The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics have given us a riveting two weeks—we’ve seen highs and lows, and although there were heartbreaking moments when Team USA struggled, they ended up bringing home 33 medals, 12 of them being gold, which set a new national record for gold medals won at a Winter Games.
We love to see a team winning (especially when it’s Team USA!), but we’re also a company whose bread and butter is the analysis of team performance… so, you know we can’t help but share some of our observations.
What Team USA Is Teaching Us About Burnout in High-Pressure Environments
The entire ethos of being an Olympian centers around obsession, prodigious talent, and extreme grit. Especially in a nation where we believe, perhaps more than many other countries, that hard work can accomplish anything, we love a story of perseverance.
But for every glorious step onto the podium, there’s an equal and opposite medal not won by another Olympian: a shot missed, a step out of line, a flip left unattempted, a tragic fall. When our best and brightest don’t earn the medals they’re favored to win, those moments take center stage in the headlines. And they can teach us a lot about where we are culturally with burnout, especially among younger generations.
How Far is Too Far?
The point of conversations around burnout is not to pitch athletes against each other or make sweeping statements about entire generations based upon Olympians (who are, by occupation, some of the most exceptional people alive). However, it’s important to see the way cultural attitudes around burnout are shifting—especially in some of our most recent rising stars. And it’s equally important to see where the old guard of the “no pain, no gain” mentality is still alive and well.
If you were born in the 1990s or anytime before that, you’ve probably seen the iconic footage of Kerri Strug, tearing two ligaments in her ankle in her second-to-last vault attempt, only to land her final vault on one leg and secure the gold medal for the USA Women’s Gymnastics team at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. It’s hard to rewatch it and not feel emotional—it was the ultimate underdog story, wasn’t it? Looking back, the narrative surrounding this moment was that it was a triumph, but let’s remember a few follow-up details: first, Kerri was only 18. And while she did end up with a gold medal, this moment marked her retirement from the sport (after she was carried up to the podium… because she couldn’t walk).
It’s easy to think about Kerri Strug’s story as an isolated event, but it happened again this year with Lindsey Vonn in alpine skiing. Vonn, who is 41, came out of retirement to aim for another Olympic medal (she already has one gold and two bronze, on top of many, many more World Championship medals). In her final downhill prior to the Olympics, she crashed and ruptured her ACL, but still attempted to race in Milan… which resulted in another crash and nearly caused a leg amputation. Was it worth it? And, would we have glorified her choice if she had won a medal in that risky Olympic run?
The Fight Against Unbridled Resilience
If you keep up with the Olympics at all, you’ve heard of the gymnastics GOAT: Simone Biles, whose withdrawal from the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo made major headlines and sparked a conversation about mental health for Olympic athletes. She did return in 2024 to earn herself 3 more gold medals, but her choice to protect herself in 2020 signified a cultural shift in how we recognize and honor the need to limit unbridled resilience. She’s been outspoken about the importance of mental health, and this is a conversation that other Olympians are speaking out about in increasing numbers.
The contrast between these two mindsets were on full display in Milan, particularly in figure skating. Where Ilia Malinin’s position as the favorite to win gold in men’s figure skating became a tragedy of cracking under the pressure, Alyssa Liu’s gold-winning performance (and her entire return to the sport) was a masterclass in refusing to play the high-control, high-pressure game. Pair this with Eileen Gu’s clapback to a reporter who insinuates that her silver medals weren’t good enough, and you can see that the tides are turning when it comes to ever-rising expectations and misaligned definitions of success. Trust us when we tell you: young people are watching these spaces.
How This Translates to the Workplace
No, your office doesn’t have a podium, and it probably has fewer vaults, icy downhills, and skating rinks, too. But if you run an organization where everything is treated as urgent, then it may be taking a toll on your team’s mental health all the same.
A recent study from Gallup reported that US Employees’ Engagement has steadily declined from a peak in 2020, and the workers experiencing the steepest declines are younger Millennials and Gen Z. And whether their disengagement feels reasonable to you or not, studies do show that younger generations have higher levels of anxiety, due in part to financial stress, increased isolation, and a cocktail of other factors. Jonathan Haidt has been leading the conversation on the smartphone’s exacerbation of this problem with his book The Anxious Generation. He also discusses the over-protection of kids—which often plays out in the creation of a high-control environment (the exact kind of environment that Alyssa Liu walked away from in 2016, and one that directly impacts anxiety levels). TLDR: the anxiety is real, it’s here, and it’s not easily solved for.
How does this impact your workplace? Make no mistake: your teammates are watching the struggles of those who came before them in the workplace, and they’re weighing whether or not it’s worth it. The days when “hustle culture,” unpaid internships, and committing to “the grind” were glorified are still going strong in some industries, but in others, they’ve already changed. If you’re not showing your team that you care about them—through the policies you create, the salaries you pay, or the flexibilities you allow—then your team members (regardless of age) will be far more likely to either quit, or quietly disengage while finding financial security and personal fulfillment in a side hustle. If you increase the pressure, they won’t dig in—they’ll diversify.
If this cultural shift feels overwhelming to you, don’t fret. We’ve got a few recommendations for navigation:
- Start with curiosity. In moments like this one, it can feel like everything points to division. But if you show genuine curiosity about your team members (what they value, what makes them anxious, what makes them feel motivated, and how they define success), it can not only lead to greater understanding and perhaps cultivate trust and compassion… it could also illuminate similarities across generations. We all have different ways of expression, but our data has regularly shown that priorities and values are not as opposing as they seem.
- Bridge the skills gap. Yes, it’s important to validate the values and struggles of younger generations (don’t skip that part). But if you’re not passing on your own wisdom and know-how, you’re robbing them of a precious resource: you! The truth is that while culture is shifting, some of the very skills that everyone needs to meet the moment are the ones you’ve gained. So, set up mentorship relationships across your office, and embed coaching into your systems. And by the way, make those mentorships two-way. Professional development is a major motivator for team members of all ages, so use it as an antidote to disengagement.
- Take care of your people. We’ve written recently about the psychological impact of mass layoffs, and in that blog, we detail some of the real financial anxieties of today’s employees. A major myth with the modern workforce is that “they don’t want to work anymore.” Their proclivity for side-hustles tells us that they do want to work… They just want that work to pay off. If you keep your compensation competitive, offer flexibility where possible, and empower your team, you’ll get what our recent podcast host Ken Peterson called “discretionary effort.”
These are the kinds of nuanced shifts in culture that are not always easy to predict (and are even harder to navigate once the ship has already sailed). For many teams, having a dedicated professional who can bridge the gaps between team members (whether those gaps are led by rising anxiety, different definitions of “burnout,” or conflicting modes of communication) is becoming more and more essential. That’s why we’re launching our GPS Generational Leadership Certification this summer: a program that trains internal leaders and external facilitators to deliver the GPS curriculum and scale it across the organization (training + facilitation practice + annual content). It’s for the leaders who want to become their team’s go-to Bridge Builder, for cultural shifts exactly like this one.
(A special shoutout to Ron Doney of ThinkUp Consulting, who gave us the initial idea for this piece and shared his two cents!)
Did you like this week’s post? Then you might like these posts below.
The 2026 Workforce Trends Playbook
Your Team Isn’t “Burned Out”—They’re Starving for Clear Expectations
What’s Next?
If your team is navigating generational friction, stalled performance, or culture misalignment—it’s time to take action.
At GPS, we’re on a mission to help organizations unlock clarity, communication, and performance across every generation. And we don’t just talk about results—we deliver them in 90 days or less.
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