There’s a weird thing that happens when you spend enough time online. You start to see the phrase “OK boomer” thrown around like it’s the final word on any advice from an older generation. Everything they say gets dismissed as outdated, irrelevant, out of touch.
I get it. I’ve written about boomer financial advice that genuinely makes no sense anymore. The economy has changed, house prices have exploded relative to wages, and much of the old playbook doesn’t work.
But here’s what bothers me about this reflexive dismissal: we’re throwing out some genuinely valuable principles along with the outdated stuff. And I think we’re worse off for it.
Some of the steadiest, most successful people I’ve worked with operated on principles that would sound almost quaint if you said them out loud today.
These aren’t about clinging to the past. They’re about understanding what actually works when you’re trying to build something that lasts.
So let’s talk about seven work principles from the boomer generation that are more valuable now than ever.
1) Show up consistently, even when you don’t feel like it
My dad worked in a factory for thirty-five years. Every morning, whether he felt great or awful, whether the job was interesting that day or mind-numbing, he showed up. It wasn’t heroic. It was just what you did.
That kind of consistency feels almost old-fashioned now. We live in an era that celebrates hustle culture one minute and self-care the next, where working from bed is normalized and calling in sick because you’re “not feeling it mentally” is increasingly accepted.
I’m not dismissing mental health. I take it seriously, and I’ve seen people around me burn out from pushing too hard. But there’s a difference between genuine struggles and simply not being in the mood.
Consistency builds trust in a way that bursts of brilliance never can. People need to know you’ll be there, that the quality won’t suddenly drop because you’re having an off month.
That’s more valuable now than ever because consistency has become genuinely rare. If you can be the person who actually does what they say they’ll do, when they say they’ll do it, you’re already ahead.
2) Your reputation follows you everywhere
Previous generations understood something we seem to have forgotten: the world is smaller than you think, and people talk.
My dad was involved in his factory’s union, and he taught me early that how you treat people matters because you never know when you’ll cross paths again. Someone you dismiss today might be making decisions about your future tomorrow.
Today’s professional world feels more anonymous because of its scale. You can job-hop between cities, work remotely for companies across the country, reinvent yourself with a new profile. It creates the illusion that your past doesn’t matter.
But reputation still follows you. It’s actually more permanent now because everything is documented. That snippy email, that project you half-finished, that time you ghosted someone, it all lives somewhere in someone’s memory or inbox.
Building a good reputation is slow work. Destroying one is remarkably fast. The older generation understood this instinctively because their world was smaller and more visible. Ours might feel bigger, but the principle still holds.
3) Relationships matter more than transactions
One of the biggest differences I notice between generations is how they approach professional relationships. Younger workers often treat every interaction as a transaction. What can I get from this? Is this worth my time right now? If not, move on.
The boomer approach was different. Build relationships, even when there’s no immediate benefit. Stay in touch. Help people when you can. Think long term.
I used to think this was naive. During my early corporate years, I was ruthlessly efficient about networking. If someone couldn’t help me advance, I didn’t waste time on them. It felt smart and strategic.
Then I started my own business and realized how wrong I’d been. The people who became my best clients weren’t from calculated networking. They were people I’d worked with years earlier, stayed in touch with casually, helped when they needed something even though there was nothing in it for me at the time.
Today, it’s rare to find genuine relationships. Everyone is optimizing, networking strategically, thinking about personal brand. When you actually build real connections with people, you stand out simply because you’re not treating every interaction like a LinkedIn transaction.
The world moves faster now, but people still prefer working with people they actually like and trust. That hasn’t changed.
4) Master your craft before trying to revolutionize it
There’s a seductive idea floating around today: you can disrupt an industry without understanding it deeply. Just bring fresh eyes, challenge assumptions, move fast and break things.
Sometimes this works. More often, it doesn’t.
The boomer approach was different: learn the fundamentals thoroughly before trying to change them. Understand why things are done a certain way before deciding that way is wrong. Put in the hours to actually get good at something.
This sounds boring compared to the narrative of young disruptors changing everything overnight. But I’ve watched enough startups fail and enough “revolutionary” ideas crash to see the value in deep knowledge.
