who were, in their own way, too “lazy” to accept inefficient solutions.
So before we criticize a generation for not wanting to work 80-hour weeks parsing documents that software could analyze in minutes, maybe we should ask ourselves: Who’s really being wise here?
Maybe it’s time we stopped confusing activity with achievement, presence with productivity, and tradition with wisdom. Maybe it’s time we learned something from the generation we’re so quick to dismiss.
After all, who says you have to be old to be wise?
What’s your experience working with different generations? Have you found yourself questioning traditional work practices? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
-Gwen
Sources:
- TalentLMS and BambooHR. (2022). “Survey: Gen Z in the Workplace.” Survey of 1,205 U.S. Gen Zers aged 19-25 across industries. Available at: https://www.talentlms.com/research/gen-z-workplace-statistics
- Deloitte. (2025). “Global Gen Z and Millennial Survey 2025.” Survey of 23,000+ Gen Z and millennial workers globally. Available at: https://www.deloitte.com/global/en/issues/work/genz-millennial-survey.html
- Photo Cred: Jonathan Griggs, 24, passionate about retro technology.