Should we build organisations for Gen Z workers?

A conversation today returned me to the subject of Gen Z! I don't have a great regard for generational labelling and particularly the adulation for Gen Z (my views were quite clear). 

But a friend trying to discuss a potential PhD subject brought this up: That Gen Z is far clearer about mental health issues, boundaries of what they would do or not do to please the boss etc. We spent some minutes discussing whether organisations should realign themselves to accommodate the Gen Z culture, and my favourite trope that the CEO's job is to define the culture of the company and try to live it.

On reflection, though, I am not sure companies should adjust themselves to Gen Z work culture. The label stands for a particular type of thinking and living: Mobile native, with a lingo that includes a lot of TLAs and emojis, defined by the western urban culture and relationships, anxious about many things, etc. These are real attributes and perhaps quite useful for a consumer marketer, but for a company leader, it is perhaps more important to overcome these attributes and forge together a multi-generational purpose-driven workforce.

I say this because for all superficial adulation, Gen Z is living through a chasm: A time when the world's business leadership shifts to China, India and other countries! The youth in Europe and North America is coddled, too entitled and too comfortable, buried in the assumption that their world - privileges that stem from post-war economic arrangements and are mainly paid for by the toiling Asians and Africans - and this arrangement is under serious threat right now. Trump's madness appears to me not to be madness at all, but rather an unavoidable symptom of decline. 

True, the rest of the world is caught in some sort of prison of ideas. Generational labelling is one of them, but that is not the only one. There are more serious and important ones: I shall put in this category almost all the ideas around which modern businesses are organised, starting with shareholder value, the way returns on capital are measured, people are hired, retained and fired, the things we want and do not value, the hierarchy of professions and rewards, etc. That may sound like everything, but it is easy to forget that these are all temporary stories we are telling ourselves. Why do we think the bankers and the information providers (not just IT, but accountants and certain kind of lawyers) create more value than teachers, nurses or for that matter, doctors? Why do we think the mark of success is having money without having to do anything yourself? Why do entrepreneurs, who are supposed to be creating things, are feted when they come up with a really pointless thing (it's some years old, but I am still fascinated by the case when someone created a million pixel webpage and tried to sell each pixel for a certain amount to whoever will take it) which make money? 

But if someone could step outside of this prison, as increasingly people outside the magic circles of influence and money are doing, this all seems absurd. We are reaching a point of 'elite overproduction', as Peter Turchin will call it, and the challenge is coming increasingly from inside the camp. There is a certain amount of fear because everyone knows a disaffected educated person can easily cause big problems, but even that is an idea rooted in our time. Perhaps that was so in the last two hundred or so years, but there are plenty of counterexamples. In fact, I would like to think it is not the elites such as Gandhi (to give an Indian example) who were subversive, but rather they only took over the narrative when the subalterns already took the streets.

Gen Z is not subversive, not leading the change. All those adapting the label are actually status quo seeker, peddlers of identity-based privilege. Collectively, Gen Z thinking has got us to where we are - a break-down moment in climate, culture and civilisation - and the pushback against identity consumerism has started. Even Gen Alpha (if we must) - as Gen Z is already old - wants to break off from its embrace, undoing the Gen Z trope. 

Therefore, yes, a company leader must be conscious of the generational identities (there is no escape) but I disagree that they should be building company cultures to accommodate one generational culture over another. If anything, in fact, they should build cultures that look beyond these boxes - and seek to find the 'possible human' rather than thoughtlessly submitting to these stereotypes. Then, and only then, an organisation can be built to last, which most founders - but not the Gen Z ones - aspire for.