Xennials - Leaders of the Digital Age
Business is going through fourth industrial revolution. And the fourth one is being led by the Xennials. This revolution has hit the market really hard. Harder than the previous revolutions. The old generation (not that old though) is unable to comprehend what exactly is happening. Business models, revenue streams, customer behaviors, internal structures, hierarchy levels, business dynamics, almost everything has been changed because of the worldwide digital interventions.
In previous industrial revolutions, employees would learn new skills, implement and cherish the results in a given time-frame. They would repeat this practice for many decades. However, digital revolution is absolutely different from the previous ones. Employees learn a skill, implement it, get some results and before repeating it, it gets obsolete. The “cycle of change”, not the skill keeps on repeating itself. This does not take decades to get a skill outdated. It hardly takes a year or 6 months and sometimes, just a couple of months. This is a revolution in its true sense which is led by the Xennials and complemented by the Millennials.
Xennials are the oldest of the newest generations. This is the last analogous and first tech generation. They had an outdoor childhood. They were the people-persons. They had to learn to stay home and to earn money from home and talk to (without the filter of parents) the far-and-away people. They were the first generation that initiated digital revolution without any history or background of similar activities. They inherited the qualities of Generation X and baby boomers and lived a mix of the qualities of Generation X, Y (Millennials) and even Gen Z (The Smartphone Generation). Xennials are more optimistic than Millennials and more dynamic than Generation X as they had a difficult childhood (with fewer machines) and faced revolutions more frequently than the previous generations in their adulthood.
Xennials were raised by the parents who would believe in doing one job in one life but they had to switch from one to another in a span of 5 years. Stability is what they were guided to have in a dynamic environment. They were trained by the authoritative seniors and struggled with ‘who-cares’ juniors. Xennials have used and seen people getting replaced by the computers, big computers with laptops, laptops with smartphones, snail mail with email, newspapers with epapers, large data books with excel sheets, networking with social networking, telephones with mobile phones, conference room with conference bridge, library with kindle, camera clock stopwatch and calculator with mobile handset, expensive long distance calls with economical video calls, and the list goes on. They have been through so many ‘industrial shocks’ that none of the previous generations had and for Millennials, it would be a lifestyle. They have patience, patience to develop a system, patience of making and appreciating mistakes, and patience to keep going in unfavorable circumstances. They believed more on consistency, loyalty and hard work. They invented smart ways of doing things. They challenged machines and human capacity and, in fact led the latest revolution.
On the other hand, Millennials are the generation of information. They know a lot. They share a lot. They do a lot. They are connected with the modern world. They adopt fashion and beliefs from across the globe. They are quick. They are result-oriented. They want things to happen now. They cannot wait. They somehow learnt a habit of getting quick results. They have a short-cut to everything. They have an app for every problem. They can search a solution to every issue. They can see things happening without experimenting them. They want to succeed. They do not want to fail. They want a reward. They want to achieve something every day. They appreciate themselves more than previous generations. They get disappointed sooner than previous generations. They act. They react. They fight. They leave what goes against them.
This is true and there is no wrong in being one. This is exactly how youth (of every generation) behaves. About information and observation, it is always one step ahead of the previous generation. Why Millennials are unique, because they have a global perspective of almost everything that is happening in the modern world. They carry almost same ambitions and same reactions.
They are connected globally. They exercise their rights more than the previous generations, especially the ones who were raised by the parents of the ‘great depression’ age and later. As it was observed that the Xennials had a better world where there were less wars and less poverty however with authoritative parents who believed in providing less support to their children, they learnt to make their own decisions and find creative solutions to the complex problems. Small yet strong network of friends help them collaborate well and synergize better. Millennials were the next in line. Middle class was already on the rise in the entire world and the Millennials were opening their eyes in the homes of ambitious parents. They were pampered, over protected and given more options by the parents. They were encouraged more than previous generations, even for their mistakes. They could explore whatever they wanted to. With both the generations running the industry, we have the best combination of authority, creativity, wisdom and limitless options.
This is the age where leadership has a decisive role. Great leadership would take the business to heights it has never anticipated. Xennials are the right people to lead the revolution as they experienced both sides of revolution. They know the benefits of mechanical and analogous life. They have paid the price of wasting time in the process driven decisions. They have seen how information technology improves the world and how Artificial Intelligence can enhance the productivity of the business. They have a hands-on experience of both. They have a heart of taking risks and support them. They have learnt to facilitate creativity. They believe in empowering youth and delegating important tasks. They are okay with the less-concentration syndrome of Millennials. They celebrate their co-workers’ success as their own and take pride in giving space and monitor growth as a father-figure.
The problem is with the fixed mindset and the C-Level of early Gen X that is still not open to change. It is observed that they are afraid of the change that may hurt their remaining years of the job. They are afraid of taking risks. They get excited by the miracles of AI and App-age however they are reluctant in taking decisions for their own organizations and somehow, are unable to comprehend what excites Xennials and Millennials. As a matter of fact, what excites Xennials and Millennials is actually the future of the industry.
Those who have not embraced the digital revolution as yet are led by the fixed mindset. Xennials are more flexible and have a growth mindset that will help Millennials open their wings and benefit the industry for good. However, those who do not complement Millennials’ skills and don’t match their pace and are not unable to redirect their energy will be eliminated soon. Xennials would be the right people to lead the revolution that is being done by the Millennials as they can understand, anticipate and relate to the change that is happening at the speed of light because they were the ones who have reached here from the disk and floppy age.
The article was published in Daily The Nation on May 21, 2018.