Will the upcoming Young generation find the balance?

Will the upcoming Young generation find the balance?

I often wonder about the future, and how the next generation (Generation Z) will tackle the ever challenging and fast moving world and find the balance that we are struggling with. I think I know the reason! 

One day I was sitting with my 12 year old son (Gen. Z). We were talking about the life, the world and about the future. It was very exciting to hear his views, especially how he involved technology and digitization as a factor and solution to address the challenges the world is facing. Technology and his smartphone is part of him, a communication platform and access to the world, as was the digital watch and commodore 64 for me back in 80’s. I started reflecting on my own childhood and started to remember how technology affect my own life. I remember my first cell phone in 1996 – a Nokia 2110, wow that was great, and we started slowly with peer-to-peer connectivity through email and chat. But honestly, that was far away from the pace of the change we experience today.

If we look at the development and the speed of changes in world over the past 50 years, we will see a dramatic change from the beginning of the year 2000, around ten years after launching of the internet. The new way to communicate have affected the huge changes and acceleration we have today on e.g. stock market, new technology, products and services.

As you probably know, some of the companies have paid a price (e.g. NOKIA, Kodak and various media), and some other companies are struggling to survive, for not being aware of the fast changes causing the new digitization and technology.

In my opinion, most of the parents from my generation have not found the balance between the fast acceleration/ changes and the professional working life. Most people don’t perceive the rush going on around them, and are challenged while navigating through a highly-digitalized world. This is due to the lack of the balance between digitization/technology and the professional working life (which is a part of the problem today). On almost every important business index, the world is racing ahead. The stakes— the financial, social, environmental, and political consequences—are similarly rising in an exponential way. In this new world, the big question facing business leaders everywhere is how to stay competitive and grow profitably amid this increasing turbulence and disruption. Today the leaders should reconsider how they organize their organization in order to provide maximum flexibility to their employees. This however also requires the employee to be ready for the change (employees need to acquire competencies in self-regulation). They also need to consider how the new technology in the future can and will affect how they are making business today.

Any way coming back to my 12-year-old son, and his reality. It is remarkable how his generation is navigating in a very fast moving world, where digital technology is part of their life. How they are using technology to organizing their life, communicate while following the last trends and updates. Come on, how many of you hadn’t ask your child for help regarding some issues in your smartphone?

Imagine what kind of the demands/requirements will they have in future? I’m sure that the next generation Z will be too “busy” to drive their own cars and they will probably demand self-driving cars, because they will be occupied with what is going on the work, family, social media, the world etc.

Ok coming back to my conviction and the reason why I think the upcoming generation Z will find the balance is very simple. This is because generation Z is used to a fast-changing world.

If you compare my childhood with my son’s, I was also living in a changing world with new technology, I remember my first Walkman and then CD player, my first Computer etc. But my son’s generation, their experience changes on a completely different level, there are part of a digital generation, where they everyday can update and download new apps, where the function and process is changing, their behaviors are as well changing quickly. So, they are used to the fast and accelerated world, honestly lot of companies are missing these competencies today. I’m sure that the current and future leaders will be looking forward to the young generation Z to step in to their companies. However, a remark where there are benefits there are also challenges and one of the upcoming generation Z’s challenges are me-me-me- personality, but I will address that in one of my next articles.

But anyway, I’m sure that the upcoming generations will find the balance in the future!