Growing up in the 70s and 80s, life was full of friction. No GPS meant walking into the gas station to ask for directions. No contactless apps meant talking to someone behind the counter to order your food. And when you called a friend on the land line and their dad answered, you had about 30 seconds of awkward small talk before you got handed over. Nobody coached you through it. It was just Tuesday.
Gen Z, you didn’t get that. And before you skip past this, that is not a criticism. The world that was built for you is designed to eliminate every uncomfortable human moment before you even feel it.
But what nobody is telling you is that experiencing these small moments of friction is essential to your career success.
And because you’re early in your career, these skills matter more now than ever before.
That gap is yours to close.
I’ve seen it fail in every direction. Flight attendants who can’t de-escalate a difficult passenger. Nurses who see a medication error and can’t find the words to push back against the attending physician. Senior leaders spending their afternoon on a conflict that two people should have handled themselves two weeks ago. These are durable skills deficits. And durable skills are built through practice.
The practice you get from small moments is what makes you functional during bigger, higher-stakes interactions. Every awkward phone call is training. Every conversation you didn’t bail on is a rep.
The data from those campuses bears it out. At the University of North Dakota alone, nearly 900 students have participated. More than 90% said they felt heard and not judged. More than 80% walked away with a perspective they hadn’t considered before. Three-quarters wanted more of it.
That last number matters. Because it says this isn’t a generation that’s afraid of hard conversations or real human connection. It’s a generation that hasn’t been given enough chances to practice them.
The friction that used to happen naturally, in checkout lines, on the phone and in the ordinary back-and-forth of everyday life, is getting designed away. But you still can, and should, practice it. Here’s where to start:
Have a conversation with someone today where you ask two follow up questions before you share your own opinion. That’s active listening—staying in someone else’s thinking long enough to actually understand it before you redirect to yourself.
Next time your group project hits a wall, stop texting about it. Get in a room, or on a call, for 10 minutes. Talk it out loud with each other. It’s not about the solution you land on, but the practice of working through something hard with another person in real time.
When someone shares an opinion different from yours, ask yourself why they might be right before you decide they’re wrong. The ability to test your own reasoning against someone else’s before you land on a conclusion is an essential workplace skill.
Introduce yourself to someone at an event instead of looking at your phone. That’s initiating human exchange with no script.
Make your own appointments by phone. Low stakes, real time, no edits.
It’s going to feel awkward. Let it. Lean into that discomfort, get your training reps in, and watch how fast you outpace everyone else in the room. Your career will thank you for it.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
