My oldest daughter starts an internship at Deloitte this year. She’s capable and motivated. She’s also walking into a professional environment that is wildly different from what it was even a few short years ago.
I started my career more than a few short years ago. Back then, success had a simple formula: be the first one in, be the last one out, and always ask for more work. Effort was measured in hours. Visibility was measured in face time. That commitment still matters — I’m not going to tell my daughters that hard work doesn’t matter. But I am going to tell them that hard work alone won’t cut it anymore.
They need to work differently — and so does everyone else.
What working differently actually looks like
From my experience as both a CEO and a father, I’m genuinely impressed by Gen Z’s fluency in digital communication. They text. They message. They send voice notes. That’s very useful when communicating with each other. But it has its limits, even in this hyper-digital moment. Building trusted relationships is more important than ever.
A workplace includes people who came up through email culture, phone call culture, and even memo culture. Every generation connects differently, and each method has its place. My daughters will need to adjust their approach to fit the preferences of the people they work with, rather than expecting everyone else to adapt to them.
I’ve told them this directly: figure out how your manager prefers to communicate — even ask them — then use that method. Figure out how the finance team operates, how the field team talks, how the executives want information delivered. This isn’t about abandoning your style. It’s about building range. Be a communicative chameleon.
Building that range also means building capacity for adaptation. Gen Z’s digital fluency will seem outdated to the generations behind them — and they don’t even have to wait for Gen Alpha to enter the workforce. Things are changing much faster than that. Adaptation isn’t a strategy. It’s the baseline.
Where AI fits in
AI has become one of the most practical tools available for exactly this kind of adaptation — and most people entering the workforce aren’t using it this way yet.
I do this in my own work. Before major presentations, I feed my deck into an LLM and ask how my message might land with different audiences — the board, my direct reports, a customer. It doesn’t do the work for me, but it surfaces perspectives I might not have considered, helping me tailor my communication for maximum impact. If a Fortune 500 CEO is using AI to pressure-test how his message will land before a board meeting, a 22-year-old starting her first job should be doing the same thing.
For someone entering the workforce, this is a practical starting point. You’re walking into rooms — virtual or otherwise — full of people who think differently than you do, communicate differently than you do, and have expectations you haven’t learned yet. AI can help you anticipate how a message will be received before you send it. It can help you build emotional intelligence across departments and age groups — skills that used to take years to develop through experience, trial and error.
The tool is new. The goal isn’t. You’re still trying to connect with people — AI just gives you a way to rehearse before the stakes are real.
There’s no substitute for showing up
AI can help bridge communication gaps, but it’s still just a tool. There are people on both ends of every interaction, and there’s no substitute for human connection at work.
“Showing up” looks different in many companies now, with in-office, remote, and hybrid work physically separating colleagues. But digital elements are facilitators — not replacements. Showing up means more than logging into meetings; it’s about turning your camera on, engaging actively, and looking for ways to add value. True presence, whether virtual or in-person, requires intentional effort to connect, build trust, and participate fully.
My daughters will enter a workforce where building relationships across teams takes deliberate effort. Nobody’s going to bump into them in a hallway and offer career advice. They’ll need to seek it out and cultivate a circle of trusted advisors to help them through every stage of their careers.
The advice I keep coming back to
Early in my career, someone told me: look for ways to take on more than your job description. Don’t wait to be asked. Find the gap and fill it.
That advice hasn’t changed. Work ethic is still the foundation. But outworking your peers today means something different than it did in 1995. It means adapting. It means communicating in ways that land with people who think differently from you. It means using the tools available to sharpen your judgment, not replace it.
My daughters are smart enough to figure most of this out on their own. But the rules of the game have changed fast enough that even people 30 years into their careers are still catching up. The advantage goes to whoever adapts first.
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.
