Generational rethink

The Gen Z Effect: The Six Forces Shaping the Future of Business, by Thomas Koulopoulos and Dan Keldsen

THE notion of 'generations' has always bothered me. This is especially the case when people in business have concerned themselves with how different the generations are.

There are two reasons for this discomfort. The first is that the imported 'generations' do not fit our local conditions with anything near relevance. Secondly, as a father of two girls born less than two years apart, their personal dissimilarities far outweigh their generational similarities - as is no doubt the case with your own children.

The term ‘generations’ was popularised by the cultural anthropologist, Margaret Mead, and was most useful in advertising to large, anonymous groups of people via radio or television. It did not, and never has had, relevance in business. (With apologies to those who make a living out of perpetuating this myth.)   

We are now moving rapidly to a global population redistribution that equalises the number of people in each of the 13 five-year age groups, from birth to 64. At the heart of this reconfiguration of generations is the explosion of technology, which has disrupted every area of our lives.

“There are many more generations of technology in the century between you and your grandparents than there were in the two thousand years between Plato and Gutenberg,” authors Koulopoulos and Keldsen explain. The result is not an increase in either the number or importance of these generations, but rather the beginning of the end of generational boundaries.

Understanding and embracing this generational rethink will yield the benefits of intense collaboration in your workplace, rather than separation. Understood and managed correctly you will be able to build professional relationships that benefit from the energy of youth and the wisdom of maturity.

It will lead to lifelong learning, unlearning, and relearning for all. It will enable all ages to thrive in a world of accelerating change. There is immense value in ensuring that the constraints of the past do not define the limits of the future.

Of course, cohorts will still exist. However, they will share a common set of behaviours and experiences. These cohorts are not to be defined by 20-year generational bands, which never made sense, and make even less sense today.

This revisionist generational definition has been embraced by prominent companies such as the Hyatt hotel group, General Electric, Cisco, Google and many more (though not enough).

The author’s investigations have led them to identify six forces that are driving what they call the “Gen Z Effect.” I will share three with you.

The first force is that the world has moved from connectivity (we can write and have a postal system) to “hyperconnectivity”. This hyper-connected state no longer exists only between people and computers, but extends to the connection between machines and objects, now called the “internet of things”.

Incessantly bombarded by information

Fifty percent of people check their email before getting out of bed in the morning, and 60% sleep with their mobile devices in or near their beds. We are also connected to another 50 billion devices that are attached to the internet, from surveillance cameras to wearable devices, smart cars, credit cards and more. In an incredibly hyperconnected, information-saturated world, we are all incessantly bombarded by information and stimuli.

The authors observe that we are now at a stage where it is only “technology” if you did not grow up with it.

The internet has achieved adoption in excess of 30% of the total global population. No other human phenomenon has achieved this level of adoption in the same timeframe, not even global pandemics.

All this is blurring age-related generational divides.

A second force affecting the collapse of generations is “slingshotting”, which propels the adoption of technology by a majority.

Today the simplicity and affordability of technology unites generations more than it divides them. Grandparents are emailing, texting, skyping and in many other ways communicating with their grandchildren via their smartphones, tablets and computers.

The primary force causing the rapid adoption of technology is the simplification of use. If a piece of technology, from a phone to a tablet to an app, requires a user guide, we will probably abandon it. The best-made technologies are intuitive, allowing for use in minutes, not after days of instruction.

The simplicity of having live assistance that functions like a “full-time technology nanny” makes using technologies as easy as switching on a light. Taking a digital photo and sending it is no longer beyond a second grader’s ability.

Gaming has vastly aided our ability to make technologies accessible quickly so the user does not get frustrated by their incompetence. Game makers have mastered the art of making even complicated processes accessible and engaging, so that they do not frustrate potential customers who feel like failures before the game is adopted.

Continue to learn or become obsolete

A third force is “adopting the world as my classroom”. Whether it is through reverse mentoring where the young tutor the older as Jack Welsh instigated in GE, through the use of any number of available media, learning is available to all. “Tomorrow’s illiterate will not be the man who can’t read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn.”

Learning can no longer stop after completing formal education - the world is changing far too fast for education to last long. This has led in return to people who return to study much later in their careers, and by the increase of a variety of in-company and external education options.

One example is the rise of MOOCs – massive open online courses, many of which are free.

In 2011, three Stanford University professors offered their classes to anyone who cared to take them online – at no charge. One, An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, attracted 160 000 students; 23 000 completed the course. To date some 10 million students have enrolled in 1 200 courses, by 1 300 teachers from 200 universities.

Both young and old need to continually learn, or become obsolete. Increasingly, it no longer matters where you are or who you are - value is value.

The Gen Z Effect both collapses the generational gap at the same time as it redefines it away from age towards how one participates in a wildly exciting new era.

Readability:    Light ---+- Serious
Insights:        High -+--- Low
Practical:        High ---+- Low

*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works. Views expressed are his own.