In this week’s brew:
Onboard the Future: A Case for a ‘Shadow Board’ with Gen Z Members by Neelendra Nath
Visual Thought of the Week featuring creative by Tanosei
40 mind altering concept - a twitter thread by Gurwinder
POST
Onboard the Future: A Case for a ‘Shadow Board’ with Gen Z Members
One in every three people today on the planet are younger than 25 years of age. They are what is categorised as Generation Z and more recently Zoomers, the successors of the millennials. It wasn’t long ago when the corporate world cried hoarse about how millennials had just not shaped well to be part of the work force. So, imagine, how out of place the generation Z would be in that environment.
Before we get in to the thick of it, let us get some of the terms defined for uninitiated. While there are no consensus on exact years, it is generally accepted that those born between 1945 and 1064 are called Boomers; those between 1964 and 1980 are the Generation X; the ones between 1980 and mid to late 1990s are the millennials; and those born between late 1990s & mid 2010s are Generation Z or Gen-Z. Apparently, those born after 2016 are being called Alpha, though one would argue it is a bit late in the product lifecycle to ship the alpha.
Now that is shorted, lets jump right into it. Generation Z, and the younger ones form the single largest cohort of humans in the world with about 40% of the total population. They started entering the workforce between from about mid 2010s based on how you define their starting year. They are also the newest of the consumers. And the rest of us are not in sync with them. There is a lack of understanding and interoperability. One would think that millennials would find much in common with Gen – Z, and while that is true to certain extent; the differences are significant enough for the need of conscious effort to understand the world view, engagement terms and philosophy of the new generation.
The differences become clearer where the participative expectations largely lie on the new generation, but the power resides with the skip generation. Higher education, corporate workforce, consumer business, politics etc are still completely controlled by Generation X if not by Boomers. Even the “new age innovative startups” of global scale are mostly led by Generation X. Whereas, the ones entering all these places and getting directly affected by decisions being made, are Generation Z. It is imperative that the twain shall meet. In fact, it would be extremely smart of the older generation, to put out a sincere effort to learn from the newer generation. Sort of a reverse mentoring.
The idea had been discussed in public domain in past few years and there are some examples with some companies forming ‘high potential youth’ or ‘youth committee’ kind of groups with their newer employees, mostly millennials. But now with the newer generation coming in, I believe there is a need to take it a notch higher.
What makes Gen – Z so different?
Every generation is different from the ones which came before them. Growing up in a different political and economic environment with newer technologies, opens people up to the possibilities that their predecessors didn’t have. So, in that context, there is nothing unique about Gen - Z being different from millennials and earlier generations. But when you compare the deviance between generations, the current generation seem to display significantly more than that among earlier generations. The reason lies in rapid shift in computational technology and access to internet.
The first generation to get access to computers and internet at scale are the millennials. But for most of them, for most part of their life, they grew up without those technologies. Hence, they still had a point of reference for understanding life & time of their older generation. The millennials grew along with the internet, while the Gen – Z are born in the internet era. For this generation, connectivity and access to information is as basic as access to food, housing, education, and healthcare. By the time firsts of the Gen – Z grew up, the internet had already become the behemoth that it is. The access to information that this generation has grown up with is unprecedented, and the ability to network across the globe in unlimited. These two things have resulted in a world view – social, cultural, political, and fiscal – which is significantly different from earlier generations, even when compared to one that precedes them directly.
The difference in the world view manifests in form of ambitions, aspirations, ethical and moral standards, and expectations from political & business leaders.
Why build a shadow board?
The generational disconnect has become wide enough to make the ways of current leadership to a considerable extent completely unrelatable to the newest generation. We got to admit that we have no clue how the current generation operates and how they want to shape their future. Rest of us might be using social media and consuming a lot of information. But we are not on the same platforms, and not even using the same lingo.
Most of the millennials if end up landing in a discord community wouldn’t understand a sentence uttered, and many to start with wouldn’t know how to land into a discord community.
But we need to learn that because Gen – Z is the most networked, most aware and most tech savvy generation that, and now they are becoming adults. They are joining the workforce; they are becoming paying consumers and are taking part in politics. They are the future, and we need to learn to tune the systems in to meet their expectations. That is why we need them close to the ears which matters, and those ears need to sincerely listen to them.
Understand that the purpose of such a board is not to solve the current challenges that your organization faces. You need them to keep you abreast with changing trends and call out your ideas which patently won’t sit well with their generation. Typical things that you want them to help with are:
Predict future service and product wants
Brand and Communication reinvention
Redesign your workplace practices and environment
Understand public sentiments and be more sensitive toward them
Create your future vision for the next generation
Increase engagement with Gen – Z and upcoming generations
There are actually a few examples from companies like GroupM that created Youth Committees for innovation and new product development with their millennial employees, and that has shown success. A shadow board with next generation nonemployees, is taking it a notch further and displaying more commitment towards being future ready.
Who should have a shadow board?
Short answer, everyone.
If you run any organization, the newest generation is the one which you are going to primarily cater to in coming years. This is already true for all academic institutions and young adult centric services. Across the globe, in any election held in last few years, Gen – Z were the first-time electorate. So, no matter what sort of organization you are, you need the perspective of this generation.
