Generation Z: The Least Disruptive Generation Of A Century ?
Rational evolution instead of disruption
A few weeks ago I was scrolling through a list of cold-call invites on linked-in when one stood out.
I received an invitation by Jake Bjorseth to appear on the CMO series of the trendsttrs podcast which aims to create a better understanding of Gen-Z.
When reflecting on the subject matter I decided to translate it into an article yet something that stood out: his conclusion relates to my own findings. But although (t)his cohort is very specific, as all others before them, I do see them as a lot less disruptive than the common line of thinking.
I am born in 1981 and am either a Gen X, Gen Y or a form of lost Xennial generation depending on the author. Given that I don’t care about my label yet I also didn’t hold a cellphone until I was of adult age makes me feel like a perfect in-between.
My parents were born in 1960 and are a relatively comfortable fit into the Baby Boomers segment, whereas my (step)son is becoming a young adult, currently sporting 14 years and reminding me everyday that not all that is written is true regarding ‘his’ Z generation.
Which to me signals a good thing.
It means that we are able to start rationally evolving and using technology and our hyper connectivity to create true value, using it as a means to an end rather than as a goal in itself.
Labeling the generations
It always surprises me to see how we mentally started labeling generations by their age instead of by their birth years. When looking at them as cohorts, it is important to consider them from their start, and follow them throughout life stages rather than keep on iterating on the latest generation as an ever shifting 20yr old population of spoiled brats.
Each time a new ‘label’ hits the workforce the perceptions ‘less hard working’, ‘false sense of entitlement’, ‘not as driven’, ‘no respect’ pop up.
This, to me, signals mainly a pre-conception of the dominant generations in the workforce who have difficulties adjusting their view of the world to those that experienced it differently from the ground-up.
To make it super simple:
The millennials are not the ones fresh out of school and soliciting for a job in your team. They are on average 30 years old in 2020, and starting to form the backbone of our workforce.
The adjustment when the Z’s enter will be less disruptive, although I understand why many assume it to be opposite given the visible disruption individuals like Greta Thunberg are sparking. But as we will see, this movement already started with the Y generation, it just got a perfect voice in this new young heroine.
As of 2020, the label breakdown looks like this (source kasasa):
- Baby Boomers: born between 1944 and 1964. They’re current between 56–76 years old (76 million in U.S.)
- Gen X: born between 1965–1979 and are currently between 41–55 years old (82 million people in U.S.)
- Gen Y/Millennials: born between 1980 and 1994. They are currently between 26–40 years old. They are currently a group that seems to receive a ‘marketing’ split at the age of 30 or roughly at 1990. (nearly 73 million in U.S.)
- Gen Z: Gen Z is the newest generation to be named and were born between 1995 and 2015. They are currently between 5–25 years old (nearly 74 million in U.S.)
Of course the generation start and end years are an endless debate and should be interpreted with a +/- of a few years. If not, we get the whole marketing Gen Y.2 to focus on the last 4 years of Gen Y, whom are more like Gen Z, yet the same happened for every other generation.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.
This article will highlight my perceptions regarding the different generations in terms of disruption/changes that markets needed to adjust to and I’ll explain why I currently feel that the Gen Z is a more evolutive generation rather than a disruptive one.
Starting with the baby boomers and their disruptive features.
The baby boomers, of which my parents are a part, were named after the post world war II baby boom and were met with a period of prosperity that was unknown to their parents (which were dubbed the ‘silent generation’).
Given the events that my grandparents endured during the war and the cold war threat lingering while my parents grew up they are also the generation that focused on lifetime employment, income security, real-estate and wanted to zero in on their children’s comfort above their own.
‘Having enjoyed a life of free love, free school meals, free universities …mainly full employment and a 40-year-long housing boom, they are bequeathing their children sky-high house prices, debts and shriveled pensions.
A 60 year old …is a very privileged and lucky human being; an object of resentment as much as admiration’
by Hutton sums up a current popular perception about baby boomers.
My parents’ generation witnessed an enormous opportunity for entrepreneurship with economic growth in most if not all sectors, yet they preferred to rely on job security and working towards their end-game with home ownership, corporate rat-title-races and entitlement to a pension paid by the succeeding generation. It was also the generation that boosted maternal employment, making 2 income-families a new norm.
Generation X
The term was coined by Charles Hamlett and Jane Deverson (originally referring to the Baby Boomers in their teenage years, as we now see happening with gen Y.2 again) and was made popular by Douglas Coupland’s eponymous 1991 novel.
