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Generation X-Y get shafted by cranky baby boomers. It’s the Creative Generation, stupid.

8 August 2007 Christopher Hire

OPINION, Melbourne — We all keep hearing how difficult Generation X & Y are to work with. (Mainly Gen Y).

Well I’d say it has something to do with those “oh so demanding baby boomers” who were their parents.

Truth is:

if you dose a bunch of kids up on sugar, …
chauffeur them around to every single hobby that might interest them, …
tell them that all viewpoints are culturally equivalent, …
teach them to question all authority figures, …
give them what they want with no discipline,…
smoke dope yourself but lecture them on it/tell them it’s all experience, …
outsource their management onto other people because you both work,
and encourage them to express themselves fully,….. well…

… you will probably get a whole group of adults who are:

  • easily distracted
  • are imaginative and lateral
  • are associative learners rather than rote learners
  • don’t respect titles, only results
  • judge worth on their own terms
  • are looking for a tribe
  • are extraordinarily creative
  • demand attention
  • have little patience with process for process sake
  • focus on what they want
  • continue to want instant solutions
  • are natural with technology
  • don’t need information in single streams or linear forms
  • and, a few really entrepreneurial & mercurial minds who have created more than $300 million each in corporate value before the age of 30.

Which to be honest is what the world will need. It’s also what we have got.

And it is also what is making for creative hub cities all over the world, and extraordinarily creative online communities.

Baby boomers raised a creative generation, who are self-reliant and extraordinarily lateral, not linear.

Most of this is missed on most of the commentators on Generation X & Y.

Creative world will need a Creative Generation.

This part of a positive take on the generations between 16-32. (ie. born since 1975)

All I hear about Gen Y is difficult to work with, yada yada.

I’ve met some pretty difficult baby boomers. I just removed 3 knives from my back last evening all plunged in by middle-age men who feel they are failing in life and have to stick the knife into us 30-somethings who seem to have decided not to climb on a corporate treadmill.

And also, late last year a 30something senior manager with an ego the size of Texas and a brain the size of a small rocky outcrop (and who shall remain nameless), who was a royal pain to work with committed some pretty big skullduggery.

Everyone can be pretty difficult to work with folks.

There are opportunities here.

If you want a hint at the real reason why Generation Y are not fitting in to the employee structure, we may start needing to analyse whether the employee structure is actually the model that best serves individuals.

It certainly is not the most efficient model for creative outcomes in all industries.

The problem of generational fit lies with the type of workplace models being offered, as the Creative Generation in places like San Francisco/Silicon Valley, Melbourne, UK, Sydney, Boston and Eastern Europe imagine whole new working models.

I am writing some published analysis reports on this, but this is the broad thrust of the point. The Creative Generation is redefining work and approaches to business.

If you’d like a speech/workshop or some customized 2thinknow analysis reports on this topic, contact us now.

There are opportunities here. Don’t get stuck in the problems. There are business opportunities.

Lest you think it’s a western fad, I have even encountered similar issues within as farflung a place as Tirana, Albania and elsewhere in Europe as part of the Global Innovation Review — in both Vienna and Paris, for example. German newspapers have similar stories.

So there you go. If you ask the older generation in Tirana, about the current younger generation, the analysis is remarkably the same.

This is a global theme folks. Creative Generation is the distinction.

More than a thought. Take care,

Christopher

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Author: Christopher Hire (197 Articles)

Executive Director of Innovation, at 2thinknow. Innovation analyst. Based in Melbourne, Australia.

No Comment »

  • 2thinknow » 9 Biggest Ideas Online in 2007 said:

    [...] > Creative Generation, not X & Y [...]

    # 29 January 2008 at 11:15 am
  • Creative Generation is the answer: International Journal of Innovation & Change | 2thinknow said:

    [...] Z & Y people I meet, and many of my own Generation X, do constitute the Creative Generation. But their attention is a multi-tasking, unfocused, continual partial attention. An attention drawn [...]

    # 9 April 2008 at 10:11 am
  • Dawn said:

    Someone will have to do the work all be it mundain. Not everyone can run around being creative. Guess what generation I’m from. Generation Y does not know how to work hard. They don’t see the need to push them selfs. As a whole they tend to over estimate their value in the work place. We work to survive and judging by the economy surviving is becoming more difficult. Our retired people will not be able to continue to keep the econony going for ever. The Baby Boomers will have to really retire at some point. Good luck to the “y”s

    # 21 August 2008 at 2:44 am
  • L said:

    Dawn: (Whew this is an old post but I just found it)

    Actually, if you’re creative you can just automate the mundane. For example, I’m commenting on this blog post on work time b/c I just finished reports that used to take a previous employee 8 hours to complete AND another major task I volunteered to do b/c I was bored.

    Through the creative use of macros and keystroke automation, I finished the job in 3 hours (don’t tell my boss.) Also, since this gave me the leisure time to double-check my Macros (and computers are consistent), my reports are more accurate!

    I hope the Boomers retire soon b/c I’d hate to be responsible for automating them into unemployment.

    # 4 April 2009 at 1:24 am