T-20 Generation

It is not likely that the generation of cricketers after Sachin, Saurav, Rahul, Laxman and Kumble would rise to glory and fame through Test Cricket. It may not be co-incidental that none of them (barring Sachin to some extent) could have any significant impact on the T-20 version of the game. The current generation of cricketers have actually risen to fame thanks to their spectacular performance in Limited version of the game, especially the T-20 format. While some may feel nostalgic about the longer version of the game, per se there is nothing intrinsically inferior or superior about excelling in one form of the game or the other. What is important however, is to realize the difference and adapt oneself to the same.  All the cricketers across the world who rose to international fame and stardom right from 1877 when the first Test Match was officially played all the way up to 2007 were all outstanding Test Cricketers. True some of them did equally well in One Day matches as well, but quintessentially they were all outstanding in the Test Cricket version for sure. When One Day matches took off in a big way in the early 1980’s those Test Cricketers who could not adapt themselves to this format, fizzled away; but we did not come across any cricketer of an international repute who could play only One Day matches but not in the Test Match format.

That has significantly changed now. We have umpteen number of players across most cricket playing nations who are incredibly talented in the T-20 format but no country would pick them up in a Test squad even if they had no other option. To illustrate the point from an example closer home would be Yusuf Pathan, a great T-20 player, but I doubt he would make it to the Test playing squad of even a Bangladesh or Zimbabwe teams. And he is not alone, there are umpteen examples like him who are extremely valuable and are great players in the T-20 version but would never make their way to any Test playing team of any meaningful repute.

The shift from Test Cricket and One Day matches to T-20 was not just in the number of overs nor was it just in the duration of the game. It is much more- the entire mindset underwent a change. T-20 is about scoring a blitzkrieg of runs, no matter how they come as long as they come; it is about heroics on the field whether as a batsman or as a fielder; as a bowler it is about “preventing” the batsman from going for those big hits and not necessarily about getting the batsman “out”; it is about lights, color, entertainment as far as spectators & viewers are concerned (who determine ultimately the quantum of endorsements that the players can bag!).

The difference between T-20 and 50 –over One Day matches is far starker than what had been between the Test Cricket version and the One Day version. The skill set is of a very different order and so is the difference in temperament which is called for. That is one of the fundamental reasons why those who succeed in the T-20 format are unlikely to meet with equal success in the Test cricket version of the game.

When we move from the world of cricket to the corporate world, we see the replica of this at the workplace all the time and while earlier it used to be more subtle, it is becoming increasingly pronounced now.

All those who succeeded in the corporate world from the early 20th century all the way up to late 1990s, the formula for success, as it were, was by and large the same. From the Greatest Generation of the 20th century (those born before 1925), through the Traditionalists (those born between 1925 and 1945), the Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) and Gen X (those born between 1964 and 1980) had very similar qualities. It was as if the success formula was all there and one only had to reach for it and adapt it. The definition of success was the same, the route to success was not very different and the modus operandi to achieve it did not differ dramatically across decades and across continents. The basic tenets did not undergo significant changes:

1. one had to climb the corporate ladder vertically;
2. one had to have a steeply increasing co-relation between income and experience;
3. one had to be leading larger and larger teams as one went upstream in corporate hierarchy;
4. and all of these in one or as few a number of organizations as was feasible;
5. and ensure that the names of the organization which appeared in the resume of a successful person had to be worth their weight in gold.
6. This had pretty much been the yard stick on which success had been measured for generations over more than century since Henry Ford rolled out his first automobile.

Important it is to note that the shift from Test Cricket to One Day Cricket took almost a century- the first official Test Cricket Match was played in 1877 and the first Official World Cup Cricket in the One Day version happened in 1975 (though the first official One International between two countries happened in 1971 which is also about 94 years after the beginning of Test Cricket). However, it took just about 30 years for the One Day format to give way to the T-20 format where the first Official World Cup T-20 was hosted. It is not just in terms of the time that it took for the newer versions of the game to appear after the previous version, what is more remarkable is the change in the very basic nature of the game itself.

When the first Cricket World Cup was played in 1975, it was still a 60 –overs a side match. For those who have followed Test Cricket at some time or the other would appreciate that 60 overs is a fairly long duration for an innings even in Test Cricket and there have been numerous occasions where Test playing countries have struggled to play through 60 overs of bowling even in Test Matches when there is no pressure to accelerate the run rate. Thus the initial version of the Cricket World Cup had less to do with a blitzkrieg of runs but more to do with steady amalgamation of runs through the entire 60 overs. The significant difference was not the limited overs per se but the fact that there would be only one “innings” and there was no chance to come back the second time in the same game. This format continued for the first three versions of the Cricket World Cup all the way up to and including 1983. Coupled with the fact that all these versions of Cricket World Cup were held in England which generally does not provide flat pitches for batsmen to score bounty of runs, made it all the more similar to Test Cricket where keeping wickets in hand all the way till the end was more important than going for the big hit right from the word go.