Generation X was referred to as the “MTV Generation”, often being labeled as slackers, cynical, and disaffected.
I chuckled when I read this description, as it seems so distant and wrong, yet relatable as the common perception roughly 20 years ago.
The negative preconceptions seems to be a common theme among all new or later generations as a shared complaint by the generations before them.
The X generation was seen as being the “latchkey generation”, due to the fact that their parents were focusing on the corporate expectations and the subsequent perceived job security stemming from it.
The X-ers were used to parents working from early until late, and have spend quite some time with either grandparents or daycare. So they learned to take care of their own from a young age, but also witnessed firsthand the rise in burn-outs with their parents.
One of the distinct disruptive features of the X-ers was the fact that they started putting value to a work–life balance. They started building active lifestyles, aiming for happiness instead of on pure employment and safety.
The cohort has been credited with starting to embrace entrepreneurship as a worthy lifestyle.
Technologically speaking they are the generation that either created it or witnessed it front row. For this generation the technology in itself was as much a goal as a tool, which is something the subsequent generations changed.
The Gen X-ers experienced the computer evolution in the early 80s from soft floppy to hard floppy (a whopping 1.44MB could host a set of games on a x386), CD to DVD-Roms and the growth of Microsoft.
These are the ones that spend hours in a library working on the ‘internet connected’ computer, doing maiden searches for book reviews on Yahoo to complete the homework assignment instead of actually reading one.
The generation that started pulling null-modem cables through walls to play with siblings, evolving into closed loop networks in game-centers, where you could game with a group of friends for a small fee per hour. And yes, those shops smelled like the D&D board game shops do nowadays.
The last generation that had a rising hearth rate when the modem started making its distinct noises while they wanted to connect to the vast and unknown world out there over ISDN or ADSL.
The ones that ‘invented’ the internet in its pure form and started to see the potential peeking through message boards and IIRC, whilst not fully being able to create it yet.
Also the last ones that could disappear from their parents for days on end since cellphones and ‘always reachable’ were things that came into place after they had their wild years. It is easy to forget that before 1999 it was normal not to know where someone was. It was mandatory to make arrangements to meet people outside, even for things as stupid as cycling together to the swimming pool.
Most in this generation have spend hours waiting in the wrong park or at a different entrance of one, being stuck for hours on end in a wrong bus stop, or outside of a school whilst unable to reach anyone.
Millennials
The cohort known as millennials — originally Generation Y — were identified by American authors William Strauss and Neil Howe as those graduating in the year 2000. With the popular focus on the millennium at the time, the name stuck.
Marc Prensky coined the term “digital native” to describe “K through college” students in 2001, explaining they “represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology”.
Millennials are characterised mainly by the quest for meaning, self-fulfilment, sharing, and social and environmental awareness.
Social status and possession of ‘things’ are not their priority. Sharing is their goal, not owning. They are also on the lookout for environmentally sound alternatives and want to consume yet with a feeling of doing the right thing when doing so. This was the first generation to clearly shout that home ownership is not the ultimate goal. Which is a very hard disruption from the signal their parents are still sending.
They still value brands with a strong and premium image, yet the recent rise in DTC brands with very distinct CSR (corporate social responsiblity) themes embedded in their mission statements restrengthens the fact that this generation means business when they emit their values. Producers either provide what they look for, or they will go elsewhere.
The millennials however have received a strong negative perception in the field of entitlement.
This partly because the perceived tendency for delaying some rites of passage into adulthood for longer periods than most generations before them.
The most visible being living with their parents for longer periods than previous generations. The most narrated yet least studied being the effects of a softer approach to education. Typically an issue of the parents lack of time and self-compensation thereof.
Today all children ‘win’ when doing a school run, and the education system has removed the notion of winners/losers in favour of valuing each individual. In itself there is nothing wrong with that approach, however when reinforced by parents that offset each mistake or failure with some external event not correlating to the intrinsic talents of their little wonders we are creating a band of people with a high tendency of becoming unhappy when entering the current workforce and its expectancies.
When the individual is strong in itself they will indeed no longer uphold a hierarchical growth in a corporation as a needed trajectory. This upsets a lot of their previous generation managers as it opposes to their views, but in essence they are sparking what will become a clear skill/gig job market in the future.
One where the goal of becoming a GM / Exec is no longer socially associated with success. Being a digital nomad, or actually acting upon Tim Ferriss and his 4 hour workweek becomes a new ideal.
