[p2p-research] generational patterns

[Michel Bauwens]

Anyone with skills to comment on this:
http://www.byeday.net/weblog/2008/10/generations.html

*Generations*

You know you've been touched by a powerful idea or theory when it keeps
coming back to mind, and begging you to apply its perspective to other ideas
you encounter or read about. I've been touched by the Strauss and Howe
<http://www.lifecourse.com/>theory of generations.

Deb Gilburg, of the Gilburg Leadership
Institute<http://www.gilburgleadership.com/>introduced the idea (first
described in the 1991 book
Generations<http://www.amazon.com/Generations-History-Americas-Future-1584/dp/0688119123/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223494840&sr=8-1>)
to a recent meeting of our local idea network Gennova. The theory has it
that there is a cycle of generational patterns that repeats every four
generations (approximately 22 to 26 years). Strauss and Howe have
characterized the four patterns and have mapped these patterns to 350 years
of American history. Each pattern both shapes and is shaped by the
historical context of its time, but the underlying characteristics of each
pattern remain the same.

We are now accustomed to thinking about our three primary current
generations, Boomers (the first generation to actually identify and name
itself), GenX, and GenY. There are, of course, still many members of the
pre-boomer "GI" generation that took us through WWII and its immediate
antecedent, the generation that Strauss and Howe call the "Silents." The
archetypes that typify these generations are the Hero, Artist, Visionary and
Nomad. A "turning" occurs after each cycle of four generations. The 2007 HBR
article, The Next 20 Years: How Customer and Workforce Attitudes Will
Evolve<http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_detail.jhtml;jsessionid=R5N0XN1P1RVEMAKRGWDSELQBKE0YIISW?id=R0707B&referral=2340>,
though a bit scarily prescient in that it lists both Barack Obama and Sarah
Palin as exemplars of Generation X. There's also a lot of free stuff on the
web site linked above.

This intriguing theory shows up, of course, in my current work to understand
how to implement social tools in the enterprise given the distinct
differences between the Boomers who fill the top management ranks, the
GenXers coming up to management, and the GenYers who we look at as
group-oriented, network-and-tool-savvy, and eager to be assigned important
work. The tool part is an instance of history (in this case, the march of
technology) influencing the generation. But, the group-oriented nature of
GenY as this generation gets down to work, in the same way that the previous
"Hero" generation, the GIs, got to work to organize and defend the world
against tyrannical and mad dictators.

Previous Hero generations came of age during wartime (Revolutionary, Civil,
and WWI) and we are of course at war on many fronts. But the challenge that
unites a Hero generation does not need to be war. It could, for instance, be
a planetary threat -- like global warming -- that will need people to set
aside politics to accomplish bold endeavor.

This notion of the generational styles shows up for me in many ways
recently. In a blog over on theAppGap, for instance, I reflected on current
criticism of why managers do not think deeply. I wonder if there is a
generational aspect to this. Reading about Daniel
Goleman<http://www.danielgoleman.info/blog/biography/>in a recent
strategy+business
article<http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/08308?gko=557e2-1876-27126679>,
(perhaps a blog on this anon) I wonder if the organizational development
movement is an aspect of self-introspective generational pattern coming of
age.

And, in looking at notes provided to me by KMWorld speaker Peter Andrews of
IBM <http://www.kmworld.com/kmw08/program.aspx?SessionID=1585>, I see the
the pattern anew as he distinguishes the current state and future state of
workers, saying of the future state "Workers identify with peers" and "Work
centers around the endeavor." Take this out of Andrew's organizational
context, it's not hard to see these terms being applied to the GI
generation.

Last, this past weekend walking my visiting cousins around the Revolutionary
battlegrounds and the homes of Transcendalist writers (who, like us Boomers
were of the "Prophet" archetype) I thought again about generations seized by
ideas. Later, around the kitchen table with my cousins I thought of our own
GI-generation mothers and of our grandmother, Alma, who raised ten children
and who's laugh I can still hear. Alma, like many Americans (the work is
decidedly US-specific) doesn't quite fit her generation -- the Lost
Generation -- as she was born to Danish farmers in Wisconsin and married an
immigrant Dane who shod horses.

Generations is a long and fascinating read and I suspect that when I finish
I might start all over again. Having some fresh perspective will do odd
things to you. As long as you keep your perspective about it.


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