The best people I know who’ve actually changed their industries didn’t do it by ignoring fundamentals. They mastered the basics first, which gave them the knowledge to see what actually needed changing versus what just looked like it needed changing from the outside.
This patience is countercultural now. Everything is about speed, about being first, about disrupting before someone disrupts you. But lasting change usually comes from people who understand their field deeply enough to know what matters and what doesn’t.
You can’t revolutionize something you don’t understand. And understanding takes time.
5) Face-to-face conversations still matter
I work from home most days, communicate primarily through email and Slack, and can go weeks where most of my professional interactions happen through screens. It’s efficient, it’s flexible, and honestly, it’s exhausting.
The generation before us understood something we’ve lost: there are conversations that simply work better face to face. Not because of some mystical connection, but because you pick up on things you miss in text. Tone, hesitation, enthusiasm, doubt. The stuff that doesn’t translate to email.
Face-to-face interaction has become optional these days. It’s easy to hide behind screens, to avoid difficult conversations by handling everything through messages. But some things still need to happen in person.
Giving someone tough feedback. Pitching an idea you really care about. Sorting out a conflict. Asking for something important. These work better when you’re actually in the same room.
The older generation defaulted to face-to-face because they had to. We default to digital because we can. But that doesn’t mean it’s always better. Sometimes the old way worked better, and we’ve lost something by abandoning it completely.
6) Don’t confuse activity with progress
Modern work culture is obsessed with looking busy. Packed calendars, full inboxes, constant Slack messages, endless meetings. If you’re not visibly doing something every moment, you must not be working hard enough.
Previous generations had a different measure: results. Did you actually accomplish something, or did you just stay busy?
My dad’s factory job was straightforward in this way. You either produced what needed producing or you didn’t. The time you spent looking busy didn’t matter. The output did.
Knowledge work makes this harder to measure, which is why we’ve substituted activity for progress. But the distinction still matters enormously.
The boomer generation understood this because their work often had clear outputs. Ours frequently doesn’t, which makes it easier to mistake busyness for productivity.
But if you can cut through that and focus on what actually moves things forward, you’ll accomplish more than the people who are constantly busy but never really progressing.
7) Keep your word, even when it’s inconvenient
This one sounds almost painfully obvious, but watch how people actually behave these days.
Plans get cancelled last minute. Commitments get quietly dropped. Promises get forgotten when something better comes along.
The generation before us took keeping your word seriously. Not because they were more moral, but because their word was often all they had.
My mum worked in retail for years, and she taught me early: if you say you’ll do something, you do it. People remember when you don’t.
This matters now because keeping your word has become optional in many contexts. Don’t feel like meeting up? Just cancel via text. Can’t deliver what you promised? Send an apologetic message and move on. Not interested anymore? Ghost them.
The ease of backing out has made actually following through more valuable. When you’re someone whose yes means yes, people notice. They trust you with bigger things. They recommend you. They come back.
It’s not about being inflexible or never changing your mind. It’s about thinking carefully before committing, then honoring that commitment once you make it. The older generation understood this because breaking your word had immediate, visible consequences in their smaller, more connected world.
Our world feels bigger and more anonymous, but the principle still works. Your word either means something or it doesn’t. People figure out which pretty quickly.
Conclusion
I don’t mean to romanticize the past or pretend previous generations got everything right. They didn’t. I’ve written about the ways their advice no longer applies, and I’ll probably write about it again.
But we’re making a mistake if we dismiss everything that came before as irrelevant simply because it’s old. Some principles persist because they’re not actually about any particular generation. They’re about what works when you’re trying to build something lasting.
The world has changed dramatically. The economy is different, technology has transformed how we work, and much of the old advice needs serious updating. But some things haven’t changed as much as we think.
The question isn’t whether these principles came from another generation. It’s whether they still work. And from where I’m standing, after years in corporate, running my own business, and building a writing career, I’d say they absolutely do.
Source – https://siliconcanals.com/r-7-boomer-work-principles-that-are-more-valuable-today-than-ever-before/