Their parents have read the book, and probably posted/tweeted a bunch on it yet they will execute upon it …
They are typically raised by baby boomers or ‘early’ X-ers and have taken a few key notes from their flaws.
They don’t see the benefits of corporate culture career like their parents did, given that lifetime employment is being cut from even the most stable and large of enterprises.
They are witnessing a rising cost of the safety nets of society without any real action plan to sustain it. They are anticipating that they will need to be able to sustain their lifestyle solely based on their own skills and means of income.
They are impatient and crave for needed change and choices. What would you expect from a generation native to the internet? Able to know it all with a well aimed google, quora or youtube search.
Able to raise a topic with a crowd of thousands through a social post and with the energy to pursue it into a creative venture or to spark the beginning of a movement.
They are consensus-builders. After all, they were raised in a shared economy. Even their video games are joint adventures where social sharing is a key fact to retain their attention and willingness to embark on the missions.
They are a generation of social entrepreneurs, willing to change the world and aiming to leave a positive dent.
Generation Z is more evolutionary
“Generation Z” is the current name for the cohort born from the mid-1990s, though iGen, centennials, post-millennials are further possible labels for a generation that has grown up in a hyper connected, always-on world.
A “new silent generation” is emerging for those born during the early 2000s, since like their great grandparents in the silent generation, their childhood is also deemed to be marked by war (post 9/11) and economic recession.
Today I want to look at how, rather than being as disruptive as former generations, Generation Z might actually be an evolution rather than a revolution, and summarise this generation’s views towards certain topics.
One might even state that indeed we are back to the initial cycle of generations. We had the passionate Boomers, skeptical Gen X and practical Millennials. And now we see a pragmatic Gen Z, a comfortable throwback to the Silent generation that succeeded the Boomers.
When we look at the world economic forum as a source they see a distinct differentiation between Millennials and the Z generation.
When looking at my stepson I do see the break of pattern with the Millennials that I witness in the workforce today. He is less inclined to spend time on his phone for pure social media entertainment. In fact, if anything, his generation seems to value time ‘off’ and face to face interactions more than the always connected Millennials.
The idea of buying sneakers or clothes promoted by a famous comedian or TV star is considered outright idiotic by him.
He spends most of his screen-time watching unboxing videos, and digging into the DIY crafts, apparently today making clay monster figurines and constructing Gundam action figures is the new ‘cool’.
When the occasional request for a gadget or tool pops up, it is backed by numerous videos of a group of 20+ ‘dudes’ that have created a company solely out of testing stuff and reviewing them.
He holds more value to his own handpicked youtube experts than the social influencers that the Millennials seem to have hyped.
For him the world is also a single vast location, the idea of his package spending 2 weeks in the customs department because it came from oversees and is now met with an additional fee that triples the initial price of the tiny plastic extensions of his PS4 controller remains a recurring topic of complaints…
Authenticity at the core:
The above article, written by someone on the edge of the generation timeline highlights a lot of the topics we already saw in generation Y.
The value that is given to environment, connectivity, charitable causes, making a positive difference to the world they all are topics that are shared between the two. The one really distinct feature would indeed be authenticity.
Which to me seems more a reflection of valuing their own critical thinking.
It is not enough to broadcast messages, my boy will dig into it, to make sure his consumption or actions also contribute for the desired positive impact.
He will see through my ‘tested and proved’ marketing tactics and will distrust anything that has too big a Hollywood or star-appeal.
In conclusion, based on what I have seen up until today I would summarise that his generation will drive a rationalised evolution rather than disrupting the world for the sake of it.
He wouldn’t consider jumping full digital nomad without an audience or some financial stability like the Millennial generation before him.
He will ‘milk the cows’ of the previous generations and speak their language when needed to get money in, yet he won’t follow suit, instead he’ll focus on building a better alternative.
Finally, Gen Z is possibly one of the most practical generations, valuing things like reducing or avoiding debt.
He indeed reminds me more of my grandparents in his search for reflection and rationalisation.
If only he would be able to remember time. For some reason, he and his friends seem to have a load of issues with remembering even the most visible agreements (for the current covid pre-teachings we print his schedule and put it in front of him). Yet somehow, most of the Gen Z’s seem to be able to miss google meet sessions quite frequently, even if reminded as little as an hour in advance….
I don’t know if this is just a statistically variance, a glitch due to the stress of confinement or if this will set out to be a distinct Gen Z treat we will all come to experience and complain about in the years to come.