Educational Institutions: Admit it that our educational system has remained primitive and despite all the technology infusion the fundamentals hasn’t chained. It more or less worked with millennials but the learning landscape and opportunity for the next generation is wide. For them the current education system is actually more restrictive to their development than supportive. We need to reinvent the education system and to do that we need to understand the perspective of this generation.
Governments and Political Parties: Do you even need an explainer? Your understanding of governance, equity, equality, diversity, ethics, aspirations, public discourse, public participation – all come from a bygone era and doesn’t sit well with this generation. They have shown that quite clearly, across the globe, on the street. You would do good to bring them in the meetings and learn from them how they see these things.
Companies: Gen Z is your youngest employees and your newest consumer. They are more likely to try new things than any other generation and have more options available than any other generation. They learn, understand, and use technology faster than anyone else. So, they are always one step ahead of you. For you it makes a strong case to have a shadow board which keep you updated on latest market behaviour, the viral trends, the moral issues, and sensitive topics as they are being discussed in public domain. You had great difficulties adjusting with millennial employees coming in the workforce, be proactive this time and create a workplace which works with the newer generation.
Investment Firms/VCs/PEs: You are literally investing in future, then why the intellect of past is being used to make those decisions. You should have a shadow investment committee made of the youngest that you can have. If they are not impressed, it is not going to work in the market.
These are just few examples. It applies to everyone. Actually, it applied all the time in past as well. But the impact of not having it was never as significant as it can be today.
One thing that everyone really needs to understand is that Gen – Z is also the most capable cohort of young people we have had. So, they are not going to sit around and just adjust themselves for the system available to them. They have tool and intelligence to build ones themselves. So, if you are an organization which doesn’t want to go obsolete in coming years, engage them before they oust you.
How to constitute a shadow board?
There are no formulae that fits all. Remember that your need for the shadow board is to stay on the top of the shifting generational trends that appear on horizon, not to tackle the problems you are facing today. Thus, your new employees are not to be your shadow board. They can be encouraged to bring changes within the roles that they have been employed for and should be given attention when they make a suggestion. But your shadow board should ideally be a body completely independent to any of the day-to-day activities at your organization.
Ideally, your shadow board should be formed of individuals who are not an active member of workforce and can be as young as allowed to engage in your legal jurisdiction. Depending upon the kind of organization you are, you will have to find the right mix in terms of distributing them across age, education, skills, and industry. You might want to see for demonstrable interest or understanding among the candidates about your sector or business function. It can be reflected based upon their public writings, demonstrated knowledge or even life circumstances. You should also have members to advise on causes like diversity, equality, climate change etc where they would bring a perspective that we have no way to access other than talking to younger people.
The size of your shadow board can reflect the number of critical issues for which you want to engage them or people in your leadership whom you want them to shadow. Understand that this shadow board doesn’t need to perform as a formal board and have meetings where all of them convene. So, you can probably create a large board made of smaller committees. They should have many opportunities to observe your actual board and senior leadership, and also to share their perspective with everyone.
This board is not a statutory body, so there is no obligation on how often you should consult them and how often they share their opinion. But it will be able to serve its purpose effectively only if they are treated with respect and seriousness that they and future of your organization deserves. While this will not be an employment position for the members you bring on board in the typical sense, but you must renumerate them and let them fee the value of their contributions.
For large part of it, it is going to be an ever-changing requirement and experimental process. So, keep evaluating and keep iterating.
If the thought resonates with you or, you have already been part of such a board or, have constituted one at your organization, I would love to hear your take.
VALUE ADD
Percolator Talent Collective
Percolator talent collective is a private community I am curating for individuals who are seeking high value high impact technology and growth roles. How it works is that you apply to the collective, and once selected; a curated set of companies reach out to you for the roles they have open.
You can chose to be listed anonymously, or make yourself invisible to a selected set of companies.
If you are in a mental space of ‘not actively seeking but open to see whats out there’, then being part of the collective can actually help you.
Percolator Job Board
If you are actively looking for a job, then we have some really interesting curated remote roles in technology and growth listed on the Percolator Job Board. You can directly apply to them.
Director, Content at Spotify (Remote - Global)
Director, Community Governance at Reddit (Remote - Global)
Senior Product Manager, Growth (SEO) at Reddit (Remote - Global)
Growth Project Manager at Pipe (Remote - Global)
Frontend Engineer at Stripe (Remote - US)
COMMUNITY
We are experimenting with communities to help our subscribers connect with each other and engage more effectively. We have set up two communities for that purpose - one on twitter and another on discord.
Twitter has recently launched community feature, and it will be interesting to try out how does using tweet within a private community works. Please join in if you want to try it out. If you do not have the feature available to you, please follow & DM me and I will try to invite you.
Discord community is more tried and tested place. It gives a lot of feature to manage and moderate discussions, have separate channels and also verified anonymity for the members.
SPONSORED
To stay updated and interesting read everyday, I am using Refind. They curate posts from many sources and send it directly to your inbox based on your selected topics. It is free to subscribe. Give it a shot and I am sure you will find something of your interest.
WEEKLY ROUNDUP
Visual Thought of the Week
A twitter thread explaining 40 mind altering concepts
Onboard the Future: A Case for a ‘Shadow Board’ with Gen Z Members