 All the above “rules of the game” as they were have been changing and are changing at an accelerated pace now. The T-20 Gen, if I may call all those born post 1990 and have entered the workforce since the second decade of this century, have a very different outlook towards the corporate world. I have realized this from my interactions with several people of this generation on various occasions though I have not had the chance to conduct any formal study in this regards. While it would not be fair to say that everyone in this generation has the same outlook (just as it would not be fair to generalize for any generation for that matter), however the random sample that I have interacted with does signify a notable shift in the outlook towards the corporate careers. Reason I feel that this could well be a trend and not just an aberration because statistically if the sample population is random, it should be representative of the entire population.

 Firstly, for many of them moving vertically up the corporate hierarchy is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for “success”. Learning and being able to demonstrate skills and competencies that they value are far more meaningful than merely climbing the vertical corporate ladder one rung at a time. Differentiated experience is at a premium rather than doing the same thing at an incrementally larger scale year on year. While no one is saying that “promotions” and therefore vertical movement is unimportant, what is being said with equal emphasis is that unless that vertical movement results in differentiated experience that is of minimal significance. On the contrary, even in the absence of a vertical movement if differentiated experience is provided to the employee that she finds meaningful, the value of the same would be far more. This is a significant shift in career planning from organization perspective than what has been the traditional method of looking at career planning by most organizations.

 Second, the patience to wait for the correlation between years of experience and income that one earns is waning with the T-20 generation. This generation wants to be paid for the value that they bring on board and not the years they have spent doing the same thing over and over again. There is no gainsaying that the importance of money has certainly not gone down; but the mindset and patience to wait for that to happen has gone down significantly. The T-20 Gen would like to be paid for the skill sets that they bring to the table and therefore the value that they add to the organization instead of being measured in terms of the grey hair that they have developed. This does imply a very different outlook to compensation and reward strategies for most organizations which are steeped in hierarchical form of compensation design where the total compensation is by & large a function of the hierarchical position of the individual rather than being governed by the specific value that the individual is bringing to the table. Of course, the assumption over here has been that the higher the individual is in the hierarchy the greater would be the value addition. This was certainly true in the 20th century but may not necessarily be true in the 2nd decade of this century and is likely to be even far from reality as we enter the next decade. Reason being that in case of mass production and mass distribution type of business model with steady business environment, history is a very good indicator of the future and hence the greater the knowledge an individual has about history, the chances are that the individual would add more value. However, in the age of mass customization in an ever changing business environment it is the ability to see round the corner and adapt to the probable changes in near future which carry far more value than historic knowledge. In this scenario grey hair means very little unless the grey cells below the grey hair are agile enough to look around the corner.

 Third, larger teams does not mean more power and is certainly not the sign of greater success for the T-20 Gen. It is the sense of value that the individual is adding which essentially is a source of power not the size of the team that one leads. Therefore, what the T-20 Gen values is the skill sets and knowledge that one can add during her tenure in the organization instead of the increasing size of the team per se. That has significant implications for the learning and development proposition that the organization would provide to this generation. It is no longer of much significance to count the number of “man-days” of training as has traditionally been done; it is much more critical to provide an employee value proposition where the employee can expect to add “x” type of skills/ knowledge during her tenure in the organization and how is that related to her tenure with the organization. If this generation finds that by continuing longer in the same organization, she can expect to add more skills / competencies to her armor, she is likely to place a far greater value to that tenure than just being assured of a certain trajectory of vertical movements with increasing team size.

 The number of organizations this generation is willing to experiment with is not constrained by any value that the society may ascribe on them. They are willing to check out as many organizations as long as they get what they truly want. It is no longer a question of arriving at a “compromise” for the long term. Therefore, organizations would really have to rethink their retention strategies if they do not wish to have a leaking bucket for talent. Compromising the short term for the long term benefit is no longer a virtue which the T-20 generation is going to place much value on. Almost a 100 years after the famous economist, Lord Maynard Keynes coined the phrase “in the long run we are all dead”, the T-20 generation seems to be true believers of the same.

 My final proposition from organization perspective is the brand building for the employer- the great places to work would not be the ones where the gross turnover is maximized or the EBIDTA is sky-rocketing, but it would be where the employee can feel “valued” for the contribution that she makes and feels making a real difference to the organization. No wonder there have been a surge in start-ups all across the country and it is no co-incidence that many of the start-ups have been pioneered by those from the T-20 generation. Organizations have to increasingly focus on making the employee feel valued in the true sense. Taking employees for granted just because they have got the fortune of being employed in one of the Fortune 100 or Fortune 500 companies, would not auger well for these organizations as far as T-20 generation is concerned.

 The T-20 generation would flood the corporate world in India by 2020 and at least 50% of the employee base in any organization would consist of this generation. So it is high time, organizations wake up to this reality.